painting of my cat
My account is still blocked from searching/tags/etc on my business blog @foundfamilyadventurecrafts so I'm posting this here. There's something very bad happening with Small Business, Tech, and Amazon. What else is new?
Articles:
Hey, that's us and a bunch of our friends! This whole thing SUCKS so bad and we're pissed. We've intentionally not listed our products on Amazon for the 15 years we've been in business. We're ready to join a class action lawsuit and kick some ass.
Friday makes really good tea, both just by the flavors and as reflections of fandoms. I absolutely LOVE my Second Breakfast (hobbits) and General's Jasmine (Uncle Iroh).
Go check out the Friday Afternoon Tea website DIRECTLY if you want to support them - and if you, unlike me, are in Seattle, go visit the brick-and-mortar store!
And boycott Amazon.
DO NOT CALL THE REGULAR POLICE.
they are not on your side.
Very explicitly, in the video, the regular police straight up lie to the couple, telling them they will go to jail for harboring a fugitive if they dont hand the doordasher over, and that it doesnt matter if ice has a warrant for her arrest. NEITHER OF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE. You CANNOT be harboring a fugitive if the person you are haboring doesnt have a warrant out for their arrest! The warrant is what makes them a fugitive!
If ice wants access to someone on your property, do NOT hand them over unless you are shown a warrant signed by a judge! Make as much noise as you can to attract bystanders - it was the fact that a crowd gathered and started yelling at them that made ice leave in the video. And DO NOT expect the regular police to help you - they are just another arm of the state and will only do or say whatever they think is necessary to make you comply.
And make sure you film everything so you have evidence of what really happened if ice tries to enter your property illegally.
Apparently ICE now has agents posing as utility workers to get into people's homes. The electric and gas companies have posted information on how to tell if it's one of their workers, and numbers to call to confirm whether they've sent someone to do utility work on your house.
Stay safe, friends.
Some people have shared stories of suspicious “sales representatives” knocking on homes, asking about the home owners and who lives there, fishing for phone numbers, but do not provide business cards, company id, company phone numbers, etc when asked.
They come in pairs, never one person though one may hag back a bit. They have been seen using cars with significantly tinted windows, no business logos anywhere on the vehicle, or parking close to the home they walked up to only to drive away right after without visiting other homes, almost as if they’re not real sales people.
True door to door salespeople need a sort of peddler’s license, subject to city and county law, to solicit at your door. You can ask to see this permit. If they don’t provide one or make an excuse, they are likely bogus.
They wear a jacket with a company logo but likely don’t wear name tags and the Don’t provide id.
Tell them you’ll call the company about a noncompliant representative. Make them leave. Better yet not to open the door to them, and tell them nothing.
Actual sales reps also generally do follow “no soliciting” signs. Be aware, be safe, don’t give out your information or that of others under duplicitous means.
As we speak of Renee Nicole Good, let’s remember Silverio Villegas González who was also shot and killed by ICE agents while in his vehicle, then ICE made claims that differed from video evidence. Let’s remember Marimar Martinez who survived after being shot at by ICE five times, but then had to fight against felony charges that were based on claims that differed from video evidence. Let’s remember Jaime Alanis, Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez and Josué Castro Rivera who all died as a result of ICE raids.
Let’s remember everyone that we know of who died in ICE custody due to neglect and “undetermined causes” in this past year alone. Again, these are the deaths that we know of:
Genry Ruiz Guillén, Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, Maksym Chernyak, Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez, Brayan Garzón-Rayo, Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, Marie Ange Blaise, Abelardo Avellaneda, Jesus Molina-Veya, Johnny Noviello, Isidro Pérez, Tien Xuan Phan, Chaofeng Ge, Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, Oscar Rascon Duarte, Santos Banegas Reyes, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, Norlan Guzman-Fuentes, Miguel Ángel García Medina, Huabing Xie, Leo Cruz-Silva, Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh, Gabriel Garcia Aviles, Kai Yin Wong, Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, Pete Sumalo Montejo, Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani, Jean Wilson Brutus, Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir, Delvin Francisco Rodriguez and Nenko Stanev Gantchev.
You can read their stories here:
Edited to add:
Remember Keith Porter, who was shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent that involved himself in a situation that he wasn’t trained or qualified for, and then made claims that witnesses dispute.
Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras were both shot in their vehicle during a Border Patrol traffic stop. They were taken to the hospital after seeking help from the police, and their current condition is unknown.
Fact: Movies are lying to you – beating up an inanimate object is not an effective way to deal with anger. Usually it just makes you angrier.
Corollary: Beating the shit out of an inanimate object is, however, often a very effective way to deal with anxiety.
Conclusion: Anxiety is punchable.
Beating up inanimate objects rewards and reinforces your Fight response to stress. If your issue is "too much Fight response", this is very unhelpful.
If your problem is "too much Flight or Freeze response," however, balancing the response humors might be a viable strategy in some circumstances.
It burns my biscuits whenever I hear someone say that a person or group "doesn't contribute to society." Society is comprised of people. Those people are society. Society exists for and because of the people in it. It's like when I'm bicycling in the city and some schmuck leans out the window of his lifted pickup and yells at me for "blocking traffic." Bitch, I am traffic.
"The postmark rule changed quietly, and it affects voting and healthcare. Let me explain what just happened at USPS, because this is not minor, and it's not theoretical.
So as of this week, the United States Postal Service clarified that a postmark date is no longer tied to when you drop your mail off; it's tied to when that mail is first processed by an automated facility. So, as an example, you could put something in the mailbox by Monday, but if it doesn't hit a sorting center until Wednesday, Wednesday becomes the postmark. That matters when deadlines are based on postmarks.
Think ballots. Many states say a mail-in ballot counts if it's postmarked by election day. Under this rule, you can mail your ballot before election day and still have it postmarked after. So that's not voter fraud, that's logistics quietly overruling intent.
So now let's talk healthcare, because this is where people really get hurt. Healthcare runs on mail deadlines, appeals, prior authorizations, Medicare notices, prescription paperwork. If an appeal has to be postmarked by a certain date, and USPS processes it days later, it looks late, so late appeals get denied. Denied appeals delay care. So in nursing and healthcare advocacy, timing is everything, and this rule shifts the risk from the institution back to the patient. The system didn't get faster, the rules just got tighter.
So if you're mailing anything time-sensitive now, ballots or healthcare documents, dropping it in a box is not enough. So this is what people need to do now:
Mail earlier than you think you should. Go inside the post office for deadline mail. Ask for a manual postmark or receipt. Use certified mail for appeals and legal documents, and do not rely on blue mailboxes for last week deadlines.
So this isn't panic, it's adjustment."