CVS reverses course: won't give COVID-19 vaccines without a prescription now. This is good. I never understood why people could just get this without a prescription. This was another attempt at the ultimate goal – getting everyone jabbed. Vaccines should be given by prescription only, so it's administered properly. In 2025, I would venture to say that almost no one needs a COVID-19 vaccination, and no one needs the mRNA vaccine, which should be taken off the market. Get Novavax if you have to have it.
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Today, the BLS came out with the worst jobs report revision in history. 911,000 jobs were revised downward since last year. What happened? First of all, can we really believe what the jobs number were last year? I don't think Biden's numbers were credible at all. I expected the jobs numbers to go down, since we're seeing all the illegals leave the country and a lot of excess government employees lost their jobs. Plus, all the Blue states saw job loss (like Oregon) because their economies suck. So this wasn't all a surprise. The tariffs are not likely the cause of this. But the Fed could make things better by lowering interest rates. Not sure what Powell is waiting for.
And a leading economic observer thinks Oregon is "off-course" I knew that.
Well, Apple debuted the iPhone 17 today. Looks a lot like all the other iPhones. This one won't stand out. Tim Cook went back to his thinner strategy. Maybe we'll get some new emojis, too. Battery life is better than the iPhone 15 (but what about the 16)? The camera still sticks out, and even more so, since the phone is thinner. There's nothing really compelling for me. I might get the Air Pods Pro 3, though. I could use better battery life. The current one is just too short. Then I read that AirPods 3 isn't going to be that much better than Air Pods 2. Well, crap.
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Top Harvard mathematicians leaves for China. Harvard, like UCLA, would rather lose its brain power than just commit to being non-discriminatory, non-antisemitic and protect its students from disruptive protestors. But nooooo – Trump is being "authoritarian!" He's trampling on "academic freedom!" He can't dictate to universities what they should do! Terry Tao may be next.
This is what they're afraid of:
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Should the Trump administration settle for one-time fines, universities, chastened by the threats of the past few months, may yet recover their footing. But if, as seems entirely possible, the administration is determined to reshape the intellectual life and values of faculty members and students alike, then such recovery will be impossible.Oh my goodness, reshape their intellectual life and values. Horrors!
OpenAI is going to make a Hollywood style movie using only AI. I might see it. Proof of concept.
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There's a legal battle going on that's not receiving much publicity.:
The case, Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, asks whether ISPs must terminate internet service to users accused, but not convicted, of piracy.If the Supreme Court affirms the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning, ISPs might be pressured to disconnect users after receiving infringement claims, without waiting for any court to confirm wrongdoing.
Sounds harsh. Surely the court won't be that disruptive. Anyone can make an accusation and do a lot of damage.
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Australia has a 150 kW laser weapon that can knock down 50 drones/minute. This could put a big dent on drone warfare. China has something like this. War is going to look very different in a few years.
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Yawn. And in the U.S. math and reading scores in the 12th grade continue to decline. Again. No one cares, why should I? And they're going to wonder why they can't pay off their student loan. Don't look at me.
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AI may cause you to forget some of your skills. I'm busy learning new ones anyway. This is only a problem if you let it. Stay sharp. Keep your edge.
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Apparently it's not too difficult to hack into the computer systems of all the major fast food companies.
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It turns out that AI consultants don't know as much as they claim. Companies are hiring consultants only to find out that they don't know any more AI than their own company geeks. Imposter syndrome for real. You guys are just faking it.
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Hey, those detained Hyundai workers in Georgia were not illegal. They had B-1 business visas and were hired as engineers for their specialized knowledge. They didn't overstay their visas and did not sneak in. Boy, ICE needs to own this mistake. Hyundai is going to have a tough time convincing other engineers to come over and help U.S. plants.
Update (14 Sep 2025): The State department has apologized. Those Koreans can re-enter the country without penalty. But will they?
Oh dear. King County auditor made $900 million error in recent report. That's a big mistake. But don't worry, the auditor probably won't get fired. No one gets fired for mistakes in Democrat world. The mistake was actually caught by the guy that retired and was just helping out.
Amnon Shoenfeld worked for King County for more than three decades, including 11 years at DCHS, and retired in 2014 as director of the department’s mental health and substance abuse division.
Shoenfeld said he was appalled at the lack of oversight the audit found, but when he dug into the numbers he found they “didn’t compute.”
