We had five people show -- Cassiodorus, granma, detroitmechworks, earthling1, StudentOfEarth. We ate good Chinese food and had lots of fun. I ordered the gai lan and the salt and pepper tofu. We talked about science fiction and my book. StudentOfEarth talked about Bend and about people who were 72 who took a piece of dry land and built homes and farms from scratch. earthling1 talked about his southern California past.

This really is shameful.

Where does a tip to an Amazon driver go? In some cases, toward the driver's base pay

Amazon at times dips into the tips earned by contracted delivery drivers to cover their promised pay, a Times review of emails and receipts reveals.

But first there's this..

Unlike 2009, when the Democrats conceded single payer health care before the debate even started, Medicare For All could finally gets its day in the sun.
Because the Democratic leadership wants it to be seriously considered? No. Of course not.

Constipation of Imagination

You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Back to Methuselah, act I, Selected Plays with Prefaces, vol. 2, p. 7 (1949). The serpent says these words to Eve.

Robert F. Kennedy used a similar quotation as a theme of his 1968 campaign: “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”

To understand what I mean by contradictions, let me offer some recommended reading:

Mao's Essay On Contradiction

What exactly are the contradictions in our rotting empire? To begin with, our economy can't survive without the very things we claim to abhor such as imperialism, various means of exploitation, exceptions that maintain the rule, and that's just three.