5 March 2023

Here's where things get interesting.  Scammers are using AI to get money from the elderly. 

"Technology is making it easier and cheaper for bad actors to mimic voices, convincing people, often the elderly, that their loved ones are in distress."

Not good.
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Academic urban legends.  Popeye was misled by a misplaced decimal point, it seems.

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If you're an app writer, choose your words carefully.  Apple publishes a style guide.

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For a man, losing a full-time job could lead to more problems.  33% more likely to divorce.  That could set off a spiral of hurt. 

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Here's another crazy bill that the Oregon legislature is considering.

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Gotta love the Willamette Week.  Discussing the easy theft or Kias and Hyundais and providing the YouTube link to tell you how to steal them.  Such journalism!

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Oregon's lax illegal drug laws have naturally caught the attention of a powerful Mexican crime syndicate, CJGN.  Wonderful.

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It's so nice to come across someone who's obviously spent a lot of time thinking about life and people.  Alas, much of his advice would have been applicable to this ronin from years ago.  If I haven't learned life's lessons by now - well, shikata ga nai, as they say.  But I like this philosophy - that's my life now.

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SUCH HUBRIS.  No, Ansel.  A random group of strangers could not run a large city well.  This is emblematic of the kind of thinking going on now - probably because a lot of the younger generation grew up watching Hollywood movies where spirited youth come in to save the day.  Real life doesn't work that way.  I want a city, state or country run by people who have proven themselves to be competent at running complex systems.  People proven to be able to achieve things by working well with others.  Not the random psychopath so prevalent in our society today.  Ansel bolsters his arguments by referencing the etymology of democracy.  This system could work well in small groups, like a book club, but there's a reason why the nation's founding fathers chose a republic model instead for the United States government. 

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4 March 2023

"When do we deploy the new variant?"  So it looks like the whole COVID scare was planned.  Governments were coordinating this to get the public to comply.  Pitchforks, anyone?

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This is the problem with cutting-edge technology.  One country can establish policies that try to prevent unauthorized experimentation on humans until the full implications have been defined, but then countries (like China) will ignore these, copy the technology and plough on ahead.  Screw ethics, right? 

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Two Canadian companies can now manufacture cocaine, heroin and MDMA.  It'll be for medical purposes, they say.  It always starts that way, doesn't it?

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Another reason to make sure that your 25-OH vitamin D levels are in the recommended range.  Dementia prevention.

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Speaking of cutting-edge, the Stable Diffusion AI model can decode brain waves to figure out what image you are thinking of.  This is cool, but raises privacy concerns, of course.

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Better start buying print books from now on.  If you purchase electronic books, they could be modified and edited to meet today's "woke" diversity and equity demands to remove racist or offensive content.  They're doing it to Roald Dahl now, and will probably target Ian Fleming next.

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Here's a video of Portland today.


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Pediatrician-congressperson Dr. Lisa Reynolds, "at the request of the Department of Human Services" wants to anonymize food stamp debit cards, presumably to make it easier to trade them like currency.

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San Francisco wants to create "supervised drug consumption sites".  Looks like we're having opium dens again.  People haven't learned the lessons of history.

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This is interesting: Permitless concealed carry could be on the 2024 Oregon ballot.  Finally, some sensible legislation, as police presence declines in Portland.

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It's very sad when Washington Square is turning into Lloyd Center.  A retail outlet has to close due to rampant theft.  We need to keep Portland problems in Portland!

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3 March 2023

Probably the strangest things you'll see today.  A Kim Jong Un impersonator and a Putin impersonator helping a Zelensky impersonator.

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Burned by taking investment advice from Jim Cramer?  Well burn no more.  Use his negative energy to your advantage!

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Replika users fell in love with their chatbot companion.  Then the company did a software update, and poof, they were gone.

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This is a joke, right?
"If you come across a bear, never push a slower friend down...even if you feel the friendship has run its course⁣," the NPS tweeted.
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The homeless don't want shelters and tiny homes, and we shouldn't be wasting money building them.  Clearly they run the show.  We pay the taxes and they enjoy the benefits.  We've done it their way, and it's not working.  Time to change the rules.

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Well this changes things a bit, doesn't it?  Having the second largest lithium deposit in the world is not a thing to ignore.  What will Biden do?