I ran the article through Perplexity because this Seattle Times article was not making sense to me. I couldn't tell where the blame lay. I got this response:
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Perplexity was able to access information from multiple other sources to get this assessment. Yeah, I think the King County auditor Kymber Waltmunson needs to go.The reason such a huge mistake happened and went unnoticed for so long is basically due to a combination of lax oversight, rapid growth in grant funding, and insufficient internal controls at the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS).
Between 2019 and 2024, the grant funding managed by DCHS skyrocketed from $22 million to over $1.5 billion. This rapid expansion overwhelmed the department’s ability or preparedness to properly monitor and manage the grants. Auditors found that DCHS was largely failing to do basic financial oversight: in 2023, only 1% of grantees’ financial records were examined, a sharp drop from the policy that calls for 33% review annually.
DCHS also took on more financial risk intentionally by giving contracts to many organizations with little or no government contracting experience as part of an equity strategy. However, they failed to establish a sufficient “safety net” to monitor these new grantees properly.
Further, the audit detailed many instances of altered invoices, unapproved payments to subcontractors, and thousands of dollars in untracked stipends or prepaid debit card distributions. The department also lacked formal written policies and training for staff on how to review and approve expenses.
The $900 million reporting error itself was discovered only after a retired employee reviewed the auditor’s initial report and spotted the discrepancy. This indicates that the original audit report contained significant calculation or reporting errors that were not caught during the audit's initial review.
In summary, the mistake wasn’t just a simple math error but reflected deeper systemic problems: rapid growth of funds without corresponding oversight, internal control failures, inadequate policies and staff training, and an environment where errors and possibly fraud could flourish unnoticed until the recent audit exposed them. Public officials described the audit findings as a "total disaster" and "damning," emphasizing the need for urgent reform and better oversight.
Oregon man. Publishers Clearinghouse Winner now has no money. From dream to nightmare. Easy come, easy go.
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Intel is abandoning the DEI policies it once favored so much. But does it really matter anymore? Today, the CEO of chip design announced her resignation. Things are unraveling, and it is clear that company is doomed.
––– 良くない––– Portland's convention center business is declining. But listen to the director at Travel Portland.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure. And Portland leaders say there's no crime problem. Just like Chicago's leaders say.“Some of the reputational things we’d been going through in the past, that’s really fading into the rear-view mirror,” said Jon Hixon, Travel Portland’s vice president of business strategy. He said organizations that visit Portland now to scout the city for conventions are typically very pleased with what they find.
Looks like Seattle has its own Decarlos Brown situation. Riding public transportation in Blue cities is a life-risking decision.
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Oregon among states with highest unemployment increases. No surprises here. And Intel isn't helping any.
And Tina Kotek is doubling down to make sure Oregonians have access to the COVID jab. Why do Dems feel that this is the hill they will die on? Will pharmacists risk legal trouble to defy the FDA just to please Tina?
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Where are all the trillion dollar biotechs? Interesting article on where biotech is going. Less focus on drug repurposing now. I think the low-hanging fruit has been picked.
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Redditor asks: What's the adult equivalent of finding out Santa isn't real? So depressing. Here's a few:
- It doesn’t matter how nice you are or how good of a person you try to be, there will always be people who will hate you for things you can’t change.
- Life isnt fair. Ppeople get an unfair advantage and theres nothing you can do about it
- Hard work gets you more work.
- Hot people do get treated better.
- That simply existing costs a lot of money.
- “Get a job in something you enjoy doing and you’ll never work a day” is a lie.
- There are no "grown ups" nobody is running the show. We are all utterly incompetent from the top all the way down. It is amazing our world functions at all.
- "In sickness and in health, until death do you part." It really should say until it gets hard or until something better comes along.
- The realization that every adult is just faking it and absolutely nobody knows what they’re doing
- Most adults are just grown up children.
If you meet someone wearing this, run the hell away. It's called The Friend, and it's not your friend. (Why, oh why, do some people think we need crap like this?)
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Here's a WaPo reporter, assigned to talk to Terry Tao about his loss of NSF grant funding. And what does she ask? Inane questions, at the level of "What's it like to discover something in math?" Why doesn't she ask him about whether he's talked to UCLA leadership about why they are so intransigent about working with the Trump administration, which just wants UCLA to be non-discriminatory and non-biased against Jewish students and permit disruptive protests that interfere with the academic environment. This is all that Trump wants. Playing brinksmanship while allowing math research like Tao's to suffer is pure idiocy. Tao should just leave and join some other institution in a Red state, where he won't be bothered by crap like this.
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What's going on in Wenatchee schools? Fights, chair throwing, stabbing, teachers punched. Sounds like an inner city school.
