Wednesday Open Thread

14 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. The Trump Administration (via DOGE) is not only using Project 2025 as their roadmap.  It seems they have also taken the lessons from Orwell's 1984 to heart.  In particular the maxim: "Ignorance is Strength"

   EPA to end scientific research program

   WASHINGTON>> The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research office and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees who help provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants.

   As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists — 75% of the research program’s staff — could be laid off, according to documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

   The planned layoffs were assailed by critics as a massive dismantling of the EPA’s longstanding mission to protect public health and the environment.

   Then, of course, RFK Jr.'s quack medicinal theories are just now getting a chance to spread disease and cause massive economic and health damage.

   Kennedy has suggested that a subset of poultry might be naturally immune to bird flu. But chickens and turkeys lack the genes needed to resist the virus, experts said.

   “The way we raise birds now, there’s not a lot of genetic variability,” Hansen said. “They’re all the same bird, basically.”

   Public health regulations would forbid the very few birds that might survive an infection from being sold. In any event, those birds might only be protected against the current version of H5N1, not others that emerge as the virus continues to evolve.

   “The biology and the immunology doesn’t work that way,” said Dr. Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

   Letting the virus spread unchecked would also likely lead to trade embargoes against poultry from the United States, he added: “There’s a huge economic loss immediately.”

   In one interview with Fox News, Kennedy also suggested that the virus “doesn’t appear to hurt wild birds; they have some kind of immunity.”

   In fact, while ducks and shorebirds may not show symptoms, H5N1 has killed raptors, waterfowl, sand hill cranes and snow geese, among many other species.

   Log in to Reply

   1. On RFK the lesser, et al::  It’s utterly amazing what one can “prove” to themselves without all that pesky science stuff — it’s almost a scientific miracle!?

      Log in to Reply

      1. It's all about doing one's own research, i.e., staring slack-jawed at the Ketamine-fueled Facebook ramblings of some internet zinjanthropus.

         Log in to Reply

   2. Not to defend him too much (he is a crackpot) but not everything he wants to do is a bad idea: 

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/rfk-jr-s-next-targets-are-companies-making-baby-formula/ar-AA1Ban6O?ocid=MicroHP

      https://www.yahoo.com/news/rfk-jr-wants-eliminate-fda-191604008.html

      Log in to Reply

      1. Vladimir Putin likes horses.

         Log in to Reply

      2. Right, but at this moment he's not dealing with the measles outbreak or the avian flu outbreak and his herd immunity approach to virology, immunology, and epidemiology is creating a greater likelihood that a human-to-human transmissible mutant will arise.  Pandemic 2026?

         Log in to Reply

2. I don't think this quite means we're going back to having separate water fountains fo the colored folk, but why on Earth America would we need to get rid of any protection against segregation whatsoever?

   After a recent change by the Trump administration, the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.

   Read this story from lying NPR for context, though, because other laws against segregation hopefully should still apply. Nonetheless, the noise you're hearing is Marvin Gaye singing "What's Going On" from his grave.

   Log in to Reply

3. Using A.I. for Research, Reports, Plans, etc.

   What an A.I. creates in comparison to paying a consulting firm

   Significant change due to A.I. is here. Some will adopt it sooner than others but what can be done today is a major game changer.

   Log in to Reply

4. So….(alleged Christian) Jeff Hunt has an issue with 1.5% of Colorado's projected shortfall attributed to health care for immigrant children.  What a vile man…and they wonder why Christianity in America is on the decline? Steady the course, Democrats. 
    

   

   Log in to Reply

   1. By saying "in part," Hunt can act like he is making a serious fiscal point rather than using racist cherrypicking. And in the words of JC himself from the Bible:

      And in whatever land you enter and in which you walk, if they receive you eat whatever is put before you, and heal the sick among them.

      Log in to Reply

   2. Assuming these numbers are accurate, and there is no reason to believe this twit, he is picking out a very small portion of the state's expenditures for special derision.  There are over 6 million residents of Colorado. What kind of heartless bastard wants to deny children (in Colorado through no fault or choice of their own) medical care in order to save $4 per person a year in taxes?

      Log in to Reply

   3. Not to defend Jeff Hurd too much, but keep in mind that if Colorado had eliminated that $19.2 million for healthcare spending then the budget shortfall would only have been $1.2 billion!

      Log in to Reply

5. JVL's column in The Bulwark dot com today is tltled "MAHA is a Fraud (Make America Healthy Again)." He goes to great lengths to show how America is generally healthier and safer today than it was years ago. 

   Log in to Reply

6. Just saw the list of expected Social Security office closures in 2025 — in Colorado, it only lists

   825 N. Crest Drive, Grand Junction: June 21

   I'm sure the folks in Grand Junction and Palisade won't mind driving the extra hour and some each way to get to offices in Glenwood Springs or Montrose — Make America Great Again.

   Log in to Reply