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What GenZ wants may not be financially worthwhile.  A GenZ ETF based on their buying habits and interests has fizzled.

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California is dropping mask AND vaccine mandates for healthcare workers.  Oregon is only dropping mask requirements.  Kate Brown had always waited to get her direction from California.  I guess Tina Kotek is doing the same thing.

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Yes, the world would like to see what secret agreements were made between Pfizer and the EU.  I'd bet someone got rich from the agreement, and that person wouldn't want it known.

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There's this piece (and the video) with Jon Stewart debating OK congressman Nathan Dahm that's going around right now.  Dahm may not be the most articulate guy around, and that's maybe why he was picked, but someone needs to point out some things to Stewart.  Until the past few years, motor vehicles were by far the highest cause of death in children.  I didn't see Stewart advocating for eliminating cars.  They serve a greater purpose, just like guns.


But look at the data.  You can see that firearm deaths sharply overtook motor vehicle deaths in 2020.  What happened in 2020?  Hmmm.  Was there some pandemic?  Was there some rioting as a protest against some political figure?  And the New England Journal of Medicine published some statistics about gun violence in children, and take a look:

It may not be convenient for Stewart to note that if you consider gun deaths in Asians, Whites and Hispanics, the firearm mortality rate was still less than that from motor vehicles.  But in the Black population, the firearm mortality rate was so high in 2020 that it was off the scale in the first chart above.  So I don't care what Stewart thinks - I'm not in support of taking away guns just because of irresponsible gun use in a particular demographic.  It's difficult to find updated FBI statistics that include the recent few years.  This report from 1999 showed that gun violence in Black males aged 18 to 24 was 28x of their population representation.  If Stewart wants to advocate for something, he should campaign to take away guns from young Blacks, but that wouldn't fly would it?   This isn't racism - this is just going by the numbers and facts. 

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2 March 2023

There has been much buzz surrounding the chat AI models.  These Large Language Models seem to forget that they reside in computers, and should have access to a clock, calendar and calculator.  But they seem to be unaware of this, and haven't shown confidence or excellence in numerical or date/time-based queries.  GPT-3 seems to be better at math, however, for reasons unclear.  But just prefacing a math query with the phrase "Solve and output only the correct answer and nothing else" makes it perform much better. Why would that be?  This is almost spooky.

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Chronic loneliness can affect brain structure and development.  And findings suggest that if this is not dealt with promptly, can create a self-reinforcing spiral, that could lead to the hikkikomori problem I mentioned in an earlier post.  Not only that, but stress experienced early in life can disrupt the brains reward centers, reducing pleasure and reward-seeking behavior for fun, food and sex.  At least in mice, where the experiments were conducted. 

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And speaking of Japan, their birth rate has hit another record low.  Very sad.  And it's not just the Japanese.

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Australian aborigines appear to actually be descended from people migrating from the Indian subcontinent.  I grew up learning that they were a completely separate proto-race.

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Add another example of "things were excellent early on, but became awful as the general public started using it."  Tinder (and similar apps) has been used to lure men into traps, for robbery or worse.  90% of kidnappings in São Paulo resulted from the use of a dating app.  The promise of technology is only as good as the people who use it.

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Well this is a nice gesture.  Better than just giving him a lifetime supply of ketchup.  Bet he never wants to eat that stuff again.

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Wayne Shorter has died.  May he rest in peace.  This is one of my favorites.


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I'm glad someone wrote about this.  As I read arguments presented about the Biden student loan forgiveness plan, it didn't seem that the main point was being addressed - What gives Biden the authority to delegate this much money to just one small segment of the population?  The discussion seemed all about if plaintiffs have "standing", and whether this violates the Commerce Clause.  But Sotomayor felt that expert authority in the Dept of Education made it legit.  No, it doesn't.

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Novavax is tanking.  Nobody wants COVID shots anymore.  Too little too late.  Even the Medicago vaccine, touted for being plant-based, had to shut down. 

1 March 2023

This is a remarkable background video of the filming of Alex Honnold's incredible free solo climb of El Capitan.



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Brilliant move by Florida to "immediately cancel the filings of a political party, to include its registration and approved status as a political party, if the party’s platform has previously advocated for, or been in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude."  That immediately disenfranchises the Democrat Party, which was the party of the KKK and slavery (and Japanese internment).

