I’m going to sell iptoilets and call my store ipfreely…
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Jspelts@lemmy.worldto
conservative@lemmy.world•Conservatives sure love Dolly Parton but voted against her
88·1 month agoI think it’s a bad idea. Here me out:
I’m not against literacy programs. Quite the opposite, in fact. But having the government send every kid a book each month is problematic. First, the government doesn’t know which books each child already has. So you have some kids getting books they already own (or maybe just aren’t interested in) which literally go from mailbox to trash. Let’s not forget that too many parents would rather just put a screen in front of a kid rather than read with them. So instead of a book going from mailbox to trash, it goes from mailbox to destroyed-at-the-bottom-of-a-closet-and-never-read. Most parents would tell you, the books would literally be a waste.
We also need a (well-paid) committee to determine which books are selected for the program, which is an absolute nightmare in itself. Conservatives screaming bloody murder about their kids receiving Islamic material. Liberals screaming about receiving my new children’s book, “My First Budget”, available next March (oddly enough, Trump supporters would share in the screaming about the exact same book). And literally everybody screaming about their kid getting the book “Why AI is Necessary and Good for All Humanity”…
Now let’s look at the supply side. Government contractors are not exactly known for supplying things at rock-bottom prices. That great children’s book you saw on Amazon for $4.95 with free delivery? We end up paying $32 plus delivery, for each and every child, each and every month, with money we agreed to borrow via public bonds, yet another layer of debt on the $40 trillion we already owe and can’t service. Who really profits from this? The banks and other entities who buy the bonds that those children will have to pay when they grow up. Plus interest. Which really puts the cost of that $32 book at about $100, for each and every book, which they’ll have to pay later on in life.
And let’s not forget the trees. You don’t get a book without cutting down a tree (which we kinda need for oxygen). I like trees. They’re pretty. Birds like them, too. There are actually entire ecosystems that function around trees. Let’s keep those.
We have schools, which supply books. We have libraries, which let you check out any book you like and read for free. Libraries even have free e-book checkout, so you don’t even have to leave your home. The problem here isn’t that children don’t have access to books. Let’s save our kids billions and send a cheap map to their parents with directions to the local library. Or in some cases, directions to the local schoolhouse.
Jspelts@lemmy.worldto
News@lemmy.world•Judge strikes down Texas ban on drag shows, tells people offended by them ‘just don’t go’
17·1 month agoI always found drag to be weird and “not my bag, baby!”. But what’s even weirder is a corrupt politician thinking he can tell citizens what they can wear, how much (or if any) makeup they can use, or who they can sleep with.
But hey, you can shoot people through closed doors in other states and use Texas as your escape route to Mexico as a fugitive – Abbott won’t extradite criminals so long as your heinous crime was committed in a blue state. Extraditions only happen for members of certain political parties…

Healthcare is almost always paid for by 1) the individual which is expensive, 2) the employer which is expensive or 3) through taxes which is expensive.
If I had a business in Canada the trade-off I see here is substituting high taxes for having to provide employee medical benefits, and how long I think the tariffs would stay in play.
That being said, tariffs on the Canadian side are focused on US production that happens in swing states. So the further escalation here is going to be politicized as geopolitical, in addition to economical, warfare. Who really benefits? Nobody. Who pays? Average people on both sides of the border.