08/05 OT: Bits and Pieces

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Project 365 #195: 140709 Let's Get Jiggy With It

Jigsaw Puzzle

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Medicine

Potentially Good News

Noninvasive blood test can detect cancer 4 years before conventional diagnosis methods

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/non-invasive-blood-test-can-...

An international team of researchers has developed a noninvasive blood test that can detect whether an individual has one of five common types of cancers, four years before the condition can be diagnosed with current methods. The test detects stomach, esophageal, colorectal, lung and liver cancer.

This is big because early detection is a key factor in the survival of cancel patients. The test also detected clean samples 95% of the time, which means not too many false positives.

Caveat

The researchers emphasize that the PanSeer assay is unlikely to predict which patients will later go on to develop cancer. Instead, it is most likely identifying patients who already have cancerous growths, but remain asymptomatic for current detection methods.

Who knows when it will be released into the wild or what it will cost, but good news overall.

Useful Information

Older adults who can really smell the roses may face lower likelihood of dementia

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/older-adults-who-can-really-...

Seniors who can identify smells like roses, turpentine, paint-thinner and lemons, and have retained their senses of hearing, vision and touch, may have half the risk of developing dementia as their peers with marked sensory decline.

Impairment of any sense may be an indiucator, but the impairment of multiple senses is a greater indicator. Than said, the sense of smell may be a key indicator. Worth a Full Read

While multiple impairments were key to the researchers work, the authors acknowledged that a keen sense of smell, or olfaction, has a stronger association against dementia than touch, hearing or vision. Participants whose smell declined by 10 percent had a 19 percent higher chance of dementia, versus a 1-to-3-percent increased risk for corresponding declines in vision, hearing and touch.
“The olfactory bulb, which is critical for smell, is affected fairly early on in the course of the disease,” said Brenowitz. “It’s thought that smell may be a preclinical indicator of dementia, while hearing and vision may have more of a role in promoting dementia.”

Bad News

Barring some rapidly arising herd immunity or a rpidly developed fully effective vaccine, a decision by the corporate-govenmental symbiote to fund its production, distribution and administration for free, and a political willingness to force people to take it, the US plan for covid-19 appears t be "everybody except selected cautious oligarchs gets it at least once". This is bad because even where not immediately lethal, it is very, very bad ju-ju. Why? 78 of 100 recovered coronavirus patients have "lasting cardiovascular damage", that's why. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916
as reported in https://theweek.com/speedreads/927908/even-mild-coronavirus-cases-cause-...

as reported in https://boingboing.net/2020/07/29/78-of-100-recovered-coronaviru.html

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A Belief in Meritocracy Is Not Only False: It’s Bad for You

It encourages selfishness and discrimination yet it continues to be instilled in the minds of many.

Aeon

Clifton Mark

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-belief-in-meritocracy-is-not-only-f...

meritocracy is commonly treated as the one, true, ultimate goal. Beyond that, great numbers believe it to be reality and many, believers or not, push it as a narrative to justify the oligarchy-plutocracy. The author deals with this and presents a short discourse on why it is wrong. IT is, but that argument needs lot of development if one wished to make its falsity the established narrative.

Next, the author tells us:

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.

This is a biggie. It is also much better argued.

All of the above needs to be made into the dominant narrative if we really wish to get anywhere vis-a-vis the plutocracy-oligarchy and the vast mis-distribution of wealth and income.

It's also funny, because it conflicts with the main fallback narrative. When people are confronted with examples of the role played by luck, they talk of the risk taken, and how risk needs to be rewarded and even the econ 1A homily that "Reward is proportional to risk". If it were, then all risk takers would be rewarded, which is verifiably an absolute crock of shit.

what it comes to is both narratives promote or propagandize for the status quo, even though it punishes most and benefits few. If people simply took an objective look around and judged the veracity of the rhetorical models by the measurable results, we could put these myths to rest, and if we did, then we could start to build something better.

