Linkee-poo if I had a million dollars

This year's Worldcon hosts continue to shot themselves in the foot.

"Bayer said the safety of its Essure implant has not changed, but it will stop selling the device at the end of the year due to weak sales. Last year, Bayer stopped selling the device in Europe."

"HPV is a group of 150 related viruses that can be transmitted through any form of sexual contact, whether kissing or intercourse. In most cases, the human body will get rid of it naturally, but certain high-risk types can develop into things like genital warts and cancers, including cervical, anal and throat… But there is a vaccine, and how it works is pretty simple."

"If you're in the hospital or a doctor's office with a painful problem, you'll likely be asked to rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10 – with 0 meaning no pain at all and 10 indicating the worst pain you can imagine. But many doctors and nurses say this rating system isn't working and they're trying a new approach." As I explained to one of my coworkers, "everyone's pain is their own." That is, we experience pain differently, and our scale of pain is variable. What to some people would be a minor annoyance to another is debilitating. The problem here, and the problem with medicine in general, is that practitioners know (for the most part) exactly what we're saying. We know the implications and long term outcomes. Patients, in general, have no clue (unless they've experienced it before). So we see patients who don't understand their own health and either minimize the serious, or blow out-of-proportion the minuscule. One of the jokes in radiology is a patient saying, "Thankfully it was only fractured and not broken." So we know when we say that a patient has congestive heart failure that the patient is on a slow boat to a not very pleasant death. But since the patient "feels" okay right now, or they know people with CHF, it's "not a big thing." Personally I thought I knew what pain was when I shattered my fibula. That pain scale got adjusted when I had a 4mm kidney stone. I've seen patients with small bumps who beg for pain meds (and I'm not talking about the addicts who self-injure to get prescriptions) and I've seen a patient with an open fracture (meaning the bone was sticking out of the skin) who refused pain meds and carried on a pleasant conversation while I x-rayed her, and I've seen patients who are fine, until you touch them to try to move them (including people begging to just be left to die). This is why the Wong-Baker scale (the faces) is a little more precise. But in the end all self-reported pain is unreliable (and highly variable).

"Britany Jacobs, the girlfriend of the man shot and killed in a Florida parking lot last week, says her boyfriend was just coming to her defense and the gunman 'wanted someone to be angry at.' Now she wants 'justice,' she says." Provoking a fight is not "standing your ground" and this guy should be arrested. Also as I remember my concealed carry course, the laws don't prevent you from being arrested and charged, it is merely a defense position.

"The acting watchdog at the CIA, who has been accused of retaliating against whistleblowers, is resigning, the agency confirmed Friday."

"'America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,' Rouhani said, leaving open the possibility of peace between the two countries, at odds since the 1979 Islamic Revolution."

"President Donald Trump issued a furious, all-caps challenge to the Iranian regime late Sunday night, warning that any threats to the US would be met with unspecified dire consequences." Apparently the president didn't get laid this weekend. Wag that dog, baby.

So why all the war talk? "When historians look back on the Trump presidency, they'll say that last week was the moment something changed -- the week when uncomfortable questions about Russia moved into the mainstream in a whole new way." As of me writing this, we're back to the position of the president pushing the line that Russian involvement in the 2016 was a hoax. By my count this is the fourth official flip last week. (Waves to my Russian friends)

Also, that was one hellofaspike in views from "Italy" over the weekend. You all aren't worried about something, are you?

"Worker pay in the second quarter dropped nearly one percent below its first-quarter level, according to the PayScale Index, one measure of worker pay. When accounting for inflation, the drop is even steeper. Year-over-year, rising prices have eaten up still-modest pay gains for many workers, with the result that real wages fell 1.4 percent from the prior year, according to PayScale. The drop was broad, with 80 percent of industries and two-thirds of metro areas affected."

"The Pentagon has been caught flat-footed after President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, with defense officials struggling to explain statements coming out of Moscow that the two leaders reached agreements involving military issues." Okay, here's a solution to a lot of the issues surrounding the Helsinki meeting… the Pentagon should make a statement that they don't take orders from Moscow, only from the president. That they don't believe the president would have made such an agreement. And until the president issues orders, Russia is spouting fantasies. (Grokked from Michele)

"The Trump Administration released previously classified documents Saturday related to the FBI wiretapping of one-time campaign adviser Carter Page. Republicans say the documents reveal the FBI relied on an anti-Trump source for its decision, while Democrats say the warrants underscore murky and possibly criminal connections between the Russian government and the Trump campaign." If was only the Steele Dossier, you don't need 412 pages for that.

"A person familiar with an investigation into President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer says the attorney secretly recorded Trump discussing a payment to an ex-Playboy model who said she had an affair with him." Makes more popcorn.

"His message follows a New York Times report on Friday that his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded their discussion about payments to a former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump… He often recorded his conversations without the knowledge of others, a practice that is legal according to New York's 'one-party consent' law. Some of those recordings may prove embarrassing to Cohen and people of 'significance and consequence,' CNN reported."

"Accused Russian agent Maria Butina had wider high-level contacts in Washington than previously known, taking part in 2015 meetings between a visiting Russian official and two senior officials at the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department."