Dtknuckles
Well-Known Member
Because this guy has it all figured out. The thousands of people who have graduate level expertise in analyzing stats at a macro level have no clue.
Political Discussion
- Thread starter David A.
- Start date
Because this guy has it all figured out. The thousands of people who have graduate level expertise in analyzing stats at a macro level have no clue.
A Texas Suburb Is Trying to Shut Down a Day Care After Golfers Complained — Slate
Not in your backyard.
apple.news
Not at all surprised to see this is coming out of Texas.
Dtknuckles
Well-Known Member
School choice everyone.
The right's obsession with ending abortion continues. From the house working on codifying a nationwide ban, to court cases looking to limit access in blue states.
The Comstock Act of 1873 bans mailing of contraception and abortion drugs and devices, sex toys, though it's main purpose was to ban the mailing of obscene books, what we would call today "Mommy Porn". Classic like "The Canterbury Tales" where once confiscated by the USPS and destroyed when mailed. More than 15 tons of books were destroyed by the USPS under this act in the 1900s. The Comstock Act was passed to to address decaying morals of a sex obsessed people.
More than 50% of abortions are done by prescribing pills. And that's the latest target. The right and anti abortion advocates are looking to limit if not eliminate access to abortion inducing pills. And they have raised legal challenges based on the Comstock Act. Around 1919, the courts weakened the Comstock Act stating that if there is a lawful use for things such as contraception, prescribed by a physician then the law doesn't apply because there isn't a willing violation of the law.
The hope is to get the Comstock Act in from of the SCOTUS, and that the SCOTUS will uphold it and thus disrupting the supply chain for abortion inducing pills as pills will no longer legally be able to be mailed.
It appears that the Comstock Act would only apply to the USPS. But could it be extended to other shippers? How much would a USPS ban of mailing impact availability in blue states?
The Comstock Act of 1873 bans mailing of contraception and abortion drugs and devices, sex toys, though it's main purpose was to ban the mailing of obscene books, what we would call today "Mommy Porn". Classic like "The Canterbury Tales" where once confiscated by the USPS and destroyed when mailed. More than 15 tons of books were destroyed by the USPS under this act in the 1900s. The Comstock Act was passed to to address decaying morals of a sex obsessed people.
More than 50% of abortions are done by prescribing pills. And that's the latest target. The right and anti abortion advocates are looking to limit if not eliminate access to abortion inducing pills. And they have raised legal challenges based on the Comstock Act. Around 1919, the courts weakened the Comstock Act stating that if there is a lawful use for things such as contraception, prescribed by a physician then the law doesn't apply because there isn't a willing violation of the law.
The hope is to get the Comstock Act in from of the SCOTUS, and that the SCOTUS will uphold it and thus disrupting the supply chain for abortion inducing pills as pills will no longer legally be able to be mailed.
It appears that the Comstock Act would only apply to the USPS. But could it be extended to other shippers? How much would a USPS ban of mailing impact availability in blue states?
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Hopefully this impacts viagra as well. I’m sure the reps will love knowing they won’t be able to get it up thanks to their “pro-life” choices.
The Feds once again hiked interest rates today to combat stubborn inflation. The stock market of course is down.
The Last Drug That Can Fight Gonorrhea Is Starting to Falter — WIRED
Data gaps, funding cuts, and shyness about sex let gonorrhea gain drug resistance. There are no new treatments yet.
apple.news
I wonder how much of this failing is due to politics.
GoodRx shared consumer health data with Facebook and Google, FTC says
FTC is fining GoodRx for alleged unauthorized disclosures of consumers' personal health info to Facebook, Google, others.
www.cbsnews.com
Keeping an eye on this, as a lot of our work at work has to do with healthcare campaigns.
Basically, what's going on here is tracking. If you look up for visit pages about erectile dysfunction, ads would be targeted to you for Viagra.
This type of thing is very very common when it comes to websites and advertising. What you look up is shared with advertisers who target you based on it.
However, because this has to do with medications, and to target you with them data needs to be shared that contains possible medical information, it can't be done without consent.
That last request hints at why the emergence of gonorrhea has been so hard to control. The bacterium is very good at amassing mutations that protect it against antibiotics. It churned through sulfa drugs, the first antibacterials, in the 1940s; penicillin and tetracycline, some of the earliest antibiotics, by the 1980s; and fluoroquinolones such as Cipro by the mid-2000s. Until two years ago, successful treatment relied on administering azithromycin, a macrolide introduced in the mid-1980s, alongside ceftriaxone—but in revised CDC guidelines in 2020 the agency removed azithromycin from the regimen because resistance to it had spiked. As early as 2012, academic and CDC researchers warned in the New England Journal of Medicine that “untreatable gonococcal infection” was on the way.
The Last Drug That Can Fight Gonorrhea Is Starting to Falter — WIRED
Data gaps, funding cuts, and shyness about sex let gonorrhea gain drug resistance. There are no new treatments yet.
