We DESPERATELY need to start educating Americans on the difference between for-profit businesses and government public services, I’m so fucking serious. The government should not be run like a business!!!
It’s actually vile how the USPS- one of the few government services that’s actually good- is constantly under attack by Republicans and their billionaire overlords and mouthbreathing conservative voters justify it because “well, the USPS loses a lot of money.” You know what burns tons of money for a way worse outcome than the USPS? The fucking US military, but you never catch these bootlickers arguing that we should drop fewer bombs on brown people overseas.
USPS doesn’t lose money, it costs money
It’s…. kind of both. (I work for the USPS so I’m going to refer to it as “we”). It costs money in the sense that you pay for a service, but that only goes so far as the money can be used to cover the costs of the service. Unfortunately, because we receive essentially no tax dollars, the service you’re paying for is… the entire operation of the USPS. Everything we make we make from postage, and that doesn’t always add up to our operating costs. We’ve had to be bailed out by the government a few times in the past decade or so (to the tune of about $50 billion). This loss has resulted in increased postage costs, deteriorating equipment and buildings, and tens of thousands of layoffs
In recent years this has gotten even worse, as the incompetent Postmaster General Louis DeJoy slices off chunks of our operations and sells them off to the lowest bidder. His promise to “run the Post Office like a business” has had disastrous implications for employees and customers alike. Trump has reportedly been considering fully privatizing the Postal Service, which might allow private investors and equity firms to buy us out
What we need is a full reification of the federal government’s commitment to the Postal Service as an agency. We need tax funding (something we had until the 80s). We need to re-envelope the USPS in the federal system. Unfortunately with a fascist president and a Republican Senate it’s not likely to happen
BOUNTIFUL, Utah (KUTV) — After weeks of fighting their health insurance’s denial of coverage, the Bateman family from Utah has not only secured a prosthetic arm for their 9-year-old daughter Remi, but has also helped another child receive the same life-changing device.
Remi’s mother, Jami Bateman, shared that after their insurance provider Select Health deemed the prosthetic “not medically necessary,” the family launched a GoFundMe campaign. The response was overwhelming, with the fundraiser quickly exceeding its goal.
“The GoFundMe got reposted. We exceeded well over the goal,” Jami said. “I was contacted by the CEO of CrowdHealth. They decided to pick up the bill and paid for Remi’s arm in full. It’s just been amazing.”
Because the CEO offered to pay for Remi’s arm, the Batemans used the funds raised to pay for a boy in Maryland’s prosthetic arm.
The viral story didn’t just help Remi — her family’s campaign also caught the attention of another family with an 8-year-old boy named Taj from Maryland, who will now receive the same “Hero Arm” prosthetic.
“I wasn’t able to do this for Taj for Christmas,” Taj’s mother said, “but thought ‘maybe next summer, we’ll be able to get [the arm]’.”
Jami Bateman hopes their story brings joy to both families.
This is not a feel good story. This should cause rage in everyone who sees it. Prosthetics should always be covered by health insurance if someone wants one. For-profit health insurance companies are the fucking devil.
I also think that all the “um okay knives out & glass onion were good. Wrap it up now” posts are so funny. You’re tripping if you think there’s not going to be at least five Benoit Blanc films lol
What part of “the detective franchise is back babey” did you not get. There were 14 Poirot films and that’s not counting the show which was a standard season for most of its run. 69 Columbo episodes. Like it or hate it you are going to be seeing Benoit Blanc until the day he stops making money and then some.
I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.
IN SHORT
Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.
When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using
his dyslexia;
his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and
a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,
as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.
When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer listed.
THE TAKEAWAYS
1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain;
2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and
3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors’ permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again.
THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)
‘People are panicking about AI tools the same way they did when the calculator was invented, stop worrying’ cannot stress enough the calculator did not forcibly pervade every aspect of our lives, has such a low error rate it’s a statistical anomaly when it does happen, isn’t built on mass plagiarism, and does not obliterate the fucking environment when you use it. Be so fucking serious right now
In other news I’m officially retiring from joking about French people they have too much on their plate already what with the fascism
I think we might all have to collectively set nationalist joking on the high shelf til we figure out if anyone is making it through the whole worldwide fascism uptick tbh.
amhrancas 