how they hold the line? They dont really explain, butt thisnis the type of "worker" thatbis getting fiktered out by recent moves

There is a line I do have to draw. I did not sign up to be customer service rep to die and compromise my health. I'm bordering suicidal and had to have my antidepressants upped today. My physical health, which is fragile as is, is suffering. I'm having an autoimmune flare. I do not have it in me to bus 3 hours a day 5 days a week, when I'm trying to finish my degree. I have to think about me too. Edit: plesse do not send the reddit cares thing after me. I am PASSIVELY suicidal at this point and I'm trying to avoid not going past that. I've been talking with my therapist, my psychiatrist upped my dose of meds, and I have a huge support system IRL. I've dealt with my mental health since I was 10. I intentionally walk away from situations that make me go too low, and this may be one of them.

This individual is what people refer to when they say government waste

Call me simple but yellow with chocolate frosting is a classic.

pic.twitter.com/7EcgF8H0ya

— mr. joshua (@pants) February 5, 2025

$?2?

!druggies !r-slurs !latinx

Waffle House places surcharge on eggs as bird flu fallout hits consumers, businesses

The rising cost of eggs has been hitting consumers in the pocketbook, and now it's driving up costs for some businesses — with Waffle House announcing a temporary change to its prices.

Waffle House has placed a 50 cent surcharge on every egg, according to signage posted inside the restaurant and a statement provided by a company spokesperson. The decision was made to avoid increasing prices across the menu.

The Norcross-based chain said in the statement that the continuing egg shortage caused by the bird flu has caused "a dramatic increase in egg prices."

"Customers and restaurants are being forced to make difficult decisions," the statement reads.

Waffle House also said it is continuously monitoring egg prices and will adjust or remove the surcharge as market conditions allow. It hopes the price fluctuations will be short-lived, but "we cannot predict how long this shortage will last," it said in the statement.

The chain, which has more than 2,000 locations across the country, says it sells more than 250 million eggs per year and more than a dozen family-operated farms supply its restaurants with eggs.

Bird flu and egg prices

Egg prices have nearly doubled since the start of 2024 due to bird flu spreading through the U.S. chicken population and reducing egg count.

The average price of a dozen eggs hit $4.14 in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's the highest it reached in 2024, though it was not quite as high as January and February of 2023, when prices spiked at $4.82 and $4.21, respectively.

The H5N1 strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza has caused widespread disruption to poultry, egg and dairy farms across the country. Last month, Georgia reported its first two detections of bird flu in commercial chicken facilities, raising concerns for the state's powerhouse poultry industry.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the risk to humans from H5N1 is low, but public health officials fear the virus has the potential to morph into a pandemic.

After the first bird flu detection at a Georgia facility, the state Department of Agriculture announced a statewide suspension of all poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meets and sales. A ban on those activities will remain in effect indefinitely.

But retail sales of chicken and eggs are not impacted. Georgia agriculture officials have stressed the state's food supply is safe.

Chicken and eggs are tested for the virus before they are harvested, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture says the risk of infected meat or eggs entering the supply chain is low. In the unlikely case infected product were to enter the supply chain, the agency says properly prepared and cooked chicken and eggs are still safe to eat because the heat kills the virus.

Broad impact

Waffle House isn't the only restaurant feeling the pain of egg prices. Metro Atlanta restaurateurs and bakers are keeping an eye on the impact to their own suppliers.

Lorenzo Wyche, owner of Breakfast Boys and High Noon Brunchery, said the egg news caught his attention about a week ago, and he's been monitoring it ever since. Eggs are a large part of Wyche's business since most menu items either involve eggs or are paired with one on the side.

Wyche said his wholesale distributor has raised prices since other suppliers are low on eggs due to the bird flu outbreak.

Wyche said 30 dozen large eggs were previously $150, and now that amount costs $230. He typically orders about 40 to 50 cases per week, and each case contains 30 dozen eggs.

To deal with the rising prices, Wyche said he'll start ordering medium instead of large eggs since it doesn't make a huge difference for brunch restaurants that are offering omelets and scrambled eggs. He said a case of medium eggs is about $165.

But he has decided not to raise prices or add a surcharge at this time.

"We're in the new age of breakfast where we take those margins ourselves," Wyche said. "So we're not actually as impacted as much because we're already charging what you would consider above market for what someone would charge for an omelet." An omelet at High Noon Brunchery ranges from $14-$16.

A traditional diner, on the other hand, keeps its costs low to begin with, he said, so they're more likely to have to raise prices in order to maintain a margin.

"We've already kind of built that margin in so good that the price fluctuation is not going to really kill us," he said.

