mitch

that's all by bus, really. I live at the top of a hill that used to be used as a qualifier in a professional bicycling circuit. I tried getting up it on pedal power, it's just too much.

I got an eBike recently though, it really does make that hill a breeze.

my advice, personally? if you're curious, get a Botox injection. it is temporary, exceedingly well-studied, and generally does not interact with any other precription medicine. If you don't like it, it will wear off, just don't get it again and you're gold.

however, do NOT get fillers done, because from what research has been coming out over the past few years, the general consensus is that fillers do not break down in the body, and merely migrate when the dermis loses tensity. you will almost certainly need to get them surgically removed, and that shit isn't as easy as just injecting it back out. Though, I understand that recent studies have opened up a method of using some new kind of radio wave mapping to determine where all the filler went so that they can actually suck it back out piece by piece.

cheap, too. it's just processed Clostridium botulinum poison; you can brew that in large vats for pennies on the dose. In some cases, it's cheaper to make than pills.

officer, promote that person

me, a person with a college degree: tries clicking the little heart

I thought that Ukulele was a pretty nice way to learn the foundations of string instruments

well... this is going to cause a chilling effect. :/

Your last point is a fair one, but it's also still important to mention because that specific strain of "it's all political, who cares" is what creates tolerance for a lack of transparency and public accountability.

If anyone wants to take this problem seriously, it is also important to understand that even if what is released as an executive summary is deeply flawed, there are real civil servants there still trying to do the best they can with as little as possible. The data is all still published. We, as consumers of journalism, really should be pressuring editors to actually fix the way they uncritically gobble up and report anything that the DoL puts out.

Or, really, reporting on it ourselves and trying to learn and maintain a common set of journalistic ethics.

my personal experience agrees. I think this is what is powering Qanon as well — a deep, wrestling anxiety over the thought that they might have enabled really terrible things happening around them.

Like, for God's sake, this entire thing started with John Podesta supposedly emailing someone about a "cheese pizza," which is a term that is probably, unfortunately, deeply familiar to anyone who had precocious levels of Internet access in the early 2000s.

Basically, it is not a code word that a 70 year old man would use in 2014, in public email, on the campaign trail. In fact, he was ordering, literally, a fucking pizza for his staff.

Yeesh, even beyond the obvious, sticking around after that probably puts a real target on your back for a few years later. I would do the same thing.

Seriously, folks. I was born here, grew up here, and never left. Do not come into the country. Basically, we will all let you know when the coast is clear. 🤷 Until then, please, do not risk it, even if you think you are from a friendly country.

I'm so frustrated. It's happening exactly like everyone said it would. I wanted to think everyone was smarter than this, but this is the Executive equivalent of yelling, "IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US" right before you kill illegal game.

To be honest, this is just kind of how jobs reports have tended to work since Bush. It is kind of a consequence of both how reporting has failed to really contextualize how jobs reports tend to release in the US, as well as some (arguable) juking of the stats that make it easier to show positive growth in one area and then use the correctance to show the worse numbers.

Basically the Bureau of Labor and Statistics releases a monthly report, and at the beginning of the year it is based more on statistical modeling ("hockey stick growth! I got $5 today to mow the lawn, and $10 the next day to do it. If this rate keeps up, by next year I'll be pulling in a couple billion."), then they issue corrections as the actual data rolls in and either confirms or denies their modeling.

24 hour news (cable and online) got into the habit of basically reporting on the monthly reports like they are gospel, when realistically they are only reliable around November or December. I think the Fed encourages it too because it's quietly one of the levers they can use to inspire foreign investment.

But, it is difficult to adequately describe how seriously the nerds at the BLS take their jobs. They gather and report real-ass data that you can go look at pretty much back to the 60s. This rhythm must be their compromise with the partisan pressures of the executive.