89 Comments

I need a drink. I'm tying not to.

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I'm going to ask my practice manager to put in a very strong pro-science statement into our clinic's website. I hope my colleagues in veterinary medicine, and in human medicine, will do the same. We've gotten more than a few new clients from the "holistic" vets in town after they became dissatisfied with the results of their "treatments" and the cost of same.

Already several of my FB friends have praised RFK The Much Lesser, and I've had to work to disabuse them of that notion. Unfortunately the anti-science/anti-Western medicine bias started by Wakefield and catalyzed by Jenny McCarthy (aided and abetted by Oprah Winfrey) is still very strong with some people. It's going to take all of us in medicine to push back.

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Don't forget the Krystyun Taliban taking over Congress in 1994 and telling all that "Their" Book said nothong of science and therefore federal science funding was slashed accross the board. At USGS alone, we were executing hundreds of projects identifying geological hazards that would impact all parts of the country and world. Who mapped the oil deposits in the Arctic? Many hundreds of millions in NSF funding wasted, along with careres of those of us RIFed due to a lack of salary. They have been at it for the past 100 years. The Nazis were backed by the oligarchy of industry then and..... I could go on and on.....

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I remember, old has some advantage, but who listens

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How did Oprah aid the bullschittery. She introduced Drs Phil and Oz and likely regrets it. I loved both before they lost their minds. I don’t recall Oprah ever being anti-Science. She did focus on emotional health, but never anti-science. I watched her and admired her honesty and truth. The cretins started slandering her back in Tea Party days. The lies were obvious.

As a vet, you likely know that charges for animal care have skyrocketed and will likely mean that more animals are abandoned. I know how difficult that road is since my nephew worked his arse off to become a vet. Still…it’s a problem when I compare what was and what is.

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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Paraphrase of H.L. Melin

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H. L. Mencken. The verified quote (per Wiktionary) is "No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."

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History matters. Jenn got the gist of it.

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Accuracy matters. I was concerned about the attribution, not the quote itself -- there are plenty of variations out there.

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Accuracy is why I said paraphrase. I looked up Menken and found the exact quote. There are other variations that substitute the word taste for intelligence. Yes, Menken was a curmudgeon, for sure.

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The stupid autocorrect on my phone changed Menken to Melin. Autocorrect is so frustrating!

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AI is way worse than autocorrect run amok. Autocorrect is amok more often than not on my iPad.

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THAT was what I meant by accuracy, and as noted above I was referring to the attribution. P.S. You can correct your own comments. See the three dots (ellipsis) to the right of the LIKE / REPLY / SHARE line? Click it. The options are Edit and Delete.

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And Susanna closed the circle. But I feel insulted. I’m a plain person. Plain. Not from the Great Plains.

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Susan, that's intentional. H. L. Mencken was a right-wing curmudgeon. He wasn't fond of those "great masses of plain people."

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He had some snappy stuff but wasn't he the one who said something about single men knowing the most about women, and if they hadn't they would have been married? Sort of a misogynist too, I think. P.S. note the lack of quote marks because it's too late for me to go look up that awful quote if I've got enough of it to scowl heavily in his general direction, as much as I will also admit to enjoying his more clever moments.

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Not sure about that, but he did say “The only really happy folk are married women and single men.” Which in my experience gets it exactly backwards.

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Yes. He does have some excellent quotes though

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I wouldn't insult you. Nothing wrong with plain.

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You didn’t insult me, Hannah. The Mencken quote sounds like an insult to everyday people. Am I misunderstanding it?

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No. I was agreeing with you.

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Kiss vaccine mandates good bye - "people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them" - because people who can't read above a 6th grade level should definitely be making scientific judgements on the outcomes of clinical research.

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nor even vaguely understanding the concept of herd immunity.

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Well, their leaders threw around the concept of herd immunity - to say that people should get covid as a way to develop immunity, instead of the vaccine. Good times...

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My mom did in the 40’s and she was just a worried Mom. Now they are deliberately ignorant.

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Agreed, Tom. I just wonder how much lower trump has to go before he destroys America, and will it be irrevokable

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Much depends on how well organized and effective the resistance is, and whether people in general can resist the temptation to either obey or give up in advance.

