Lightsaber battles are OK, but adding an Ennio Morricone track is better!
Because they’re using swords instead of guns, I feel like it’s more like a Quentin Tarantino movie than a Sergio Leone movie.
I also can’t get over how much Robert Aramayo looks like NPH in this scene.
Game of Thrones’ Tower of Joy Scene Is Vastly Improved With the Music of Ennio Morricone • 2016 May 19 • Bryan Menegus • io9
Antibiotic resistance isn’t so much about humans vs. bacteria as it is about humans vs. laissez-faire capitalism, specifically Big Ag, but also the health insurance/for-profit health care industrial complex.
In the U.S. alone, 70 percent of antibiotics that are medically useful to humans are given to animals instead, and not just for treating disease but for promoting growth or compensating for poor farming practices.
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It also argues for restrictions or bans on the agricultural use of any drug that’s a last-line defense for humans. And it suggests that meat should be transparently labeled so consumers can make informed choices.
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Of the 40 million people who get antibiotics in the U.S. every year, only 13 million actually need them; the rest have viral infections that can’t be treated with these drugs. One solution is to develop better, faster, cheaper diagnostic tools, so doctors don’t have to assess vague symptoms, or rely on slow, expensive tests based on centuries-old technology.
The Plan to Avert Our Post-Antibiotic Apocalypse • 2016 May 19 • Ed Yong • The Atlantic
With regards to better diagnostic testing, the problem isn’t availability, it’s the way incentives are lined up.
For example, with the rapid Strep test, if it turns out negative, you’re going to have to send out a throat culture anyway.
Strep throat in general is fairly rare (most cases of acute pharyngitis are due to viruses) so you’re going to have a lot of negative tests.
So HMOs and IPAs will tend to towards just doing the throat culture and skipping the rapid Strep test in order to cut costs and maximize profit.
Unfortunately, while rapid Strep tests only take 15 minutes to run, the throat culture requires a minimum of 48 hours, meaning that the patient will have to wait for treatment. Even though the risks of delaying treatment include increased likelihood of peritonsillar abscesses, post-Strep glomerulonephritis, acute rheumatic fever, and death from necrotizing fasciitis due to Group A Strep, these are exceedingly rare and are still cheaper to deal with than doing a rapid Strep test on everyone.
Stepping back further in order to fully admire the spectacle, the whole narrative arc of the Party of Lincoln transforming into the Party of Trump is quite breathtaking.
When Richard M. Nixon starts looking favorable, you know you seriously fucked some shit up.
The problem is that Trump might not just destroy the Republican Party. He might very well start to unravel the U.S.
R.I.P., GOP: How Trump Is Killing the Republican Party • 2016 May 18 • Matt Taibbi • Rolling Stone
Democrats who might be tempted to gloat over all of this should check themselves. If the Hillary Clintons and Harry Reids and Gene Sperlings of the world don’t look at what just happened to the Republicans as a terrible object lesson in the perils of prioritizing billionaire funders over voters, then they too will soon enough be tossed in the trash like a tick.
The bridge building probably can’t really start until Clinton clinches the nomination, but if she doesn’t succeed in reconciling with a majority of Sanders voters (the Bernie-or-Trump crowd is unreachable anyway) then we’re definitely going to be watching Trump being inaugurated next January.
The Hidden Importance Of The Sanders Voter • 2016 May 19 • Nate Silver • FiveThirtyEight
In other words, even if Clinton is the nominee, the only person standing in the way of a Trump presidency is Sanders. If he refuses to make peace with the Clinton camp or even if he does but fails to bring enough of his followers with him, we’re fucking doomed.
Proponents and GMOs and pesticides like to point out that increased production is the only way to prevent massive starvation. While I am not anti-GMO or anti-pesticide, this is demonstrably false.
The reason why people in this country are starving is because the system of distribution is all fucked up and we waste a ton of food.
A lot of the food that gets tossed out in America – some $162 billion worth each year – is fresh, nutritious and downright delicious.
2016 May 19 • NPR • Facebook
Increasing production without fixing the system of distribution of food will merely increase waste rather than prevent starvation.
In addition to preventing starvation, decreasing food waste will also slow climate change.
Food waste is the single biggest component of solid waste in U.S. landfills — and a major source of the powerful greenhouse gas methane.
2016 May 19 • Maria Godoy • The Salt • NPR
Caveats: yeah, it’s a Fox News poll, the margin is well within the error range, polls this far out from the general election are mostly useless, Trump has already clinched the nomination while Clinton hasn’t, etc., etc., but, still, it kind of freaks me out. [#AllHailPresidentTrump](/tag/all-hail-president-trump “tag: All Hail President Trump • mahiwaga”
Trump Leads Clinton in a New General Election Poll. You Still Don’t Have to Worry. • 2016 May 19 • Josh Voorhees • Slate