#can government employee do trading

[techandtravel]

Can govt employee invest in share market 2023

Can govt employee invest in share market? Can govt employee invest in share market?Investing in the Share Market: A Comprehensive Guide for Government EmployeesIntroductionUnderstanding the Share MarketAssessing Your Financial GoalsInvestment Options for Government EmployeesAdvantages of Investing in the Share MarketMitigating Risks in the Share MarketTax Implications for Government…

[robertreich]

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?    

One man is especially to blame for why corporate power is out of control. And I knew him! He was my professor, then my boss. His name… Robert Bork.

Robert Bork was a notorious conservative who believed the only legitimate purpose of antitrust — that is, anti-monopoly — law is to lower prices for consumers, no matter how big corporations get. His philosophy came to dominate the federal courts and conservative economics.

I met him in 1971, when I took his antitrust class at Yale Law School. He was a large, imposing man, with a red beard and a perpetual scowl. He seemed impatient and bored with me and my classmates, who included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham, as we challenged him repeatedly on his antitrust views.

We argued with Bork that ever-expanding corporations had too much power. Not only could they undercut rivals with lower prices and suppress wages, but they were using their spoils to influence our politics with campaign contributions. Wasn’t this cause for greater antitrust enforcement?

He had a retort for everything. Undercutting rival businesses with lower prices was a good thing because consumers like lower prices. Suppressing wages didn’t matter because employees are always free to find better jobs. He argued that courts could not possibly measure political power, so why should that matter?

Even in my mid-20s, I knew this was hogwash.

But Bork’s ideology began to spread. A few years after I took his class, he wrote a book called The Antitrust Paradox summarizing his ideas. The book heavily influenced Ronald Reagan and later helped form a basic tenet of Reaganomics — the bogus theory that says government should get out of the way and allow corporations to do as they please, including growing as big and powerful as they want.

Despite our law school sparring, Bork later gave me a job in the Department of Justice when he was solicitor general for Gerald Ford. Even though we didn’t agree on much, I enjoyed his wry sense of humor. I respected his intellect. Hell, I even came to like him.

Once President Reagan appointed Bork as an appeals court judge, his rulings further dismantled antitrust. And while his later Supreme Court nomination failed, his influence over the courts continued to grow.  

Bork’s legacy is the enormous corporate power we see today, whether it’s Ticketmaster and Live Nation consolidating control over live performances, Kroger and Albertsons dominating the grocery market, or Amazon, Google, and Meta taking over the tech world.

It’s not just these high-profile companies either: in most industries, a handful of companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

This corporate concentration costs the typical American household an estimated extra $5,000 per year. Companies have been able to jack up prices without losing customers to competitors because there is often no meaningful competition.

And huge corporations also have the power to suppress wages because workers have fewer employers from whom to get better jobs.

And how can we forget the massive flow of money these corporate giants are funneling into politics, rigging our democracy in their favor?

But the tide is beginning to turn under the Biden Administration. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are fighting the monopolization of America in court, and proposing new merger guidelines to protect consumers, workers, and society.

It’s the implementation of the view that I and my law school classmates argued for back in the 1970s — one that sees corporate concentration as a problem that outweighs any theoretical benefits Bork claimed might exist.

Robert Bork would likely regard the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts with the same disdain he had for my arguments in his class all those years ago. But instead of a few outspoken law students, Bork’s philosophy is now being challenged by the full force of the federal government.

The public is waking up to the outsized power corporations wield over our economy and democracy. It’s about time.

[metamatar]

When electronics manufacturing took off in China in the 1980s, rural women who had just begun moving to the cities made up the majority of the factory workforce. They didn’t have many other options. Managers at companies like Foxconn preferred to hire women because they believed them to be more obedient [...]

Hiring a young, female workforce in India comes with its own requirements — which include reassuring doting parents about the safety of their daughters. The company offers workers free food, lodging, and buses to ensure a safe commute at all hours of the day. On days off, women who live in Foxconn hostels have a 6 p.m. curfew; permission is required to spend the night elsewhere. “[If] they go out and not return by a specific time, their parents would be informed,” a former Foxconn HR manager told Rest of World. “[That’s how] they offer trust to their parents.”

[...] the Tamil Nadu government sent a strong signal welcoming Foxconn and other manufacturers: Authorities approved new regulations that would increase workdays from eight to 12 hours. This meant that Foxconn and other electronics factories would be able to reduce the number of shifts needed to keep their production line running from three to two, just like in China. [...] Political parties aligned with the government called the bill “anti-labor” and, during the vote, walked out of the legislative assembly. After the bill passed, trade unions in the state announced a series of actions including a demonstration on motorbikes, civil disobedience campaigns, and protests in front of the ruling party’s local headquarters. The government shelved its new rule within four days.

Indian Foxconn workers told Rest of World that eight hours under intense pressure is already hard to bear. “I’ll die if it’s 12 hours of work,” said Padmini, the assembly line worker.

For the expatriate workers, the slower pace of the factory floors in India is its own shock to the system. A Taiwanese manager at a different iPhone supplier in the Chennai area told Rest of World that India’s 8-hour shifts and industry-standard tea breaks were a drag on production. “You have barely settled in on your seat, and the next break comes,” the manager lamented.

In China, Foxconn relies on lax enforcement of the country’s labor law — which limits workdays to eight hours and caps overtime — as well as lucrative bonuses to get employees to work 11 hours a day during production peaks [...] five Chinese and Taiwanese workers said they were surprised to discover that their Indian colleagues refused to work overtime. Some attributed it to a weak sense of responsibility; others to what they perceived as Indian people’s low material desire. “They are easily content,” an engineer deployed from Zhengzhou said. “They can’t handle even a bit more pressure. But if we don’t give them pressure, then we won’t be able to get everything right and move production here in a short time.” [...] At the same time, the expat staff enjoy the Indian work culture of tea breaks, chatting with colleagues, and going home on time. They recognize they are helping the company spread a Chinese work culture that they know can be unhealthy. [...]

On the assembly line, Foxconn’s targets were tough to reach, workers said. Jaishree, 21, joined the iPhone shop floor in 2022 as a recent graduate with a degree in mathematics. (With India’s high level of unemployment, Foxconn’s assembly line has plenty of women with advanced degrees, including MBAs.) [...] “At the start, during my eight-hour shift, I did about 300 [screws]. Now, I do 750,” she said. “We have to finish within time, otherwise they will scold us.” [...]

Mealtimes are an issue, too. In December 2021, thousands of Indian Foxconn employees protested after some 250 colleagues contracted food poisoning. In response, the company changed food contractors, and increased its monthly base salary from 14,000 rupees to 18,000 rupees ($168 to $216) — double the minimum wage prescribed by the Tamil Nadu labor department for unskilled workers. [...]

