Miscellaneous news items that don't warrant their own thread

[Skjellyfetti]

A pregnant American woman who suffered an incomplete miscarriage while vacationing in Malta was receiving treatment Friday in a hospital on the Spanish island of Mallorca because Maltese law prohibits abortion, the woman's partner said.

Jay Weeldreyer told The Associated Press that doctors at the Son Espases University Hospital in Palma de Mallorca were preparing his partner, Andrea Prudente, for a procedure to remove the remaining fetal tissue because she was at risk of a life-threatening infection.

A medical evacuation flight transported the couple from Malta to Mallorca late Thursday.

Prudente, 38, experienced heavy bleeding on June 12, followed by a premature rupture of the amniotic sac and the separation of the placenta, Weeldreyer, 45, told The AP on Thursday.

The Malta hospital where she was treated carefully monitored her for any sign of infection but it could not perform the surgery to complete the miscarriage, he said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrea-pru ... -abortion/

[Winterborn]

I do not agree with everything Lori Garver says, but the comments about wasting money and bureaucratic quagmire are in line with what I have read and been informed by people who have worked with a few NASA/JPL programs. NASA needs to be drastically overhauled and its mission statement evaluated, IMHO.

She says one of the biggest impediments to reform was Bill Nelson, the former U.S. senator from Florida who represented Kennedy Space Center and now runs NASA.

It was Nelson, she writes, who “led the opposition” to the Commercial Crew Program — the novel public-private partnership she championed that culminated in 2020 with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon returning American astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time in a decade.

Garver contends that if Nelson and Bolden had their way a decade ago, the United States would still be dependent on Russia to send astronauts to the space station.

And Nelson, she says, who along with then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison “forced on us” the SLS, the taxpayer-funded mega-moon rocket that is years behind schedule, billions over cost and slated to finally make its first uncrewed flight this summer.

...

Garver reserves some of her harshest criticism, however, for the SLS — the mega-rocket and space capsule built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin that NASA is banking on to return astronauts to the moon by 2025. She faults its lack of reusability, exorbitant anticipated price per launch, as well as the self-dealing government acquisition system that rewards existing contractors and programs.

“Had SLS flown for the amount of money and in the period of time that we were told they would there would be no book,” she said in an interview.

Garver, who has been publicly attacking the SLS project as wasteful for years, derides it in the book as the “Senate Launch System.”

She says the political pressure to keep production lines going was overwhelming — even if it meant that taxpayers paid double for components in a system that might never fly more than a few times.

She recounts how the bureaucracy initiated the program out of the ashes of the Constellation effort knowing that what they were promising was not achievable.

“NASA staff from the program offices, centers, legislative affairs, general counsel, and even public affairs had been working against us in secret,” she writes. “I thought about how many people in the room and across the country were ecstatic with the announcement, unaware that their leadership was lying to them about what was achievable. Thousands of people would spend their next decade working on systems that weren’t sustainable over the long term.

“It was easier to keep doing the same thing while charging the government more and more money,” she added. “This process continues to this day.”

After $40 billion spent on a space transportation system that is not reusable — and by recent estimates will cost at least $4 billion per launch — she faults NASA under the Biden administration for sticking with it.

“The Biden administration is now the third administration to ignore such realities,” she writes, “so the absurdity continues.”

She notes, for example, that NASA is paying Aerojet Rocketdyne to refurbish engines for the SLS that the government initially developed under the Space Shuttle program — at $150 million apiece.

“Since the SLS throws four away each launch, taxpayers will spend $600 million per launch for engines they paid for already,” Garver writes. “By contrast, SpaceX sells a Falcon Heavy launch for $90 million, reusable engines included.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/2 ... e-00041085

[kalm]

Spend more, worse outcomes. Both parties support the current system. Rinse and repeat.

Why do Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries, despite paying so much more for health care?

The short summary of what I will discuss below is that Americans suffer higher death rates from smoking, obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths. In addition to this, deeper poverty and less access to healthcare mean Americans at lower incomes die at a younger age than poor people in other rich countries.

Life expectancy and health expenditure over time, the US is an outlier

The US clearly stands out as the chart shows: Americans spend far more on health than any other country in the world, yet the life expectancy of the American population is shorter than in other rich countries that spend far less.

https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

[BDKJMU]

Spend more, worse outcomes. Both parties support the current system. Rinse and repeat.