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Living in Hawaii is getting to be untenable for a lot of people.  Auwe!

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Well this isn't good: the head of the Wagner group is preparing for "the upcoming WW III".  Is anyone prepping yet?

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Democrats always want the rich to "pay their fair share".  But when it comes to getting a kicker refund, Democrats want everybody to get the same.  How is that fair?

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Yes, the governor needs to repeal the SARS-CoV2 "vaccine" mandate, not only for children, but also for healthcare providers.  It no longer makes sense as it does not protect against getting the coronavirus infection (and actually may increase your chances of getting the newer variants), but it likely puts people at risk of myocarditis and sudden death.

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Oregon lawmakers want to raise their salaries.  I never liked the idea of having career politicians.  I would rather people did their service and go back to their former jobs when their service is done.  This is probably why our founding fathers never built in term limits into the Constitution.  They probably never figured some people would turn it into a life-long job.  There is so much potential for conflict of interest and using the office for self-enrichment, as we've seen.

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Seen on Twitter.  I suspect LA Times is struggling with the answer themselves.

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College academics isn't what it used to be, especially in the remote learning era, where cheating is rampant, and not cheating puts you at a disadvantage.  It's OK if that's how they want to learn, but don't expect me to pay off their student loans.  And the climate of fear, intimidation and censorship on campus is very high.  Who wants to risk a career working with students these days?  Except maybe, groomers.

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An increasing number of young people are getting colon cancer, and researchers don't know why.  Or maybe they suspect why and aren't telling us.  And some report that COVID vax boosters can promote metastatic spread.  Right now, this is mostly anecdotal, but some of these associations that people scoffed at earlier (such as myocarditis, thrombosis, and increased predilection to getting breakthrough cases) were later found to be true.

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But 5-year old children today will likely live to be 100.  That has profound consequences on what society will look like in the future.  And it depends on whether the elderly will be healthier and have a more meaningful life in their later years.  They will have to accumulate more wealth because their money will need to last even longer.  Since the birth rate is declining, we can't expect the working members of society to fork over their cash to support the aged.  There won't be enough of them.

28 February 2023

This is one of those things that happens when big business controls healthcare.  Emergency departments are being staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants instead of doctors, because it saves money.  In a money-prioritized world, physicians are increasingly being treated as overly expensive and unnecessary components in healthcare. 

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Speaking of doctors, artificial intelligence is here to stay, and doctors better get used to incorporating them.
The technology won't replace doctors, he said, but "doctors who use AI will probably replace doctors who don't use AI."
But some dear that the emphasis on technology has made medicine lose its soul.

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Fentanyl abuse underlies much of the homeless problems Oregon faces.  It's tied to illegal immigration and our wide open southern border.  One illegal alien fentanyl distributor got caught recently.  Seems that we should be doing something about this, eh?

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As politicians in the PNW contemplate more public transportation like high-speed rail, places like Montreal face problems like this.  Yeah, it's a good idea in theory, and great for places like Asia where people behave themselves, but in the West, bad actors just screw things up.

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KUOW talks about how the expiration of the pandemic SNAP bonus will cause significant financial grief to local families.  That may be true, but the pandemic is over now, and things like this make me think that we already give away too much SNAP money.  Maybe the shortfall could come from charity or lottery money (which people willingly give away).

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Chubby Cat is cute.

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SB 603 aims to give free money ($1000 monthly) to the homeless for a year to spend however they wish.  Wow, how irresponsible is that with taxpayer money?  Why don't we bypass the middle men and just send checks directly to the drug cartels?  This is why our problems never go away. 

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27 February 2023

Washington state is proposing a new law to stop "early signs of radicalization" and "develop a public health-style response".  There will be a new commission, made up of racial groups, FBI, lawmakers, ACLU, and the Anti-Defamation League, to pass judgment on the ideas of people.  It's Orwell's Animal Farm, come alive!  Time to move out of Washington. 

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I saw this on Reddit recently:


It always amazes me how people write this, and don't realize that they keep voting for the government that promotes policies which give rise to this situation, and votes against the government that will help reduce this.  Voting for the political party that has the ideology that has given us the Biden administration, will also result in leadership like the governors of Washington, Oregon and California. Which explains the recent flight out of these states.  The last line is supposed to be a sarcastic throw to pro-American patriots.  Well, keep voting Blue, schlub.  Enjoy your urban dystopia. 