Working conditions take a physical toll. Padmini has experienced hair loss because she has to wear a skull cap and work in air-conditioned spaces, she said. “Neck pain is the worst, since we are constantly bending down and working.” She has irregular periods, which she attributes to the air conditioning and the late shifts. “[Among] girls with me on the production line, some six girls have this problem,” Padmini said. Workers said they regularly see colleagues become unwell. “The day before yesterday, a girl fainted and they took her to the hospital,” [...] Padmini, at 26, believes she is close to the age where the company might consider her too old. “They used to hire women up to age 30, now they hire only up to 28,” she said.

[eightyonekilograms]

Ignore the attention-getting headline about fertility. I made a pledge a little while ago to stop talking about fertility issues; I'll do a longer post about that pledge later, but I'm sick of that discourse and how it's now just going in circles with nothing to show for it. But click through to the post anyway about South Korea's dysfunctional small business culture.

One of the awkward findings in business and economics is, despite how much people dislike them, giant megacorporations are much more efficient than small businesses, in terms of worker productivity (as long as those corporations have to compete in a global marketplace and aren't propped up by subsidies, protectionist trade policy, or monopoly protection).

This happens everywhere, but I didn't realize it was particularly bad in South Korea:

Between the Hyundai apartments and Samsung theme parks, South Korea certainly looks like a nation of big business. But looks can be deceiving: peak beneath the hood and you find that the Republic of Samsung is a nation awash in shitty small businesses.  With just 14 percent of jobs at companies with over 250 employees, South Korea has the lowest proportion of jobs at big companies of any nation in the OECD. Contrast this with the U.S., where 58 percent of jobs are at such companies. ... Small businesses aren’t always bad for employees—maybe you get more autonomy and fewer shrill HR managers. But South Korea’s small businesses are distinctively unproductive and retrograde in their work cultures, making them far less attractive employment options.  While SMEs are rarely as productive as large ones, it is truly striking how unproductive South Korea’s small businesses are compared to those in Western nations. The OECD, for example, found small service sector firms in Korea are 30 percent as productive as larger firms with over 250 workers. In the Netherlands and Germany, that figure is 84 and 90 percent, respectively. Similarly, the Asian Development Bank found that in 2010, small Korean firms with five to 49 workers were just 22 percent as productive as firms with over 200 workers. ... The story of South Korea’s ingenious use of corporate subsidies, it turns out, has been oversold. South Korea’s government in fact shells out lots of money keeping unproductive small businesses afloat, with little in the way of economic gain to show for it. ... So why does South Korea spend so much money subsidizing poorly run small businesses? The simple answer may be that it is especially good politics in a nation where chaebols are met with suspicion over their ties to the government. Politicians can point to this “support” for small businesses as evidence that they are not in bed with firms like Samsung.

This is a fascinating example of policy backfire: Korea's chaebols are so big and politically unpopular that voters demand tons of subsidies for the romantic ideal of small family businesses, which keeps them permanently uncompetitive and unproductive, where people have to work much longer hours for the same pay you'd get anywhere else.

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Does Elrelda have a government? Like as in like, nationwide level or planetary level administration? Like are Elreldians aware that the company that they make a tourist partnership with sometimes dabble in the Art of Human Trafficking?

Like is it legal to do what Arrin did? Or is Arrin just taking advantage of the fact that he is the chief and a well loved and respected one at that? Like yeah, Synthis is probably the Space Age version of Disney/Amazon but do the general population of Elrelda not know the probably illegal shit that Synthis (and their sister companies) pulls or is it just the people with the money, power, and authority (or the desire for a cute, submissive, and breedable human)?

How does it even work? Like did Arrin (and other human fuckers) just go to a random branch office and go “I want a cute human mate. Preferably soft, squishy, submissive, breedable, and T H I C C" and they were just “Aight, gotchu”. Then they just showed him a list and he just pointed at our pic and went “I want that one”? Tinder but much more hands-on with a smidge of human trafficking. Then Synthis just gave us a discount coupon when the time came for us to go to Elrelda (thank god, we didn't bring a date so we can share the expenses so that we can afford a nicer ship)

Or did Synthis just give their employees that were to be sold discount coupons to different place and have their buyers see their prospective mates for themselves? The ones not chosen getting to return to their homes not knowing they were almost going to have their lives uprooted?

Or did only Arrin just get the special treatment because of the partnership between his herd and Synthis' business?

Speaking of humans, why are humans regarded as status symbols for a chief to show power? Is it because l average humans are generally smaller and squishier than the average Elreldian, and the fact that the human they're with is healthy, safe, and happy a sign that their mate is strong and a capable provider while still skilled enough not to hurt them?

I know it's just a (really good and indulgent) smutty one shot but holy fuck, there is something to be said about the unexpectedly thought-provoking world building you did

It has been so long since I wrote that so I apologize if any of my answers conflict with the story.

Elrelda is ruled by regional chiefs who occassionally gather to make big decisions that impact more than one region and to facilitate trading arrangements.

I feel like in general the Elreldians don't care about the illegal stuff too much off their planet as long as Synthis is decent to them and they don't care that their chiefs can get humans as long as they aren't abused.

Anyone can get a human as long as they have rare resources that Synthis wants and the corporation is very good at covering it all up.

Arrin probably heard from another chief about the human "dating" program and contacted his local Synthis rep about it and picked from a list of potential mates with traits he desired.

Then, yes, that potential mate gets a free trip so they can be scouted and if they aren't chosen they return home and the next match is offered the trip.

They are seen as a status symbol because they are alien and because they are so soft and cute.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

They’re a regular subject of complaint at camp grounds, music festivals and public events — but for some B.C. workers they’re an everyday part of life.

Now a construction union representing more than 40,000 workers is calling on the B.C. government to ban porta-potties in favour of flush toilets on job sites with more than 25 employees.

“I do want to be clear that better is possible,” said Brynn Bourke, executive director of the B.C. Building Trades Council.

“We have seen film, and entertainment and tourism find better washroom facilities. Mobile sites can have clean flush toilets.”

The union has been pushing for flush toilets in the industry for two years, since the COVID-19 pandemic put greater health and sanitation issues in the spotlight. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Supreme Court poised to appoint federal judges to run the US economy.

January 18, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

JAN 17, 2024

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on two cases that provide the Court with the opportunity to overturn the “Chevron deference doctrine.” Based on comments from the Justices, it seems likely that the justices will overturn judicial precedent that has been settled for forty years. If they do, their decision will reshape the balance of power between the three branches of government by appointing federal judges as regulators of the world’s largest economy, supplanting the expertise of federal agencies (a.k.a. the “administrative state”).

Although the Chevron doctrine seems like an arcane area of the law, it strikes at the heart of the US economy. If the Court were to invalidate the doctrine, it would do so in service of the conservative billionaires who have bought and paid for four of the justices on the Court. The losers would be the American people, who rely on the expertise of federal regulators to protect their water, food, working conditions, financial systems, public markets, transportation, product safety, health care services, and more.

