Quote by Chryses

The new zero-bail policy of Los Angeles takes effect now that the judge ruled that cash bail discriminates against minorities and the poor.

The new law comes as officials in LA say organized crime and the pandemic-era zero cash bail is to blame for a recent spate of smash-and-grab raids, with robberies jumping 10 percent last year and nearly 580,000 larcenies reported to the police. 

We need only wait to see what effect that has on the organized retail crime in that city.

We have evidence from multiple cities that have taken up this policy. It’s fewer to the same crime rates.

Maybe a system that keeps poor people incarcerated for months and months without trial because they are too poor to afford bail is inherently broken.

Profits should not take precedence over individual’s rights and freedoms. Many people will plead guilty to crimes they haven’t committed because it’s generally less time in jail than fighting the charges.

In California alone there are around 45,000 people in jail who have not been tried or convicted of anything, 3/4th of the jail population.

This is simply a war on the poor, who will lose their jobs during incarceration and be forced to work for 17 cents an hour.

Slavery was never outlawed in the United States. It’s still legal, just for prisoners. Specifically, poor prisoners who can’t afford to fight it.

Meanwhile white collar crime comes with little to no prison time. Trump is in court for 250 million in tax fraud. He will face no jail time if convicted. There’s a man in a New Orleans prison who has served 40 years of a life sentence so far for stealing a pair of garden sheers from a neighbor. Unless he’s dead. He’s pretty old now.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/midday-edition/2021/03/31/waiting-justice-defendants-locked-years-awaiting-t

Having sex while feeling financially secure.

Quote by ElCoco

You know, this thread isn't about wage theft. If you feel strongly enough about that, how about starting a thread about it?

Why do you feign poor reading comprehension to keep your personal politics intact? Is it really so scary to accept new information and evolve your thinking?

Unless your intellectual prowess is truly as you make it seem. In which case I’m sorry, I don’t like punching down.

Wage theft has zero consequences. You may have to pay back a fraction of what you stole and there’s only two states that have ever attempted to press criminal charges for the practice.

If you want to research the worst type of theft in America, retail theft is a drop in the bucket.

Check out wage theft, which by all estimates costs Americans more every year than every other kind of theft combined.

It’s also damn near impossible to report, has no penalties beyond fines (which are generally much cheaper than paying out the employees), and funnels money from the poorest to richest en masse.

Remember, in America if you steal $200 from the register you can be arrested. If your employee shorts your paycheck $200 it’s a 9 month court process that caries no criminal penalties.

https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-billion-crime-against-workers/

Ok, so the problem with blaming theft on company losses is there is no standardized record keeping and largely wild guesses. Basically all national data is compiled from retailer filled out surveys. In truth, the number reported year to year seems to fluctuate between 1.4 and 1.6%. Last year’s survey had 1.6%.

Now into the meat of the matter, companies love to blame shrink on losses. Simple answer as to why is this; stockholders are more forgiving to theft than gross mismanagement. In truth more money has been paid out to CEO’s last year than reported theft.

So when you close four stores in a busy area you tell your stockholders it’s because of the nebulous and unprovable void of ‘theft’ and not ‘our business practices make employee retention impossible so we’re constantly understaffed and paying out overtime.’

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html

Edit: Personal anecdote on this subject. Found out a grocery store manager frequently listed expired product as shrink. His bonuses were partially tied to keeping waste low. Throw out 50lbs of expired produce. Mark it as Shrink instead of food waste, his bonus stayed intact.

A quick note on formatting your survey: Bullet points are tough for both you and the person answering. Hard to keep the questions straight. You might want to swap those to numbers. Now to get into the meat of it:

1. Foreplay is different for different people. Some consider buying dinner a form of foreplay, others it needs to be strictly sexual in nature. It's blurry for me, sometimes I've stumbled into it and not realized I've been engaging in foreplay for hours with my partner (other night is a good example. We had been playing Baldur's Gate 3 which led to a long conversation about what was a good sexual story. I started to give her a massage to help her sleep and it was only when she let out a little moan did I realized it was going somewhere).

2. As long as needed is a great answer. Every couple/situation is different. The blurry lines of what is flirting, foreplay, or just being an attentive partner is hard to peg down.

3. Again, hard to distinguish this. I've had conversations I felt were more sexual in nature than penetrative intercourse. Occasionally when my partner was disconnected it felt like I was using her body, like masturbating into someone. It wasn't a good feeling and that's no longer a problem after a lot of communication. To me, sex is an emotional and tantric connection to another. Hard to say where it starts and stops.

4. See number 2. Had 4-minute quickies and 10-hour marathon sessions.

5. See number 3. In the last 10 times I've considered it sex, I think I've only had intercourse twice. Honestly, those were probably the bottom two of that batch. It was more medicinal than strictly sexual, relieved pain for partner. Happy to help, still felt connected, but wasn't the full-on tantric experience that I had in our other encounters.

6. I've been disappointed with sexual intercourse where we've had penetrative sex and I've physically cum. I want my partner engaged and enjoy the experience. I now realize I don't really like it otherwise. I feel, gross I guess. I really and truly love my partner and I don't like using her as an object.