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Is this all the iOS 26 has to offer? We go from iOS 28 to iOS 26 and all we get are modification to what's already there? One new ring tone and a few variations? Tim Cook is getting old.
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Remember Jim Simons? The math wiz who figured out how to beat Wall Street, and invented quant investing? Turns out he has a daughter. Got daddy's money, and she's as woke as hell, and is a Mamdani supporter.
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Who will pay for the shots? Private insurers and Medicaid are not required to pay for preventive vaccines unless they are recommended by the CDC’s advisory committee.
Also
So the Blue west coasts forming their own Democrat version of the CDC isn't going to do much. It's just surely symbolic move to make them feel good. Give it up, guys. Most people don't need to risk the adverse effects for the meager protection you might get. Getting Omicron is the best vaccine.Because the CDC has not yet updated its guidance, the new COVID-19 vaccines are not part of Oregon’s pharmacy protocols. That means pharmacists can’t offer the shots without a prescription or clinician’s order — even to people who meet the FDA’s eligibility criteria.
Pharmacists could also face legal risk. During the pandemic, federal emergency declarations shielded pharmacists from lawsuits for administering COVID-19 vaccines. Those protections only apply to vaccines endorsed by the CDC’s advisory committee.
Japan's PM, Shigeru Ishiba, has resigned. What a beta male. He was the Japanese Angela Merkel. The leading contender to take his place is Sanae Takaichi, who is of the Shinzo Abe faction. She's a hard-line conservative. Just what Japan needs. I think she and Trump will get along just fine.
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MacBooks have a sensor that detects what angle the hinge is at. Someone made a theremin with it.
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Autism spectrum disorder may be caused by overactive connections between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex. Blocking this in mice was able to reverse autism. This makes sense because a lot of autistic people are hampered by overactive anxiety to things, making them hesitant to try anything new, and to resort to obsessive-compulsive behavior to avoid "bad luck".
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The Class of '26 will be the first class to have used (and depended on) generative AI all their college lives. We'll see how well they've learned things. Could be surprising, and not in a good way.
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Randall Childrens Hospital just scrubbed their website about offering genital mutilation surgery on children. One day, Portlanders will look back on these days with great shame, that this brutal and monstrously evil practice was once tolerated and encouraged.
––– 良くない––– This is mandatory watching: How medicine has lost its way.
Here's Why We Shouldn't Trust the Medical Establishment. All the good reasons why trust in the medical profession is lost. Not to mention the money they took from Big Pharma. RFK Jr. was correct to exclude the Medicine, Inc. doctors from advisory boards. We don't need their recommendations.
Hydrogen production complex in Boardman, OR is being scrapped. Hydrogen is too risky and expensive. I can easily see a large bomb going off there. Nuclear is such a better way to go. We need to pursue this.
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The Tide Is Turning Against Vaccine Mandates, and That's a Good Thing. Yeah, finally. Only in the dumb West Coast Blue states (and Hawaii) is this an issue.
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Hillsboro, OR is turning into a data center city. I'm not sure that's a good thing. It's going to suck up a LOT of energy, and Hillsboro isn't exactly an energy producer. There's no hydroelectric dam nearby. It's going to come out of the grid. And that may mean blackouts or brownouts. And maybe higher electricity costs for everyone. I also don't think it's going to bring in a plethora of jobs. Datacenters don't require much in the way of personnel. Generally 45 people are needed total, and the engineers work in shifts, a few people at a time.
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Typepad, an old blogging platform, is shutting down. It's symbolic of the old days in blogging. One of its famous bloggers, Dave Barry, is moving to Substack.
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Who cares? The iPhone 17 is going to have a smaller dynamic island. Apple sure can't keep secrets anymore – that's the price you pay for manufacturing in China. But this phone sure looks like it's going to be underwhelming.
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The World's Smartest Nations. And the United States is not even in the top 20. But where's India? Where's Russia? Canada is #10? Really? And Iceland is #3 for scientific publications? Israel is only #14 in scientific publications? Switzerland is #2?
The more you look at this list, the less believable it gets.
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Will Trump block outsourcing of tech jobs to India? That would be a devastating blow to the tech sector, as well as India. But for the American tech worker, it would be a big win.
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It appears that Elon Musk is weary of making EV automobiles now. He wants to make robotaxis and robots. Another reason not to buy a Tesla now.
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5 Seattle restaurants discuss why they are pivoting or closing. It's rough trying to operate a low-margin business in a Blue city.