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Agreed Susanna

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They plan on it being irrevocable.

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I agree

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What you said. (This is why I subscribe to TCinLA. Thank You.

MP, RN

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In anticipation of higher prices for imported goods and the possibility that there may no longer be Covid vaccines, I already received a new order of 50 Powe-Com KN95 masks, which have helped keep me alive these last five years, along with being mostly a Covid hermit.

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🙏Ditto from a fellow Covid hermit🐈‍⬛

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Some commentator said the Kennedy appointment is designed to make Gaetz confirmable. Or is it the other way around? Here's what we know: None of this would be happening if Merrick Garland were alive.

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Win! Today's comment win! My laugh for the night...

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Well said, TC. Most of his siblings and a cousin or two, spoke out against him.

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Ah yes, Trichinosis & the associated round worm which which invades from eating uncooked pork meat or in RFK Jr's case UNDER cooked pork. You do not have google the 'Cleveland Clinic' & "severe complications" from trichinosis in the brain.

I am waiting for Susan Craig finish a write-up but, Susan had the tenacity to go all they way back to RFK Jr 's deposition transcript under oath during his divorce from Barbara Kennedy. However per Susan, the causation issues have been garbled by RFK'Jr binge eating for years on the high end of the fish chain --- mercury contaminated Tuna. Yum.

Head of the CDC? Sorry Charlie.

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He is an example of all the wrong things. Brain mush with a big mouth and money.

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That last paragraph... as I commented to a friend a few minutes ago, in this case correlation may well indicate causation.

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The non-reader-therefore-non-thinker magas are getting what they want. Perhaps there will even be a daytime TV type divorce so Trump can once again nap in a courtroom. It will give him time to arrange for his military parade with all branches' marching band available and a Blue Angels flyover for his inauguration where he will pardon the JanSixers and stand waving a checkered flag at the starting line for the revved up roundup buses racing off to pick up all those whose last names end in A or Z. There will be a weekly TV show, The Golden Bachelor/DC Rose Garden wherein Loomer, MTG, Boebert, Lake, and random magettes will vie for a night with the newly detached and demented POTUS, and there will be noises that would make Caligula blush. All of this seems to be what the majority of voters want, an ongoing bad boy reality show.

Ah, America, had I actually died that time I went into a skid on an icy on-ramp I would not have to watch and smell the decaying body of a once pretty darned good nation. But I've trudged on this far and will find ways, both overt and surreptitious, to bring down the neoBunders and see that the Dems take the House and some Senate seats at the midterms.

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You call it, but you left out the wrestling venues that will entertain us all. Whether we like it or not.

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I need a drink and due to

meds I have to take, can't.

And yes, Trump has done it.

He has actually put this brain worm boy up in charge of Health and Human Services.

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I'm about to have one, I'll include you in my thoughts.

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I am not questioning it, given what I know about literacy in America, but can you provide a citation for the study about the ability to understand the instructions on a bottle of aspirin? Thanks.

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Here's one, Gary:

https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy

Doesn't specifically mention reading an aspirin bottle, but discusses the general level of reading ability.

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Yes, this does address this exact issue in some detail. The facts presented are just as sad. But it does point out that this is substantially related to how many resources are directed to it, comparing Minnesota to New Mexico.

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Donald Trump needs to be impeached and he isn’t president yet. WTF.

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He was, twice

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Nevermind…

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There are so many good public health workers and epidemiologists though, that I think Tulsi Gabbard is my pick for most dangerous, and that's even with the serious potential for either bird flu or monkey pox to turn into a serious pandemic during the next four years. It's not a contest however - it's one of those unfortunate times when we don't have to pick because we can have both if we're tremendously unlucky. What's with the CO governor reportedly saying RFK Jr was a great pick? Was that satire? I may have to wait for the Onion to set up their new shop and tell me.

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You never know who's a secret believer in New Age Alt Medicine.

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as I posted before (lower down), I plead somewhat guilty as charged. the thing is, when my PET scan lit up, the alternative guys said "go find a good surgeon." I've heard LOTS of stories of alternative practitioners deciding they could cure cancer, etc.

theatre people call this being "overparted."

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Some shocking in their idiocy, and won’t spew it until Jan 20, most likely.

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