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They are doing what every brownshirt and equivalent hit squad has been doing. Also note that this is just the latest, and by far not the first time it happened (and by it meaning ICE harming and killing, or attempting to kill folks and the administration immediately defending the action and blocking investigations into it). Here is a opinion article on it https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/state-terror-has-arrived.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HFA.Bcwx.fietBxx8_AJj&smid=url-share Edit: I also wanted to add that Bovino in a CNN interview defined de-escalation as forcibly removing folks from the scene and using pepper spray. If that is de-escalation, it seems that murder simply falls under typical law enforcement action. This shift to devalue human lives, health and dignity is pretty much identical to what folks reporting/investigating on totalitarian regimes describe.

The groups are somewhat different, and I suspect that most members here do have a distaste for Nazi admirers. Not sure whether DeSantis fits that category, though. But I am still don't understand what you mean with that line: Are you suggesting that folks are not able to vote for them (which of course does not make sense as they are the second strongest party right now) or that they are unable to vote for anyone besides AfD (which also sounds unreasonable).

I have read multiple politicians talking about that since last year. However, I think there were legal requires such as being part of the European continent, which would make it impossible without overhauling these statutes. Pipelines have been difficult in Canada for a lot of reasons (including environmental ones). But the calculus might shift in the current climate.

Yeah. I do hope that folks will agree on viable path. Things are really uncertain and no one really knows how the new framework is going to be.

Can you explain that a bit more?

Well, there are some depressing precedents surrounding that. It is disappointingly common that the military either just follows orders or usurp power themselves if they don't. And also, military members have been heavily in favor for Trump and at least for the rank and file I am not sure whether that has changed much.

On the practical end, the issue is that it might give an opening to invoking more extreme measures (such as the insurrection act). I highly doubt that the the 2nd amendment was viable in the face of modern military and weapons.

What OP describes is more regarding outsized power of capital. This, however, was always a limitation in any democracies. There are always folks who are able to influence people more than others and the concept that better ideas will rise to the top is more an ideal rather than a realistic outcome. That, however, does not as such invalidate the mechanisms of democracies, as in contrast to a feudal system, there are at least theoretical ways to address these issues. I.e. fundamentally the power still flows from the population, even if they can be convinced to do things against their interests. In illiberal democracies that is not true anymore. The mechanisms of democracy, such as election, are mechanistically performative there. Edit: didn't refresh page before posting, ended up effectively echoed similar arguments as exchemist.

I think that was always the case to some degree. But all the tools available now designed to amplify emotional responses and blunting rational or intellectual engagement.

I think this is the key element. It is much less about education, but rather mistrust and distrust in sources of information. And yet, if parents and the internet (which is likely going to be the dominant source of information) casts sufficient doubts regarding what you hear at school, it wipes out all benefits. I think you are still thinking in the old system. This is an understandable mistake, but if you work with young folks, you would be shocked how much mistrust there are in institutions (and textbooks) and how dominant sources such as podcasts, youtube and tiktok videos have become. And again, it is not an American phenomenon. The rate is different and the US might be leading (to some extent, at least), but we see it happening all over. It is a matter of fact that the rate of mis- and disinformation is increasing and institutional safeguards are crumbling everywhere. I would suggest that rather pointing at education, it makes more sense to scrutinize the media landscape and the fact that companies are in fact getting rich by taking away our ability to focus and think.

This is a non-factor. In many European countries highschools have electives. As others pointed out, it is not a matter of education. Nor is the increase in conspiracy theories an exclusively American thing. That being said, I do think that a lot is American-centric for an entirely different reason: internet culture and platforms. Many of these originated and/or are dominated by Americans and a lot of things spread and/or are amplified from there. Add to that a strong cultural dominance of America in Western culture and you get a result that feels very America, regardless of where you are. I will also add that even in the educated section and before social media, most folks who are not specialists wouldn't understand or were able to derive even slightly complex principles outside of their field of expertise. What existed, however, was trust in expertise outside of their own.

That is a big driver of fairly high mortality in the USA vs other developed countries. However, the conventional wisdom was that if you are well off in the USA, you would have access to the best care in the world. There was a recent study (I think Papanicolas was the corresponding author) in NEJ that showed another aspect. Essentially they looked at mortality in the higher age bracket across nation along wealth quartiles. IIRC the wealthiest quartile in the US ended up having a survival rate that is comparable to the poorest quartile in northern and western Europe. So whatever is causing it, even assuming that there is access to better health care, it does not close the gap. Or alternatively, the health system in western and northern Europe has components that is lacking int he US, even for the wealthiest. And we haven't even addressed the issue that public health in the US is now at stake with anti-vaccination activists running the show.

Strangely, every person I ever talked to who had cancer was alive when I talked to them. Based this experience I can apparently conclude that cancer is rather benign.

The 25th, they say it is the biggest amendment, huge. Even bigger than the 27th. Some say, it is the strongest. Hardly any president get it. Only the best. And the worst. Like sleepy Joe when he had his colonoscopy. My colon is so much better. A perfect colon. The doctors said they never had seen such a great colon. But you go to the toilet, and people are flushing toilets10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. You turn on the faucet and you don't get any water. Just dripping out. But not like my colon. My colon is strong and it flushes out beautifully.

This is apparently how an exchange with Trump looks like:

Also in the abstract in the article above: The flu season in the (sub)tropical areas in the US are likely driven by travel from the temperatre regions (as discussed earlier in the thread).

Yeah, it does seem that the journalist kind of missed the point. There was a (I found) a more interesting study looking at rodent enamel, different intergranular phases were found in beavers, where (IIRC) a more amorphous calcium (or perhaps magnesium?) phosphate phase and a more resilient iron oxide phase is formed, which have different deminralization characteristics. The effect of this is that the outer, metal containing layers weather more slowly, thus maintaining a sharp edge.

In the current climate, death threats are the absolute minimum.

You are going to see whatever the leader is telling you to see, didn't you get the memo?

So is that a perpetuum mobile of resentment?

Sigh, I will never understand how the pro-virus lobby got so strong.

The extent of change could be conformational, but it is not necessarily a full on alteration of their regular structure or function. So "change" is mostly on the activity level. Those "changes" are also generally transient (with exceptions).

IIRC epidemiological lit also shows a stronger correlation with humidity than temp. In medical lit (or at least those that I remember) tend to focus on mucosal damages, rather than viral stability, though. Edit: I think one of the papers I read on that matter was this one:https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1607747113

You know, it struck me that the development of all these things just shows how tech is helping us to be even more disconnected from each other. I mean, one could have a system which where actual humans are checking on the elderly.

I wished only Americans would be susceptible to that type of magical thinking.