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[SallyM]

Fall of the Fourth Estate: A Critique of Mass Media

I remember in school when first learning about WWII, thinking, “How could the people of Germany have let this happen?” I no longer wonder about that. I wish I still lived in a world where I wondered about that. I didn’t really need that question answered in such a first hand way.

[MerelyGifted]

Random Silly Grins

“Knock, knock” “Who’s there?” “Ah” “Ah who?” “Werewolves of London”

[SallyM]

Election Fallout

It’s not a change that’s worth thousands of innocent people dying an tens of thousands suffering needlessly. I agree, but to say so in response to that article is to ignore the author’s main point — that there’s more to western aid than helping to alleviate the suffering and prevent the deaths of people in “underdeveloped” countries. The author does not say that that western aid should end as abruptly as Tramp is ending USAID efforts, salutary and otherwise. He does say that the demise of th…

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

Here’s a website which generates musk-oid demanded “five things last week” office-speak for federal workers linky; Here’s the result for “Quantity Surveying”: • Conducted cost analysis and prepared detailed estimates for ongoing projects. • Reviewed and validated contractor invoices and progress claims. • Monitored project budgets and identified potential cost-saving opportunities. • Collaborated with project teams to ensure compliance with financial and contractual requirements. • Updated…

[SallyM]

Possibly untrue science news

Interesting research, but there’s a huge difference in being able to predict a slight seasonal or cyclical variation in earthquake activity and being able to predict any given specific earthquake. My wife (a geophysicist who specializes in this kind of thing) has convinced me that will never be possible. Teeny tiny earthquakes are happening constantly, and they’re initiated at very small points on a fault miles underground. Even if you could magically accurately predict each one of those that w…

[Millie_Fink]

The goddamn Trump Administration

Alito is stunned the USSC won’t let his mad king do whatever the fuck he wants. Alito is so full of shit he doesn’t need bribes; he can just sell it to farmers and be richer than Musk. The very, very first principle of this case is: the contractors legally spent the funds in accordance with the terms of the contract. Legally, (and per the 14th Amendment), the government is obligated to pay these expenses. Second, and Alito well knows, is that there is a procedure for recovering misspent funds…

[SallyM]

So now we need a measles thread

Yes, that pretty much sums up their issues with science in general, “the answers keep changing.” Because, yes, the better we understand it, the better our answers are. They. Do. Not. Care. They want simple, obvious, easy-to-understand and most of all, non-challenging answers that never change. Like the ones MAGA and Elno offer. Correct is not one of their criteria.

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

“At risk,” “trauma,” “mental health,” “gender,” man, the vast majority of medical literature is about to vanish, isn’t it? That list should absolutely terrify anyone who gives a shit about science or research. Of course, most of those folks already understand this, and the MAGAts only care when their own personal faces get eaten. FAFO is impacting more and more of his acolytes, though. Maybe there is a tipping point? The fatal flaw on the right has always been overreaching, and these asshat…

[SallyM]

Weird, odd stuff

Maybe she was waiting for the Win95 update via 3.5" floppy disk to fail mid-way. Again.

[SallyM]

Google, Meta, X and all the Tech Bros

I don’t think a left version of techno-optimism makes any sense because the problems don’t have to do with things people can’t do, they have to do with things they shouldn’t do. Right now the biggest obstacle to abundance is that everything we accomplish keeps being stolen and turned against the rest of us. I mean, the most obvious place where technology might help is clean energy – and yet even there the biggest limit to progress is that oil companies keep sabotaging it. We could use better wa…

[SallyM]

Healthcare PSAs and BSAs

RFK is in a battle to the death with science. I’m rooting for science.

[SallyM]

Mathematical jokes

Nothing rhymes with orange. Nothing rhymes with purple. Therefore, by induction, orange rhymes with purple.

[Murgatroyd]

[SallyM]

Possibly untrue science news

It is my considered option that our universe is something that a bored teenager in some higher dimension cobbled together at the last minute for their school’s science fair.

[Millie_Fink]

Healthcare Deform

This a long, twisted tale of a hospital takeover gone wrong - a healthcare tale as old as 2010 (when mergers & acquisitions accelerated). A non-profit system was purchased by a for-profit company, hospital services were gradually reduced, facilities were closed, and now the purchaser has declared bankruptcy. Even though the sale happened 8 years ago (and reductions/closures and attempts to sell facilities have been making news for the past 4 years), now the public outcry is on FB. I don’t kno…

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

This makes sense to me. I’m sure that for some people living under an authoritarian regime would be boring and safe and maybe even nice. The privileged, the elite, the ones who think they are elite. But only some few people. A lot of people would be persecuted and die. Injustice would be rampant. Everyone else would be exhausted trying to toe the line, afraid all the time, and anxious because they could at, any time, have their entire life destroyed. If not outright taken.

[SallyM]

The thread that glows in the dark

That reminds me; anyone who lives within about 50 miles of a nuclear power plant should get some iodine pills in case of an accident. The city of Toronto gives them out for free, but you have to send in for them, and they will mail them to you. Other cities might do the same. My brother and his family live very close to a power plant, and they get iodine pills automatically. They have a shelf life of about 12 years. I rarely say “You should” to people, but this is one of the exceptions.

[MagicFox]

Political Cartoons

trump can’t be The Penguin. Ozwald has a successful casino.

[SallyM]

Healthcare Deform

As a patient, I do not want to be part of that. [Rant] There are certain things I’d do if I had access to time travel, but near the top of the list is to eliminate the person who first decided to call what we have now “AI.” It’s not. But as soon as the first person did that, instead of mocking that person, everybody decided they needed to call their shitty code “AI” too. NO CURRENT TECHNOLOGY IS AI!!![/Rant]

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

“I’m going to kill your dog, cut down your rose bushes, and set your car on fire. Can I borrow a cup of sugar?”