BANNED USER: last straw
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
Interesting that you clicked on this...I hope your day is going well and you're at least finding our conversation stimulating, if you're not finding it pleasant. Looking to reinforce your beliefs about about me? Dig up some dirt? Have at it! Only cowards and scam artists make their profile private.
User ID: 2897
Banned by: @Amadan
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
10mo ago
For most of recorded history hard times created stunted dumb peasants that were 5 feet tall and had an IQ of 95 max. You want good times with a challenge, you don't want HARD TIMES™.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
10mo ago
I think this ground has been trod over here and even by some radio news outfits I listen to. There simply isn't an elite pipeline that can deliver normal candidates with good educations and strong bona fides to the top of the republican ticket that can also appeal to the MAGA crowd. Repubs still do fine in local elections in many areas and have developed such a pipeline in the federalist society for court appointments. Democrats certainly have their race grifters, but repubs let in actual grifters time and time again even when it is obvious. There is just such a huge disconnect between MAGA and republicans like Mitt and the old guard. I mean the Republican MAGA presidential candidate is on TV rambling about Haitians eating dog meat in Ohio, and some people here will say, "well he is directionally correct". The fish is rotting from the head down.
The world is warming and the climate is shifting. Not catastrophically, so far. They just bumped up all the growing season maps for the USA, farmers don't make shit like this up with money on the line. Here in Maine winters are becoming warm and wet, the bays don't freeze up in the winter anymore. Lobsters have all but disappeared from the NE States south of us and NY state and are slowly moving into slightly cooler Canadian waters. We've had more 100 year floods in the last few years than in the last 100. It IS changing, very rapidly on a geological time scale, it doesn't really matter if it is human caused or not; we should stop it.
I'm a big proponent of climate engineering or "geoengineering" . Our whole world is already shaped by humanity and our impact on it, I see no reason why altering the climate on purpose instead of on accident is so much worse. We should start with sulfur now, because it is cheap, we know it works, and how it works and that is is safe. Move on to space based shields later if it is still required. As many of you may have noted if you were in the path of the eclipse, no one would ever notice a 1% drop in sunlight.
Basically, climate change is a solved problem. If it ever gets bad enough we'll do something about it, I hope we do it sooner, I want my winters back.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
My turning point was in 2017 when they had a guest on that was advocating that parents put their privileged kids in the worst schools possible to help out the poor black kids. She was supposedly doing that herself, I wonder how it worked out? I think I even found the story. It was a "driveway moment" for me just because I was amazed at what this woman was saying out loud. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/509325266
NPR just reported on a new study out that the CDC has been overcounting maternal mortality claiming it to be over 300% of actual deaths.
It seems there is a box on a form that you check if the person is pregnant, and they have been counting every single death of a pregnant person as a maternal death. Shoot, they included a lot of men in those stats too apparently. Even if the death didn't have anything to do with being pregnant or delivering a baby.
The article is an absolutely wild ride of excuses, doublespeak and backpedaling while still playing a hard game of oppression Olympics. They are trying to work some facts in, but it is just so against the narrative, they basically can't do it. Even when they address the fact that it isn't actual race but bad health going into pregnancy that is the issue, they can't quite ever just leave it at that.
Certainly reinforces my already staggering lack of faith in the CDC due to their bungling and lying about covid.
Guess the Euros will have to take this US bashing fact out of their quiver.
Article
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics' most recent report put the U.S. maternal mortality rate at a whopping 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births. That number garnered a great deal of attention, including being covered by NPR and other news outlets.
A new study suggests the national U.S. maternal mortality rate is actually much lower than that: 10.4 deaths per 100,000 births.
The widely reported issue of racial disparities in U.S. maternal mortality persists, even with the lower overall rate. Black pregnant patients are still three times more likely to die than white patients, according to data in the study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology on Wednesday.
"We have to prevent these deaths," says K.S. Joseph, a physician and epidemiologist in the OB-GYN department of the University of British Columbia. Joseph is the lead author of the peer-reviewed paper. "Even if we say that the rate is 10 per 100,000 and not 30 per 100,000, it does not mean that we have to stop trying."
The fact that the rate of maternal mortality in the U.S. seems to have been significantly inflated may be disconcerting. Experts NPR spoke with about the data explain that measuring maternal deaths is complex, and that CDC was not intentionally misleading the public. They also emphasize that most maternal deaths are preventable.
Health department medical detectives find 84% of U.S. maternal deaths are preventable The trouble with the data started about 20 years ago, when the national death certificate was updated to include a pregnancy checkbox that the person certifying someone's death could tick. This checkbox created problems, which CDC analysts have acknowledged in their own papers, and changes were made in 2018 to CDC's methods for calculating maternal deaths. But Joseph and other researchers suspected the data was still not reliable.
