It wouldn’t surprise me, but I haven’t heard anything like that. Tough production schedules are a great way to cause incidents.

You’re lining up for a strawman. I very clearly stated that fault was with the owners and management for not enforcing safe operating procedures.
I disagreed that the gap in regulation was likely because of safe storage quantities, and more likely because of a failure to enforce safe operating practices.

Don’t make it out to be like I’m saying nothing could have been done to save these people’s lives.
I’m saying expecting an explosives manufacturer to have less than what’s used in a typical charge onsite at any moment is unrealistic, as is storing reasonable quantities such that catastrophe is impossible. Any storage and manufacturing practices that could give you those guarantees would also require a rigorous training process and strong safety culture with well defined and enforced procedures and safeguards.

theoretical customers that for some reason are warehousing unsafe quantities

What, in your mind, is a reasonable and safe quantity of explosives to warehouse for the manufacture of bombs?
By their nature, bombs contain an unsafe quantity of explosives. Safety comes from handling, not saying you can only have half of a 500lb bomb at a time.

I didn’t say it was impossible, just unrealistic. The cost increase for producing in batches smaller than what can cause a problem aren’t worth it if you afterwards just put it in the same pile. Customers aren’t going to want to take delivery as dozens of small shipments spread out over months, but in batches determined by how fast they use it and how much buffer they need. They’re certainly not going to want that rate slowed down by the factory having other customers.

The place where regulatory oversight is missing is in making sure that management isn’t pushing workers to work unsafely, or even letting them if they try.

So I looked into it, briefly, and it looks like that incident was a different company who rented space in their complex.
That isn’t better for them now, but there’s a difference between negligence and renting to the negligent.

So, they do. Unfortunately, there aren’t realistic safety precautions that can be taken that don’t have some risk of catastrophic failure if you’re dealing with the manufacturing and storage of explosives. Even small quantities are destructive enough to be dangerous to store.
Ultimately safe storage comes down to human operational concerns. Missing or unenforced regulations relating to working hours, training, training compliance, or handling safety concerns would be my guess rather than storage conditions.

A lot of explosions at similar facilities had significant warning, unfortunately. While the detonation itself tends to be instant, they usually have rules about how densely explosives are packed, fire control systems, and systems to maximize the time between problem and disaster.

They probably knew something was wrong and that it was bad, but not how bad.

Most specifically, it’s to provide a framework so that small changes are orderly and big changes deliberate.
Laws provide a framework that tries to resist change to the maximum degree possible, with the benefit that it’s generally agreeable enough to enough people that it’s preferable to the danger and force involved in not having them.

It undercuts their dignity. If people think you’re a joke, they don’t do what you say when you say to do something awful.
We’re dealing with fascists. They’re a violent, angry pack of buffoons. We shouldn’t cater to their feelings.

For reference, see the works Chaplin, and Moe, Larry and Curly.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on the seats. It’s just not comfortable from my view. A cheap office chair would be an upgrade. We almost certainly live in different areas with different buses, so it’s not really something we can compare specifically.

Completely different scenery is pushing it a bit. I can pretty much see whatever I could see out of the bus window through the windshield, and for the most part it’s not what you would call “scenic”. I don’t live in the country nor do I live in a big enough city for interesting architecture, so it’s just a long suburban and urban sprawl of slightly run down houses and low grade commercial along the bus routes. We’re not talking some run down dystopia, but there just isn’t much interesting to see, at least more than once.

I don’t think an alarm would help me not miss my stop. The buses here are reliable, but not regular enough to set an alarm for arrival times. I was always worried they’d show up early and I’d miss it, and that sucked when the weather was bad.

I mean, I used to be exclusively a bus rider or pedestrian, so I’m not unfamiliar with them. Sleeping is a bad choice because you can miss your stop, and at least in my experience the scenery is no different than you would get from the windshield.
Did like reading though, since that was relaxing. If I’m being fair though, taking a car for the trip I used to bus is fast enough that I wouldn’t find a book worth it.

Does the seat softness not bother you? For me, seat softness and leg room are the two biggest drives for feeling uncomfortable and even the smallest car has more.

To be clear, I’m not saying public transit is bad. Far from it. If it were remotely viable for any of the trips I need to take it would be my go to. I just think that they could put more padding on the seats, make them a little larger, and give a touch more leg room.

Eeeh. First, “mad tyrant” is a bit of a stretch. The crown was, by the standards of the time, much more lax with the colonies than other territories. More of a “late onset bipolar disorder constitutional monarch acting under advisement of qualified ministers”. Breaking away to try “not monarchy” and implement much of what we now consider modern government was by no means wrong, but it’s not quite the clear cut battle against evil the founding narrative describes.