The potential overruling of the Chevron doctrine is a proxy for a broader effort by the reactionary majority to pare the power of the executive branch and Congress while empowering the courts. Let’s take a moment to examine the context of that effort.

But I will not bury the lead (or the lede): The reactionary majority on the Court is out of control. In disregarding precedent that conflicts with the conservative legal agenda of its Federalist Society overlords, the Court is acting in a lawless manner. It is squandering hard-earned legitimacy. It is time to expand the Court—the only solution that requires a simple majority in two chambers of Congress and the signature of the president.

The “administrative state” sounds bad. Is it?

No. The administrative state is good. It refers to the collective body of federal employees, regulators, and experts who help maintain an orderly US economy. Conservatives use the term “administrative state” to denigrate federal regulation and expertise. They want corporations to operate free of all federal restraint—free to pollute, free to defraud, free to impose dangerous and unfair working conditions, free to release dangerous products into the marketplace, and free to engage in deceptive practices in public markets.

The US economy is the largest, most robust economy in the world because federal regulators impose standards for safety, honesty, transparency, and accountability. Not only is the US economy the largest in the world (as measured by nominal GDP), but its GDP per capita ($76,398) overshadows that of the second largest economy, China ($12,270). The US dollar is the reserve currency for the world and its markets are a haven for foreign investment and capital formation. See The Top 25 Economies in the World (investopedia.com)

US consumers, banks, investment firms, and foreign investors are attracted to the US economy because it is regulated. US corporations want all the benefits of regulations—until regulations get in the way of making more money. It is at that point that the “administrative state” is seen as “the enemy” by conservatives who value profit maximization above human health, safety, and solvency.

It is difficult to comprehend how big the US economy is. To paraphrase Douglas Adams’s quote about space, “It’s big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.” Suffice to say, the US economy is so big it cannot be regulated by several hundred federal judges with dockets filled with criminal cases and major business disputes.

Nor can Congress pass enough legislation to keep pace with ever changing technological and financial developments. Congress can’t pass a budget on time; the notion that it would be able to keep up with regulations necessary to regulate Bitcoin trading in public markets is risible.

What is the Chevron deference doctrine?

Managing the US economy requires hundreds of thousands of subject matter experts—a.k.a. “regulators”—who bring order, transparency, and honesty to the US economy. Those experts must make millions of judgments each year in creating, implementing and applying federal regulations.

And this is where the “Chevron deference doctrine” comes in. When federal experts and regulators interpret federal regulations in esoteric areas such as maintaining healthy fisheries, their decisions should be entitled to a certain amount of deference. And they have received such deference since 1984, when the US Supreme Court created a rule of judicial deference to decisions by federal regulators in the case of Chevron v. NRDC.

What happened at oral argument?

In a pair of cases, the US Supreme Court heard argument on Tuesday as to whether the Chevron deference doctrine should continue—or whether the Court should overturn the doctrine and effectively throw out 17,000 federal court decisions applying the doctrine. According to Court observers, including Mark Joseph Stern of Slate, the answer is “Yes, the Court is poised to appoint federal judges as regulators of the US economy.” See Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, The Supreme Court is seizing more power from Democratic presidents. (slate.com)

I recommend Stern’s article for a description of the grim atmosphere at the oral argument—kind of “pre-demise” wake for the Chevron deference doctrine. Stern does a superb job of explaining the effects of overruling Chevron:

Here’s the bottom line: Without Chevron deference, it’ll be open season on each and every regulation, with underinformed courts playing pretend scientist, economist, and policymaker all at once. Securities fraud, banking secrecy, mercury pollution, asylum applications, health care funding, plus all manner of civil rights laws: They are ultravulnerable to judicial attack in Chevron’s absence. That’s why the medical establishment has lined up in support of Chevron, explaining that its demise would mark a “tremendous disruption” for patients and providers; just rinse and repeat for every other area of law to see the convulsive disruptions on the horizon.

The Kochs and the Federalist Society have bought and paid for this sad outcome. The chaos that will follow will hurt consumers, travelers, investors, patients and—ultimately—American businesses, who will no longer be able to rely on federal regulators for guidance as to the meaning of federal regulations. Instead, businesses will get an answer to their questions after lengthy, expensive litigation before overworked and ill-prepared judges implement a political agenda.

Expand the Court. Disband the reactionary majority by relegating it to an irrelevant minority. If we win control of both chambers of Congress in 2024 and reelect Joe Biden, expanding the Court should be the first order of business.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[arizonaconservativegal]

As you work in government, and think the government should be dramatically reduced, I was wondering where you think such cuts ought to start and how would you get enough people to agree with you? From where I stand, as someone who gained political consciousness in 2018(?) and has been leaning right libertarian ever since, it seems no one can agree even though we all see the same issue.

Well if I were dictator for a day, I'd eliminate the federal Department of Education because they pretty much do nothing of value.

But the real answer is that I wouldn't start by cutting any programs at all.

Sure I'm a libertarian who has a philosophical problem with pretty much every government program, and if I were building the system from the ground up, I wouldn't ever include most of what we ended up with, but since it's already there, that's not an option.

Besides, even as bloated as they are, most government offices/agencies/departments do have a handful of very necessary positions and good employees in them. They just also have an awful lot of jobs that no one would ever miss and a lot of employees who do nothing but take up space. You need to go through all of them with a fine tooth comb to figure out which ones should be kept, what can be consolidated, and what can be eliminated with no impact on services. And then you'd need to hang around long enough to figure out which individual people to keep (either in their existing roles or reassign them to more useful positions) and which ones are just dedicated to being useless.

The problem is that doing that properly takes a tremendous amount of time and you really can't leave it up to the bureaucrats within the departments. If you tell them to just cut staffing levels by a certain percentage, half of them will just go by last hired, first fired and the other half will deliberately cut critical and public facing positions to create political demand for their funding to be restored.

If I were really going to go through all that, I'd start by identifying the positions to cut and then let attrition do its thing. Useless positions do not need to be replaced when vacated. Not actually firing anyone gets you around civil service protections and if you do your targeting well, the only people who will really squawk will be union bosses upset about dwindling membership numbers. The two tricks here are a) you still have to replace the positions that are necessary and start consolidating responsibilities so you can't skip that first step of figuring out what those are and b) you cannot let politics determine which positions are cut. All services levels must be maintained, even in programs that we disagree with politically.

The next thing I would do - which would be much harder - is reform those civil service and union protections. We need to be able to fire people who do not do their jobs adequately or who are no longer needed. Right now that's pretty much impossible so instead of firing them, we shuffle them off to another position - and usually that comes with a promotion and raise so they can't claim they're being treated unfairly. Or we just hire a second person to do the job the first one won't or can't do but instead of replacing the first person with the second person, we just pay two people to do one job at the same time.