"We felt that the pregnancy checkbox was misclassifying a lot of such deaths and adding them to maternal deaths," he explains.
In the new paper, Joseph and colleagues redid the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics analysis of data from 1999-2002 and 2018-2021, skipping over years when the data was in flux. Then they disregarded the deaths with only the pregnancy checkbox ticked. "We would only consider deaths to be a maternal death if there was a pregnancy-related cause mentioned by the physician who was certifying the death," he explains. "There are several lines in the certificate where a pregnancy-related cause can be mentioned, and if any of those lines mentioned a pregnancy-related cause, we would call it that."
That approach yielded a rate of 10.4 per 100,000. It also showed that the rate did not change much between 1999 and 2021. That rate is much closer to those reported in other wealthy countries, although Joseph warns that every country uses a different process and so international comparisons are unreliable.
"I think it's a very important study – I was happy to see it," says Steven L. Clark, an OB-GYN at Baylor College of Medicine who was not involved in the research. "It confirms statistically what most of us who actually deal with critically ill pregnant women on a regular basis thought for years. We are bombarded with these statistics saying how horrible maternal care is in the United States, and yet we just don't see it."
Clark does not blame the CDC for putting the maternal mortality rate so high. "They can only analyze the data that they're provided with, and that data starts at the individual hospitals and individual places in the United States," Clark says. "CDC gets these numbers, and I think they probably do a great job – I don't think there's any conspiracy here to hide anything from the public."
Joseph agrees. "The point I would like to make is that, yes, the [National Vital Statistics System] is overestimating rates and that's because of the pregnancy checkbox," Joseph says. "But this issue of assessing the actual maternal mortality rate is not a simple issue."
Deciding what time frame to consider, which conditions to include, and more, makes the task challenging. Joseph's study does not count suicides in the post-partum period, for instance.
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics declined NPR's initial request for comment on the study. After publication, a spokesperson for the agency emailed a written statement. "CDC disagrees with the findings," the statement reads, and goes on to assert that the methods used by the researchers "are known to produce a substantial undercount of maternal mortality." The CDC declined to provide anyone for an interview.
Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell is an OB-GYN and the medical director of Louisiana's maternal mortality review committee. She also was not involved in the study. She says the findings do not surprise her – her committee finds checkbox errors all the time. "When we're validating the cases, it's very common that a 70 year old man – somebody checked the pregnancy checkbox and it will appear that that was a pregnancy-associated death when it was more of a clerical error."
She says in committees like hers in states all over the country – supported and funded by CDC – experts are looking closely at each of these maternal deaths and validating them. "We don't just look at the numbers," she says. "We review cases to determine, first of all, was this death pregnancy-related or not? Was this death preventable? And if so, what could we have done to prevent the death?"
She worries this new study will encourage some to dismiss the issue. "Anybody that was doubting is going to be like, 'I knew it wasn't that bad of a problem.'" She thinks the study should instead be a "call to action" to support state review committees like hers that validate the data and investigate each death.
Dr. Louise King, an OB-GYN and bioethicist at Harvard Medical School, agrees. "It's really important to dig down into this," she says. "Maternal deaths may be related to poor health coming into pregnancy, but that's still on us."
King notes that maternal mortality rates are still too high in the U.S., and the disproportionate effect on Black patients "is just plain scary," she says.
Joseph agrees that the racial disparities in the data make clear that there's a long way to go before the problem of maternal mortality is addressed. He adds, "this study does not mean that you can take your eye off the ball."
Study
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
10mo ago
A first time home buyer is also just someone that hasn't owned a house in three years. I can literally sell a property to my wife and still qualify 3 years later. 'An individual who has had no ownership in a principal residence during the 3-year period ending on the date of purchase of the property. This includes a spouse (if either meets the above test, they are considered first-time homebuyers).' Hot tip!
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
11mo ago
Here I am! AhhhhhhTheFrenching up in your shit. But I am here to support you! Fuck this shit. Society has abandoned responsibility and we are no longer allowed to institutionalize people that will chop you head off on a greyhound bus and start eating it. (lead to a cop committing suicide and the flesh eating decapitation guy getting released without supervision, as long as he pinky swears to stay on his meds). Fuck these homeless maniacs, something must be done.
It isn't religion, or a lack of it. It is trust. We are currently in the transitional phase from a generally high trust society to a generally low trust society. If you trust your neighbor or your mayor or your doctor to do right by you then you don't feel like a sucker for doing right by them.
This country wasn't founded by particularly devout leaders and most of the gentry took a much more rational and considered view of religion and the belief systems of various sects. They would have found 1950's southern baptists laughable superstitious bumpkins, not examples of what an ordered and high trust society should look like.