7. Partner getting off. Her orgasms feel like they go through my body like waves of energy. In the extreme afterwards (like right after we're done) I sometimes shake so hard that my legs give out when I head back to bed. After lying down a bit I have so much energy and get so much stuff done. Don't get me wrong, cumming is great. I enjoy that too. But my partner is the real show.

8. Almost always, actually I prefer she gets off first. I'm easy, when she wants me done I'll be done in minutes, seconds if she worked me up. To keep up that sexual energy I try and make my orgasm the last thing that happens if at all. That being said a few times she's done things strictly for my pleasure too. Depending on how it's done I really enjoy it being about me sometimes too. I like it when it's like an act of love and kindness, not out of obligation.

I'm a bi male, 39. Didn't realize I was bi till only a few years ago and haven't had any sexual encounters with men as I'm in a relationship. It's technically an open relationship but neither of us has explored that really.

Which week? Yes in general, no when the red tide is in. Seen too many ladies absolutely sidelined by painful cramps to want that noise.

I’m sorry Mother Nature is a bitch sometimes.

Lae’zel has been amazing. Her speeches are sexy as hell. She beat my ass and claimed me as her own. Would do again.

Astarion I really like the friendship route. He’s been the best written character in terms of development and feeling like a whole and well thought out character.

Gale was… disappointing. Feels like a bunch of ideas stuck together, relationship pacing is terrible. Space sex made me and my partner laugh our asses off, but I think it was supposed to be erotic so that’s probably not ideal.

Karlach is an adorable fluffy muscle mommy with justifiable anger issues. Just started a play through with romancing her so I’ll hold final judgement on that but seems good so far.

Halsin and the drow paladin I haven’t played around with too much. Halsin is a straight up thirst trap on the surface though. Dang.

Will and Shadowheart annoy me, might eventually try these guys out but I can barely stand them in my party right now. Wyll especially angers me since he’s the only Black character in the game and written so poorly. I really hate how he casually jokes about other characters deep traumas. Shadowheart feels like a skeleton of a story I’ve read 1,000 times and she’s bitchy, but not in the fun way that Astarion is.

Hand strengthening. If I’m ever dangling from a cliff all that whacking will have saved my life.

I went mini golfing with a pirate. He shot paarrrrrrrr!

Yes, yes I have. HYE been arrested?

Went from 60 hour work weeks and an hour commute to 20 hour work weeks (paid as 40 since the bosses are happy so long as the work gets done) and I work from home while making higher pay.

Last night and several nights before that as well…. Got a new toy for my partner, a small rosé quartz dildo. Been doing a nice long massage first then playing with that. Lots of fun, been helping her sleep better as well.

Current cats have one that prefers wet cans and another that likes dry food. Used to have one that I made cat food out of mackerel, liver, and chicken hearts every week. Made the house smell terrible, but she loved it.

Statement from the library board with relative backup documents show this was a mistake on the librarians at the school (or laziness) and at no point were they directed to remove all books before 2008. Librarians are receiving further training and most the books were returned to the shelves and the weeding process will resume after retraining.

This information came out 2 days before that article was published, should probably be wary of them as a source.

Would try it if requested, personally no interest in doing so.

🙄

Quote by Ironic

Read the subtitle of your link.

"Air pollutants generated in China during the manufacture of goods destined for export travel across the Pacific, contributing to U.S. smog."

Who manufactured those goods?

Ok, I’m done with you. You ask for sources and won’t read the article.

Quote by Ironic

I'll take you seriously when you back up your claims with facts like I did when I showed that your "US created climate change" claim wasn't supported by facts.

Well, you can’t fix voluntary ignorance I guess. Can’t fix an inability to read below the first line as well. Here’s a summery of how the US creates much of China’s pollution. I also encourage you to research terms such as ‘per capita’ and how the US is being compared to the entire EU on your chart. We are also only looking at carbon emissions which is only one piece of the climate puzzle. Polluted waterways, depleted soil, wiping out of ecosystems for corporate profits are also top priorities though we rarely discuss those.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140122-made-in-china-pollution-from-exports

And once again, ignoring the centuries of imperialism and it’s consequences to the geopolitical and environmental present is just bending reality to suit your narrative.

The US is in the drivers seat of climate chaos and we’ll need to be the ones to fix the problems we made. And what pissed me off greatly on this subject is those who argue against it will generally have the luxury of being dead before things get really bad. It’s the youth of today who are really going to pay the price of American imperialism.

Quote by Ironic

That's a pretty fuzzy accusation: "refugees from Latin countries are largely fleeing food instability and violence created by the US"

Sources, please.

*Broadly gestures to the last 100 years of US history*

‘Empire’s Workshop’ by Grandin is a good base level starter on this information. Every countries exact history with the US is different and could fill volumes on it’s own. All this info is stated in released US documents but those are often dry and hard to read. Lots of redacted info too which makes them choppy reads.

