For sure, I just get antsy when peer review doesn’t come from from external sources

Hm, 5 year old journal, with the editor board, funding and half of the authors all from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but significant hospital contribution. I remain skeptical of the headline but hopeful of the science.

Thanks for understanding and being willing to consider a stranger’s point of view, I appreciate it.

what happened was a logical and known potential outcome and consequence of signing up

It certainly is, but when the burden of responsibility is only placed on the person at the end of the line, it lets the fuckers at the top with the unequal power skirt their responsibility. Perhaps “blame” is too far, but it doss seem like you’ve perhaps disproportionately assigned blame to thus one shouting guy and his kid.

You make it sound as if the choice is binary between starving and joining the military: it’s not.

Not at all, but I do acknowledge that for many, and in increasing amounts, the decision has indeed become very close to that binary. US hegemony relies on people to do the enforcement. That’s obviously dangerous, and thankfully, despite pervasive cultural conditioning, most people aren’t interested in killing others overseas while living in an overcrowded dorm eating slop. So the conditions have been put in place by the ruling class to force people into doing it.

If you’re unlucky enough to be born in Podunk Nowhere, where disaster capitalism has resulted in the only employers being Walmart, mcdonalds or the shady abattoir that “hires” minors, you don’t start with many options. Add in an “education” from a system that has been rotted from within by zealots, complete with in-school army recruiter. Add in a culture that loves guns. Add in a family member in debt from medical accident (probably at the abattoir), or an unplanned pregnancy because of no access to abortion. Maybe they’re also living at home with a parent who is addicted to meth out of desperation to avoid their poverty and misery… and the military starts looking like a very tempting option.

You have the chance of dying and disability in the military, and the likelihood that you’re forced to murder, but also the glimmer of hope of an education, family healthcare and a way out of Podunk’s cycle of poverty. That’s a powerful motivator for someone who doesn’t see any other realistic options. It’s a deliberate funnel into committing murder through economic coercion and military worship culture, and the fault lies with the trap makers, not the trapped.

The only thing that makes the last 80 years different is the efficiency of murder and the new murder weapons they have access to.

And the extent of its reach. A century ago, the US was pretty limited to war on North American soil, and land it claims. When the war is that close, the realities of suffering are hard to conceal from the people whom you need to inflict it. Wars in other continents though can be sanitized by the media, and the people who are caught in the military funnel trap find out after they’ve signed the contract.

Thankfully the prevalence of video tech has allowed us to mitigate some of that media sanitization, but again, putting the burden of responsibility on the 18 year old who has never been taught critical thinking skills allows the 65+ year old networked decision makers at the top to slide off the hook.

Tl;dr I think it’s OK to acknowledge everything on all fronts is fucked for everyone except the ruling class. I also think it’s OK to shout at the ruling class, even in their house, when you were invited to be there.

Blaming the people who need to eat instead of the people creating an economy out of death and misery is counter-productive. US foreign policy and economics have centered around war for at least 80 years, Biden has played a crucial role in facilitating it for a few decades.

And the fact a person has been arrested for shouting at the president in the same location where people literally stormed it and engaged in literal violence and walked away free that day? Amazing.

Biden might be infinitely better than the alternative for most citizens of the US (and likely the entire world) - but the non-US part of the world has been bearing the costs of the US military economy that has provided the privileges US citizens currently enjoy.

But fuck the guy who lost his kid, right? He’s the real problem. /s

Israel Appropriates. Very interesting language.

All the reports Reuters makes on the
Russia war treats land ownership quite differently. When Ukraine takes land they say “Ukraine regains (number)km/ (TownName)”. Russians taking land is either seemingly not reported or phrased as “Russia says its forces have improved positions in / captured (Location)”. Only mentions of Russian gains are phrased to reference killing (forces is a useful homonym). Ukraine gains are phrased as the entire country reclaiming rightful stake (regains implies they were there first, and the region’s history is vastly more complex than that).

Israel headlines though refer to either the entire country “appropriating” space or for the really murderous stuff it specifies the IDF as the perpetrators. The whole country headline versions sound temporary and even morally neutral, while the obviously indefensible genocide can be compartmentalised as only being the military and harsh realities of war. They even get to disconnect the word Israel by only ever saying the initialism IDF.

They’re three different characterisations entirely of the same act by different countries - killing each other to control politically strategic physical space ownership.

I hope one day people can realise we’re all just being used as disposable pawns targeting other humans, who are also just trying to live peacefully in this dystopian civilisation. None of the headlines about suffering ever needed to happen. We all need to stop whatever it is we do that contributes to those who rule us and would have us die for them.

