Okay, so I have to admit when Apple did their iPhone X rollout and introduced the animoji I did an eye roll so hard ships in the Pacific were rocked. But here's an interesting take on that tech. That basically it allows voice communication with "human" expression while protecting privacy. So, dialing in from home to that 9am video meeting with your boss and coworkers across the world and you don't want them to see your bed hair, tattered robe, the drool line on your cheek and the leftover pizza and beer bottles on your desk? No worries. Dial in as an animoji. (Grokked from John)
"I met a man who despised me." Jim Wright on Veterans Day. Stands and salutes.
"Global carbon pollution rose this year after three straight years when levels of the heat-trapping gas didn’t go up at all, scientists reported Monday." We're boned.
"The connection between Delrahim abandoning his previous legal analysis and his sudden zeal to cudgel one of his new boss’ media foes can’t be ignored. Despite the obvious First Amendment implications of the Executive Branch using an enforcement agency to bring a news outlet to heel, the formerly principled Delrahim appears to be his boss’s attack dog." The government is insisting that their okay of the AT&T and Time Warner merger is contingent on AT&T selling off CNN.
"For years, Word of Faith Fellowship has used its muscle — attorneys, money and influence — in custody, foster-care and other cases involving children, the AP found… Even if it meant lying, former members said, ministry leaders have regularly attacked parents who launched custody battles for their kids when they broke with the church, staunchly taking the side of the remaining parent." A study on political manipulation, abuse and co-dependency wrapped in a "church".
"They found that in states that didn't expand, the percentage of low-income, nonelderly adults with unpaid medical bills dropped from 47 to 40 percent within three years… 'The economy improved and maybe other components of the ACA contributed to a 7 percentage point reduction,' Sojourner says. 'Where they did expand Medicaid, it fell by almost twice as much.'" Medicaid expansion works for the people. And that's just the economic side of it, this doesn't include quality of life issues. (Grokked from Elizabeth Bear)
Well, the opposing argument in the opioid crisis/discussion is coming back sooner than I thought. See there are many people who need opioids to help manage chronic pain. That is, after all, what opioids were designed to do. And with all this "OMG, people are getting hooked on heroin after taking opioids we gotta limit their use." Well, no, people are getting addicted to heroin because they're using heroin 1) recreationally or 2) because they medical system has cut them off from pain medications they need. Yes there is a major industry of black market prescription opioid medications. Yes there are doctor/pill farms. An yes the pharmaceutical industry is complicit with all of that. But if it takes $40 to get the same high you can get from $5 of heroin, which do you think people will go with? People do get addicted to opioid medication and then go to heroin. So stopping that pipeline is a big concern (although if all you're doing is choking off the flow of pills, you have no chance of stopping this crisis). Addiction has many fathers as the saying goes, access to prescription opioids is just one of many. But choking off supply affects those who are living with chronic pain (and these are the people for whom the relaxed rules were meant to help back in the 90s). So what to do? Well, you address the other ways people become addicted (social and economic). But that's the hard road for politicians (especially conservative politicians).
There is some hope for new drugs. But then Vicodin was also one of those drugs when it came out. Surprise, people also got addicted to Vicodin. My guess is people will also be addicted to these new drugs, but it'll take another decade after their release until we realize that.
Also just going to mention here that chronic pain does change brain morphology. The differences can be seen on fMRI and it's possible that even a standard MRI can show signs of chronic pain. Pain is exceptionally complex and our brain is highly interconnected. So when you try to affect one part, you inevitably affect other parts of the brain.
"In a bizarre segment on Friday, Trenton Garmon, attorney and friend of Roy Moore tried to dub CNN’s Don Lemon as 'Don Easy Peasy Lemon Squeeze-e'—and was totally shut down." I know people find this behavior bizarre, especially as the president give opponent derogatory nick-names (a previous president gave people nick-names but they were mostly not derogatory), but you have to understand these people have been doing this for over a generation. It's just this new generation never knew that they shouldn't say these things outside certain circles. But they now have no compulsion to not share their contempt for others. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
"In a 26-minute question-and-answer session with reporters aboard Air Force One, the president managed to dismiss probes into whether his campaign colluded with Russia as an 'artificial Democratic hit job,' said he believed Putin's insistence that Russia did not attempt to meddle in the 2016 electon, and warned that the continued focus on Russian election meddling risks lives." Yeah, a Bush saw "Putin's soul". Considering how gullible this president thinks the rest of us are, I'm surprised he believes we believe he's that gullible. It's a meta gullibility. Its like the Spruce Goose of gullibility. Plus, you know, if he did collude with Russia, this is exactly what you'd expect him to say. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
The rumors about Mueller's probe, they are a flying. "It appears to be limited to five individuals, but that means there’s a total of 22 criminal charges against seven different defendants. Clearly, more arrests are coming, but who is next?" I haven't found many articles that agree on the number of sealed indictments, but it's clear there are many more ready to go. Manafort was the shot over the bow. I feel a mixture of excitement and bowl reaching nausea for the future of my country. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"President Donald Trump on Monday barged into congressional Republicans’ carefully calibrated work on revamping the nation’s tax code, calling for a steeper tax cut for wealthy Americans and pressing to add a contentious health care change to the mix." Because of course he would. Here's the thing rich people know, if you're going to ask for a little, ask for a lot instead.
Fact checking the president on the VA and the economy.
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