Regarding your injection of abortion politics into this subject. Benjamin Franklin even gave instructions on how to perform an at home abortion in "Every Man his own Doctor: OR, The Poor Planter's Physician" -- "For this Misfortune, you must purge with Highland Flagg, (commonly called Bellyach Root) a Week before you expect to be out of Order; and repeat the same two Days after; the next Morning drink a Quarter of Pint of Pennyroyal Water, or Decoction, with 12 Drops of Spirits of Harts-horn, and as much again at Night, when you go to Bed. Continue this 9 Days running; and after resting 3 Days, go on with it for 9 more."
Go back further and infanticide was common practice, even in religious societies, so we haven't always even thought of babies as precious, let alone a fetus. Crap, do we have to have a funeral for every missed period that doesn't result in a born child if we are true Christians? Most women have more miscarriages than born children.
Cultural homogeneity increases trust. So in that respect religion could help be one of many binders, but anything will do; a great civilization wide cause or mission, an actual visible existential threat (maybe), strong traditions, a founding idea or ideal, brainwashing and harsh punishments for deviation, material abundance and space to pursue success without harming your neighbor (perhaps America's greatest strength for the past 400 years). 96% of Pakistan portends to be devout Muslim. Does that seem like a high trust society to you?
Too many people and too few resources is what causes the death of prosocial behavior in a free society, not giving up on worshiping a deity of some type. It is easy to be kind if helping someone doesn't diminish your situation, especially if you can expect reciprocity because you know them, too many people make everyone a stranger. History is littered with the corpses of 1000 religious societies.
As George Costanza would say - "We're living in a society!"
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
9mo ago
What is OLD? Also, who can't eat in front of people? Huge red flag to start. Who wants to go to church as a date? Red flag for both of you. Why drive all over the place for a date with someone that won't eat food. Red flag for you. So 3 Red flags on this whole thing.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
I was an early evangelizer about the fact that Supersize Me was not a documentary but a farce. It was well known at least in my circle because I wouldn't shut up about it, the guy is puking and gagging from eating a somewhat large McDonalds meal, it was all for show.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
11mo ago
Don't worry too much. Americans have been shouldering the worldwide cost of medical research for decades now. This isn't some new phenomenon. We pay for it, then everyone else gets to use it.
There are huge regulatory problems in the USA as well, the companies just have the right to charge enough to profit enormously even with those hurdles in place. It hurts everyone here, but at least we get some results sometimes. There is room for massive reform.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
I agree. The thing is, Kulak craves a collapse, he yearns for it. I've seen this before 100 times on /r/collapse and many other places on the right and the left. They couch it in concerned terms but what they really want is total collapse quickly so they can step out of their boring lives and into whatever post apocalyptic power fantasy YA literature has lead them to believe.
All roads lead to collapse in Kulaks eyes, because that is what he wants to happen. Zerohedge and Michael Burry and Silverbear, peak oil, clathrate gun, rapture, global warming, hard core preppers -on and on and on; they all suffer from the same sickness.
Sometimes it is because they build their brand and their income on it, sometimes it is just a wish for a different more exciting life free of the normal drudgery, sometimes it is because, "My ideology will arise triumphant from the ashes of the old world". It never happens like they predict, even when things get shitty in this world, it happens slowly in a larger area or quickly in an isolated location like a war or natural disaster.
What a great article! Thanks for the read. Amazing that reactionaries always show up to shit on the new and working interventions! Those poor kids kept dumb and disabled till the 50's because of that one doctor! Reminds me of the hand washing guy that said maybe you should wash your hands in between delivering babies and was drummed out of medicine. I think the HARD TIMES™ folks on here have no idea what they are advocating for, and the horror of it.
"leftoids", come on man. Great comment, and then you just throw that in there to make sure we know what side you're on. I own some property and when I get with other landlords the most pejorative term for lease holders is "rentoids" for the real bad ones. Dehumanizing to the max. Dial it back before the Rwandan machetes come out eh?
I think this ignores the human capacity for imagination and reason. No other animal even understands the connection between sex and pregnancy, it is all just biological drives. Humans are special in that we have evolved beyond being slaves to our biology.
In the past couple of hundred thousand years humans were not much different than some animals in that we didn't really have the capacity to stop pregnancies easily and for many of those eons seemed not to really understand the sexual process and resulting children all that well. Children were also a value add for the tribe, community, family in that they were needed for labor and warfare and continuity and you could see those effects in front of your face.
We are now very detached from any economic positives from our own children but very exposed to all of the negatives. The balance for the individual has shifted, you should really only have kids now if you think you'll enjoy it. Imagine if a mother octopus knew what was coming, I think the species would be dead in 10 years.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
My brother and I have traveled to a number of 3rd worldly places and also just regular European cities etc... This guy is just traveling, people are nice to you if you're out traveling and have money to spend and time to kill. I've invited travelers on adventures to stay at my cabin instead of having to tent out when they are passing through our vacation spot, I'm excited to meet a different culture and make a new friend. I'm not worshiping a French Canadian a who is biking the east coast. They are also being recorded the whole time, which is always weird and I don't really see how any of these bloggers can have genuine interactions while recording all of it for profit.
