Spokane burns its ordinary trash. It also accepts plastics and other "recyclables" at an every-other-week curbside pick-up, using a separate bin, just as you'd expect. Then they burn it. Yes, just like the trash. But wait, they do the burning at a facility they call the "Waste To Energy" plant, so that makes it all OK.
It's all a big expensive greenwashing game, but everyone seems perfectly fine with it. La di da di da.
What's this about John Cleese? Nevermind, I wish to register a complaint. I wish to complain about this presidential campaign that my techbros purchased not six months ago. It's stone dead.
A "quick haircut" sort of place (kind of a barber, sort of , but super-high-volume and just one worker, the owner) that I've been using for a while now has a super-annoying dark-pattern in their payment flow. They book appointments, and take in-person payments using Square. After your cut, when you're paying via their hand-held kiosk with a card, the screen shows you a bunch of huge "tip amount" buttons, and it's implied that the customer has to choose one of them, while the provider looks on, in order to finish the transaction and leave (probably not true - they've already got your CC info by that point). Guess which button is highlighted/pre-selected and front-and-center! That's right, 20%. If you want to select another tip, or no tip, you have to select another button while she watches you do so. The owner lists all prices on her square website, and it's those prices you think you'll be paying when you book an appointment online, but she still feels the need to be tipped. You KNOW that the provider/barber has configured Square to present that UI to the customer. Not quite the same as the restaurant fees scam, but it's actually more manipulative though, in my view.
I think that's overly optimistic.
The US is very fond of prison forced-labor (slavery) as well, and the general population doesn't really care. In fact the general population most likely thinks the slaves (prisoners) suffering slavery is just a case of them getting what they deserve.
The redundancies follow declining revenues and shrinking profits.
"Redundancies" is apparently now a noun that refers to employees being laid off.
Intel announced it was eliminating 16,000 people – to curb capital expenses.
Headcount is now a physical asset I guess. Corps must be taking depreciation expenses on employees now in addition to salary expenses. Ka-ching!
After my first browse of the article I was wondering if it had been spewed out by some of the crappy AI that Cisco is so keen on.
Davidson will move to a role advising the CEO during the borg
What does the borg have to do with this?
Yeah, I guess they forgot to appoint a Christian King.
Those accounts provide about $6,600 per student to attend any school, including private or home schools
This "act" is all about funneling public tax money into the pockets of religious grifters, and hell, it sounds like you don't even need to be an organized business grifter any more. You can just open your house/trailer/shack for a few hours a day as a "home school", do a little praying at minimum, and collect $6600/head/yr. Sweet deal. But it's not welfare. Nope, not at all, not if you're a Christian taking the grift.
Whatever the case, when a church closes as a religious institution, I hope that it can be repurposed to some other activity that is still community-building?
There's one church a few blocks away from here that went out of business a few years ago and is now being used as a homeless shelter by an area non-profit. I walk by it all the time and have seen the before/after. The property is finally being put to a use that helps humanity and the the neighborhood is much better off for it.
The AF also contaminated the groundwater in a large residential area just west of Spokane, WA adjacent to the Fairchild AF base. Until recently they seemed to be accepting at least partial responsibility but I wonder if that's now going to come to an end. It's not generally a wealthy area, lots of apartments and discount stores and has what I think of as a "military town" vibe. Apparently residents are largely dependent on PFAS-loaded well water and if the AF tells them to FO and be happy they've got anything to drink, they're screwed unless some other entity with deep pockets will come in and clean up. https://ecology.wa.gov/about-us/who-we-are/news/2024-news-stories/feb-21-west-plains-sampling-for-pfas
Ah yes, the fumes. That "Waste To Energy" incinerator is west of town in the area known as "West Plains", near I90, near the airport, and not far from Fairchild AFB which these days is a locus of refueling operations and other support functions. Huge, 4-engined planes coming and going all day long. Long ago the AF firefighting ops polluted the groundwater there with PFAS chemicals and much of it is no longer fit to drink. Between that, the air pollution from military and civil air operations, and whatever comes out of the stacks at the W2E plant, I have to imagine the denizens of the area have evolved some powerful pollution-resistant genetics. Or maybe they just die young from cancer and respiratory and neurological diseases. Fortunately it's a pretty low-income zone (think 'typical military town' - old skool Bremerton-ish) so all that disease can just be blamed on personal poor decision-making (like the decision to live there). A shame really, West Plains now has a ginormous Amazon warehouse that the residents could slave at (in addition to the super-Wally's and the casinos) if they'd Just Say No to cancer and all those other tempting diseases.