Rewatched most of Dr Katz recently after not watching it in forever and Dom was really a highlight. Every scene I remember with him was good and seemed to hold up. I didn’t get a lot of the show as a teen watching it, but there’s so much gold in it now watching it as an adult.

I’m not the most up to date on what all one should know, but it’s rapidly rising on my list of need to knows. I only ever hear blips about it from MSM and it always gets played like oh some more birds died today or this is why eggs got expensive. At the most bad I’ve noticed it get reported is when it hurts business by wiping out giant portions of large poultry farms. I don’t even think all these dead geese would make local news.

We do have a good test run of what happens without scavengers. This is just the first link that came up, but India near killed off their entire vulture population a few years back and it killed over half a million people from disease and such.

I was reading the posts from one of my local animal rescues last night about how they’re dealing with hundreds of dead snow geese that are testing positive for avian flu. They were begging for more money, PPE, and medicine to euthanize the ones not dead yet and crematory fees for dealing with the hundreds of contaminated bodies. That state and fed don’t seem to be pulling their weight in this, and they’re nervous about using the same equipment and vehicles they have for their healthy animals for so much bird flu. The photos and videos they showed were devastating.

Meanwhile, comments section was filled up asking how they know it’s bird flu, that bird flu is a gov conspiracy (US or China, both were covered) or this is what the mystery drones were gassing us with, and something about a “fog you could taste” (???) that was to blame for this.

If other animals like vultures get to the dead geese first, it just spreads the flu more, and if people try to dispose of the geese themselves, it can spread to their cats or birds at home.

People will just complain about the price of eggs as we lose so many animals, and potentially people.

I did a behind the scenes tour at a facility and got to go in the hippo paddock. It looked like what they’d have to hold animals at Jurassic Park. All kinds of mechanized 4 inch steel bars and gates to keep them separated from each other and the works in confinement.

They showed me the command to get them to open their mouths and we got to toss them some food. Those mouths and teeth are even wilder up close!

Hippos are one of my fav animals, and I think they are the true king of beasts. So of course I reached out to touch its snout. It felt like the world’s largest strawberry. Smooth and leather, and the dimples for the hairs felt like where the seeds are. So sturdy, yet gentle at the same time. A real amazing experience.

Truly underrated animals by most people.

I added RFK to my list as I work in pharma so I can’t stand his nonsense, and I had to go back and add Elon as well, because they call him either equally as much and I was wondering why I was still seeing that dumbass in my feed.

Originally I was worried about missing out on important info. Listening to some people talk about it in one of my podcasts, they mentioned they were tired of seeing people say Trump will do this or that, they only care about hearing about what people are going to do about the dumb stuff he says and does.

That struck me, as firstly, he normally doesn’t do the majority of stuff he says, and secondly, if he does actually do anything of significance, I’ll see it on AP or NPR. If I don’t see it that way, that means nobody is fighting to stop it anyway.

I know everything these clowns do is going to be bad or stupid, I don’t need to constantly be told that because I already know. I want to hear the names of who is going to do something about it, or I don’t want to hear about them at all in my Lemmy feed, which is supposed to be fun or educational for me.

Other news that is less engaging can deliver the bad news when it needs to, but if I control my feed here, I’m going to make it less frustrating. Reading about these jerks the last few years has done any good.

I saw comments about tight woven cotton being flame resistant. It sounds like it helps deprive oxygen from the flame. Any frays and stray thready bits lose that protection.

Textiles are surprisingly interesting!

I know wool is. That may be what you are thinking of.

I found a fiber burn test with wool, cotton, bamboo, and acrylic fibers. The wool singes but doesn’t burn up completely while the others do. I can’t speak to whatever she says in the video as my speakers don’t seem to be working now.

Wool would be extra beneficial for homeless as well as it retains most of its insulating properties when wet and stays cleaner with less washing than other fabrics.

I read the interview as a 380 page paper on a subject I don’t really understand seemed a bit ambitious. I linked it, as I didnt know who did the report, and I wanted to hear her summary in her own words.

The comments here are full of people defending one side or the other, but no one seems to be providing any sources. This seems to be a difficult subject to approach if one isn’t seeking to affirm an existing stance. Both sides just seem to say “show me the proof” back and forth because neither will acknowledge the other.

You seem to be at least leaning in favor of the report. If you have any noob appropriate links to supporting info, I’d look at them.

Wait…does that mean he…does intend to fix prices then?

Is this Opposite Day?

I mean…is this not Opposite Day?

I’m so confused!

She makes it hard to feel out what her actual position is, which in a way is probably what she should do, but is also very frustrating because being on neither side feels disingenuous as a default these days. I don’t know enough about her to really feel I know for sure.

We had decades (centuries?) of people not getting this care. There were definitely negatives to that. We’ve had maybe now a couple decades of increasing HRT/puberty blocker stuff. I’ve heard positive stories. Everything makes it sound reversible should the need arise. Everything against it seems to not be evenly distributed across the political spectrum so walking it back feels political based on what I’ve heard cumulatively.

Keeping it as research seems it would greatly reduce its availability, and if it causes people to suffer or die, that’s not something that can be taken back, unlike stopping hormone treatment or puberty blockers seems to be. That’s the part that concerns me.

I don’t know much about the issues, but I try to stay informed, so I don’t want to go trashing this lady’s report. From all I’ve read though, a lot of doctors already have to sign off on patients before it comes to these treatments, so canceling that now seems to overrule a wide range of medical and mental doctors for a dubious position.

