Archive for 2023
August 27, 2023
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Looking For Winners In A World Of Victims.
OPEN THREAD: Sorry it’s late.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX launches 5,000th Starlink satellite toward orbit (video).
JULIETTE OCHIENG: When Black Conservatives Fight.
MASKAHOLISM IS AN INCURABLE DISEASE: No Masks, Please, We’re Rational. Mask mandates are starting to return despite 97 percent of Americans having acquired Covid antibodies and all the evidence that the mandates failed to make a difference in Covid infections or mortality (including a recent study in The Lancet reporting that the only significant effect of the state mask mandates in the U.S. was a decrease in fourth-graders’ test scores). Yet the media are urging the return of masks, and the CDC, unlike every country in Europe, continues to advise masking toddlers. The maskaholics’ faith remains as strong as that of the Cambodian villagers who protected themselves from the coronavirus by erecting magic scarecrows in front of their huts.
EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED: What TEDx talk censorship reveals about the US chemical regulatory atmosphere.
“ROCKET RELIABIITY?” SpaceX alums say they’ll bring rocket reliability to EV charging.
I mean, SpaceX is great but rocket reliability isn’t all that reliable.
IN HIS DEFENSE, MATLOCK WAS ON: Bait and Switch: Biden invited WNBA champs to White House then ghosted them.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Alimens & Gentle Men’s Plaid Flannel Shirt. #CommissionEarned
HMM: Common supplements might reduce natural hearing loss. “Sensory cells in the inner ear called outer hair cells (OHCs) amplify sounds by changing their length. As we age, these cells lose their ability to stretch in response to sound, preventing sound amplification and leading to age-related hearing loss. Because cholesterol is a key player in the stretch response, and because brain cholesterol has recently been shown to decrease with age, researchers hypothesized that hearing loss might be related to loss of cholesterol in OHCs. This hypothesis was tested in mice. First, the researchers measured the amount of CYP46A1 in inner ear OHCs because this enzyme helps break down and recycle cholesterol. As expected, they found more CYP46A1 in the inner ears of older mice than in younger mice, and consequently less cholesterol. Next, they showed cause and effect by inducing hearing loss in young mice, as indicated by abnormal inner ear-cell output, by over-activating CYP46A1 with a drug. Finally, they tested whether increasing cholesterol in the brain could counter the drug. Since cholesterol itself cannot actually enter the brain from the blood, the researchers used plant-based cholesterol-like compounds called phytosterols which can. The young mice who got both the CYP46A1-activating drug and 3 weeks of dietary phytosterols displayed improved OHC function. As phytosterols can be found in many over-the-counter supplements, they could be a convenient way to combat age-related hearing loss.”
BUT HOW DO WE KNOW HOW THEY IDENTIFY? Individuals feel sex-specific symptoms before impending cardiac arrest, study finds. “Smidt Heart Institute investigators also learned that this warning symptom was different for women than it was for men. For women, the most prominent symptom of an impending sudden cardiac arrest was shortness of breath, whereas men experienced chest pain. Smaller subgroups of both genders experienced palpitations, seizure-like activity and flu-like symptoms.”
THE ROCK AND THE EGG: “Much like the election protests that led to the persecution of President Trump and so many of his closest supporters, the Rittenhouse incident reveals a lot about the state of the current system, and pace the manifest doomer content, I believe that there is a silver lining in the storm clouds, a silverpill, if you will. Rittenhouse and Trump, each in his own way, and at different ends of the continuum of power, revealed an important truth about the system: it is weak, tottering, and stands firm only insofar as pressure is not applied. The arrests, the censorship, the desperate lies are signs not of power but of fear, inchoate and visceral, a fear that springs from a dawning awareness of its own illegitimacy, that only the inertia and rapidly dismantling norms of prosperity past keep the normies on couches and out of the streets.”
I agree that the system is weak and tottering. I worry that what replaces it will not be an improvement, which history indicates is a real possibility.
IT’S UNCLEAR, BUT THE BENEFIT SEEMS MOSTLY TO COME FROM THE WEIGHT LOSS, WHICH ISN’T SURPRISING: Weight-loss drug Wegovy may benefit patients with heart failure.
Caveats: It’s a relatively small study, and it’s funded by Wegovy’s maker.
I PREFER MINE IN THE FORM OF GUACAMOLE: Is Eating Avocado Good For You?
WHAT TO DO if mask mandates return to your campus.
THE SYSTEM GOES AFTER ANYONE IT SEES AS A THREAT: “I maintain healthy skepticism about the real source of videos like that. Maybe it’s old white men. But scrolling through TikTok recently I saw many videos of young black men reacting positively to the Trump mugshot (and it certainly wasn’t because they perceived fear in that glowering face).”
Even in 2016, people were comparing Trump to a rapper. Now he’s got legit mugshots.
Plus, from the comments: “‘In an unjust society the only place for a just man is prison.’ — Henry David Thoreau.”
JUSTICE: Merrick Garland Appoints Federal Prosecutor David Weiss To Oversee David Weiss.
Remember all the people who told us that wannabe-Justice Merrick Garland was a moderate straight shooter? Yeah, don’t ever listen to them.
DEAL OF THE DAY: USB Wall Charger, Surge Protector, POWRUI 6-Outlet Extender. #CommissionEarned
THE BUREAUCRATS’ WAR ON ELON: DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON’T.
Exactly.
SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense.
We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD!
This…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2023