KAMALA 2024

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off on KAMALA 2024

Test Post

This post to test blue sky and Mastodon embeds

First a Blue Sky skeet:

https://bsky.app/profile/randallgross.bsky.social/post/3khops3pixn25

Next a Mastodon post:

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off on Test Post

Home Medical device shortfall

Over ten years ago I wrote about how home medical sensors would become common in the next decade and while that’s become true, there are several shortcomings to how the current sets and suites work. Nobody has yet created the complete home set, a kit of devices that could be prescribed for patients needing long term monitoring for changes in their condition.

This kit would at minimum include the following sensors:

thermometer

pulse-oximeter w/ respiration rate sensors

blood pressure cuff with arrhythmia sensors

weight scale

blood sugar monitor

The kit should be able to record the results by time and date locally, and also store them and share them via the internet. Right now most device and app makers tend to cater to fitness rather than maintaining wellness, something that leaves seniors in the lurch. The data gathered would be invaluable for doctors monitoring their patients for changes, and when anonymized and bulked would provide really great statistics for use by health professionals world wide.

Someone could be making money, but so far none have risen to this challenge. So instead seniors are stuck using a drawer full of devices that do not interoperate, and separate apps that do not play well together – and when you want to share with a doctor you better get out the pencil and pad.

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off on Home Medical device shortfall

Wingnut Predicted New Ice Ages that Never Happened

In which Peter Hadfield, aka Potholer54 tracks the November 2018 claims back to sources, and shows how wrong they are in their interpretation of the data regarding the new Solar Grand Minimum. He also does a great job of looking through the past RW blogosphere claims of coming ice ages to show how wrong they were.

Of course Peter sticks to the facts and the papers, just pointing out the fallacies, whereas I am going to question the motives. Why does the Right Wing blogsphere have a such an interest in sowing doubt? Are they paid by lobbies to sow doubt, ala Heartland institute, or is there a lot of wish full magical thinking going on in order to make recalcitrant facts fit their worldview? I suspect it’s a bit of both, but honestly don’t have the energy or time to track this all back the way that Peter does.

We can with solid authority state that you should never trust RW blogs, or for that matter any blogs, when it comes to science. Instead you should trust Scientists and go to their papers and their statements.

Posted in Environment, Politics, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Wingnut Predicted New Ice Ages that Never Happened

The Police, the System, and the Protests

John Oliver covers the police brutality against the protesters, the system that created it, and how they seem to always get away with it.

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off on The Police, the System, and the Protests

Joe Biden: Trump Put The Country In A Terrible Spot By Failing To Act

Stephen Colbert with an extended interview with Joe Biden, presumptive democrat nominee for president. The horrific corona virus response is covered, and Joe covers plans to tackle the pandemic when he gets in office.

Posted in Journalism, Politics, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Joe Biden: Trump Put The Country In A Terrible Spot By Failing To Act

Don’t mess with Pamela Karlan, she lays out exactly why Trump must be impeached.

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off on Don’t mess with Pamela Karlan, she lays out exactly why Trump must be impeached.

Tucker Carlson goes All in for Putin

First here’s the crazy clip that has everyone talking:

You know things are bad when even Fucking Frank Luntz recognizes that the GOP ship of state has fully capsized. 

https://twitter.com/Tarkloon/status/1199438394406973442?fbclid=IwAR345xJzPL5X_gnosCE9CgnpvMNK5S9_1pezdIS2QtKb9No-xpE32ehRHRs

Of course later in his show Tucker Carlson recants, pretending he was just trying to trigger libs for the lulz, or the standard GOP bullshit you hear when their masks drop & people actually notice.

Russia is fully nationalist / imperialist and their leadership has become deeply entwined with the more fundamentalist wings of the Russian Orthodox church, so what’s not for our christian zealot wing of politics to love about Putin? They LIKE what he’s doing, and the GOP right never met a strong man dictator that they didn’t secretly or openly like.

Posted in Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tucker Carlson goes All in for Putin

Representative Adam Schiff Sums it all Up.

Throughout the hearings Rep. Schiff has kept a steady hand on the tiller, calmly steering the hearings onward to conclusion in the face of GOP stunts, shrill attacks, readouts of one conspiracy theory after another. The GOP did everything in their power to make this constitutional process appear illegitimate, but the only ones who might have fallen for that are the gullible rubes so besotted by Russian and GOP kool-aid that they are beyond all hope. My hat’s off to Chairman Schiff for all of the great work but also for this impassioned close.

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off on Representative Adam Schiff Sums it all Up.

That Smell, Can’t you Smell that Smell?

There is a deep deep rot within the republican party, the stench reaches to the very heavens. Now that the evidence is out and everyone can plainly see that Trump is undeniably guilty of enlisting multiple foreign countries to interfere in US politics on his behalf, the GOP is going to pretend that it’s ok, that it’s somehow normal, nothing to see here, these aren’t the droids etc. You know that they would not feel the same way if this were Obama, or any other democrat for that matter. That stench is never going to wash off if the Republicans allow this to continue.

This all started long ago with a gentle glide path into the bad the GOP didn’t break back, they slowly slid bad over several decades. At multiple junctures different Republicans adopted the attitude that you have to be BAD to fight bad. Initially there might have been some grumbling, some pushback, but generally the rank and file just went along with it — and it got easier with each successive moral slip down that oooh so gentle slope.

Maybe it can be traced back into the UR conservative days of Weyrich, when the architects of the modern GOP decided they needed their own institutions, their own separate cultural beacons and outlets, and that they must remain separate from all others. Massive mailing ventures started, and proved successful – especially successful at getting money. Separatist niche-crafted institutes and outlets were stood up, and some catered to that wild west libertarian crowd, while others were designed to capture zealot attention.

Then came the internet, and those ventures blossomed – their separate and sealed niches were protected and enhanced, and in each the mythos grew and was refined, departing further and further from reality with each passing decade. These niche ventures were great at cultivating zealots and extremists, and they were the breeding ground for the tea party.

Hidden behind the curtains in each were the Birchers, conservative citizen council members, and other extremists that Buckley used to keep outside the big tent on the midway with the freak shows. Then Buckley died, and the freak show became the main attraction, and here we are.

The GOP’s slope downward is now very steep, and ahead lies the leering cliff edge leading to the brink of hell – will they look up in time?

Poll: 65% of Republicans say Trump’s Ukraine scheme was normal presidential behavior

If an elected official is found to have broken the law or abused the powers of office, is impeachment merited or should the judgment be left to voters?

As part of our podcast, Impeachment, Explained, Vox partnered with PerryUndem and Ipsos on a poll exploring Americans’ beliefs about when presidential behavior is impeachable, when it’s simply wrong, and how partisanship is shaping those perceptions. The results were fascinating and unnerving.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/9/20955441/impeachment-trump-poll-ukraine-2020-democrats-republicans

Posted in Politics | Comments Off on That Smell, Can’t you Smell that Smell?