(Formerly known as Disease Twitter)

Ngl, what with the direction HHS, the CDC, and the FDA are going to head over the next few years, I’m struggling to feel anything more than a resigned, fatalistic ennui regarding yet another potential pandemic.

Ferrengi and Pakleds, but yeah

Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to imply that’s all that is going on with Alzheimer’s, but I was under the impression that prion formation/presence in neurological tissue was extremely highly correlated with the condition, though the precise mechanism of their effects aren’t yet well understood. Then again, I haven’t seriously looked into that stuff since my grandfather passed from it a while ago.

Oh wait. NK is getting fighters? I thought it was just missiles and trade goods and so on.

Edit: yeah - tracked down some other articles indicating MiG-29s and Su-27s - many of which are still crates of parts, which NK wants to assemble (and, tbh, probably try to reverse engineer to some degree) themselves

He’s going to be like J Edgar, only without any semblance of actual patriotism, or desire to actually do anything approaching what the intent of the job and the FBI actually is. All of the bad traits, and none of the good. Counter-intelligence will be dropped on the floor, most likely. Political persecution and witch hunts will become de rigueur.

Yeah, knowing how fucky simple protein molecules can get when you flip the chirality (prions, which are essentially the root cause of Alzheimer’s and CJD and a few other neurodegenerative conditions), making whole-ass microbes on that principle without understanding what that could even mean sounds like a WILDLY insane idea.

Tbh I’m really beginning to think that the whole “fuck around, find out” thing needs to just play out in cases like this. I know people will be hurt. But like… if the patient insists on a stupid fucking medication that’s not going to help, and will instead have catastrophic side effects… you know, you do you, I guess. The people who will actually leverage this law are, shall we say, not swimming in the deep end of the gene pool. This is very definitely Darwin Award territory. I’m genuinely having difficulty mustering any sympathy for people who are so thoroughly idiotic.

Also, firewalled

Get out of my head, Charles

Biden did a lot of deeply frustrating and very wrongheaded things, but Garland for AG, imo, cleanly takes the cake. I genuinely cannot think of a more feckless, functionally useless, and societally harmful nomination that he made.

I’m frankly surprised that they’re surprised

Pikachu is

Violence is the answer people give when the people asking the questions systematically ignore the correct answer for a literal generation.

Violence is the language of the unheard.

Also, a couple points of order:

• Insurers are categorically not “providing healthcare”. They’re fucking profiteering middlemen making hay in a domain with inelastic, concrete, largely non-deferrable demand. In the medical industry, “payors” (insurers) are an entirely distinct category of entities from “providers” (doctors).
• it’s not dangerous to everyone. It’s only dangerous to medical insurance C-suites.

I swear, Warren has a deeply frustrating habit of getting things 2/3 right, and then just absolutely mangling crucial parts of the thesis.

I mean, it’s been referred to as the American Nightmare for some time now.

It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it

Is the senate holding up the nominations, or has he straight up not bothered to nominate people for 42 judicial positions?

I mean, it didn’t start as one, but it morphed into one over time. Early Reddit was pretty great.

Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes.

Gonna have to ask you to unpack that blanket generalization for us, champ.