Why do Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries, despite paying so much more for health care?

The short summary of what I will discuss below is that Americans suffer higher death rates from smoking, obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths. In addition to this, deeper poverty and less access to healthcare mean Americans at lower incomes die at a younger age than poor people in other rich countries.

Life expectancy and health expenditure over time, the US is an outlier

The US clearly stands out as the chart shows: Americans spend far more on health than any other country in the world, yet the life expectancy of the American population is shorter than in other rich countries that spend far less.

https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

Obesity is probably more than all those others put together. Go to those other ‘rich countries’ ie Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zeland (I’ve been to all except the Scandanavian) and while you see some overweight and fat people, it is WAY less prevalent than in the US.

[kalm]

Spend more, worse outcomes. Both parties support the current system. Rinse and repeat.





https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

Obesity is probably more than all those others put together. Go to those other ‘rich countries’ ie Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zeland (I’ve been to all except the Scandanavian) and while you see some overweight and fat people, it is WAY less prevalent than in the US.

All the more need for improved healthcare access and reduction in costs including preventative care like nutrition.

[SeattleGriz]

Obesity is probably more than all those others put together. Go to those other ‘rich countries’ ie Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zeland (I’ve been to all except the Scandanavian) and while you see some overweight and fat people, it is WAY less prevalent than in the US.

All the more need for improved healthcare access and reduction in costs including preventative care like nutrition.

I have a dream. One in which we teach our kids how to properly exercise with expanded Physical Education, teach them how to shop for food and then to cook it. You have to make 10 basic, nutritious and inexpensive meals to graduate.

I remember the first time getting to speak with a Griz football player and was shocked at how little they knew about health and nutrition. If someone who receives a scholarship for playing a sport and didn't even know the basics, what about everyone else that didn't have that advantage.

You should have seen my jaw hit the floor when I overheard a former Washington Redskins player explain the difference between aerobic and anaerobic to some girls at the gym.

[SeattleGriz]

Not political, but holy shit. 17 years old and new outdoor world best at 20'2"



Supposedly not the same vault, but very cool in slow mo.

[SeattleGriz]

If you were to ask me my primary nationality, I would tell you Dutch. Climate change nonsense telling the Dutch that some farms are going to have to close down.

[BDKJMU]

All the more need for improved healthcare access and reduction in costs including preventative care like nutrition.

I have a dream. One in which we teach our kids how to properly exercise with expanded Physical Education, teach them how to shop for food and then to cook it. You have to make 10 basic, nutritious and inexpensive meals to graduate.

I remember the first time getting to speak with a Griz football player and was shocked at how little they knew about health and nutrition. If someone who receives a scholarship for playing a sport and didn't even know the basics, what about everyone else that didn't have that advantage.

You should have seen my jaw hit the floor when I overheard a former Washington Redskins player explain the difference between aerobic and anaerobic to some girls at the gym.

Yeah, probably the 2 biggest things they fail to teach in schools are financial literacy and nutrition.

OTOH, a hundred years ago, even 50 years ago I don't think the US population as a whole probably knew more about nutrition than now, yet we had a fraction of the obesity we have now. Biggest difference is the sedentary lifestyles of today plus eating way calories too many calories. Some of that's sugar/processed foods. And some is just plain bigger portions. So if you could wave a magic wand and we started this next upcoming school year teaching nutrition and expanding PE in every school in America, it would keep it from gettong worse, help some, but in 20-30 years most of the obesity epidemic would remain.

[SeattleGriz]

In other news. Shitfaced guy tries to burn down wedding.

[SeattleGriz]

If you were to ask me my primary nationality, I would tell you Dutch. Climate change nonsense telling the Dutch that some farms are going to have to close down.

[Col Hogan]

Electric rates by state

[Baldy]

In other news. Shitfaced guy tries to burn down wedding.

This guy is a fucking KING.

[SeattleGriz]

In other news. Shitfaced guy tries to burn down wedding.

This guy is a fucking KING.

That's PolsonGriz when he used to trim his beard. Love that guy.

[SeattleGriz]

Holy shit. Dutch cops now shooting at farmers. Game on!

[kalm]

Diversity!

[HI54UNI]

Electric rates by state

With high natural gas prices a lot of these states are going to be seeing rates increase. A lot of the lowest rate states are blessed with having cheap hydropower.

[Baldy]

Diversity!

Not surprising that you fell for something that was debunked last year.