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Say What?

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Thank you for writing to share your concerns regarding facial recognition technology. I appreciate the time you took to write, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

I understand Americans are concerned about how their data is being collected and used, including data collected through facial recognition technology. You may be interested to know that on March 14, 2019, Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the “Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act of 2019” (S. 847), which would prevent federal or local governments from using facial recognition technology to identify or track consumer information without obtaining the consent of the consumer. S. 847 currently awaits consideration by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, of which I am not member. ...

~ DiFi

[ click ]
So, off to da web for the bill's text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/847/text

(3) COVERED ENTITY.—The term “covered entity”—

(A) means any person, including corporate affiliates, that collects, stores, or processes facial recognition data; and

(B) does not include—

(i) the Federal Government or any State or local government;

(ii) a law enforcement agency;

(iii) a national security agency; or

(iv) an intelligence agency.

Hmmm, imagine that.

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Blue Lives "movement" uses slave labor

Prison labor in Massachusetts is used to manufacture Blue Lives Matter merchandise

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/29/prison-labor-in-massachusetts.html

you have to click the embedded twitter link: pic.twitter.com/jMx66uXRVF

to see the detail, but prison labor is being used to make the Alt-Right invented "Blue Lives Matter" flags, a corrupted version of the US flag, similar flags for prison guards, and the like

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Covid-19

Interesting Article, worth a read:

How Italy Turned Around Its Coronavirus Calamity After a stumbling start, the country has gone from being a global pariah to a model — however imperfect — of viral containment that holds lessons for its neighbors and for the United States. (NY Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-reopen...

The gist of it? Containment. Quarantines, lockdowns and lots of science.

Its government has been guided by scientific and technical committees. Local doctors, hospitals and health officials collect more than 20 indicators on the virus daily and send them to regional authorities, who then forward them to the National Institute of Health. The result is a weekly X-ray of the country’s health upon which policy decisions are based. ...

Sadly, this knowledge and "advice" cannot bnefit us, because our govenment will not do its job and we really cannot do it by ourselves.

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De-Mock-racy: let's put the Mock in democracy to remind ourselves that calling this imperialist oligarchy a democracy is a mockery, as is our corporategovernmental symbiote claiming to support or promote democracy elsewhere in the world. Scare Quotes, at a minimum for most normal USA uses of that phrase, and/or italics.

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It's an open thread, so have at it. The floor is yours
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Comments

enhydra lutris's picture

guaranteed mood influencer, but in what direction? Morose or merely peaceful, depressing or serene? I guess it is up to the beholder. A lo of great art has that mood, whatever it may be and how different is it in modern urban US, forest or farmland or seashore or Paris ca 1830 or so?

Whatever it is, this morning it has rendered the birds silent, a rarity here, and not a hawk in sight.

misty morning

be well and have a good one.

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4 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

These are the people who will be tasked with escorting Rump out of the White House:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/eleanor-holmes-norton...

An SS car crossed a centerline to crash into a legally parked car containing 2 black women and their babies. The mothers were handcuffed and held away from their wailing babies for close to an hour, in high heat. The passenger had a rifle pointed at her head. No Miranda, no charges, no nuthin'. No apology.

Rump has been steadily grooming select heavily-armed portions of DHS like CBP's BORTAC for four years now. You know, the Portland kidnappers. They will protect him, their daddy, not the people.

Would you really expect a peaceful transition of power?

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enhydra lutris's picture

@pindar's revenge

The human officers are, of course the culprits. Even if the officers
had received some bogus information about the car, they are supposed to be rational and sane persons and think for themselves. The excuse given is horribly sketchy and non-specific and almost certainly contained details that would've not applied to the people wrongfully attacked (by ramming), detained and in the case of the babies tortured. Also it conflicts with the lie the SS sold the victims about the car being reported as stolen.