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Oregon lawmakers really want to keep vote-by-mail. So many advantages: you get to keep the number of real voters secret, you can manipulate the results, you can have early election results which you can use for "planning purposes", you can keep counting days after the election is over, and who really knows which ballots get counted.
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Here's a list of expensive stuff Portland taxpayers had to help pay for in order to make the city "attractive" to visitors. Hotels, restaurants, festivals. Did it work? Nah. Doom Loop!
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What would make the Apple Watch better? How about making it so I only need to charge it once a month? That's what's keeping me from buying an Apple Watch. I don't want to have to charge it every night. Crazy.
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Elon Musk may get a $975 billion pay package from Tesla. I always assumed he got that rich because he owned 4 companies. But he's getting all that from Tesla. And I don't understand how Tesla can reasonably continue that. Maybe the company has something up its sleeve, but I'm not seeing or hearing about anything that exciting to make people want to keep purchasing it.
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AI Startup Says It Will End Crime by Blanketing the Entire United States in Ever-Watching Spy Cameras. This will be a great target for camera destroyers. Boy, this company is going to have to eat into a whole lot of cash to repair or replace equipment. People aren't going to want a surveillance state.
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This author from the Financial Times laments that social media is letting people speak freely. Like many Democrats, he advocates for censorship, so that the narrative can be controlled. Where do these people come from?
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CareOregon is running out of money. So what does it do? It hires a consulting firm, McKinsey. How about fixing the economy so people don't have to be on Medicaid? Ever thought of that, Oregon?
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Some Portland City Council members plan to go to Vienna to get ideas on how to deal with homeless. But experts think it's unlikely their model will work here. But that won't stop them from going to Austria.
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University of Oregon student found a serious security lapse in their computer system. So what do they do? They placed him under investigation. Is there an ounce of brains in Oregon leadership anywhere?
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Bob Ferguson warns Trump tariffs could cost Washington 32,000 jobs, billions in revenue. No, it's not the tariffs, bozo. It's Democrat policies, including all those taxes and minimum wage hikes. Anyone can see this.
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In Oregon, the gas tax bill has resulted in less hiring by local businesses. Someone tell Bob Ferguson.
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Idiots. Washington state still wants young kids to start getting the COVID-19 vax. There is absolutely no need for kids to get this. Kids rarely get sick from this, it doesn't prevent transmission, and it can permanently scar their hearts. Besides, we have Omicron variants, now. It's like a cold.
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Portland has the second highest crime rate now. Great going, Mayor Wilson. Thank goodness President Trump is going to focus on Portland next and bring in the National Guard. Do it soon!
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Ah yes, the three bozo states that forced draconian COVID-19 guidelines are going to form their own vaccine advisory committee to defy the CDC. I will never take health recommendations from Democrats mini-dictators.
Here's what Perplexity.ai had to say about this:
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Portland Public Schools is looking at closing its program for gifted kids mainly because of equity. It seems that wealthier kids were going to that program. And Portland just can't sanction that, right?
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Interesting that Elon Musk wasn't invited to go to the tech gathering today at the White House. But funny I don't see Jensen Huang's name either. He should be there, not Bill Gates. Why wasn't Lip-Bu Tan invited? This would be a chance for him to hobnob with the techies. Maybe start a conversation.
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There goes Keith Wilson, working hard to fill Portland with more homeless shelters. Pretty soon no place will be safe.
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Do artificial sweeteners raise risk of dementia? This study was done on Brazilians. And many were diabetic. Those who consumed the most were at greatest risk. Paper here. The risk was with aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame k, erythritol, sorbitol, and xylitol. I use allulose if I need to use a sweetener.
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The big news today is that Google got to keep Chrome. All they have to do is share data regarding Android, and avoid entering into exclusive agreements that cover its main products, including Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app. I bet they were relieved and happy. The NASDAQ sure was.
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Trump has changed the H-1B landscape. Now people have to have demonstrable skills to come into the U.S., worthy of higher salaries. No more entry-level slave labor. Hopefully this will provide Americans with more job openings. The real talented immigrants can still come in.
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WTF??? Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT in counseling sessions. So your therapy session is now being used to train models. Someone should sue. How NOT to use AI in healthcare.
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The decline of Seattle. Seattle-area offices staying empty as job losses outpace return-to-office. Real estate agents are noticing – no one wants to buy a house in the Seattle area.
All those taxes you pay, and less to show for it. The money just goes to enrich the politicians. Life in Blue cities.
But at least in Bellevue, OpenAI has bought out a local startup, Statsig. Interesting that the CEO mandated being in the office 5 days/week. Now they get to reap the rewards.
