mahiwaga

Upside Down

ﾐA彡 and I finished "Stranger Things" last night, and one of the things that arrested me in the last episode was a song by Moby:

What Is Your Major Malfunction?

I really like the idea of Private Joker getting twisted by Nam, Watergate, and Reagan and becoming a government scientist working for the CIA involved with MKUltra.

Compromise

Bernie-or-busters have been posting this quote from HST lately:

Maybe Trump Isn't Hitler

If you don't like comparing Trump to Hitler, maybe you can just compare Trump to Ferdinand Marcos?

Anarchocapitalism and Medicine

Aug 4

Prior to Medicare and Medicaid and before employee-provided health insurance, health care was a luxury only the wealthy could afford, and most diseases and all cases of severe trauma were completely untreatable. I'm not sure why people think the era before the advent of antibiotics, modern emergency rooms, and positive-pressure ventilation was all that great.

One of the Greatest Presidents

Aug 4

Assuming we avert the Trumpocalypse and manage to remain a democratic republic (at least for the rest of my life), I imagine Democrats of the future will talk about Obama the same way we talk about FDR and the same way that Republicans talk about Reagan.

Earwormed

I don't know what I did to deserve getting an Iggy Azalea earworm stuck in my head.

Algal Blooms and Climate Change

I've wasted lots of time arguing with climate change deniers, but maybe they'll go swim in a lake someday.

Wannabe Kleptocrat

Most of Trump's economic advisers run hedge funds or are major figures in the real estate industry. Oh, and he has a couple of actual economists, one of whom advised both Reagan and GHWB. Trump basically wants a group of foxes to watch the henhouse. So maybe I'm wrong. Trump isn't a fascist. It looks like he's just a straight-up wannabe kleptocrat.

Anarchy in the Philippines

"My order is shoot to kill you. I don't care about human rights, you better believe me." — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

Aug 6

Meta-Analyses

Aside from the overhyped and clickbaity headlines, one of the basic problems of popular medical journalism is that they generally elevate meta-analyses over randomized controlled trials.¹

Catholicism, Terrorism, and Global Capitalism

Aug 6

Pope Francis understands that the root cause of terrorism are the inequalities caused by the history of imperialism and colonialism and perpetuated by global capitalism.

Philippines is a Terrorist Nation

Aug 8

I wonder how this is going to play out with the many reliably GOP faction of Filipino Americans?

Aug 9

Trump vs. Duterte

After Trump declared the Philippines a terrorist nation, Philippine Congressman Joey Salceda has proposed banning Trump from the Philippines.

The Demise of the Tea Party

Aug 15

I have always been skeptical that the Tea Party was ever really primarily a grassroots movement. Much like Trump, it always looked like an astroturfing corporate-funded money-making scheme meant to capitalize on populist anger (which manifests mainly as virulent anti-government sentiment, xenophobia, and misogyny).

Aug 15

Obama Has a Time Machine

Twice now, Donald Trump and his campaign staff have accused Obama of using a time machine. Once to kill Capt. Humayun Khan in Iraq in 2004, and once to found ISIS in 1999. (To be fair, it was called Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad then, morphing into Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, then finally becoming the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2013.)

Aug 15

Frontiers

This last week in astronomy and physics seems really wild.

Jekyll is Driving Me Crazy

Aug 17

*Attempts to optimize some code*