You could also make the argument that many Latin immigrants wish to return to their ancestral homeland, never a bad idea to take the genocidal land seize that brought about the American borders as they are today.

Want to look at the Chinese contribution to CO2 emissions closer? See that huge uptick in the 60’s and 70’s? That’s mostly driven by American manufacturing companies who moved factories to China to avoid labor and climate regulations in the US. In fact you’ll be surprised how much of other countries pollution is just American pollution by proxy.

And I really hate repeating myself to a brick wall so I’ll end this by repeating it a third time, refugees from Latin countries are largely fleeing food instability and violence created by the US. This is fact that’s well documented and proven by documents released by the freedom of information act. Yes, people flee countries that are under constant terrorist attack. The US had been the terrorist of Latin America since it’s inception really, but a huge uptick of that starting in the 1930’s to today has caused what people deem ‘the immigration crisis’ here in America.

Now I won’t be responding to you anymore, got more important things to do with my day from here on out.

I am saying the US has been the hands down #1 contributor to climate change, yes. You won’t find many scientists to disagree with that.

And you ignored why I said people are leaving those countries or the massive effect both successful and unsuccessful coup attempts initiated by the USA has had on those countries.

As far as the UN condemned blockade, here’s an article about the 29th year in a row the UN called on the US to end it but was again ignored.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094612

Quote by ElCoco

The Cubans and Venezuelans are leaving those authoritarian regimes to come to America.

Really need to study US history in terms of those countries if you don’t know how the YS has shaped those governments. We have an illegal blockade to Cuba and hundreds of attempts to assinate their leaders and overthrow their government creating food scarcity.

Venezuela has had America topple its socialist governments and pout in puppet right wing leaders before. After that the people eventually fought those back but American forces still try to create instability again and again. In recent years ‘Operation Gideon’ was the latest failed coup in 2020 where the US tried to fund a violent paramilitary group to attack the leaders.

So these countries must invest huge amounts of their government funds into military operations to defend from the US and then we get to the pollution issue you blew past.

The US is the leading producer of pollution by far. Our military makes more pollution in a year than Venezuela or Cuba does in their entire history. So when hurricanes get more frequent and powerful in places like Cuba you are going to see an influx of refugees driven by US created climate change.

We’ll, let’s stop looking at this from our modern corporate driven work experience and turn it back to pre-industrial England. A peasant worked about 5-8 hours a day for about 150 days a year. Industrialization brought less time to produce your own food and clothing which meant that you had to buy it which meant you had to work more hours. Also the fairly new standard of sky high housing costs mean we have to work even more time.

Minimum wage was set to ensure a family of four could get by with one working adult in it’s inception and all arguments otherwise have been a diabolical propaganda campaign by the rich.

As for the rich, CEO’s polled work about 30 hours a week, the most common subject they deal with is compensation packages for the higher ups and stock payouts (aka most of their working hours are spent for arguing for more pay). And these people make about 360x more than their employees. A fun stat during this autoworker strike is that an employee at an Ohio parts plant would need to work 16 years to make what the CEO does in one week.

Final thought, millennials are clocked as being far more productive during their working hours than previous generations while receiving famously less compensation for doing more work.

The fundamental truth about climate change is we cannot sustain our current lifestyle and prevent further catastrophic results. That time has come and gone.

As important as finding different forms of energy is, we need to make our communities local and livable. You should not expect to buy an imported Italian tomato in a Seattle winter.

Personal cars need to go, and the lifestyle that comes with them. Cities in the current scope are unsustainable.

And last, and by far most important, is the elimination of corporations and the billionaire class. One of Musk’s little 3 minute space trips generates more pollution and damage than thousands of us will ever make in a lifetime. The production of a luxury yacht is equivalent to dropping a bomb in the middle of the rain forest.

Frankly I feel as though my only option as a parent currently is to weave in lessons that will help my children during a full and complete infrastructure collapse. I teach them about foraging and living off the land.

Man, maybe if we didn’t steal the land, create racist laws to drive out people, then go into the countries they settled and toppled the government we wouldn’t be having this influx of immigrants. Could also stop polluting the hell out of everything making the already unstable countries fall further into ruin.

The immigrant influx is 100% a consequence of America’s vicious political history (and present). The people being displaced should be seen as our responsibility, not our burden to be erased. Maybe we could divert some of those trillions of military dollars to actually helping people.

To be fair, every US President should be tried for war crimes except for William Henry Harrison who politely died 30 days into his term before he could commit one.

1. If it’s the first thing you’re asked that’s a bit of a red flag.

2. Questions like this are ok if things are about to get intimate, but I more try and feel out what the person is comfortable with in terms of their body and sexual experience.

3. I’ve heard a lot of stories from a good friend who was trans but had no interest in surgery that a partner’s excitement about their genitals varied greatly. Some were super excited about the ‘chick with a dick’ and would really want to engage with their cock. Others pretended it wasn’t there at all. She told me exactly what I think your feeling here, it’s not a great feeling to be fetishized and depersonalized.

Chicago. Hated every second of it except the aquarium which was top notch.

What city has the best zoo?