The trade I would make is to eliminate or drastically increase pay caps for high performing employees and for positions that we have trouble hiring/retaining qualified employees. Too often we lose highly effective employees because the only thing we can do to reward them is to promote them out of their area of skill. And we simply cannot hire a talented lawyer or tech worker for $75k when they could be making two or three or ten times that in the private sector. Sorry, I know no one wants to pay government employees more but when we have a team of ten shitty employees getting paid $50k each, that's a lot more expensive than getting one good one who will actually do the job for $200k.

(If I could, I'd also put new employees on a 401k style retirement plan - I'd even offer a very generous match - and never put them in the pension system. It would save us a ton of money and frankly, those employees would be better off in the long run for having control of their retirement funds. But that's a separate issue and possibly a bigger hurdle than cutting jobs.)

Only when all that was done, and after several years had gone by so the public would see that the reductions in workforce really didn't hamper the service they received, that's when I'd think about starting to cut actual programs.

And then I would start with the Department of Education.

[juney-blues]

Every time i think about the still ongoing pandemic i get incredibly angry.

we could've put a stop to this in 2020 if we just let the wheels of capitalism grind to a halt for a month or two, but no, god fucking forbid we stop endlessly toiling away for someone else's profit for even a second.

Capitalism and The Basics Of Germ Theory came into conflict with eachother and capitalism fucking won, and now we're going backwards on our common understanding as a society of microbes, people are refusing to wear masks even for things that aren't deadly diseases because it got turned into a fucking culture war issue for some reason.

We all knew what to do, we all knew exactly how to stop the spread of a virulent disease thanks to a thousand years of science and research and understanding history, and we just didn't fucking do it because some rich assholes wouldn't've made quite as much money as they would've if we just died.

Thousands died, thousands are still dying, and thousands more have been disabled, and thousands more will be disabled, and this was preventable, this was so fucking preventable and i will never not be angry about it.

Staying home and not getting a haircut and not going out drinking with your friends for a few weeks was too Traumatic, and compensating people for the time they'd have to take off work would've cost the government Too Much Money, and wearing a fucking piece of cloth over your face was too Uncomfortable, and vaccines are giving your kids autism and turning the frogs gay,

and now there's a million fucking variants and even if you get vaccinated for one it still won't help with any of the others, and you people are still going out to coffee shops and bars and stadiums and concerts and swapping this disease around like it's a fucking trading card, and people are dying at a higher rate than ever and it's not even news anymore, and just

fine.

you assholes all win, all of you!

the bare minimum i can do to keep myself and others safe isn't even that effective anymore, because no one else is fucking doing it, i might as well start licking toilet seats and not even wash my hands afterwards for all society at large cares,

so everything is worse now for everyone, and we're never fixing this because you people just don't *want* to fix it, and at this point it's so entrenched that fixing it would take far more effort than preventing it ever would and even *that* was too much for you people

so you win.

the virus is here to stay, and people are going to keep getting sick, and it's going to keep tearing their bodies apart, and there's just nothing any of us can do about it because it's just the new normal.

and just ignoring it is easier than wearing a mask out in public, and getting your booster shots every couple of months, and avoiding crowds of people, and keeping your distance, and installing the proper ventilation equipment, and providing your employees with the proper ppe, and learning to live with an airborne pathogen in a way that isn't obviously stupid and dangerous,

everything is worse and we're not fixing it,

is this what you wanted? are you happy about this?

[reddancer1]

What you need to know about scams:

Global Cyber Security Awareness Month and International Fraud Awareness Week

No one wants to fall victim to a scam and knowledge is power. We identified scam tactics and provided tips to recognize red flags so you can keep yourself safe from scammers.

What you need to know about scams:

Scammers are calling, emailing or texting their victims’ impersonating employees of businesses, financial institutions and government agencies. Here are some tactics scammers use: 

A tech support company ‘representative’ informs you of fake computer issues and requests you send them money or grant them access to your computer. 

‘Representatives’ from government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, Social Security Administration, or other officials, indicate you must take an action immediately. 

Falsified Caller IDs to convince you they are real. 

Urgent requests for you to send money via cryptocurrency, gift cards or money transfers to address a made up story or need. 

Five tips to prevent getting scammed:

Legitimate companies and government agencies will never ask for payment in the form of gift cards, money transfers, or cryptocurrency.

Never provide any personal or financial information to anyone who contacts you via an unsolicited email, phone call, or text message.

Always remain cautious of callers using high-pressure tactics to get you to act quickly.

If you’re unsure, hang up and call the company or agency directly using the number listed on their official website.

Always keep all your software and antivirus programs up to date.

What to do if you’ve been scammed, or think you have:

If you have received any unsolicited calls, text or email matching the descriptions above, do not respond but take the following actions.

File a complaint at the Internet Crime Complaint Center.   

Report fraud to the Federal Trade Commission. 

Visit the TIAA Security Center to see how TIAA protects your security and confidentiality. Here you will also find additional videos on how to identify, report and protect yourself from scams. 

[ukrfeminism]

Women in the public sector are quitting their jobs due to being blocked from working flexibly with three in ten seeing their requests rejected, according to a major new study.

Researchers at Unison, the UK’s largest trade union, who polled just over 44,000 women working across the public sector, found three in ten working in hospitals, schools, care homes, town halls, police stations and other key services had pleas to work flexibly denied.

Some women said employers told them to leave their job or use annual leave if they want to work flexibly, while others report their requests were immediately blocked on the same day they were put in. Struggles to access flexible working meant some women had quit their jobs, researchers warned.

Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary, said: “Too many employers are still turning down flexible working requests, which means the right to request is pretty meaningless for many women. The right to work flexibly from day one would be beneficial for staff and employers alike, and help bring workplaces into the 21st century.”

Helping women juggle work with childcare and caring for loved ones can enable workplaces to recruit for jobs which are tricky to fill and likely boost the quality of public services, she added.

Ms McAnea said: “It’s disheartening to see many employers continuing to deny their staff the opportunity to work flexibly. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

"But sadly many women who find they need to inject some flexibility into their working lives are coming up against employers with inconsistent, rigid and unimaginative attitudes. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, some form of flexible working is achievable in most workplaces.”

A quarter of those women who were informed they could not change their working conditions say their requests were rejected on a number of occasions.

Researchers also found more than two fifths of women were told they could not work flexibly because doing so would harm the service being provided, while almost three in ten were informed there would not be enough colleagues to cover for them. 

A fifth had their request rejected due to managers saying doing so would result in colleagues making similar pleas, while around one in seven were not provided with a reason by their employer.

New flexible working legislation comes into force in April which gives employees a statutory right to ask for flexible working from day one at a new job. While this is an improvement on the current wait of six months to ask, Unison warn employers are too easily able to block flexible working requests.

Emily*, who works in the energy sector, said she only managed to get her flexible return to work from maternity leave agreed just before she was due to return to work. 

“The process was horrendous,” she said. “I had to submit several requests and they were all turned down within days. I was stunned. I was caring for my baby and having huge levels of anxiety simply trying to get some flexibility at work. I was scared I’d lose my job. It dragged on so much I couldn’t sort out childcare. The process left me traumatised.”

While Nadia*, a local government worker with a disability, was blocked from working flexibly even though she had medical notes written up by her doctor. 

“I had a very supportive manager during the pandemic and we all worked well during that time,” Nadia, a single mother of two, added. “But as the situation eased, my new manager suddenly wanted everybody in the office all the time. Daily attendance then worsened my condition and I had to go off sick for a few months to recover. Being able to work from home on the days I’m struggling would make a huge difference, and also make it easier to look after my children.”

Helen*, a specialist nurse and single mother of three, explained she was repeatedly blocked from working flexibly.

She said: “I had to go down a pay band to get some flexibility, which put me and my family in financial difficulty. I was told if they allowed me to work flexibly they’d have to do the same for others. But others aren’t in my situation. 

“I'm a survivor of domestic violence and have no family support. The process was awful and I was made to feel like a massive inconvenience. Now I don’t want to be a nurse any more and am looking for a new job in retail. I’ve had to take time off because of the stress and anxiety I experienced. It shouldn’t be like this as I do love my job.”

*Names changed

[mariacallous]

After decades of strategic drift and costly acquisition failures, the U.S. Navy is sailing straight into a storm it can’t avoid. Despite the Defense Department’s lip service about China being the “pacing challenge,” decades of deindustrialization and policymakers’ failure to prioritize among services and threats have left the Navy ill-equipped to endure a sustained high-intensity conflict in the Pacific. The United States is unable to keep pace with Chinese shipbuilding and will fall even further behind in the coming years. Where does that leave the U.S. Navy and the most critical U.S. foreign-policy imperative: deterring a war in the Pacific?

As evidenced by the Biden administration’s latest budget request, fiscal constraints are forcing the Navy to cut procurement requests, delay modernization programs, and retire ships early. The Navy’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year calls for decommissioning 19 ships—including three nuclear-powered attack submarines and four guided-missile cruisers—while procuring only six new vessels. The full scope of what military analysts have long warned would be the “Terrible ’20s” is now evident: The expensive upgrading of the U.S. nuclear triad, simultaneous modernization efforts across the services, and the constraint of rising government debt are compelling the Pentagon to make tough choices about what it can and cannot pay for.

Workforce shortages and supply chain issues are also limiting shipbuilding capacity. The defense industrial base is still struggling to recover from post-Cold War budget cuts that dramatically shrank U.S. defense manufacturing. The Navy needs more shipyard capacity, but finding enough qualified workers for the yards remains the biggest barrier to expanding production. The shipbuilding industry is struggling to attract talent, losing out to fast food restaurants that offer better pay and benefits for entry-level employees. At bottom, it is a lack of welders, not widgets, that must be overcome if the U.S. Navy is to grow its fleet.

Instead, the shipbuilding outlook is progressively worsening. An internal review ordered by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro in January found that major programs, including submarines and aircraft carriers, face lengthy delays. Even the Constellation-class frigates, touted as a quick adaptation of a proven European design, are delayed by three years.

As defense analyst David Alman outlined in a prize-winning essay for the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, the United States simply can’t win a warship race with China. The United States effectively gave up on commercial shipbuilding during the Reagan administration in the name of free trade. In the decades that followed, generous state subsidies helped China dominate commercial shipbuilding, and Beijing’s requirement that the sector be dual-use resulted in an industry that can shift to production and ship repair for the military during a conflict, much as U.S. shipyards did during World War II. The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimates that China now has 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. China built almost half the world’s new ships in 2022, whereas U.S. shipyards produced just 0.13 percent.

Rebuilding the arsenal of democracy that anchored the U.S. victory at sea 80 years ago won’t happen overnight or cheaply—it is a generational project. The 20-year Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program aimed at upgrading dry docks, facilities, and equipment will end up costing well over the projected $21 billion. But the plan is only intended to maximize existing U.S. industrial capacity and won’t do much to close the enormous shipbuilding gap with China. That would require a reconstitution program on par with the series of maritime laws passed after World War I, which supported the expansion of an industrial base eventually capable of turning out thousands of carriers, destroyers, submarines, frigates, and cargo ships for the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.

Realizing that U.S. shipyards are stretched thin, policymakers have begun looking abroad. Del Toro encouraged South Korean companies to invest in U.S. naval shipping during a visit this year. Japan will likely begin performing repair and maintenance work on U.S. warships soon; India agreed to do so last year. These initiatives will alleviate the increasing maintenance backlog at U.S. facilities, but it would take a large share of the combined Japanese and South Korean shipyard capacity to fundamentally alter the growing disparity between the U.S. and Chinese fleet size in the Western Pacific.

Ships are not all comparable, of course. U.S. warships are heavier and more capable than China’s, although a dearth of logistics vessels and sealift capability are major concerns. Still, the current era of missile warfare has magnified the importance of fleet size.

Without enough ships to match the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, what can the United States do to maintain conventional deterrence in the Pacific and prevent war? At least two big things: buy missiles and cut back on missions.

First, to manage risk in the short term, the Navy and the other services need to rapidly procure more munitions—focusing on weapons and capabilities, not the platforms that carry them.

The Russia-Ukraine war has military planners thinking less about short, quick conflicts and more about long wars and their vast need for materiel. What holds for depleted stocks of land-based artillery also holds for many of the weapons needed for a war at sea. A much-publicized 2023 wargame conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that the United States would run out of its entire inventory of the key Long Range Anti-Ship Missile within the first few days of a war over Taiwan. Ramping up the procurement and production of these munitions, as well as Joint Strike Missiles, Standoff Land Attack Missiles, and Harpoon missiles will enable U.S. airpower to help even the odds in the Pacific.

Anti-ship systems operated by the Army and Marines could also complement the other services’ firepower. However, the deployment of ground-based missiles will require allies’ consent. To date, no Asian allies of the United States have volunteered to permanently host U.S. missile batteries, due to political sensitivities and the fact that these countries already have such weapons of their own.

Innovation and creativity could further augment U.S. naval power. Retired U.S. Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, a fellow at the National Defense University, has urged the Navy to convert commercial container ships into warships capable of launching missiles, which would add a tremendous volume of firepower at a bargain price. These “missile merchants” would also require significantly less manpower than traditional warships do, a major consideration given the Navy’s struggle to fill existing billets.

Policymakers also need to make hard choices and limit naval deployments. Though the Navy is shrinking, its missions aren’t. A high operational tempo, manpower shortfalls, and an aging fleet are fueling a readiness crisis that is burning out sailors and ships.

Addressing the readiness crisis requires taking a hard look at which missions are essential for U.S. security and which aren’t. As former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work has written, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Navy has spent 30 years prioritizing global presence over warfighting readiness. The deadly Pacific ship accidents in 2017 involving the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain were directly attributable to this unsustainable mania for global presence, according to a Navy review.

The preeminence of presence missions also has more subtle consequences. After 20 years of largely uncontested deployments to the Middle East, the U.S. Navy now has an opponent who shoots back: Yemen’s Houthis. But increased experience in missile and drone defense is outweighed by a deleterious drain on precision munitions. In the conflict with the Houthis, the Navy burned through more Tomahawk land attack missiles in one day than it purchased in all of 2023. Meanwhile, the Houthis can replace all equipment destroyed by U.S. attacks with just two shiploads from Iran, according to Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command.

The costs of maintaining global presence are magnified by the state of Navy recruiting and retention. The service’s recruiting woes are undeniable. The Navy missed all of its recruiting goals in 2023, some by as much as 35 percent. The service projects a shortfall of 6,700 recruits this year, according to its chief personnel officer.

Like the rest of the all-volunteer force, unprecedented recruiting headwinds mean manpower shortages will remain a persistent challenge for the Navy. Absent any change in operational tempo, sailors will work harder, deploy more frequently, and leave the service in greater numbers—ensuring a downward spiral for both manning and readiness.

The United States can’t match the size of China’s fleet in the near or medium term. Deindustrialization, poor procurement choices, and a myopic fixation on the U.S. presence in the Middle East have seen to that. All that said, the U.S. Navy still retains several significant advantages in a potential conflict with China: submarine dominance, overall tonnage, blue-water experience, and support from capable allies. A major increase in joint munitions purchases and an end to the readiness drain of presence deployments to secondary theaters will enhance the Navy’s edge during the potential peak window for a Chinese move on Taiwan over the next decade. The alternative is grim. If conventional deterrence fails, it risks military defeat for the United States or something even more dangerous: nuclear confrontation between the world’s two superpowers.

[sgiandubh]

Strike (and patient...) Anon

Forgive the out-of-character delay. I got entangled in a maelstrom of domestic complications and yet somehow managed to keep an eye on the SAG-AFTRA saga.

For context, clarity and empathy, I shall direct you straight to Chemistry & Timing's unique vantage point on this evolving situation (https://www.tumblr.com/fadeupin5432 ). You will probably not get a better, closer to ground zero understanding of what is really at stake, who the major players are and what lies ahead. And an important part of what is at stake, as she explained, is Man vs. Machine, as in TPTB trying to shamelessly exploit the profession's secondary players and rob them of their due rights by endlessly using them as mere support for AI-enhanced recreations of the original silhouette, voice and acting.

This impacts not only their earnings, as she mentioned, but the very long term survival of that unsung army of extras, brave one-line whisperers, stunts, body doubles, etc. But really, nobody is spared, because uncontrolled technology can quickly turn into a tidal wave of doom. Couple that with the studios' greed and we have an explosive cocktail with potential lethal impact.

This almost unprecedented move by SAG-AFTRA has most probably been informed by several successful European precedents, such as the regular strikes of their French and Greek counterparts (to mention just the ones I am most familiar with), eager to see their rights recognized by labor law as employees, not as civil law governed contractual collaborators (way less interesting and protective, since not opening the right to unemployment benefits).

Fun fact, the French artist's guilds almost always go on strike during the summer hiatus, trying to gain leverage and capitalize on a very busy period, featuring high-profile events, such as the Avignon Theatre Festival. Something to be a part of at least once in your life, if you ask me.

But the comparison stops here, because the right to one own's image/right of personal portrayal, including reproduction rights, is taken very seriously by civil law systems since at least the 60's. Because European artist's guilds/trade unions are far more aggressive and politically colored than in the US (on the left side of the spectrum, to be exact). And because whenever new technology rears its strange head on the scene, a group of experts takes it in its stride and thinks of a European directive to try and control its impact on individual rights and avoid exactly this type of situations. The downside of this protective regulation is that it becomes obsolete very, very quickly, because by the time you finished negotiating, technology did not wait for you and caught up already, for a good while.

Then you start it all over again: this is also why I branched off, with no regrets and some hefty experience gained. As I mentioned, I was one of that handful of folks, circa 2005-2010. We tend to quarrel a lot over a comma while thinking about Brussels winter rebates, but we did manage a fine job dealing with far less complicated things, such as digitalization of TV signals, broadcasting rights, pay-per-view regulations - the list is endless and very creative. Enough for the memory lane part.

The amount of Tumblr comments in Mordor from people who clearly have no damn clue of what they are talking about is insulting. The pretention to own the truth when you just pile up newspapers in a helter-skelter manner, also. Take for instance the trolls hoping for a Season 8 cancellation, who clearly never heard of the concept of force majeure, which protects better the parties' interests, in US legal doctrine, than torts' classical doctrines such as "impracticability" or "frustration of purpose". It is my deep hope that S&C's confidential contracts with * offer full coverage of force majeure situations, and I think, as per the COVID precedent, that they do.

Yes, both SAG members, most probably. No, she is not working. Yes, he will just sell the booze and you will be shrieking like banshees, again, in Mordor: tell me, did he take your dime out of your pockets by force, or what? No, no JAMMF pix for you, Onlies and Mommies. And I bet no blonde either, but that is beyond the scope of this note.

SMH. Morons.

Anyways. I had much fun writing this. Come back anytime with witty challenges, Strike Anon. And yes, I follow the situation very closely.

@fadeupin5432, I stand in solidarity.

[nomadicism]

Any more thoughts about the whole Twitter situation? What do you think will happen to that site over the next while?

Hi Anon, thank you for the Ask!

By the gods, what to even say now?

I wish that I had the wit to voice my thoughts with brevity and good humor. The Twitter Musk situation is hilarious-but-also-serious, and alas, I am verbose in my thoughts and not very funny.

I'm not sure that Twitter will survive, if I have time I'll post more deeply on what I think will happen with that.

I don't follow much outside of USA Twitter, so I can see all of this going in a lot of directions, such as the platform being irrelevant in the US, while remaining utilized outside of the USA.

We can still use Twitter and curate our experience by muting every slur that ever existed while using mega block on shitty tweets to expand our block lists, but that's not gonna change the fact if Twitter survives—without Furry Musk-gland backtracking on moderation—then the winners will be authoritarian regimes and con artists. Both rely upon sowing disinformation, distrust, propaganda, and conspiracies.

There are many choice threads on Twitter that reveal the convergence of serious issues, and I don’t even know where to begin summarizing them all. I’ve included a list of URLs to a variety of threads that might be of interest. What's happening here is not a simple thing, it's bigger than one spoiled mediocre man's ego.

