Kinda tempted to get a doctorate because 1) I want to learn a shit ton and 2) I want my title to be dr if anything but goodness the money that would have to go into that and the level of unemployable I would reach are astronomical
In four days, federal employees will suffer their first missed paycheck
since Trump’s border wall shutdown; it’s hard to say who will be worst
hit: the employees who are furloughed will never see that money (but who
may have been able to pick up some other work while they were off the
job to cover their bills); or the “essential” federal employees who’ve
had to show up for work every day without pay, but who will, someday,
get a paycheck to cover their forced labor.
In the latter group are 51,739 TSA “officers” (TSA screeners aren’t
cops, but they’ve adopted the “officer” honorific in a bid to secure
flyers’ obedience while they confiscate their apple-pie filling). Since
the shut-down began, TSA officials have insisted that screeners were not
staging “sick outs” (for example, to avoid daycare expenses by staying
home with their kids) and that the extra waiting time that passengers
were suffering through (53 minutes in Laguardia!) was the result of
heavier than usual travel.
But after Friday, TSA screeners will have to decide whether they want to
stay on the job without pay, and it’s a sure bet that lots of them will
stay home, and there’s not much the TSA can do about it. A TSA walkout
would cripple the nation’s businesses and strike directly at
higher-income Americans (that is, the people who supported Trump as he
used racist wall promises to secure the votes needed for a
two-trillion-dollar tax giveaway to the wealthy).
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Trump’s probably right that giving
in on the wall will lose him any chance of re-election as discouraged
racists stay home from the polls (as they had done historically, until
Trump gave them something to vote for), and deliver victory to Democrats
who have a small but meaningful chance of taxing the shit out of
looters and oligarchs. But the patience of looters and oligarchs – with
the exception of a few long-term thinkers like Charles Koch – is in
notoriously short supply. If Trump loses the racists, he won’t be able
to help the billionaires. But if he loses the billionaires, he won’t be
able to afford to court the racists.
TSA employees cannot continue to work without pay. Nobody can. That’s not politics, that’s simple fact. Even the most die-hard TSA enforcer has to eat and pay their bills.
Which means at some point in the near future the TSA will be unable to perform airport screenings and will declare a shutdown. After that, things can only go two ways:
1. Airports simply stop TSA screenings and waive passengers onto flights as if it was pre-9/11 America.
OR
2. Airports are totally shut down, citing security concerns.
#1 would demonstrate how airport screenings are security theater and utterly worthless, designed to keep us afraid. Airports operated perfectly for 50 years without forcing passengers to take off their shoes or surrender pocket knives & shampoo. Bypassing the scary body scanners & invasive blue gloves because we can’t pay the TSA would remind Americans this is all bullshit.
#2 would be an economic disaster. Average citizens would riot. Americans who commute via air would be forced into unemployment, and the airline industry itself would teeter on the edge of ruin. The brief airport shutdown of 2001 literally drove some regional airlines out of business. The ripple effect would impact hundreds of service industries including catering, hotels, car rental companies… the economic impact would be apocalyptic.
So which will it be?
Prepare for increasing weirdness if this shutdown isn’t resolved very soon.
In the meantime, be kind to your screeners. Mine was joking around with me today about confiscating my ramen noodles bc she’s going to need them. I sensed she wasn’t entirely joking.
People are living paycheck to paycheck and they need our empathy right now.
this is kinda scary cuse i fly back to school in little over a week and if wait times are a little longer thats fine but getting back in summer if there isnt airlines could be bad considered how far Id have to travel. and considering how much they pressed 9/11 into us as the ‘worst terrorist attack ever’ in public school i doubt that they would just shut down tsa screenings and let people onto flights- theres understandably a lot of fear around terrorist attacks and people will not fly if that fear of flying is doubled due to security of shampoo, knives and random screenings based (supposedly not) on race which tbh will also probably hurt the airport economy as less of your average person will be willing to fly. this had better just fly over because now im real anxious and imaging a standard 2020 but with abandoned airports as a normal thing and literally having to take 40 trains to school
While most of Eve’s artwork of ladies tends towards the more cheesecake (including work for such titles at Legend of the Cryptids and Galaxy Saga) I think we can all agree this design with the combination of layering, plates, and padding is simply amazing.
i had a pretty bad fall at riding today and cracked my helmet on the jump and my trainer just fuckin whipped out a roll of got damn minecraft tm ducttape. grabbed my head and taped over the crack and was like “ur good to go kid do it again” and everything about that was so fucking surreal. like yeah the woman has ducttape in her barn at any given time but the fact that it was minecraft had me reelin and thinkin minecrabt the whole rest of the day. also being put into a headlock by someone half your size is always a lot regardless if youve known them like nine years. i gotta go buy a new helmet tomorrow and pet the tack store cats. i am not concussed.
damn when am i gonna break free of society’s shackles and become an 18th century lady pirate captain who eventually gets caught by the navy in a caribbean port because i stopped to bed the neglected governor’s daughter who is soon to be married to a prestigious naval officer for whom she has no feelings meanwhile she is immediately drawn to me when we meet in the market so i woo her and she happily comes, so to speak, but the governor and naval officer find us because i let down my guard for once because She Does Unexpected Things To My Heart and they throw me in prison and sentence me to death for piracy but that same night ANOTHER band of pirates kidnap the governor’s daughter and hold her for ransom and do so Very Threateningly and the navy can’t catch this dastardly brute so i’m released on the grounds i rescue the woman and bring her back unharmed and i’m like uh huh sure and when i get free i debate just leaving for the first pirate port but i can’t shake the image of the woman from my mind so i convince the crew to chase down this other pirate and they’re wary but also eager for a fight so we go and rescue her before any harm befalls her and after cutting down the brutish rival pirate captain i stand there with my sword drawn looking sweaty and butchy and bloody but with concern in my eyes for her well-being then she throws her arms around me and i take her back to my cabin and she cleans my wounds and we make sweet passionate love in the candlelight and she tells me she always knew i would come for her, again so to speak, and we decide we can never be parted again so i give my ship to a spunky up-and-coming heroic sidekick lad who proved his mettle in our recent battle and meanwhile me and my love run off and shack up on a small island with the money i put away that i stole from the british and we live to be old and happy the end