It isn't radically different to have a night out in Lisbon or in shitty Mexican shantytown far outside of Tulum. People like travelers for the most part. Especially if they are buying beer and massages, why wouldn't they? I don't see anything more than people being kind to a traveling dude and curious and open. They aren't worshiping a godlike Aryan dude, they are just being kind and having a good time with a traveler. If you haven't traveled a lot or hosted, this is a super common dynamic. You make a meal, introduce your friends have some drinks and hey it is great. Breaking bread with strange folk passing through is a tradition as old as time.
We don't "attempt" to play god. We are really really really good at it! You can chose to go live in a state of nature any time you wish. It is pretty terrible. Infanticide used to be pretty popular back then.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
10mo ago
Well, except that isn't the "abstinence-only" perspective that the conservatives want. They don't want sex ed or contraception taught, they want only abstinence taught, it says it right in the name of the policy.
Cops aren't even in the 10 most dangerous jobs and most on duty deaths are car accidents.
Their odds of being killed by guns are lower than the average citizen. At 1 in 11,800
Regular citizen odds are 1 in 8,000
Cops need to chill out. The math says so.
You don't see commercial tree trimmers freaking out on people all the time and mag dumping when an acorn hits their own vehicle's roof. https://abcnews.go.com/US/deputy-fires-weapon-after-mistaking-acorn-for-gunshot/story?id=107229338
FLMAO
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
Jesus. I made the mistake of reading the whole thing. This poor woman was indoctrinated well before her critical thinking was up and running (like most religions, they've got to get you early because it doesn't work once you can think), and internalized all of her mother's insane religious rants. She thinks she didn't because she did little acts of teenage rebellion, but she did. Now she is so fucked up about the whole thing she is doing only fans. JFC... Many woman enthusiastically enjoy sex in a healthy way. This poor gal is mentally ill.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
10mo ago
You cannot justifiably in any sort of good faith punish men for not wanting to "settle down" with a former college party favor any more than you could justifiably punish them for not agreeing to permanently staple a bag of dog feces to their forehead. The limit of public policy is where people would rather accept any punishment you can reasonably enforce than comply, and trying to force men to LARP a happy tradlife with former campus bicycles is definitely past that limit for a not insignificant number of men.
Whew, this is a lot...There is also a precedent for it multiple times recent western history, from Jamestown to Australia, with my favorite being Parisian prisoners being offered freedom if they agreed to marry prostitutes and move to Louisiana. So yes we have punished men for not "stapling dogshit to their heads."
I also don't know if you went to college, but if you did you should know that most women aren't "bicycles", sure there were some, but that has always been the case.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
I see people say things like this. I seldom (never) see anyone do things like this. Tax exemptions are also not a panacea for creating a successful organization, the Satanic Temple and Universal Life Church are not exactly going gangbusters. I suppose you're thinking more along the lines of the Amish or Hassidic Jews and maybe a touch of Mormonism. But they were all well established without tax breaks.
American life (in general) continues on apace without much in the way of influence from these successful insular organizations, so I'm not sure how, even in success, this would help with @Capital_Room's question. I, however, given our previous interactions, am not surprised that your solution to almost any issue is more dakka religion.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1yr ago
Because there are a ton of quartz mines scattered all over the globe. Another mine would supply it if this one didn't. Just because one farm supplies grain to wagyu beef in japan doesn't mean another one can't do it if they stop. The cattle don't die.
There is also synthetic quartz, this is a solved problem.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
10mo ago
The DR is surprisingly well run, they wouldn't stand for this shit. Last time I was down there they had prop fighter planes patrolling the border ready to gun down crossers.
It is a special kind of Madness. I do almost all updates myself as you are allowed to do almost all your own work in my state and my town is also kind of wild about building codes. In my town it is residential sprinkler systems, even though we haven't had a deadly fire in 100 years. The fire chief's car even has 'residential sprinklers save lives' on the side of it, guess what the other half of his family does, you guessed it residential sprinkler systems. I would like to add another unit to my property but guess what that means, residential sprinkler system would have to be installed and inspected every single year from then on out and serviced every three. They are one more point of failure and horrific water damage, all for no real net increase in safety. The fire department is 99% ems calls .09% brush fires .009% parades and .001% structure fires already.
It NEVER stops, nothing ever comes off the books or gets easier to build. They just let everyone in town build an ADU if they want, no one has done it as it basically needs to be as expensive as your main residence due to code compliance. Same people that are "worried" about affordable housing are the ones driving up housing prices and creating cost disease. Rather have someone burn to death using a propane heater in a tent than not have r50 insulation in the roof of a new home.
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