A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

@QasimRashid

Just think, obviously they think arm covering is a good idea or they wouldn't be pushing it, but face covering is somehow evil.

@undefined @luckytran

The same Dr Jha of a whole 60 days ago?

"We are now at a point where I believe if you’re up to date on your vaccines, you have access to treatments … there really should be no restrictions on people’s activities,” Jha said. “I’m pretty much living life the way I was living life in 2019.”

https://www.statnews.com/2022/11/15/white-houses-jha-isnt-predicting-a-holiday-covid-surge-this-year/

*Sorry to delete and re-draft. I'm having one of those days with typos and accidentally locking my own posts

@tofugolem @DopeGhoti @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Piousunyn @Skirnir @beautfc

I think our definitions of partisan are just different in this case. I suspect, yes, the founding fathers wanted a Senate that would uphold landowner's rights. If not be definition then by circumstance.

The idea of the Senate, according to Madison(and my understanding of what the idea was goes along with this) was that it have "more wisdom" than the "popular branch"(the House). The idea was to free it from politics and to have scholars(of course, to be a scholar you likely had to have come from a wealthy family) and free-thinkers balancing out the whims of the House.

@tofugolem @DopeGhoti @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Piousunyn @Skirnir @beautfc

No, not at all, IMO. I don't care about the modern interpretation of non-partisan and arguments about polarization. I'm talking about the 1700's idea of having a non-partisan body of government to balance out the House and whether that would be superior to the Senate we have today.

Again, can it be implemented in the current environment in the real world of today? No, I do not think so. But the mind experiment of what was supposed to be is helpful to understand the dysfunction of the modern Congress.

@tofugolem @DopeGhoti @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Piousunyn @Skirnir @beautfc

How about non-partisan in its place?

@zerocovid

I hate that I constantly bring up anecdotal evidence, but that's largely what we have at our disposal today. The largest Reddit long COVID group has mentioned recently that their rate of people joining doubled. People just aren't wrapping their heads around the amount of disability that each wave is bringing.

@rchusid

I'm not sure it's been so "silent" unless you don't understand why you're constantly having to cover for other people at work.

@deonandan

I must have somehow missed the debate as to whether the bivalent would be better or not. Was it regarding imprinting?

@BeneCal

Right, they're targeting 2025 drug prices and as far as I can tell that's what he's referencing here, too because "we will do everything we can" seems to reference nothing. I'd be glad to find out that I'm wrong, but I'm expecting over $100 vaccine shots and Paxlovid courses well into 4-figures.

*Sorry, deleted and redrafted for a typo

@Jiriki Awww what a sweetie! Thank you!

@fifilamoura

In 2013 I had a job in which I was working part-time for a NY company up close to there and was back and forth between here and there. I totally bought into how great that was going to be at the time. Lesson learned!

@BeneCal

On this, here's what he's said before:

“Now I’m going to be able to start going to these drug companies to say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not the price we’re paying. You want to do business with 65 million Americans on Medicare, you’ve got to give a better price.’ And so starting next year, we’re going to identify the first 10 drugs in America under the Medicare program that we will negotiate with the drug manufacturers on,” said Becerra, adding that by 2025 he expects the lower prices to start going into effect.

It's part of the Inflation Reduction Act, but what powers he really has have yet to be shown in real life.

Anyway, I ignore the guy because:

Also Becerra - "The President is right." (COVID's over)

Also Becerra - Get the vaccine and go hug and kiss your family with zero other precautions.

Also Becerra - COVID is heading where the flu is. Get vaccinated once a year and don't worry.

He doesn't seem to be a very reliable source of good info.

@Jiriki

I've been so disappointed by doctors and other scientists the last couple of years. It's not easy, for sure! Stay strong and keep some cat photos coming on your timeline :)

@Jiriki

All of that translates to the US as well. At least where I'm at, no one masks in doctor's offices or dentists either. It's, frankly, shocking to me. I feel like instead of moving public health forward in a crisis, we moved it backwards.

Thank you for the response and please stay safe out there!

@tofugolem @DopeGhoti @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Piousunyn @Skirnir @beautfc

Absolutely, and the reason I said it would end up today just as corrupt is because politicians simply choosing the senate wouldn't be much better.

The original *idea* however, of a non-political body staffed by doctors and professors, etc. for one term each holds merit. Imagine the former guy's impeachment with a non-political senate, for example. Parts of the system, like that, don't work because a non-political body was replaced with a political one.

*Everything* is so political now, though, I don't suspect you could pull it off in real life.

@DopeGhoti @GhostOnTheHalfShell @Piousunyn @Skirnir @tofugolem
@beautfc

The Senate was originally chosen by each state's legislature. Nothing said about it being anti-democratic and pro-slavery is wrong, but here's my deeply unpopular take. Making the Senate an elected body full of politicians was one of the worst decisions made in US history. That said, looking at modern state legislatures there's no way the Senate wouldn't be a corrupt mess anyway, but, having it as a seat of non-political, learned individuals wasn't a bad idea, just impossible to do in real life.

@szattwellauthor

I did! One of the joys of being a kid is he finds a lot more time to read than I do, so he'll definitely get to book 2 before I do :)

@szattwellauthor

So I wanted to reply to you on this with an update. I read the first book and decided to give it to my son. He's just finished it and *loves* it. He reports that it's "WAY more appropriate than Hunger Games" which he was assigned by a teacher a year or two ago. He's excited to dig into book 2!

@voron

Probably just to the extent that you are. Last I knew there were technological hurdles with corrosively and storage due to the high temperatures, but I'm admittedly probably not up to date.

I'm just in the midst of updating my own storage to LiFePO4, so I'm a generation behind :)

@tofugolem @augieray

Love to discuss either DM or in another thread anytime. It's a good discussion that should be had.

I'm going from the idea that most of the top companies in the list you're talking about are power plants, if I remember correctly, and their output, I think, can be thought of largely in the "personal responsibility" category. But, yeah, personal responsibility isn't going to solve it all, but neither is politics. There's some mix of both required.