Content is king, and Black people did a lot of labor in creating the kind of content that draws users to Twitter. Michael Harriot of The Grio has some words.

Hark! A graph showing Mastodon new user sign up spikes plotted against new user sign-ups on Twitter

A kind and thoughtful thread by Gerard K Cohen about his team members. Their entire team (Accessibility Experience Team) was among the mass firings at Twitter last week.

Of which, the unsurprising firing of thousands of employees (not all of them whom are software engineers) potentially poses as serious legal issue for Twitter due to California’s WARN law.

Also in Ireland (though small potatoes I suppose).

Apartheid Clyde (thank you Black Twitter for this most excellent name for Elon Musk) tries to blame advertisers bailing on the platform on activists. Gets called out by the president and Chief Operating Officer of MMA Global (a multi-national marketing trade association) whom he had just had a call with.

On the value of experts discussing in an open public forum

Concerns from a Chinese dissident

Discount Stark is fact-checked on his lie about advertising

Profoundly bad business decisions. There is no 5D chess here folks. There may well be a case for Tesla stock-holders to sue for breach of fiduciary responsibility.

Being an asshole to everyone and then firing the security team (who were already pissed at you very likely) as you’re rolling out a feature that requires both financial and personal data to be transmitted and stored is beyond foolish.

Ohhhh, hmmm about those critical employees…

Some of the fired employees are here on work visas

Potentially disruptive for upcoming elections in the USA.

Listen, I work in tech. I co-founded a startup back in 2013. No job is worth a 9:30pm stand-up while your colleagues are being fired by a useless billionaire.

Does Twitter really matter though?

Learn to host your own content.

Make a list of your fave Twitter artists, authors, etc.

When parody is only comedy if it comes with a disclaimer

Comedy as a venn diagram

Use lists to get around shadow banning of un-verified accounts

Paying for verification reduces identity to a trademark. The average person does not have the resources to continuously litigate their identity, such people who are recognized experts in their field, journalists, government officials, etc will be the ones impersonated.

A must-read thread about Twitter and counter-convergence (spoiler, Harry Potter was a counter-convergence)

Faith and trust rely on knowing that people are who they claim to be when they speak on subjects with authority and expertise. Undercutting the ability of such people to verify themselves is a form of discrediting, and when that happens systematically to scientists, educators, and public servants, then we have fascist propaganda tactics on our hands.

I hope you find these useful Anon!

(Y'all give me some reblogs because I'm not sure if this post will show up organically since it has links in it.)

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill Monday that would have eliminated work permits for the state's youngest employees, which he said would prevent children from being "taken advantage of."

Evers vetoed the bill at the Wisconsin State Council of Machinists Conference on Monday at a Capitol Square hotel alongside members of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO.

"Growing up, it shouldn't be worrying about getting injured on the job, or receiving a fair wage for their work, or being taken advantage of," Evers said shortly before the signing. "It's time that Republicans get real about the real pressing challenges, and I've put them on notice."

The bill would effectively eliminate work permits for 14- and 15-year olds in Wisconsin, as state law changed in 2017 to remove the requirement for 16- and 17-year-olds. That law also replaced references of "child labor" in state statutes to the "employment of minors."

"Parents should have the right to deal with this issue," Evers said as he vetoed the legislation. "(The bill) sends a message that 14- and 15-year-olds can do anything, they can go into the most dangerous places without any OK. And that is just absolutely wrong."

Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie and Rep. Amy Binsfeld, R-Sheboygan, who introduced the bill last year, said that it would remove needless administrative barriers that slow down the hiring process.

Currently, work permits are required for 14- and 15-year-olds, unless they work in the agriculture or domestic service sectors. Parents or guardians must apply for their child's work permit, and the $10 fee is reimbursed by employers.

The bill would have also eliminated street trade permits for the age group, which are needed to deliver newspapers or sell products door-to-door, for example. Those permits don't apply when fundraising for nonprofits or schools.

DWD issues about 35,000 work permits for minors each year.

Opponents of the bill argued that removing the permit system would take away the method of informing employers about child labor laws and the Department of Workforce Development's system for collecting data to guide efforts to reduce violations, which would be suspended without funding to cover the agency's $169,000 increase in costs.

"The bill is anticipated to reduce education and outreach interactions with employers, employees and their guardians, which would increase the number of (Equal Rights Division) investigations," the department wrote in testimony during a hearing on the bill late last year.

Child labor violations tracked by the federal government have spiked nationally, including investigations tied to Wisconsin.

A federal investigation into a 16-year-old boy's death at a Florence sawmill this summer found the company employed children as young as 14 to illegally operate machinery and work outside of permitted hours. Three children, ages 15 to 16, were injured at the mill in the last two years. The company paid about $191,000 in fines.

And a Wisconsin-based food safety sanitation company paid $1.5 million in fines earlier this year for illegally employing more than 100 children in eight states, following a U.S. Department of Labor investigation.

Evers has vetoed similar bills before.

Labor groups like the Wisconsin AFL-CIO opposed that effort, arguing permits protect young workers from exploitation and give parents a say in their child's employment.

[wtnvwritings]

Broadcasts from Nowhere - Pilot

List of Episodes | Audio

Summary: A new radio host reports on an even newer law passed by City Council to give employees 'vacations'. Plus, an update to Night Vale's second Dog Park and a enigmatic forecast of the weather.

You know, a lot of people pose the age-old question: what came first, the chicken... or the egg?

People will generally have an answer of their own, offering reasons why they themselves are correct and all others false in their belief.

But does it even matter?

The chicken and egg are both equally small beneath the infinitesimal weight of the universe, both helpless to the onslaught of time, both eventually returning to the very stardust and void that created them in the first place.

And the correct answer, as a reminder from the Sheriff's Secret Police's existential question task force, is a frog. Anyone who answers differently will be immediately confiscated for re-education and fined up to 500 dollars or the equivalent worth in trade secrets.

Listeners, here are your Broadcasts from nowhere.

-

City Council has enacted a new law earlier today. In a press conference scheduled only three minutes after it was announced, they decreed that vacations are now a concept that legally exist, and that places of employment are required to give employees paid time off according to the hours that they work over a scheduled period. Applicable work activities can include but are not limited to: hiding from government agencies, taking part in government-sponsored cover-ups, authorized community service, childcare, existing on Wednesdays, existing on non-Wednesdays, and golfing.

There has been some push back to this new law, with many citizens claiming that it is not the right of local government to decide how employers compensate their workers.

"Back in my day, we didn't even get a paycheck," said Night Vale citizen and worker Tristan Fetch. "We simply wandered out into the desert and returned home without a memory of how we had spent the day, pockets full of bloodstones, paper clips and the occasional empty chapstick tube." He continued talking about the various employment traditions of Night Vale past, but unfortunately it was in an ancient language that nobody could translate, so I can only assume that was what he was still talking about.

