Bad Crow Review: Minimalism Rocks!
However that plays
Links are at the end.
At least one and maybe two red-vented bulbuls.
I’m tired and don’t feel much like writing anything, so at least at this point in the process I don’t intend to. But who knows? I have a motormouth at the keyboard.
I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt uneasy around doctors who got their M.D. at Tufts. Nevertheless:
The cause of [Alzheimer’s] in its most common form, which is not genetically based, is not well understood. This makes treatment difficult, but progress is being made. Using a 3D model of living human brain cells, Tufts researchers earlier this year showed that the common herpes virus could induce plaques in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Now, Tufts researchers are working to understand what might slow progression of the disease. They have tested 21 different compounds in Alzheimer’s-afflicted neural cells in the lab, measuring the compounds’ effect on the growth of sticky beta amyloid plaques. These plaques develop in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.
The researchers found that two common compounds—green tea catechins and resveratrol, found in red wine and other foods—reduced the formation of plaques in those neural cells. And they did so with few or no side effects.1
Emphasis ours. Brain herpes. Wow. Other than, the news is good. Common substances and inexpensive, although that won’t factor into pricing once a pharmaceutical firm gets hold of them.
It’s good news for diabetics too. One of the most effective substances the researchers tested is metformin, which is dirt cheap and in daily use by millions of aging diabetic people. Although pharma companies yada yada.
Brain herpes: fuck!
Your cat is quite fond of you, but has other interests.2
I’m not understanding the difference between “your cat is busy doing something else” and “your cat is ignoring you,” but science says, so one hears and obeys. Unlike one’s cat.
A reminder that lying Nazi homunculus Stephen Miller left a paper trail.3
In this, the first of what will be a series about those emails, Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a “white genocide”-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in “Mein Kampf.”
Hatewatch reviewed more than 900 previously private emails Miller sent to Breitbart editors from March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016. Miller does not converse along a wide range of topics in the emails. His focus is strikingly narrow – more than 80 percent of the emails Hatewatch reviewed relate to or appear on threads relating to the subjects of race or immigration. Hatewatch made multiple attempts to reach the White House for a comment from Miller about the content of his emails but did not receive any reply.
Miller’s perspective on race and immigration across the emails is repetitious. When discussing crime, which he does scores of times, Miller focuses on offenses committed by nonwhites. On immigration, he touches solely on the perspective of severely limiting or ending nonwhite immigration to the United States. Hatewatch was unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.
Ultra-normal, is Stephen. And the emails Hatewatch addresses are all to and from one source, Breitbart News. They’re certainly not his only foul correspondents, and it’s no coincidence that he named his new reactionary legal foundation and political action committee after the America First Nazi sympathizers in the runup to WW II.
One ad from America First Legal, a group started by Stephen Miller, who was a top policy adviser in the Trump White House, accuses the Biden administration of “anti-white bigotry” while claiming that corporations, airlines and universities “all openly discriminate against white Americans.” “When did racism against white people become OK?” the narrator asks.
Another radio ad from the group says that the Biden administration wants to pave the way for children “to remove breasts and genitals.” “Not long ago, everyone knew that you’re either born a boy or a girl,” the narrator says. “Not anymore.”
A similar spot that aired in Tennessee during a radio broadcast of the Tennessee Titans game, according to WPLN-FM, claimed, “They push girls to take testosterone so they grow facial hair.”
Yes, ultra-normal is Stephen. Some people get offended when I call him a lying Nazi homunculus, either because they are too or because he’s Jewish, but he’s made absolutely clear where his loyalties lie.
Black ex-cons aren’t people in Tennessee.4
Leola Scott recently decided to become a more active citizen. The 55-year-old resident of Dyersburg, Tennessee, was driven to action after her son was stabbed to death and nobody was charged.
In August, Scott tried to register to vote. That’s when she learned she’s not allowed to cast a ballot because she was convicted of nonviolent felonies nearly 20 years ago.
One in five Black Tennesseans are like Scott: barred from voting because of a prior felony conviction. Indeed, Tennessee appears to disenfranchise a far higher proportion of its Black residents — 21% — than any other state.
The figure comes from a new analysis by the nonprofit advocacy group The Sentencing Project, which found that Mississippi ranks a distant second, just under 16% of its Black voting-eligible population. Tennessee also has the highest rate of disenfranchisement among its Latino community — just over 8%.
Tennessee is of course not alone in their efforts to disenfranchise Black voters either legally or in effect.
A Tokyo district set out to identify and reach out to every recluse within their jurisdiction.5
A large-scale survey conducted by Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward has found that nearly 8,000 people age 15 and older are considered to be hikikomori, or people who have isolated themselves from society at home for more than six months.
The results, which were released Wednesday, showed that the largest proportion of social recluses in the municipality were people in their 40s, at 17.1%, followed by those in their 50s, at 16.6%.
Edogawa’s survey, based on responses from 103,000 households, is unusual because the questionnaire was sent to every resident in the ward age 15 or older who was suspected of being a shut-in. The ward made the judgment based on them not having paid income taxes or not having used nursing or disability services provided by the government.
Ward officials said the survey drew no response from many households which they’ll attempt to reach in their ongoing effort.
The Edogawa government said it plans to use the results to provide adequate support to hikikomori and their families. It also plans to look further into the situation of people from nearly 80,000 households that have not responded to the survey.
Only 26.4% of hikikomori responded to the survey on their own, while the remainder of the responses came from the family members of people who live in isolation.
Japan is not known for its attention to mental health issues, but reclusiveness is seen as a social condition. The effort is a good thing no matter what you call it.
'Stain on Democracy': Tax Day Study Shows US Billionaires Now Own $4.7 Trillion
Can’t argue with “stain”, although “democracy” is up for discussion.6 This story is from tax day, so it's dated but not outmoded.
An analysis released Monday to mark Tax Day in the United States shows that the country's 735 billionaires have seen their collective wealth soar by 62% over the past two years while worker earnings have grown just 10%, modest gains eaten away by the rising costs of food, housing, and other necessities.
"We reject the narrative that this country cannot afford to invest in a better world."
According to new calculations by Oxfam America, U.S. billionaires now own a combined $4.7 trillion in wealth, much of which goes completely untaxed. As ProPublica recently found in an examination of data from the Internal Revenue Service—an agency that disproportionately targets the poor—the 25 richest people in the U.S. paid a true tax rate of just 3.4% from 2014 to 2018.
"The billionaire wealth explosion in this country comes at a time of historic inflation hitting working families, compounded by the expiration of critical social safety nets put in place at the start of the pandemic to protect America's most vulnerable," said Gina Cummings, vice president of advocacy alliances and policy at Oxfam America.
We got Oxfam and the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights both slagging conditions in the U.S.,7 along with a Financial Times story we flagged a while back describing the U.S. as having an impoverished society with some very wealthy people.8
Stain, stain, shame.
Silver Jews, “American Water;” Cam Penner, “Trouble and Mercy.”
And that, comrades, is all we got. Get well, be well, take care.
So, I read all of this, and what I got from it was "You're not drinking enough wine." This problem is solvable.