The University of Wisconsin system of schools is well known for being good for the sciences, while still being state colleges, and thus more affordable for average individuals, particularly residents of the state.

However, in pursuit of profits, some of their academic hiring decisions have been…. Unfortunate. I won’t name the specific school this occurred at as the problem occurs across the board for associate+/-lecturer positions. And it occurs in most states. Education as a whole in the US has been commodified, and thus reduced.

The kind who uses their platform to spread misinformation, in my experience. :)

I mean… my bachelors was largely neglectful tbh… if I didn’t know what I wanted to learn and how to learn it, it would have been nothing more than an extension of k-12.

They will let just any old shitbag teach certain credits… like my natural science 101 class, taught by a guy who bought into “organic is better”, “mindfulness will fix all your problems”, and various other pseudoscientific bullshit… such that my final essay (science is my auti special interest; I couldn’t ignore it…) was dedicated to pointing out each and every one of the pseudoscience claims he made in class which were demonstrably false (with citations). He initially gave me an A on the paper and then thought about how much I was insulting him and downgraded it to a C. That C was so worth getting. Fuck that guy. I learned more disproving his nonsense than I ever would have listening to him about anything…

But I also took a biostatistics course where the professor led by asserting creationism. Dropped that bitch right quick and complained to faculty about it (feel free to believe whatever nonsense you like, but I’m not paying tuition to hear your pet theories about thermodynamics proving creationism). Fortunately that was day two of the class, and still within time to drop. Unfortunately replacing that class fucked up my schedule for the semester big time.

And those are just two of a handful of issues with higher ed, and my school was actually one of the better for science curriculum… I started a masters program and dropped it when I got bad grades on papers for using accurate but simplified language (I’m a science communicator; using esoteric language is not something I do, even if I can easily do so. My life goal is to make science approachable for the masses, not a clusterfuck of specialized terminology that doesn’t even resemble the same term from another field)

Aluminum isn’t really a great option either. Modern cans have to be lined with a coating of plastic to avoid corrosion. Sure it’s a super thin coating, but it’s plastic all the same (and can contain some pretty nasty largely unregulated chemicals like PFAS)

I’m here for glass, though, and maybe we’ll find a good replacement for the lining in cans if plastic bottles aren’t allowed.

I did this with my shark(nado) bagless vacuum. :)

Mmmm you gotta do the twist break, where you push sideways on the bottom part to see if you can snap off the entire clip piece, rather than having that shitty nub left.

But if you end up with the shitty nub by accident, you gotta bite that bitch off.

In college I bought myself a 50 pack of those cuz I lose shit a lot, and that clip never lasted more than a few hours on any new pencil…

He’s going to do that anyway, whether it’s allowed or not. His plan is to break the country by any means necessary. What actual difference does it make to trumps plans if Biden keeps doing his job until he’s not in that job anymore?

The answer is none whatever.

So the sitting president shouldn’t be allowed to keep doing things they have been doing for years, just because it’s close to an election and someone unrelated might do something else after getting elected?

That’s stupid. Sorry but it is. It’s the same logic that prevented Obama from seating Supreme Court justices. And look how that turned out.

If this was the first ever time it was tried, maybe, but even then, we’d never have anything nice in that case. And we’d never get anything done from August to January in election years, which would also be intensely stupid.

We need to take what we can get, not be all weird about when it happens.

I used to volunteer for planned parenthood and they gave me all sorts of condom goodies to hand out wherever I went. I’m asexual so it was fun for me to swat down men asking if they could use them on me! “Do you want the free awesome condoms, or do you want to piss off the safe sex fairy? That’s what I thought. Go have fun now.”

Around Halloween, condoms taped to a stick like a sucker. Actually year round for fun. Those were always a big hit at parties. “Hey want a sucker? This will make it safe!”

Xmas, they had red and green flavored condoms. Red was peppermint green was fruity.

Going to a convention they would ship me with several hundred glittery shiny package condoms. I had an alligator clip necklace for those shiny bitches. Got so much love for it.

You name it, they did it with condoms. Because why the hell not make it fun??

Sadly I’m too old to social these days (jk I’m just not an event person anymore). Or I’d keep it up for sure.