RFK suggests rising autism is a function of diet and the vaccine schedule. I think it was Dr. Mark Hyman who suggests the increase in c-section birth also plays a role. The biota in the birth canal is thought to be important in establishing a healthy gut biota, which plays out in our mental health. I suspect all those things and more play a role in our declining mental health. I also think our lack of being in nature contributes.

I need to prune the muscadines today. Always something.

Take care and thanks for the OT!

that our Owners believe that it is a good idea to keep us all teetering on the verge of a psychotic break at all times, to keep us herdable.

I also think that they are mistaken. I now have come to believe that the only possible outcome of our current course is large scale violence, which will be met with overwhelming force by the state. That will then kick off an inevitable civil war. The civil war will not be for control of the country- it will be for the sheer animal joy of killing people who might have offended us at some point, while the Owners sit back and thank us for voluntarily reducing our numbers for them.

We've been living with the glorification and normalization of violence in our everyday lives for decades now, and what little prefabricated news we get from our many war zones shows us more and more unspeakable acts every day. The unspeakable has become the mundane, and we now see the consequences of having fully embraced the banality of evil.

I had a person attempt to kill me with their car while on the way to work today. They ran a red light to do it, and flipped me off while doing so, for having the temerity to have the right-of-way as they sped off to do Important Things. Had I not seen them coming and locked my brakes up, they'd have centerpunched me in the driver's side door, at a speed of ~50mph. I doubt that I would have survived it. These brushes with insanity are happening more and more often- all symptoms of the same disease.

Perhaps it is microplastics, perhaps it is forever chemicals, perhaps it is something else. I frankly believe that it is because, in the current world, only the biggest assholes win. And everybody wants to be the winner, here in in america. As a result, we are becoming a population of utter and irredeemable (and heavily armed) assholes.

Not a fan.

Thanks for the OT.
I would pose increasing poverty could account for all kinds of disfunction.
I have noticed with each recession an increase in crime, expecially robbery, and theft.

clusters I can associate with anything but lead is a likely factor. Lead was extremely common in goods, the environment, food, water and all that until pretty damn recently. Different levels of exposure are associated with all kinds of shit, adhd, irritability, aggressive tendencies and anti-social behavior, and on and on and on. Combine that with the various cultural issues and the direct and indirect effects of the various propaganda sources and it could account for much. How did we become such a highly uncivil society, so profoundly self-centered and vicious (and tribally so)? Lead can be inplicated in much of that and most US generations from the boomers on were literally drenched with the shit.

Halocarbons, especially assorted organochlorines and such with usage and exposure similarly ramped up from the late forties through today.

Constant promotion and normalization of violence and the campaigns of incessant fer mongering against a backdrop of irrationality and chaos makes it a trifecta.

be well and have a good one

I think Trump is intent on using them as leverage for anything else he wants to do.

I'm ok with tariffs but it seems like he's operating without being thoughtful at all, same with DOGE. Deportations have been lots of noise, few deportations, no E verify.