I really miss the Voter Handbook with all the information I could need about laws or propositions, the candidates in the ballot, where and how to register, and I think where to vote.

The full text of laws and props are present along with calculated 10 year cost, and a statement from proponents and a rebuttal to that statement from opponents, and a statement from opponents accompanied by proponents’ rebuttal. For candidates, they submit statements which are usually a brief biography and things they say they support and oppose, why they’re running, and whatever else they think is important. There’s a sample ballot showing exactly what you’ll see on election day. It tells you how to register and where to go, about provisional ballots, mail-in ballots. It was such a fantastic resource.

Here in Texas, it isn’t easy finding information about the candidates besides their names and party. For any laws, good luck finding anything except for the name the dang thing. The plain text will be buried in a messy state website with nothing else presented. It’s like they don’t want us to know a damn thing about who or what we’re voting for.

I feel your pain. There’s a reason I don’t want to get promoted and actively deny them when I can. “C’mon guys, just let me do what I’m good at and let me be a happy, contented minion.”

They can request and may be assigned an individual tax ID number (ITIN). Having an ITIN may allow them to open a bank account. It also makes it so they pay taxes which a surprising number want to do. Since they want to stay in the country, having a long history of paying taxes is a way to show you don’t want to cause trouble and you just want to work. Hell, a lot of them probably know they got Al Capone on tax evasion and don’t want to end up like him. Here’s a report I just Googled, and possibly the source of the number which is an estimate.

On the other side is how much tax funding is used on them. Here’s a report from the House of Representatives which states they use more in services (Medicare, WIC, sending kids to school, etc) than they pay. I can’t speak to how accurate the report is considering the makeup and views publicly expressed by members of the committee. I’m personally leaning towards ‘they don’t, and can’t, use as more than they contribute’ because they’re not eligible for many benefits.

The second half is me. I absolutely loved being a carpenter for the 3 years that I did it. But I left the field because I knew the pay ceiling wouldn’t be like in the days when my dad was my age. So, I moved to an office job that pays more than the guys in charge of work sites were (and are currently) making and I get actual benefits. I’d go back to it in a heartbeat if the pay and benefits were better, and I don’t mean matching my current ones, just definitely middle class.

I do wonder what will happen when the number of people in the trades reduces because young adults aren’t going into them such that people can see it and feel it. Will the corps raise wages and improve benefits? Will the federal government make immigration easier or restart the WPA like during the Great Depression? I don’t know. What I do know is that my buddy who’s 35 is always one of the youngest electricians on job sites and that can’t be good for the trades.

I found this interesting article when trying to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing with Twitter. What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter? - NBC News

On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the 3,000-word anonymous article said, would amount to a “declaration of war against the Globalist American Empire.” The sender of the texts was offering Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, a playbook for the takeover and transformation of Twitter…

The text messages described a series of actions Musk should take after he gained full control of the social media platform: “Step 1: Blame the platform for its users; Step 2: Coordinated pressure campaign; Step 3: Exodus of the Bluechecks; Step 4: Deplatforming.”

That pressure campaign is against the Anti Defamation League which Musk has been trying to do.

So I guess he’s doing it all for far right adulation.

What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter?

Well, he is kinda following a random message he got from an unknown person:

The three texts were sent on April 4, 2022. In the nearly 18 months since then, many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination.

The text messages described a series of actions Musk should take after he gained full control of the social media platform: “Step 1: Blame the platform for its users; Step 2: Coordinated pressure campaign; Step 3: Exodus of the Bluechecks; Step 4: Deplatforming.”

Seems he’s killing it to get cheers and adulation from the far right.

I was already amazed by the vaccines’ development but this really put into perspective just how fortunate we were and how Herculean the effort was to do it. It truly is awing what can be accomplished when the tools and our collective will are combined for a singular purpose.

That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.

I’m a brown guy with long hair and a beard and I’d do the same. When I do my quarterly drive on I-10 through Alabama and Mississippi I make sure to refuel and take a bathroom break in Pensacola Florida or the eastern-most rest area in Louisiana to avoid stopping in those states.

Agreed. Some of the YouTubers I watch have said that YouTube is forcing them to make shorts because their videos won’t be shown to people if they don’t. A couple are even doing a bit of malicious compliance and taking the piss out of YouTube Shorts because they hate it as much as we do.

If we wanted short clips, we’d be on TikTok damnit!