When asked him to elaborate or perhaps switch to a language that could be understood, Fetch simply shook his head and vanished into a thin puff of ashy black smoke, and could not be later located for further questions. He left behind the lingering feeling of wistful love for things that were that never again will be, and a general discontent with the youth of today.

One particularly passionate citizen has been seen protesting just outside the Night Vale radio station. Many of you may know him as the main host of news here at the station as well local workaholic who really needs to take a few days off every now and again, Cecil Palmer.

When asked for comment, he said, "If I want to work an exhaustive number of hours beyond what is physically possible by the laws of space-time, the that is my right as an American citizen! How will the station function without me? Who will remember to check the mail?"

Cecil was then removed from the premises by members of the Sheriff's Secret Police and reminded, 'Please, Cecil, we can't keep doing this.' This marks the third time he has been escorted away from the station during his legally-mandated vacation that, as a reminder, had begun yesterday.

For listeners who do not possess omnipotence--and our condolences go out to you--the person who is current updating you on the Night Vale news is senior Intern Daniel Van Heler. The same one who had been declared dead after an unfortunate run-in with a door that led to nowhere--after being declared un-dead by an ominous hooded figure and a doctor with a questionable medical degree, I've been assigned to fill in for Cecil whenever he is out of the station.

While I know we can all appreciate his dedication to radio journalism, recent events have made clear that having some time away from work is integral to a healthy mind, body, and is also now a punishable offense.

I hope that you all can enjoy the sound of my voice when I'm filling in for our beloved radio host; if not, then please make sure to notate any feedback you have on the commentary card that has been placed inside of your wallet when you weren't looking. If you do not possess a wallet, then you can find it inside your government-assigned citizen's information file. If you do not have that, then a member of the Sheriff's Secret Police is already at your doorstep.

-

The city council has announced the opening of a brand new, state-of-the-art dog park off the corner of Earl and Valleyview. No, not that dog park, a new dog park! A completely separate dog park that does not at all have any relationship to any other dog park that may or may not exist just two blocks away on the corner of Earl and Somerset.

This one, simply called 'the dog park' by city council--please do not confuse it with the other one--is open to people, dogs, secret police, surveillance drones, and cats that act like dogs.

There are a variety of amenities available, and a strong non-electrified fence around the perimeter, which means you can let your canine companion loose as long as they play nicely with others!

Strange hooded figures are not found at this new dog park, but they can still be found at the old dog park, staring on at anyone who passes by and enters into the new park with a gaze that can only be described as 'haunting, as if staring into the heavy eyes of someone who should not be, but yet they are'.

Listeners, I bet those hooded figures are just jealous!

We've never seen one with an actual dog, after all, so I wonder if they just can't stand not being able to check out this neat new dog park we have built! If you're listening and you have a dog, or are just interested in a little extra government surveillance in your life, then you should absolutely check it out the next time you're out for a walk!

-

Do you like numbers? Do you like hearing people say numbers? For an inexplicably long amount of time, perhaps?

Have you ever wanted to know what the largest prime number is?

If you said yes to any one of these questions--or if because you are legally mandated to do so by recent changes in city law--then make sure to tune in to 'Reciting Prime Numbers Until We Reach the End Or Pass Out From Sleep Deprivation'.

This exciting new segment will be hosted by our very own Cecil Palmer and guest star 'Vsauce, Michael Here', known better by his middle name Michael. I'm sure some listeners may recognize him from before City Council had declared Youtube a website that doesn't actually exist, and the two of them will be explaining how someone can find the largest countable prime number simply by listing each one in chronological order. Maybe this will help make math easier for some of us, eh?

The first part will air tomorrow evening at 5pm Central Standard time, and will end after Cecil and Michael reach the largest countable prime number or until they succumb to the needs of their mortal bodies and pass out in the recording booth.

-

Next up, lets take a look at what the weather is like here in Night Vale.

Listeners, I know that you are used to a particular way that Cecil announces the weather, but unfortunately I do not possess certain inethreal skills such as 'having permission' and 'copyright' for all that weather forecasting, so I've decided to try a couple different things to give you all an equally qualified and arguably accurate experience!

So, for the next thirty seconds, I want you to close your eyes and envision the sky.

What color is it? Are there any clouds? Ominous dark shapes sitting on the horizon? Does the air feel cold against your imagined skin? Warm? Can you hear a low humming without a discernible origin? Ignore that humming, ignore the ominous dark shapes that seem to be getting closer with every glance towards them.

There are large hills around you. Not mountains, since they don't exist, but they tower high above you on every side and reach far into the heavens. Are they watching you? Judging you? Are these a barrier to keep you safe, or a cage to keep you trapped?

Do you even want to know the answer?

Now, listeners, open your eyes. Do you feel better? Perhaps even a little refreshed?

Wonderful! Try your best to take this feeling and carry it with you today, and pay no mind or attention to the prophetic visions you'll have tonight. Hopefully I've also passed on the forecast in your local area for the next 72 hours. Make sure to have an umbrella in your car!

On an unrelated note listeners, having a blank journal next to your bed can be a fantastic way to help you record and remember your dreams! After all, you can never be sure when you'll be granted a flash of creativity, doom, accurate weather predictions, or the next winning numbers to the mega millions lottery.

-

An update on the new law requiring employers to give their workers vacation time, which also now legally exists: while some citizens still dislike the requirement, others have started to speak openly in favor of vacation hours, even citing that it has already begun to boost the local economy of Night Vale.

Mary Smith, owner of Night Vale's most popular pastry shop, said, "I'm seeing a lot more people coming into my store. The extra hours of free time they have now means they can actually do stuff outside of work, like buying my pastries--which in all honesty is a new experience in itself. I don't think I've ever had a customer before. Or sold a pastry before. Huh. When did I start this business again?"

Mary thought she had more to say, but was too preoccupied in personal revelations to offer very much after that.

Suffice to say listeners, I'd have to agree that the new law is helping to boost several sectors of Nightvale's economy! We're already getting word of at least a dozen small businesses and a few franchises that have been discovered along Main Street as places that exist, and all of them are starting to get wonderful reviews on Yelp! I even hear that our beloved radio host Cecil was spotted having a lovely lunch date with Carlos with some of his accrued vacation time.

Since we're coming up to the end of this broadcast section, I myself might even have to go see some of these new hot spots of the town for myself. I hear one of them sells some really delicious ice cream, and I'll be sure to update you all on it on my next broadcast, which will be whenever you turn on your radio next and least expect to hear my voice.

In the meantime, please stay tuned for the sound of rushing water that will make you think you've left the faucet on, even though you've checked at least three times already.

So goodnight, Nightvale.

Goodnight.