I never want to hear anyone try to say NATO isn’t just an international military that is guided / deeply influenced by American foreign policy ever again. One of the few good things to ever come from the Trump fiasco is that they’re finally saying the quiet parts out loud, but the fact that this will receive no coverage, let alone criticism, means that might just be even more dangerous for all of us, even outside the Atlantic.

The world is on fire and humanity is prioritising manufacturing our own suicide above investing in fire extinguishers.

Or both. Like me. Having long covid has made me even more afraid of reinfection. I can’t afford to live like this, let alone potentially worsen it.

On the upside, perma-masking on the rare occasion I’m not at home has prevented me from getting all upper respiratory viruses for a few years now.

Forever, probably. This is just another in a long line of Israel’s atrocities since they were created from Britain’s discarded colony in 1948 with the most ridiculous borders decided by the UN

Israel immediately annexed more than half of the Arab territories in that map. The UN, Western Europe and the US just shrugged in response. These days the politicians have to at least mime disapproval because news travels fast, but that’s all they will do. People are just GDP to them.

TIL Digit grouping style variances are even more fucked than I anticipated. International Bureau of Weights and Measures along with International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry uses spaces, but different countries use commas or dots and some use spaces and comma OR dot?

Fuck this, we should redo the whole numeric system. Burn it all down and start from scratch.

Currency and numeric formatting works differently by location, it looks consistent and correct for US formatting.

Personally, I think it’s high time for a new global standard on this that abandons the dots and commas altogether, using new symbols so nobody can complain that it’s unfair that only some people have to change. But that’s… very unlikely to ever happen, for no good reason.

I’ve only ever seen a volcano once from far away, thankfully while it wasn’t killing people. It blows my mind I can watch one on the other side of the world with only a few seconds delay… I hope everything remains low level and doesn’t cause too much misery for those nearby.

Depends who you ask. He is anti-science pro-capitalism and willing to be a puppet leader for the US. Whether that ultimately benefits the average Argentinian or not remains to be seen, but historically far-right policy has only ever benefited those who currently hold the most power.

I think it’s also worth mentioning Argentina is a place where a lot of prominent fascists fled to after WW2 with the assistance of Perón, and the country has somewhat of a reputation in South America for being extremely proud of their European heritage.

My condolences, especially to the marginalised groups and scientific community in Argentina. I see you and grieve with you. Qué bajón. (I hope I’m using this correctly)

Given the existence of world powers, realistically we are never going to get UN intervention where countries like US or China are stakeholders, so that’s not how it is designed. It would just turn into open warfare and we would probably be on WW6 by now.

I mean, yes, but it would still be nice for the UN to think about addressing its own systemic biases in deciding what deserves intervention. For starters, by looking at why only those 5 nations conveniently have eternal veto on the Security Council instead of something like a rotating country moderator panel like other councils.

Given the UN literally created the modern state of Israel and defined its borders in 1947, which arguably is part of the reason this particular dispute over the territory, which happens to have been annexed by Israel in 1948.

The original UN map before the First Modern Arab Israeli war for anyone unfamiliar with it.

Falling on ears deafened from the bombs and guns and eyes blinded by rage and hatred. You’re going to actually have to do something, UN. Research, advocacy and reporting is all very valid work worth doing, and I appreciate it more than you could possibly know, but there’s no reasoning with power-hungry aggrieved zealotry. Logic works when the audience’s primary motivation is based in logic.

Watchdog in question is Reporters Without Borders.

“The initial findings of the investigation show that the reporters were not collateral victims of the shooting,” the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

“One of their vehicles, marked ‘press’, was targeted, and it was also clear that the group stationed next to it was journalists.”

Their full report incl. timeline: “RSF video investigation into the death of Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah in Lebanon: the journalists’ vehicle was explicitly targeted”

And I call on the Pope to release internal Vatican documentation and hoarded gold/loot Catholic extremists / fascists stole during WW2. The leader of which was hidden by the Church in the Vatican after the war

We can both make ineffective pleas. At least mine isn’t hypocritical.

Catholic extremists haven’t stopped at non-Christians before. CW: extremely heavy including pictures Ethnic and religious persecution during WW2 by the Croatian Ustaše

Large numbers of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, communists, and Croatians hostile to the regime were interned in concentration camps, while countless others were massacred in towns and villages. The Ustasha were directly involved in the administration and in the orchestration of the killings. In addition, some 200,000 Serbs were forcibly converted to Catholicism. According to the Ustasha blueprint, one-third of Serbs were to be killed, another third expelled, and a final third converted to Catholicism.
- “Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice” (2009) Ed. Nicholas A. Robins, Adam Jones

For clarity, Serbs are historically usually Eastern Orthodox Christians.

And I’m glad my brain fog helped someone out! It’s almost always the opposite 😅