SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

I don't disown ten percent of our family when times get tough. I don't banish our children when they don't perform.

I grow concerned when a corporate culture is built on telling employees that their work is now their family. Even the healthiest corporation isn't a family...and presenting it as if it is seems unhealthy to me.

With Salesforce leting go 10% of its Ohana (Hawaiian for "family") employees, I find it helpful to remember the importance of family and other support systems in addition to the workplace.

Colorado law in 2023 welcomes late term abortion and requires increasingly humane treatment of chickens.

I hear the Right saying that congress shouldn't have publicized Trump tax returns. I hear the Left saying How Dare He have years of hardly paying any taxes.

Haven't heard anyone yet say what anyone did that's illegal.

Is the issue that the congress who released the returns is responsible for a tax system that creates the very situation I'm supposed to be outraged about?

Thinking about the shepherds tonight...

Fear Not, said the angels to the shepherds, the rough and tough cowboys of their day.

When an angel appears to give a message in scripture, the recipient falls over in fear. A lot. They seem to always have to start with Fear Not.

How many of us have an understanding of The Story of the Biblical Narrative where this fits in? Where the weight of reality when revealed, even a little, strikes fear into the strongest and boldest?

With record high increases to the cost of living already before inflation, the government pushes it higher still.

In January, #Denver will start charging FEES for trash pickup in addition to the taxes that have always paid for it. The price of eggs just more than doubled due to new #Colorado regulations. Denver and other localities charge government fees for shipping bags to shop at brick and mortar stores, and the state charges fees to the citizen for every delivery from Amazon or anywhere else. Some homes that burnt down last year north of Denver can't be rebuilt due to regulations that make houses cost way more to rebuild because of regulatory requirements, more than insurance policies cover.

I wonder how much of the cost of living increase that has made Colorado unaffordable for the next generation is directly relatable to these Nickle and Diming policies that continue to take more and more of the people's earnings to disappear into the budget.

Some cost of living is certainly because we have amazing geography and limited space. But when it feels like a new policy to take money from my family is implemented every day, it makes me wonder if most of this cost is unnecessary and the financial strain is directly tied back to politicians messing up our state rather than our state drawing a crowd for being awesome.

(For those outside of Colorado, these are all "fees" because if they call them a tax they have to be voter approved. When they want more of our money and they know the citizens don't want it, they can just call it a fee and no consent is necessary.)

I'm not really keeping up on the Media's framing of this, but here's what I gather from toots I'm seeing about Musk and Twitter:

Musk is bad for unbanning people who were banned for political opinions and jokes. Because speech is violence, it's a safety issue.

Musk is bad for banning people live doxing the location of his children leading to people... Tracking down and stalking and confronting them. Not a safety issue like a satirical blog post with opinions that disagreed with The Party.

Musk can do no right.

Think of all the actually real life impact its had that the Babylon Bee can tweet jokes again, and that corporate spokespeople can't use the guys' own platform to endanger his kids!

It's chilling. And more newsworthy than the information coming out about how Twitter has been run until now. That whole category is information we shall call.... Bruno.

80 games down. This one was tough. I like the game, but sometimes it's several times throughout the day staring at the puzzle to see the words.

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https://www.andrewt.net/puzzles/cell-tower/?p=80