Soraya Khoury, chef and owner of brunch restaurant Hen Mother Cookhouse, said she hasn't seen a significant price change in her eggs, so she plans to wait it out since it hasn't affected their bottom line yet. She said she's more worried about the cost of produce.

"I feel like it's just more important to stay consistent and kind of do a little bit more housekeeping, so less waste and attention to portion and things like that," she said.

Sarah O'Brien, owner of Little Tart Bakeshop, said her egg prices recently rose, but like Khoury, it hasn't been her main concern; she's seeing higher costs for raw ingredients across the board, especially chocolate and coffee.

"It's really an overall increase for us more than a story about about the eggs," she said.

Teresa Finney, who runs bakery At Heart Panaderia from her house, purchases her eggs from local markets, and while they have always been a hefty expense, "lately it's really been hurting my pockets," she said in a text message. To cope with the costs, she wants to introduce more eggless and vegan menu options.

"It definitely feels like I'm being forced to go this route sooner than I'm ready for it," she said.

!dixie, !goyslopenjoyers, America has fallen. Billions must pay extra for the All-Star Special.

Except it was correct a week ago... regardless if you could make them out or not, you could tell there was closer to fifty than there is nine. This is definitely a new alteration

No it wasn't. That image has been used on that site since 2020. There are 9 stars and 11 stripes (9/11).

Not sure if that theory is more r-slurred or less.

Because the president is a white supremacist. Nothing is by accident

It's all part of the carefully crafted plan. Trump is a genius!

Because it's a tiny icon and there literally aren't enough pixels to show fifty stars . There are also fewer stripes.

That is not why. It was recently changed, and the 9-star flag has a significant meaning.

And what meaning is that, you ask?

It's the 9 Confederate states

Ah yes, 9 out of the 11 Confederate states.

The worrisome part is if you know anything of history, the 9 star American flag was originally used by the confederate at the start of the Civil War. It was to represent the 9 states that seceded. So essentially it's a confederate flag on our government websites.

That would be 7 states that originally seceded, before the start of the war.

Where did this NPC software update come from? It can't just be Reddit?

Top Dawg is in the gay hiphop illuminOti. That’s why. It’s gay hiphop brotherhood shit. Sza has one of the most unspecial voices and botched plastic surgery jobs everrr, yall praising DOUCH-ey for having seven writers on each song… Top Dawgs uncle is Mike Concepcion - inventor… https://t.co/taWvnKjZ1G

— Azealia Banks (@azealiaslacewig) February 4, 2025

!tmz

pic.twitter.com/dBcMVpogXO

— 🇬🇧 𝙔𝙊𝙊𝙆𝘼𝙔 𝘼𝙀𝙎𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙏𝙄𝘾𝙎 🇬🇧 (@MythoYookay) February 6, 2025

You gotta be kidding pic.twitter.com/ZHapfOEH8Z

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 5, 2025

!nooticers

Perhaps predictably, the men-aren't-reading discourse has made the jump into 2025. The perennial conversation has taken on new weight this year, though, as we begin to be governed by the worst of men, the putrid avatars of a hatefully reactionary masculinity. Increasingly, what's wrong with men is what's wrong with America. Would a reading list of novels enlighten them?

Right out of the gate this James Folta cute twink is blaming men for the state of America, naturally without being specific about that state.

And 'Would a reading list of novels enlighten them?', because of course the average man is simply too simple minded and must have his worldwide expanded to match that of some want to be elitist

The problem with the "dudes don't read" argument is that the numbers don't really seem to back the point up. Vox dug into the data behind the chatter in a piece titled "Are men's reading habits truly a national crisis?" which casts doubt on the statistics most often being cited, and poses some reasons why we might still be assuming men don't read anyway.

The Pew Research Center compiled findings from 2011 to 2021 that Americans read an average of 14 books and a median of 5 books annually. Younger people read more than over-65s, and more women read than men, but only by a little:

Pew's 2021 study says 73 percent of men say they've read a book in the past year, compared to 78 percent of women. Those numbers are up a tad from 2016, when 68 percent of men said they'd read a book compared to 77 percent of women. Overall, we're looking at pretty consistent stats over the course of the last decade: Roughly 70-ish percent of men read at least one book a year, and roughly 80-ish percent of women do. Meanwhile, according to the Department of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey of 2023, women spend on average 0.32 hours on leisure reading per day (about 19 minutes), while men's daily reading time averages out to about 0.2 hours (12 minutes).

It's not a huge gap. Constance Grady, the Vox writer, followed up on the stats with the researchers, and the new information she found brings us back to much the same place: the gender gap isn't that stark, nor does it seem to be moving much.