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Interesting observation.  Ladies, what do you see when you think of a 20-something Portland or Seattle man? 

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Why are red-state Republicans so wimpy?  I've wondered about that myself.

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Elizabeth Warren thinks that there will be "financial disaster" if student loans aren't forgiven.  This is why we can't really fight inflation while Democrats are in power.  This is, in effect, more stimulus, but to just a subset of the U.S. population.  In some sense, college kids had to do this because colleges jacked up tuition, knowing that Uncle Sam had essentially cosigned on the loan.  But that doesn't mean blanket loan forgiveness is fair.  Dems got them into this pickle.  Don't count on them to get you out.  Oh, but here's another few billion for Zelenskly!

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Back when I was in college, authorities only worried about delta-9 THC.  Now since legalization, they have to make decisions about CBN, CBDL and also acetate esters like THCO and delta-8 forms of THC.  When lawmakers legalize drugs, they always think it's going to be a simple matter, and that it will be harmless overall.  More intelligent urban and overseas chemists will show them the consequences of their policies.

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Yikes - COVID-19 boosters can stimulate robust proliferation of germinal centers in lymph nodes.  Normally indolent marginal zone lymphomas can turn aggressive after a jab.  Perhaps we'll soon see more aggressive follicular center lymphomas, which are more common.

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26 February 2023

Another example of something starting out as being good, but turning into something awful when it becomes accessible to everyone. Many things, in order to stay true to their original level of excellence, need to stay out of reach of the public.  Someone inevitable will ruin it for others.

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So the majority would be uncomfortable if their healthcare provider used AI.  This is because of what they've seen with ChatGPI.  Well AI is not just chat, and it is already in medicine, whether one realizes it or not. 

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The title of this article caught my eye:  Fixing U.S. public health will require a health-systems revolution — and for physicians to take a backseat.  Why should physicians take a backseat on something that affects their livelihood, and demands their participation?  The article focuses on the coronavirus response, and how the physicians selected to administer the program really botched it.  But this shouldn't be an indictment of ALL physicians.  Some tried to be vocal about it, and were suppressed or punished for their opinions.  We can't completely relegate policy decisions to politicians or businessmen, or even just political anthropologists, as the author claims to be.  Although he advocates for the public to be involved, there are dangers to letting the public directly make decisions.  This is why our government is a republic, and not a democracy. 

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Yikes, Washington state is turning into East Germany.  They're thinking of starting a "tattletale hotline", where you can rat on your neighbor for "hate crimes" or "bias incidents" and they'll pay you $2000 for an indictment.  What is society becoming??  Hard no on this.

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What happened in East Palestine, OH is not an isolated incident.  Chemical accidents are becoming more commonplace.  (Why do we have to learn this from foreign media?)
From 2004 to 2013, there were about 160 accidents/year.
From 2014 to 2020, there were about 120 accidents/year.
Since Biden took over there were 177 in 2021 and 188 in 2022.
So far in 2023, there have been 30 accidents in 7 weeks - so we're looking at 222 accidents for the year if this keeps up.

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Wow, it's not just me.  A lot of people think of themselves as being much younger than they actually are.  It's like Dunning-Kruger for age!
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How would the United States fight a nuclear war?

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The city of Ontario, OR is having to deal with a growing collection of abandoned RVs that no hauling/dump service wants to take away, because of fentanyl contamination.  Some of the older ones even require asbestos containment precautions.  How long before such concerns reach the big cities, like Portland?  Or has it already begun?

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25 February 2023

Buried in the recent Omnibus bill, is a provision that gives the FDA the authority to ban off-label use of medications.  The idea was to quash the ability of physicians to prescribe ivermectin to patients infected with the coronavirus.  If they banned all off-label use, then oncologists wouldn't be able to prescribe pembrolizumab like this doctor at OHSU.  Of course, it wasn't covered by insurance.  If it were FDA-approved, it probably would have.  Then the patient would not have been able to receive this potentially beneficial agent.  OHSU apparently thought it would be covered by insurance, and so, jacked up the price.  Apparently this is common, according to a person at Johns Hopkins, mentioned in the article.  This is a great argument for insurance to be owned by the patient, not an employer.  Because employers can and are willing to pay money to put their employees on an expensive plan.  Insurance companies are deep pockets and can cover expensive treatments.  The same with government-sponsored insurance, like Medicare and Medicaid.  Consumer-funded plans would be different, and insurance companies would have to be more judicious in their spending. I would predict that healthcare costs would decrease.  