Leftists hate DeSantis because he's usually right. If you love your kids, do not send them off to college.

Why I'm Giving Up Tenure at UCLA

The ideological takeover of my university has ruined academic life for anyone who still believes in freedom of thought.

I’ve been a professor in the Anthropology Department at UCLA since 1996; I received tenure in 2000. My research has spanned topics ranging from nonhuman primate behavior to human personality variation. For decades, anthropology has been notorious for conflict between the scientific and political activist factions in the field, leading many departments to split in two. But UCLA’s department remained unusually peaceful, cohesive, and intellectually inclusive until the late 2000s.

Gradually, one hire at a time, practitioners of “critical” (i.e. leftist, postmodernist) anthropology, some of them lying about their beliefs during job interviews, came to comprise the department’s most influential clique. These militant faculty members recruited even more militant graduate students to work with them.

I can’t recount here even a representative sample of this faction’s penchant for mendacity and intimidation, because most of it occurred during confidential discussions, usually about hiring and promotion decisions. But I can describe their public torment and humiliation of one of my colleagues, P. Jeffrey Brantingham.

[kalm]

Diversity!

Not surprising that you fell for something that was debunked last year.

Leftists hate DeSantis because he's usually right. If you love your kids, do not send them off to college.

Why I'm Giving Up Tenure at UCLA

The ideological takeover of my university has ruined academic life for anyone who still believes in freedom of thought.

I’ve been a professor in the Anthropology Department at UCLA since 1996; I received tenure in 2000. My research has spanned topics ranging from nonhuman primate behavior to human personality variation. For decades, anthropology has been notorious for conflict between the scientific and political activist factions in the field, leading many departments to split in two. But UCLA’s department remained unusually peaceful, cohesive, and intellectually inclusive until the late 2000s.

Gradually, one hire at a time, practitioners of “critical” (i.e. leftist, postmodernist) anthropology, some of them lying about their beliefs during job interviews, came to comprise the department’s most influential clique. These militant faculty members recruited even more militant graduate students to work with them.

I can’t recount here even a representative sample of this faction’s penchant for mendacity and intimidation, because most of it occurred during confidential discussions, usually about hiring and promotion decisions. But I can describe their public torment and humiliation of one of my colleagues, P. Jeffrey Brantingham.

He vouches for Jordan Peterson?

[Baldy]

Not surprising that you fell for something that was debunked last year.

Leftists hate DeSantis because he's usually right. If you love your kids, do not send them off to college.

Why I'm Giving Up Tenure at UCLA

He vouches for Jordan Peterson?

[kalm]

He vouches for Jordan Peterson?

Are you a JP fan, Baldy?

[BDKJMU]

Wow, former Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, longest serving Japanese PM in history, assassinated.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/japan-shi ... a-yamagami

[AZGrizFan]

Spend more, worse outcomes. Both parties support the current system. Rinse and repeat.

Why do Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries, despite paying so much more for health care?

The short summary of what I will discuss below is that Americans suffer higher death rates from smoking, obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths. In addition to this, deeper poverty and less access to healthcare mean Americans at lower incomes die at a younger age than poor people in other rich countries.

Life expectancy and health expenditure over time, the US is an outlier

The US clearly stands out as the chart shows: Americans spend far more on health than any other country in the world, yet the life expectancy of the American population is shorter than in other rich countries that spend far less.

https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

They all rise and sleep under the very blanket of freedom that we provide, and then question the manner in which we provide it?

I would rather they just said “Thank You” and be on their way.

[UNI88]

Spend more, worse outcomes. Both parties support the current system. Rinse and repeat.


https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

They all rise and sleep under the very blanket of freedom that we provide, and then question the manner in which we provide it?

I would rather they just said “Thank You” and be on their way.

They're arrogant and believe that it's their responsibility to preach to the less enlightened. They're similar to American evangelicals in that regard.

I'd like to know the difference in life expectancy if you factored in lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, etc.).

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[kalm]

They all rise and sleep under the very blanket of freedom that we provide, and then question the manner in which we provide it?

I would rather they just said “Thank You” and be on their way.

They're arrogant and believe that it's their responsibility to preach to the less enlightened. They're similar to American evangelicals in that regard.

I'd like to know the difference in life expectancy if you factored in lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, etc.).

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

It’s interesting that you two get defensive about this.

I look at it and just think, man…we can do better.