So statistically speaking, no one is really reading. But it's a problem for men because men seem to be doing more and more poorly, and reading is seen as a possible antidote. Vox again:

Reading fiction has assumed the same role as therapy in public discourse: something good for one's mental and emotional health that we should all do in order to be better citizens, and something that men—particularly straight men—are simply choosing not to do, to the detriment of society.

This last phrase is the weight behind the panic—broadly speaking, men seem to have fallen through some very rotten floorboards and into a much worse place. Which is to say, women could stand to read more too, but women aren't endangering as many people as men are—especially straight and white men, who I'm mostly talking about here.

I don't want to repeat myself but again what a massive cute twink. He's taken his boohooing about Trump winning and ham fistedly shoved into an article about men reading.

Why fill your head with other people's voices? It's too close, and could be a slippery slope to empathy.

!fellas just look at this shit! He frames it as if men don't read out of some fear that it would give us "empathy" like him. The very idea that any of us would be so easily swayed is frankly offensive.

For all the wonderful men that we all might know personally, the ascendent American male archetype is horrible—the hog-men of the political right in this country are wrecking and upturning everything. We've all felt the hot breath of these unwell and wicked men on the back of our necks this week.

More bitching that not everyone is as enlightened as he is.

Part of the identity of this fratty and crass man involves turning your back on books and everything they represent. This man reaches for force and bluster to hide "a bright seam of fear," as Rebecca Traister puts it. This man prizes business school efficiency and has no time for anything beyond grinding and maxing everything. This man is gleefully rude, unapologetically loud, aggressively in-motion, and perpetually in-the-way.

I can't imagine the amount of, I don't even know lack of self esteem? Elitism? Cute twinkry? It takes to be using fratty as an insult out of college.

It's not fear that causes me to not read more and certainly not a fear of empathy. It's a lack of interest. What am I going to read James? Some pseudo romance about women dealing with mean men? Yet another "young adult" novel clearly written by and for middle age women who never matured past highschool?

The last book I read that wasn't technical documentation or a short story was "The last argument of kings". I read it because it was interesting, it avoided the troupes of good triumphing over evil, of people changing for the better (interestingly his books have the opposite happen, with people trying to change only to become more themselves). It wasn't some predictable slop that I'd forget about in a week

This man, of course, doesn't read. The worst of them, Andrew Tate, once said that "Reading books is for losers who are afraid to learn from life. So they try and learn from the life OTHERS have lived."

Andrew Tate hasn't been even slightly relevant in years at this point, yet people like James keep bringing him up because it's a great way to paint your opponents as woman haters. He mean as well said "You know who else didn't like reading? Hitler!"

And he's not wrong. People like James here live variously thru what they read. They don't take morals and ethics from their own life, their own experiences instead they opt to parrot the opinions of the famous, to be sure to have the right opinions.

Zoë Hu published a sharp exploration of Tate's brutality in Dissent, which highlights not just the violence, but the loneliness of his lifestyle:

For him, power is a vehicle to admiration, and admiration is at variance with intimacy. To be admired by someone is to forever be at a distance from them, and this is where Tate prefers his women.

This aversion to closeness, which is an act of care which takes time and attention, would certainly cause a man to look at fiction with revulsion. Why fill your head with other people's voices? It's too close, and could be a slippery slope to empathy.

Once again James manages to actually offend me. To posit that I and men like me don't read because we're aversion to closeness, to human connection, to empathy is othering in it's most based form.

Of course it also makes James and his ilk out to be the good ones. The men who want closeness, empathy, connection. Who throw off their "fratty" and "hogish" nature to rise above.

And there aren't a lot of business tips in your average novel, either. Hu identifies Tate's mission as a perverse extreme of a dynamic seen elsewhere in the hustle-verse: "The worst excesses of masculinity find common cause in the dollar—it's all a business hustle." Seeing the people around you as exploitable ready-to-hand objects is not just cruel, but also lonely: "What men and boys learn from Tate, in other words, is how to optimize a life bereft of love or friendship." Reading a novel has no place in this matrix of domination.

But what is the case for reading, beyond that it differentiates you from the worst people around?

I've been wondering that since the first paragraph.

Even considering the "value" of a novel seems to be ceding ground to a false way of thinking, putting novels in competition, to be ranked and rated and graded.

All things have value. All things are ranked and graded. Nothing and no one is above this. To suggest otherwise is to move your field from one where actual hard benchmarks exists and into the world of vibes, a world where it doesn't matter how poorly you perform, how few people care what you think, how much better people different from you do, it's a world where you're right because you feel you're right

Reading is wonderful, but I'd have a hard time making the case that it's an unsinkable, objectively good thing that each and every person must do.

