Tag: foolish

Who are these people?

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More than 93,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2020. “We are in an enduring crisis that is still going on. We are still right in the middle of it…”

The 29.4% increase is an alarming jump from 2019, which also set a record after 71,000 people died from drug overdoses, according to CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics…

The spike in deaths was driven by the increased presence of the dangerous opioid fentanyl into the illicit drug market in the US, along with increased isolation among people who use drugs and overwhelmed public health agencies during the pandemic. The increase is only the latest in a long-running epidemic of overdose deaths steadily rising over the last half-century, with more than half a million people dying as a result of drug overdoses in the last decade alone…

While fentanyl is now linked to 3 out of 5 overdose deaths nationwide, the preliminary statistics suggest deaths from methamphetamine, cocaine, and prescription pain pills also increased in the last year. That likely reflects their contamination with fentanyl, and increasing use of multiple drugs together, said Volkow. As little as 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be a lethal dose; one survey conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration reported that 26% of counterfeit pain pills contained that dosage or higher.

We know all the usual steps needed to fightback…including policing producers of ingredients used by the makers of counterfeit drugs. One constant remains. A junkie is a junkie is a junkie. Straightening out that personality disorder still seems to be beyond modern American medicine.

Thanks, Governor Michelle –

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Have to admit it’s nice having a politician sitting in the governor’s mansion with sufficient brains to overcome the sillyass tendencies of most of that breed here in USA, USA.

Regulations based on science, medical expertise, have been in place here in New Mexico since the beginning of this pandemic. A little bit of easing showed up when it looked as if it might be OK – quickly slowed when it became clear that petit bourgeois fools like Trump and his ilk were condemning this nation to hundreds and thousands of unnecessary deaths.

They won’t be prosecuted for murder. They should!

“Cut the damned strings!”

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❝ …According to a graphic, created by retired UC Berkeley professor of cognitive science and linguistics George Lakoff, which outlines four ways that the president uses his tweets to control the news cycle. First up? What Lakoff calls “preemptive framing”: getting your version of the story out first. Next is good old-fashioned diversion–changing the topic by, for instance, calling Meryl Streep overrated. Then there’s deflection, best described by Trump’s continued derision of the New York Times and CNN as “fake news,” particularly when either news organization reports anything negative about him. And the last way is the “trial balloon,” which Trump deployed spectacularly this week.

❝ Lakoff writes on Twitter, “Each tweet gets his message retweeted so he dominates social media. Reporters, social media influencers, and many others fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Every time…They may think they’re negating or undermining him, but that’s not how human brains work. As a cognitive scientist, I can tell you: Repeating his messages only helps him.”…

And maybe don’t retweet him. “Think of Trump as a puppeteer, his tweets as the strings, and anyone who retweets/shares him as the puppet,” he writes. “Cut the damn strings!”

Would you retweet Chuckie?

Dogs Who Live With Smokers Die Younger

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How to kill your best friend

❝ Dogs are like small children. They tend to explore their environments by putting whatever they can find in their mouths, as well as sniffing about your carpet, your furniture, and your lap. It’s no surprise, then, that your canine friend can be harmed by toxic chemicals in your environment. New research confirms that dogs living in smoking homes are more likely to suffer from DNA damage and show signs of premature aging than those living in non-smoking homes.

❝ In people, the potential health risks of smoking and inhaling second-hand smoke are well documented. But to understand how environmental tobacco affects our pets, Natalie Hutchinson, a veterinary researcher at the University of Glasgow, recruited 42 dogs and their owners, approximately half of whom lived in smoking homes and half in non-smoking homes. Each of the dog owners completed a survey about their smoking habits, frequency, and whether they smoked indoors or stepped outside. Then researchers collected blood, hair samples, and cheek swabs from the dogs during a health checkup. They also offered free-of-charge neutering, and collected spare tissues for genetic analysis.

❝ A year later, Hutchinson followed up with 25 of the pet owners and conducted some more tests. She found that certain biological markers, such as the presence of nicotine in dogs’ hair, were much higher in dogs exposed to smoke at home and were related to the amount of smoking going on. “The fact that we found significant increases in various biomarkers over just a year’s worth of data is the most worrying part for me,” she says. “Dogs can live up to 10 to 15 years with us, which means they could be exposed to even more harmful effects over time.”

But dogs that came from smoking homes were already showing signs of DNA damage that could lead to shorter lives, Hutchinson says. Their telomeres, which cap and protect the ends of chromosomes, were much shorter compared to dogs from non-smoking homes. Telomeres not only protect DNA from oxidative stress, once they reach a critically short length, cells stop dividing and may even die, Hutchinson explains.

No surprise to me. Still, it’s nice to see the beginnings of scientific research validating what lots of folks know anecdotally.