I don’t know about the issue enough for me to comment on if she is biased or not, but I found this NYT interview (archive.org link) and she really seems to try to be playing both sides to me. Her main arguement seems to be don’t treat this as an issue to resolve gender, that makes you ignore mental health/depression/other things, but with there not being the best care of that nature available for trans individuals, what avenue is left for them?

It sounds like she wants to go on about a lack of enough proof for her to stop treatment, but it also doesn’t sound like she has enough proof to say it’s harmful, but that doesn’t seem to discourage her helping eliminate it.

Spent a year working at a dry cleaners. The first time I opened that machine and got blasted in the face with perc vapors I imagined it must be like being exposed on a planet with a methane atmosphere. That is some harsh stuff. After that job I inventoried hazardous chemicals at a pharma research site, and nothing they had hit my lungs and eyes like perc. The labs at least had good ventilation. Dry cleaning is a harsh business. It was disgusting and dangerous in all kinds of ways no other job I’ve had has been.

I won’t argue anything you say too much. You seem to be very firm in your opinions, and overall I feel we’d agree on things more than we’d disagree.

With that said, one of the bigger issues I have is what country is currently doing what you feel would be a better path for the US to follow? Europe has often provided a calmer voice to many issues, but it no longer feels to be the case. I’m no expert on world politics, but I can’t think of any country moving leftward as a whole right now. Europe seems to be in the middle of an anti-immigrant shift of its own, and they are helping with Ukraine in what feels on par with the US but not exceeding that aid, and it feels no one is doing much about Palestine.

If there is someone you feel is doing better, I’d like to learn about how it works, but I feel the US is still in one of the top positions to do something. Perhaps not for a few years now, but we all seem to be on the same sinking ship right now. We may have a bigger slice of the responsibility for that, but I’m not seeing anyone else giving a better example.

Things are going to go to shit, compared to the last 4 years, but I think it’s important we keep our heads and continue to make improvements where we can, even if that is much more local than nationally or globally. More blue states already seem to be preparing to fight some of the incoming changes, and we still have the quagmire of a court system to drag down the speed of what the new government can accomplish. A lot of nominees for cabinet roles are also outsiders and have no idea how to mobilize their workforce, and competent people will leave behind the less capable to accomplish their goals.

It is no more time to give up than it was a month ago. Those of us that want change still have the same things to try and accomplish. We might have to figure out new ways to do it, but we’ll still keep trying.

Most people outside political forums aren’t near as knowledgeable or informed as we tend to be, so we still need to educate people on facts and to undo disinformation when they’re ready to be receptive to it. Unless you want to go revolutionary and start hurting people physically, being engaged with your fellow countrymen is still the way forward.

We’re allowed to be angry right now. It’s good we’re angry to an extent. But I’m not here to promote anger. I’m mostly concerned with the environment and human rights, and hate and violence I don’t think are going to help either of those causes.

It also says they are deplatforming third party sellers from Walmart.com that are selling LGBT merch, which does seem to affect actual people promoting equality. The anti-LGBT activists already pushed the stores to stop carrying merch at physical retail locations, and now they are booting them off the web as well.

Interestingly, the linked CNBC article in OP’s link says this is mainly the work of one anti-gay/trans activist, Robby Starbuck. He seems to single out a company and attack their equality programs publicly to take them out one by one. Never heard of him before. It’s crazy to think one loudmouth can have so much pull over such huge companies.

I second this. I don’t want my government to hurt anyone, even people who are ignorant or hateful.

I certainly didn’t vote for what’s coming, and millions of others didn’t either. Countries that rely on us didn’t vote for it. Our environment didn’t vote for it. And I’m sure most of the people that were duped into voting for it didn’t really want what we’re going to get either. Some dirtbags probably did, but I think they’re still a minority, and I’d still rather those people have a chance to become good people than for them to suffer. I’d still want them to have access to free education and universal healthcare and a full social safety net if I had the power to give it to them.

We won’t be able to walk back a lot of what might happen. We could lose millions of acres of public land to private interest. Untold destruction could destroy our remaining ecosystems irreparably. We’ve got anti-vaxxers that could kill thousands to millions. We’ve got people that want to let Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Kurds die. That stuff can’t be undone, and those people and our planet don’t deserve it because some con artists did a great job on propaganda this last half century.

My pleasure!

I was able to find it!

It is Planet Money - The Trade Fraud Protective 23 AUG 2024

Audio and transcript at that link, or you should be able to find it on your podcast app of choice.

It’s also power steering hoses in Thailand, not fan belts in Vietnam, so I hope that’s still ok. 😉

I heard about this a few months back on a podcast about auto parts. China just shipped the fan belts they were making to a warehouse in Vietnam, rebranded them, and shipped them to the US, tariff free.

They did some sort of chemical analysis on the Made in China and Made in Vietnam belts and the formulation of the rubbers was identical.

Enforcement to counter this would likely eat up too much of the tariff money, so it just won’t be done. China will still get paid the same, and at minimum we’ll eat China’s additional shipping costs.

Yup, my questions in the Maori article have been up for 24 hours now, so time for people in that part of the world with direct knowledge had time to see it. My comments and questions got 7 upvotes, so other people seem interested in some more elaboration, but the thread is probably dead.

Someone’s leaving an audience that wants more hanging, and nobody even gave a yes or no saying if my understanding of the article was right. 😮‍💨

Oh for sure. It’s going to be what ultimately makes or breaks this as a platform. You can’t force a userbase to interact, but as OP states, like many before them, for some people there’s not going to be much going on here. For people that want to at least be mildly active participants though, I haven’t had this much fun since forums were the big thing. I just imagine since that was a decent while ago now that either those of us old enough to have enjoyed them are rusty at it, and the yoots are too young to have seen how it used to work.