But you didn't let that stop you

And even people who I agree with sometimes treat books as a symbol of values they want to communicate, or as objects with rich veins of knowledge to be extracted. This turns a book into something to be consumed or summarized, implying that they're good, sure, but not always worth your time.

Because that's what books are. They contain information. Things you want to know, stories you want to hear, ideals you want to explore.

Novels can be hard too—how often have you been heartbroken that someone didn't connect with a book you recommended?

Never. Literally never have I been heart broken someone didn't like a book I did. I imagine this is because I have tolerance. Not the fake #BLM in the bio tolerance of people like James but an actual ability to tolerate those who don't think what I do or the way I do.

In the wake of David Lynch's death, I've been wondering about how to make the case for strange and challenging art. I don't think I could put it better than Michelle Dean did in her essay on Twin Peaks: The Return in Harper's: "There is no point, there is no conventional reason to watch, other than for the sheer enjoyment of the lurid but beautiful mind of David Lynch."

Which is a long winded and fancy way of saying "entertainment". The same reason people watch marvel movies and football games. That's right James you read for the same reason hogish and fratty straight white men watch football.

To me, this is the point: a novel may be difficult, but it's also a chance to experience something that is unique and unclassifiable. Reading novels is a singular way of approaching and understanding the world. This uniqueness means that novels can't be a one-size-fits-all solution, nor are books the only way to get closer to humanity, or imagine a better world, or to feel empathy for someone you may never meet. A book could fix a man, but it's not the only way to, and it's not a sure thing.

I almost agree with this. Of course books aren't unique. A speech, an essay, a good long chat can all have the same outcome.

There is part of me that is inclined to quietly allow people to enjoy what they enjoy, as long as it's not hurting anyone. You don't have to read. But there is another, larger part of me that is a hater: if you're a grown-up, you should be able to read a book. You should at least try! You shouldn't turn your back to the world—go to a museum, see a live show, meet your neighbor, help a friend, and call your parents.

What is he even on about at this point? At first men who didn't read were mean old Trumpers doing fascism and who were devoid of empathy, now they're shut ins who don't call mom and dad enough?

Not wanting to read the slop you do doesn't mean man has turned his back on the world god darn it!

All of these things are a chance to step outside of yourself and consider others. We like to imagine men reading because it's a vision of a man who is patient, sensitive, and restrained. A man reading is a man pausing and thinking, not a man acting or reacting. It's seductive to extrapolate this image: a nation of men reading might be a place that is more considerate, a place that lifts up everyone, with bread for all, and roses too.

Above all else, a man reading is silent. In short, and even though it won't solve everything, my advice to my fellow American men is to shut the frick up and read a novel.

And there we have it! The TL:DR! Men should read because it makes them shut up, makes them stop voicing their opinions, voting for their candidates.

This entire article was pointless, reading is somehow both essential and optional, both one of many ways to better ones self but also the way to fix men, men should read because it fosters thoughtfulness, patience, and open-mindedness but also because it makes them shut the frick up.

Another potential fedposting hunting ground

https://www.nfl.com/photos/u-s-presidents-and-football-09000d5d821e1b9f

George HW Bush went to the Super Bowl in New Orleans in 1985 and even participated in the coin toss.

why are journ*lists like this?! Im sick and tired of misinformation being spread without checking facts first by social media sites like... the Associated Press

DAE think its kinda spooky tho? mmt of when the President in The Sum of All Fears goes to a foosball game

A colleague who watches the /pol/ board on 4Chan advised me that someone posted a faked screenshot to /pol/ that purports to show a mod-distinguished post I made to /r/AgainstHateSubreddits about "curbing the influence of the Alt Right on the 2024 election"

lmfao

AgainstHateSubreddits, for the past 5 years, has been extremely focused solely on Hate Speech On Reddit.

Not elections, not external sites.

We were exceptionally clear to people to Do Not Participate in hate groups.

The post purports to ask people to join an AHS Discord

rotflmao

We don't have a Discord. We never had a Discord.

The post purports to show me asking people to install a browser extension

ROFLCOPTER

Last revised by Bardfinn 4 years ago

It purports to show me asking people to visit 4chan

LMFAOBBQ

And the comments to the post are all dipshits eating it all up like it was ice cream

MY SIDES

AHS has been wall-to-wall automoderator posts and scholarly articles and "hate sub banned" and Reddit Transparency Report analyses for over a year. Directing people to report hate speech and hate groups directly to Reddit.

LSHICUAL

You fucking dipshits. /pol/acks feed you horseshit and you gulp it down and ask for more. It's not too late to abandon a site that's filled with sociopaths trying 24/7 to get you to walk off a cliff.

You are such dipshits

But you can change.

i figured out the formula