I wonder how much of this failing is due to politics.
Aside from being good at protecting itself, gonorrhea poses a challenge that other bacterial infections—pneumonia, for instance—do not. Because it can be a stigmatized disease, people may be reluctant to go to their regular physicians, and so public health departments set up freestanding clinics. That imposed the need to deliver a cure in one dose—first pills, then the ceftriaxone shot—in case people didn’t come back.
It has a lot more to do with the nature of gonorrhea itself.
infuriating. not surprising.
www.propublica.org
UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.
After a college student finally found a treatment that worked, the insurance giant decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for rejecting claims.
www.propublica.org
Nee Lewman
बैस्टर्ड
Meh... if you don't trust your doctor, find a new one. I know that that's probably hard for some folks, but really that's the deal. Be a part of your health care and don't be ashamed to share stuff with them.
Wait, what. The House GOP is investigating the Justice Department for what they are calling a "Weaponization of the Justice Department against Conservatives".
Is this all retaliation for investigating Trump? And what are they smoking?
Unemployment Falls to 3.4%, Lowest in 53 Years, Jobs Report Shows — The Wall Street Journal
U.S. added 517,000 jobs in January, snapping five-month string of slowing employment growth
apple.news
Despite all the layoffs last month, the US Economy was still able to add 517,000 jobs and unemployment fell to 3.4 percent.
Also goes to show that most of the people who were laid off and got severences did not file for unemployment.
Of course the stock market is in a free fall due to this report. Likely because it continues to show a tight job market and that inflation will continue to persist.
Massive nursing degree scheme leads to hunt for 2,800 fraudulent nurses
Delaware annulled 26 licenses. Georgia asked 22 to surrender theirs.
arstechnica.com
Yikes
ranbalam
Well-Known Member
One of my co-workers (and one of the only non-Trump supporters in my entire workplace) watched his next door neighbor get raided by the FBI yesterday. Turns out he was a J6-er. The guy's cousin posted on FB while they were there, and they both got arrested. My co-worker just showed me the file and it had about 30 pics with him circled, plus vids, the FB post, and texts between he and a few others.
I just can't believe the stupidity. Of course we can all assemble and protest, but the fact that they were so sure they were doing the right thing for 'Merica while breaking into a federal building still baffles me.
I just can't believe the stupidity. Of course we can all assemble and protest, but the fact that they were so sure they were doing the right thing for 'Merica while breaking into a federal building still baffles me.
folsom_lives
pretty_lil_dirt_boi
This would be one of those times I pop a squat on the front porch with a beer and popcorn.
ranbalam
Well-Known Member
He had to leave for work after watching the action for awhile, but his Ring camera caught a lot of it. His initial guess was that he was dealing opioids or something...nope!
infuriating. not surprising.
UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.
After a college student finally found a treatment that worked, the insurance giant decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for rejecting claims.
Wow, what a story. Even more shocking that the doctors working for UHC who determine if something is medically necessary are blind to all the details. That don't know the patient's history, what he/she has tried and failed on. They don't know the reasoning for the prescription. They just have to go on does it fit within the FDA guidelines / labels description. Which in cases like this, where something is prescribed off label, is an easy target to deny.
I have UnitedHealthcare for Medical, but Express Scripts for prescriptions. I want to say specialty drugs like biologics fall under medical coverage and not prescription.
Either way, both biologics mentioned in this story are not part of my plan. There are a list of 150 or so odd drugs, mostly biologics, that are not covered by my plan. Should the need ever arise where I need to go on a biologic I would not be covered. They are excluded from my plan due to their costs.
I have the option of adding on coverage for them, but it's not cheap and not covered by my employer. Each biologic would then have between a $1,000 to $2,500 copay per dose depending on the drug. And this plan requires a health savings account specifically for helping you cover your copays.
So basically, crazy and unaffordable to have if you don't have a current need for biologics. Not that it's affordable if you need them either though.
Bull Shannon
Well-Known Member
Elon's new moneymaking gambit with twitter is to remove free api access and charge $100 a month to if you'd like to leverage the twitter api.
This is astoundingly stupid; so many bots are basically larks created by the bored and creative, and they add value to the platform. So many people (including me, shoutout to my xmas movie bot) are going to just let their bots flounder rather than pay over a thousand dollars a year to shitpost.
Not to mention this flies in the face of freedom of speech. I get that it's a private platform (that's usually the spine of my pushback to free speech absolutism), but if you're really going to take it over in the name of free speech and democratizing the platform, charging people to speak is the opposite.
This is astoundingly stupid; so many bots are basically larks created by the bored and creative, and they add value to the platform. So many people (including me, shoutout to my xmas movie bot) are going to just let their bots flounder rather than pay over a thousand dollars a year to shitpost.
Not to mention this flies in the face of freedom of speech. I get that it's a private platform (that's usually the spine of my pushback to free speech absolutism), but if you're really going to take it over in the name of free speech and democratizing the platform, charging people to speak is the opposite.