Second, that was 250 years ago. Just about the only lingering effect is the slogan which has some inspirational qualities.

The bigger thing is that the military hasn’t fought against a technological equal in decades, and has never fought an asymmetrical war against a technological equal. If the opponent is close to technological parity, they use overwhelming force to remove that parity, and then fight from there. They can’t do that against the US, because they need those resources as well. Additionally, most of our defensive strategy relies on it being impossible to attack us in a reasonable way. The only force that can get here has to be small and sneaky. In a civil war situation, a significant number of military facilities are basically inside cities. They have defenses, but not the way they do in an overseas base. And being in cities, a significant number of pretty important sites are inside the areas that are currently being designated as hostile.
All the people doing the boring logistics and paperwork that drives most of the US military have to commute through the dangerous areas. Most of their families live nearby.

Ah, I wouldn’t have called that comfort, more boredom. I still don’t agree on the comfort thing, but at least I can see where you’re coming from.

I’m tall and overweight. Even when I wasn’t overweight the seats have never been wide enough and I almost always have my knees pressed into the back of the seat in front of me. With the seat being too short as well, I usually end up with a fair bit of pain unless I can stand or get a seat without someone close in front of me.

You do know that Puerto Rico has voted to stay, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_political_status_for_Puerto_Rico

They’re Americans in the way that they’re fully enfranchised US citizens in every way.

Up until the 1960s they had the same legal status as residents of Washington DC. The only reason it hasn’t changed is because they’ve consistently asked for it not to.

Are you hoping Puerto Rican terrorists killing mainlanders will cause Puerto Ricans to vote for independence?

I’m with you entirely except for comfort. I think the only comfort advantage is that trains can have comparable leg room and you can standup.

I have never been on any type of mass transit where the seats were as comfortable as even a crappy car.
That’s ignoring system dependent stuff like cleanliness or the discomforts of being close to strangers.

You can certainly clean more, put in better seats, and suck it up when it comes to strangers, but as it is right now, I struggle to see how you could say it’s more comfortable based purely on the amenities.

I shit you not, they’re saying he was against trump because he had his trump/pence sign hanging on his fence visible in proximity to a stop sign.
Also, some people have pointed out that a “T Sanford” is a donor to the “BLUE ORIGIN LLC PAC”, which is obviously a democratic PAC, and not the lobbying group for the private space flight company Blue Origin LLC, who coincidentally has a Tommy Sanford as their sales director. Because people never have the same name.

Man, it’s crazy how not using the word genocide in April of 2024, not saying it wasn’t a genocide but simply not saying it was while also calling it terrible, is both clearly communicating that she supports killing Palestinians and also super timely and extremely relevant to an attack a year and a half later.

Management isn’t your friend, but managers are still people. The job is not the person. A good, nice, friendly person can have a job where their work interests aren’t necessarily aligned with yours and still try to do what they can to see that your interests are met.

If they fire me, no manager is going to ask me how I’m holding up or what my plans for the future are

That’s just not true. It’s not universally untrue, but it’s just wrong to default to such an antagonistic view from the outset.

All that to say: it sounds like you’re mainly having difficulty reconciling your thoughts on how you behave towards people with how you behave towards management. If you replace job related words with words like “people” or “person” then the question gets a lot easier.

I had an argument with this person everyone likes and after thinking about it, it was mostly my fault we raised our voices. She raised her voice first but because I wasn’t listening to her because she triggered me.

It’s pretty obvious to me that you apologize. Then ask if they’d be open to a conversation about what you feel could have gone better.
“Hey, do you have a minute? Sorry about how I acted when we were talking the other day. I thought about it and realized that I hadn’t been listening, which wasn’t right of me and made things worse. Would you be open to discussing it now that we have a little distance from it? I’d like to explain myself a bit and share some related concerns that I had, if nows a good time.”

They’re a person. If you feel your wronged them, apologize. If you feel like you want to explain things and offer feedback, just make it clear this isn’t a prerequisite for the apology or anything.

Exactly. If you’re apologizing, apologize. There’s nothing wrong with also asking to have a conversation about what caused the conflict.

“I’m sorry” and "can we talk about what happened?” are both valid, but ultimately aren’t dependent on each other.

Remember, I’m not saying they wouldn’t do it, just that they wouldn’t line up eyes open to take the fall if it goes sideways.
These are the people who in a very real sense give the government power against popular resistance. They’re not going to agree to commit a crime without at least an assurance that the people they’re doing it for go to the gallows with them.

Hell, the CIA put the name of the law they were violating right in the orders multiple times.

One of the few things I trust the military to do is to have the high ranking officials know what constitutes an illegal order, and to ask for a written order to cover their own asses.