Band directors at Portland's high schools want more money, so bands will no longer play at interscholastic games. Man, that was one of my favorite activities in high school. Living in a Blue city sucks in so many ways.
School is cancelled in La Center because teachers want more money. Schools in the Evergreen district are still closed because teachers want more money. Everyone around here has a IDGAF attitude.
Owning an EV, hybrid or PHEV is going to be even more expensive now. Remember how people thought they could justify the cost because over time, the expense would be recoup in gas savings? Yeah, about that....
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Owner of 44 storefronts in the Pearl District wants to sell. Yeah, the Pearl District has lost a LOT of its lustre. Enjoying the deflection center yet?
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CDC "spiraled into chaos". People don't like it that finally the CDC is being rid of partisan pseudo-scientists. What we saw during the COVID-19 debacle revealed how corrupt and biased and untrustworthy that agency is.
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I missed this from a few weeks ago: Why more doctors can't make ends meet. It's because doctors are employees, and no longer business owners. And unlike nurses and janitors, the vast majority are not unionized, and so they lose out. Doctors today are less likely to go the extra mile for you. After hours? Call the on-call guy. Make hospital rounds at the end of the day? Nah, that's the hospitalists job now. All this started with Obama's HITECH Act of 2009.
And yes, now there is a healthcare crisis, because they can't find enough doctors to join the workforce. Being a physician must be less attractive than before, because you don't have control anymore. You're an employee – do what you're told.
And yes, now there is a healthcare crisis, because they can't find enough doctors to join the workforce. Being a physician must be less attractive than before, because you don't have control anymore. You're an employee – do what you're told.
A economics student wrote about why single-payer healthcare will fail. It's taxes and fees, plus the lack of competitive market forces that keep prices up. I already knew this.
Sure enough, health insurance rates in Oregon are going up.
Here's a paper out of China that suggests that spike protein from SARS-CoV2 can induce latent HIV expression. It's mediated through the master gene switcher, mTOR. This needs to be replicated by a lab in the U.S. – I'm surprised AIDS activists aren't demanding it.
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Derek Lowe, pro-vax science writer, is upset and wants RFK Jr and others to be fired. Sorry, Derek, but if you were able to keep silent while Daskalakis was at the CDC, and while Rachel Levine allowed churches and schools to be shut down but allowed BLM protests, then you have no credibility. You're just another partisan hack. Bernie Sanders feels the same way as Derek, but he's even easier to brush off. Right, Senator Climate Change?
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No one wants to use modern dishwashers anymore, now that it takes 2.5 to 4 hours to complete a cycle. And supposedly people like the zen of handwashing dishes. If you have an old style fast running dishwasher, you're lucky.
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Intriguing. Smelling a specific rose scent for a month was associated with gray matter growth in the brain. Paper here. Interesting that the paper does not source the rose essential oil. The parts of the brain that were enlarged were the posterior cingulate cortex and the whole brain in general, but not the amygdala. Interesting that the benefits of meditation appear to affect the posterior cingulate cortex, too. Maybe the rose scent elicited meditative thoughts. The study was done only in women, though.
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Aspirin was shown recently not to have preventive benefit against heart attacks, but clopidogrel apparently does. This is an old drug, and the study was actually a meta-analysis of 7 prior randomized trials. Back in May 2025, South Koreans physicians arrived at a similar conclusion with clopidogrel although in that study, the drug was administered after stenting, and all participants had prior heart attacks.
But catching up on sleep on the weekends also lowers risk of heart attack by 19%, too. I can do that!
Google's Gmail sends email with conservative content to the SPAM box more than those with liberal content. Such is the politicization of AI. And another reason to reconsider using Gmail.
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Does work-life balance make you mediocre? Yeah, being super wealthy at a young age requires sacrifices that not everyone is willing to make. And that's OK. You have to find the level of work commitment that works for you. Being a billionaire requires having a life I'm not willing to have.
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Whoa. Sobering take of how ChatGPT took a man for a ride. People really need to know how to use this generative AI tool. It seems like it should be easy to use, but it can be very dangerous.
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Why is Southeast Portland smelling like "rotten asshole"? There's a headline you don't see every day. The sewer system hasn't grown up with the city, it seems. And it's only been ten years since the last upgrade. But he's right about NYC – the city smells like sewer and diesel fumes all the time.
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Lewis and Clark marked their trail with laxatives. Mercury-containing laxatives, that is. Thunder-clappers they called 'em.
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