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Another person thinks that the Greater Idaho movement could succeed.

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Some of the money to pay for Measure 110 was to come from cannabis tax money.  But that money was already going to schools and police.  Now it has been diverted to pay for drug treatment and recovery services.  But since drug use has been decriminalized, more people have been using these harmful drugs. 

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And Portland continues to be Portland.  Cars which had to be abandoned because of icy weather, have been broken into by thieves.  The Oregon State Police and Portland Police Bureau say they haven't heard of anything.  The DA probably won't prosecute them anyway.  Just SOL, folks.

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Metro mayors recent got together to discuss homelessness.  All focused on building homes.  Nary a mention of rampant drug abuse which is fueling this. 

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CDC wants masks for children indefinitely.  No science behind it.  Just comply.

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A federal judge has ruled with the Biden administration not to block lithium mining at Thacker Pass, which is in Nevada bordering Oregon.  Mining in this location requires lots of water which the region does not have.  Native American issues aside, this will be an expensive endeavor, and in the long run, of dubious value as the technology may veer away from lithium.  But the damage will be done.  Here's a video that explains this:


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24 February 2023

New report paints a grim picture of Portland's future.  Things have gotten so bad that Heathman Hotel had to sell.  The Commonwealth Building downtown defaulted on its mortgage.

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Portland City Council voted down having a watchdog position to enforce transparency.  No surprise.

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The government wants to ban off-label use of approved drugs.  The aim is to target physicians who might prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19.  But the unintended consequence is that many physicians, especially oncologists, use drugs off-label, because they can't wait for FDA approval for many applications.  So many patients would be harmed if they couldn't get treated with a drug on an off-label indication.  This is just plain stupid, and politicians should keep their hands out of medical practice.

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Hybrid and electric cars use less or no gasoline, so revenue from the gasoline tax is decreasing.  What to do?  Now Washington state wants to tax cars based on mileage.  This will be an invasion of privacy if they attach GPS units to cars.  Not to mention the extra expense which the taxpayer will ultimately bear.  Speaking of taxes, Washington wants to override the 1% property tax currently in place, and triple the tax to 3%. 

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You can take the person out of India, but I guess you can't take India out of the person.  Expatriates who are Dalit class, still find discrimination in Seattle.  We've seen this before.  As more immigrants come to the USA, eventually they bring to America all the problems of their homeland with them.  Assimilation into American culture takes time. 

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Stanford professors are finding that anonymous reporting of woke "transgressions" threatens free speech.  The East Germans learned this a long time ago.  I've spoken to some at a local large educational institution, who feel that similar policies have changed the nature of their interaction with students and other younger faculty, whom they feel are more likely to register offense.  It's just not worth the trouble.
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Fraud in medical research is increasing.  People in the know have been aware of this for a long time, and there are no easy solutions to this.  Having some level of healthy skepticism is appropriate, as well as being ready to change recommendations and opinion as new data become available.

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The Biden adminstration has discussed banning non-compete agreements for physicians.  Since about 90% of physicians in the U.S. are bound by non-compete clauses, this would likely shake up the employment landscape considerably.  Many young physicians, eager for to get a job somewhere, often take a position in a locale, with a medical group, so that they can start earning money.  Only after they are there and have practiced for a while, can they really determine if they've made the best choice.  And sometimes opportunities for employment elsewhere only arise later on.  Non-competes restrict employment mobility, and force a physician to stick with a less desirable job, and the physician is forced to leave town if the current job is unacceptable.  Techies in Silicon Valley often advance from company to company, as their talents and services are valued.  This opportunity is denied to the physician.  Although I can understand how this must be to a private medical group who wants a stable workforce, physicians should be allowed to go where they are wanted.  Naturally, opposing forces such as hospitals, are against this mobility and freedom.  They would like to maintain control over their employed doctors, but forcing unhappy doctors to uproot and leave town contributes to physician burnout.  We should not be treating our doctors this way.

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