In its statement Tuesday, It said the agency was notified by the D.C. police that a license plate reader had identified a vehicle near the White House as linked to crime. The agency said it was told that someone known to have driven the vehicle was wanted in several felonies, and had been designated “armed and dangerous.”

Note that the psuedo-exculpatory story above is total bullshit. A license plate reader reads plates, not at all always correctly, and does absolutely nothing more. It cannot link any plate to any crime, it simply reads plates, unless the "crime" is an algorithmically detectable traffic violation, which should generate a ticket via postal mail to the owner. Someone "known to have driven the vehicle" (misidentified by the reader) was wanted in felonies and was armed and dangerous, if that shit even happened, required human agency and should've included a description of said person, who almost certainly was not two women and their babies. However, this is all the more reason to ban license plate readers and to prohibit police from acting upon the basis of any putative information that they purportedly spew.

be well and have a good one.

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9 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

Yeah, plate readers are vastly misused, but I think that's just a thin lie to provide a weak justification for their extreme violence. I'd like to see Norton get a "chain of custody" trail of the original evidence they used to justify crashing into a parked car with babies inside.

But I see a possible armed confrontation over possession of presidential power. The "honest" people in DHS have been steadily winnowed out over these years, replaced with right-wing thugs itching to shoot somebody.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@pindar's revenge

a little while ago, the President needn't rule from the White House, LBJ proved that. Of course, all that they have to do is provoke DC wide disorder and mob action and then they can call up a large unit of active duty US troops stationed in the US for the specific purpose of dealing with such unrest and under the President's direct command - Obama set that up. I can't recall the specific unit, but it was "brought back" from Iraq or Afghanistan and then stationed here to be directly responsible to the president for dealing with domestic crises.

be well and have a good one.

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6 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris @enhydra lutris @enhydra lutris

and his tame thugs would be perfect for inciting that disorder. They've had practice now. It would take discipline and restraint on the part of the people, and provocateurs could still destabilize the situation. Just set one little fire, say in a church basement, and call in the troops.
Also - there are lots of people with their brains squirming like a toad who'd love to set things off, just post something on the Q boards, or the boogaloo boards. It wouldn't even have to be organized, just send out the bat signal. Then those troops would have an excuse to act.

edit: I'm using "escort from the White House" symbolically; you're correct to note that the power doesn't need to reside in that building.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@pindar's revenge

like John and John Q. Adams, both of whom left town early so they wouldn't have to participate in their successors' inauguration (both elections had been highly contentious).

All this noise about "armed resistance" to election results just feeds public paranoia. A former President is in an even better position than a sitting one - they keep the title and most of the perks, and they don't have to do jack shit for it (unless they want to). Just look at Big Zero....

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven

I hope you're right. That would be a relief. But he's been grooming elements of DHS as his personal force for years now. Just look at the behavior of the SS in the OP link. After all, he's facing felony charges in NY if he leaves office.

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Granma's picture

Is very interesting. Thanks for sharing the article. I've passed it along to a friend.

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4 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@Granma
that article & shared it.

be well and have a good one.

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3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

my sense is that Italy's reporting has been very accurate. Would say the same for a few other countries, but most appear to be reporting manipulated numbers.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@Marie

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

et al

Cloudy here too. Guessing it’s a Bay Area wide low. Sure feels that way.

So there is this. Not much money in fossil fuels any more, I guess.

‘Has BP Just Woken Up to the #ClimateEmergency?' Oil Giant Announces 40% Production Cut by 2030

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/04/has-bp-just-woken-climateem...

[This] on top of a $16.8 quarterly loss—should be a warning to other giants in the industry about the economic writing on the wall when it comes to the future of fossil fuels. ... BP, the company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster that spewed an estmated 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010—also said it will increase renewable energy production and lower carbon emissions over the same period, but the reductions, as Sauven and others point out, don't include all of BP's fossil fuel-related economic interests.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma
info on BP too a significant data point.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --