Strange that politics who call for deregulation never deregulate useful things.

Funny that right? Those that call for deregulation would probably call for deregulating the legal time frame that a company has to support their devices.

And as to what we did with ours, effectively trash. We have a medical junk guy who comes through yearly and picks up the stuff thats getting thrown out, he parts pieces out he can sell, sells scrap otherwise, etc. Also sells a lot of equipment to smaller hospitals out in rural that will make do, and a lot of stuff we have goes to Project Cure which sends medical devices out of country to places in need. The funny part about the rural hospitals and Project Cure is… neither of those can happen because, as I said earlier, can’t verify their accuracy anymore so for my hospital, about 30 units of trash in one day.

I work as a biomed, our hospital had to buy completely new sets of a type of ultrasound machine we have. Why?

Because in order to do the yearly preventative maintenance you have to go through the manufacturers program to test calibration. They stopped supporting it this year and shut it down. Legit these machines were working just fine, but now in order to keep up with verifying accuracy they’re essentially bricked. They did it on the exact day they hit the year mark that they legally were required to support in order to sell medical grade equipment passed.

This is only going to get worse, not better.

Yea, I read this as a biomed and was like “We’re definitely not getting this.”

He can live out his remaining time in Russia as a wanna-be oligarch, and Putin will treat him like a leader-in-exile.

Honestly think he’d be safer in North Korea. Kim Jong Un could at least see him as an ally of “the world is against us.”

Putin already views Trump as a puppy that makes messes on the carpet… while running a dog fighting ring.

Personally I hope so. They’re burning the world, it’ll at least be fun to watch them flounder in the process.

Hell, I think my biggest problem is I can’t think of anything dumb enough before they’ve already got it

I used to think I was a pessimist. But now after multiple “There’s no way people are that dumb” and being wrong I must be an absolute optimist.

Or how about the part where all their chicken’s bland as shit. “Spicy” my ass.

Popeyes is the superior chicken fast food. I’ll fight anyone on this hill.

I’ve had practice eating at Popeyes.

Boy howdy I’m just imagining HIPAA with this.

I believe the response is in the territory of just because it’s bad now doesn’t mean it won’t get so much worse.

I mean, I’m amazed we’re not 1st in incarceration… and Project 2025 thinks that’s losers numbers.

I mean… worse is different.

ACLU didn’t say we’re going from a shining world to bad… they’re saying “OH BOY IF YOU THINK THINGS ARE BAD NOW!”

Gee… wonder if this ever could have been predicted when Patriot Act was brought out.

Immigration? Come on in, we’ll worry about it later!

So many takes but the legislative branch built together an immigration plan, one that involved quite a lot of money to the border to help enforce it and crack down. Both Dems and GOP worked together on that one. Then Trump said to bail on it, that immigration was a winning ticket for Presidency and congress Republicans sank the bill.

So… legit the thing you’re bitching about is a political tool by the Republicans.

I keep saying it. Hamas knew what it was doing, and literally the whole world danced to the song they put on, and I’d be legit shocked if the ones in charge that came up with the attack are actually in the strip.

Hamas attacked Israel in one of the most aggressive and heinous methods that has been seen in a long while, the Israel that has a history of retaliating with absolute and overwhelming force with zero chill, at a time when the leadership of Israel was looking for an opportunity to invade. So Israel is gonna Israel, and now the Palestinians in Gaza who would go against Hamas, as you said that would be happy to subjugate the Palestinians, are going to be more supportive of Hamas where the two-state solution isn’t even being as supported as it once was because the calls for revenge are coming.

Regionally, Israel gained it’s zero-chill attitude because it was surrounded by countries that want to exterminate it, it’s required western backing to keep there. But Egypt and Israel haven’t been quite at each others throats as much anymore, and Saudi Arabia and Israel were working out a deal. This put Israel back at square one in terms of local diplomacy.

Western countries have had to be the supporters to Israel, it kinda exists in that sort of meddling. When Israel attacked the strip, there were multiple countries ready to throw in and escalate it from a small war to a full all out multi-national war. That much rattling sabers means the west continues its support, even when they hand the weapons to Israel to say ‘don’t use it over here.’ and watches Israel do just that.

The west supporting Israel has only helped fan the flames of anti-semetic rhetoric with the feeling of Israel pulling an excess of political power upon itself. The right wing hawks are willing to help keep escalating the war because, well they’ve never had a problem starting wars in the Middle East. The political left is tearing itself apart because it typically is a coalition of differing beliefs, the US is having a problem that the not-ultra-right wing party of the Democrats got where they are because depending on the state it was coalitions of Muslim and Jewish voters, both of whom are mad and are threatening to stay home despite the other runner is someone who will make things worse, which could be the sort of thing to rally the religiously held Muslim countries together.

What angers me is how much of this I predicted when Hamas attacked. I’m just a guy who works on equipment, one would hope the world leaders would see this exact same train of thought and turn off the music instead of getting in line and waltzing to the beat.

Bentonville AR is being turned into a bicyclists haven. To the tune of Arkansas laws are making it that bicyclists don’t have to pay attention to traffic laws. That’s neat, wonder why… Ah. And while bicycling is one of the better things I guess billionaires can do, in the region buying bicycles are far beyond affordable anymore to a walmart wage because it’s gotten so over the top fancy, and the Waltons literally have a helicopter with a bike rack to fly out to the trails. My dad is irritated because of how often it shakes his house as it goes over.

Same city, Alice Walton had a really nice museum built in the area that was surely out of the good of her heart… Ah. Unless really local, one might not know of her nickname “Drunken Alice” where she has a history of dwi’s and wrecks, including one where someone was killed, yet somehow nothing seems to stick.

Yea… I’ve got a bit of an axe to grind with the Waltons having grown up in their personal playground, I agree with you to think this is a problem with just Amazon is ludicrous, and despite only living a state away it’s amazing to hear how people bitch about Amazon, it’s chokeholds, it’s problems, its wrecking of the country, and gives a full pass to Walmart. We live in an oligarchy.

Completely unrelated to my bitching about Walmart, but a perfect example of execs doing this nonsense and how I got in trouble because I can’t stop snarking: Worked for a medical testing facility, ran by a doctor. Said doctor buys himself a brand new shiny Lamborghini, then through the whole email has an announcement that for one day for 4 hours where any of the staff can get a picture with the Lambo and share on the company page. Now I met said doc once during training, but otherwise worked 3rd shift with two other people, he certainly never showed up when we had issues.

So when the day happened, it was one of those I commented it’s the first time I think I’m glad that 3rd shift gets ignored on any staff events. Think about it for a second, then ask the others “Who has the newest car?”, turns out was a Nissan Juke. So each of us go out and get a picture with the Juke, then sent the pictures in to where people were supposed to send in the pics with the Lambo. Turns out they got 4 pictures, the 3 with the Juke, and 1 with the Lambo. Got told by our manager said doc was pissed and to keep our heads down.

I’ll say it once, I’ll say it again, Hamas played the whole damn world like fucking puppets with one attack.

I’d be absolutely shocked if the actual leaders that planned the attack are in the strip. Now any Palestenians that might have been against Hamas in the strip are stuck fighting a nuclear power in full “us vs them” mentality, Israel reacted exactly how Israel does any time it has been attacked, which is with overwhelming and vicious force now putting the country doing monstrous actions against civilians going for what looks like a full genocide, your exact point on a rival religion suddenly now giving a lot of voice to the conspiracy theories, it has created an even bigger divide in the US (but then again what doesn’t anymore) and Saudi Arabia who was working on deals with Israel has backed all the fucking way off and NATO is sitting there awkwardly trying to decide exactly where on the line it wants to walk seeing as the US can’t bring itself to go against Israel while Russia is rather uppity at the moment.

Taking away any conversation on ethics, which is nearly impossible… I just can’t believe these leaders are this fucking short sighted.

The trouble with every “vote” argument on the left is always about the POTUS. The Republicans had a mission for decades that not a single non-Republican would run unopposed across the entire damn country no matter how small the vote was. Is it a sheriff for some backwater town? Yup, better make sure a Republican is there. How about a superintendent?

From the ground they have worked absolutely hard to make sure they had control of as much of the government to control every vote.

To use your analogy of fighting a war. As you said they’re celebrating taking a hill in an attempt in every four years. But that’s because one group is only doing the charge every four years and wondering “Why are we losing?” when the other side is digging the trenches advancing every year. Yes, this is the Democrats fuckup because they certainly aren’t investing in them like the Republicans but then among a supply of left wing friends I’m the one informing “Here’s the important fucking local vote about abortion/taxes/who’s running for x seat” and finding out often that I’m the only one who was faffed to vote.

I agree Biden is 100% fucking this up. I agree that I’m worried that the Democrats will somehow snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by losing to an opponent beaten once before because of how truly awful Trump is.

But I’m absolutely amazed at the free Palestine folks who are threatening that they’re the vote between Biden, who’s wagging a finger at Israel going “don’t” and fuck all else… and the guy who calls Netanyahu by his first name, buddied up to Israel, moved the embassy to Jerusalem, wanted to ban Muslims from the US, and is cozied up to the evangelicals who want to support Israel starting a holy war just so they can have Revalations go off.

Like both parties are bad, but there’s bad… and there’s “lets throw styrofoam containers of gasoline on the fire, that’ll surely put it out.”

But I guess sometimes you need your house to burn down before you realize why we need a publicly funded fire department.

Question… were you bringing up the house out in Tennessee that burned down because the county didn’t have a publicly funded fire department? Because if so, that’s a hell of a deep cut.

Start?

Can’t be added on with multiple “Once in a generation” natural disasters happening on a yearly basis with temp records breaking yearly, nations with the power to demolish the world rattling sabers over a fight that’s been going before we were born, zero chance of moving upwards in the crushing capitalism, all the while the leadership is fighting over identity politics instead of acknowledging any of the problems. Surely none of those are add on factors.