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Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.

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theres so much happening here

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We need to do what we can to protect the Internet Archive. Here is a petition that you can sign.

This petition alone might not be enough, but everything we can throw at this counts.

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No, no, and NO.

AO3 does not live in “the cloud” because that is other people’s computers, and other people’s computers are vulnerable to censorship.

AO3 is on its own computers. It does still have to be housed somewhere, and I suppose a determined enough hater could try to find that place and go after it, but it’s a lot harder than sending spurious complaints to Amazon or whomever going “BadWrong things are hosted on your cloud service!”

Owning the servers is a core tenet of OTW/AO3.

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since u mentioned putting Fullmetal Alchemist on a watchlist maybe wanted to let you know theres two animes for it, with wildly different themes. the post talks about the manga events incl genocide of Ishval which match the "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" anime

Thanks for the info! From what I know, the 2003 ver and fmab differ in that the 2003 ver was kinda its own thing separate from the manga whereas fmab came out when the manga was close or finished so it follows the manga. I think I watched some of the 2003 ver before? I don’t really remember because it was a long long time ago but it’s how I learned about Shou Tucker in like the first episode or something. Great guy, hated him.

Also a great indicator of the superior/more popular version is, when I go to MAL, it’s only ever fmab I see on people’s lists and on the website wide list, lmao. I imagine the 2003 ver is like, if it had a consciousness, in a perpetual Shinji chair pose at this.

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daily reminder that there is absolutely nothing normal about being expected to waste a majority of your life at a corporation to survive instead of indulging in better life experiences ✨

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For anyone that even cares

Peaceful Labour Demonstration Met with Violent Escalation by the Indonesian Government

Civilians in several cities in Indonesia have been protesting on the streets, in response to our House of Representatives insensitive and derogatory remarks amidst difficult economic climate.

It was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration led by laborers and university students, but our government choose to ignore and even violently escalating it with police brutality + shooting tear gas. What sparked a nationwide outrage was during 28 August protest in the evening, one of the armored police/soldier truck sped up intending to run over protestors and it struck over a Gojek driver (ride hailing driver, similar to Uber) that fell when crossing the road amidst the chaos. The truck did stop but decided to ram the gas and ran over him when he's trying to stand, with other protestors shouting for them to stop.

The Gojek driver's name is Affan Kurniawan. He's just 21 years old, the breadwinner of his family. He lived with seven other people in a cramped small rented room. He was not even participating in the demonstration, at the time of his death he was WORKING. He was trying to complete a food delivery order before he was killed.

This incident was documented clear as day with several videos from different povs. Here's the most prominent one.

In response to Affan's death, nationwide protests are held on the following day. (29 August)

The protests continued even today on 30th August and it keeps on escalating. The government is now trying to frame the protesters as violent anarchists, they're trying to use the same tactic as the '98 tragedy. They've been deploying provocators and intels to riot and burn public transport station, even going as far as raiding several (decoy) houses that belongs to members of the House of Representatives. They've also taken several hostages, reports of kidnapping as per 28 August is 400+.

They have been turning off electricity access in several parts of Jakarta and just greenlit snipers and soldiers to shoot protestors on the head with rubber bullets. There's already several victims.

They've also blocked access to TikTok live and even tried to erase/take down several of video proof of police brutality. Police are now sweeping several areas and civilians are alerting each other to be careful and to stay safe and not answer the door.

So yes. Please pray and check up on your friend that lives in Indonesia. I fear that there's going to be a military emergency implemented by our warcrime president. If possible please help save the video proofs because our government are cracking down to erase any proof of violence.

Here's more background information about the events that leads to the demonstration:

Video explanation from Al Jazeera that interviewed one of us:

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I think about this a lot.

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I think now that queens dead they should have her stuffed and put on display in Cairo for the next 150 years.

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Imagine talking to someone who doesn't know what gamechanger is and telling them that a famous improv comedian kidnapped the son of former labor secretary Robert Reich

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PAID WRITING OPPORTUNITY: Send in your pitches here to be considered!

Open to anyone worldwide, paid at £250 GBP/$340 USD/other currencies as applicable if your pitch is chosen. Pitches will be selected by November 1st and payment will be in December once pieces are completed! More details at the link.

Please share so more trans and/or intersex sex workers see this!

Looking for trans and/or intersex current and former sex workers to pitch what they'd like to write for the Transactional Intercourse anthology. I'm looking for essays and personal narratives related to the experience of being both trans and/or intersex and being a sex worker, whether those are stories about dealing with ignorant clients or feelings about stereotypes or treatment by family.

Read more background info at transactionalintercourse.carrd.co.

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