Zoe Samuel

Fascinating re lithium. My mother specialized in neurodegenerative disease, that plus my MIL means I watch this stuff but I missed that one. Off to read more!

It's cool to think your great-grandkids will think of it as one of those insane historical things they can't believe used to be a Thing.

Also it is probably a sign of massive progress for folks in any minority group when they get to be notable *without* having to be cool.

(The other wildcard is Ozempic of course.)

I met a guy who worked for a major alcoholic beverage company. He said the problem is the 80/20 rule shows up in their business: 80% of revenue is from 20% of drinkers. And that 20% are problem drinkers. He said, "Our entire industry depends on some level of alcoholism staying quite common."

Oh, my bad, I thought that was just a generic name for boyscout camps 🫢

That's always been a complaint there! And look, in France you can get healthcare without documentation after like 3 months' residency. There's a reasonable debate to be had about how that should work and how to pay for it. But the Le Pen types don't want to have a reasonable debate.

Exactly! I remember visiting a village (sorry a "small town") in Nebraska and it had one crossroads, and in each direction for 600+ miles... America. You have to experience something like that to fully get it. Just flying to NY then flying to LA without leaving America doesn't cut it.

They don't know Americans mostly DO believe in gun control and legal abortion and national healthcare, and that a lot of those Americans don't live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles. Nor why it matters that they don't.

Perhaps Europeans are the true coastal elitists!

Which to be fair, there's nowhere in Europe more than 3 hours' train from a decent size town so you don't NEED to do a protest in your village. But they also don't understand what it MEANS that those people exist and are so numerous and visible in their communities.

They do understand mass protest because it's part of the culture there. But they seem to see it as wow look at a million people in NYC and not realize that was only one of 2000. They also don't understand the significance of 20 people on a street corner in Doodletown, Redstate.

I think basicaly they imagine that Trump losing in 2020 was about luck and covid, or about just Joe Biden being better than him, and not about several MILLION people putting in the work for several years.

By the scale I mean big AND small. They couldn't conceive of things like 7 people showing up to protest in a town of 150 that's 2 hours from the nearest city, being part of the same movement as big names or billions raised. Even putting a political sign in the front garden is weird to them.

Also, as a Brit in the US: my friends back across the pond do not understand American political *culture* as well as its system. They didn't grasp the scale of the mobilization against Trump 1.0 that shanked most of his worst ideas, and they don't grasp it now.

I called last week, should I call again?

I just went for a walk on the Bay Trail this weekend. 40 years ago the section in question was an industrial site. A greenway system for Oakland is absolutely doable.

"Fuck them meek anyway" - this woman's conception of Jesus

Yeah, THAT'S why this person isn't participating.

Indeed, what kind of silly sausage thinks an educated population is worth more than actual cash money they may or may not have in 30 years 🙃

Oh I am so sorry. May her memory be for a blessing.

So anyone with family history will get an MRI every X period over age Y, as they eventually improve detection to find it earlier/less invasively. It'll be like a statin, a tiny dose stopping it dead in its tracks. Whatever it costs it'll be less than the illness itself, so likely to be covered.

I am so sorry to hear that. I hope you have heard of the new drug Leqembi (the first disease-modifying treatment) and even better ones coming along behind it? I believe in <30 years we'll see drugs like these that people will take before they ever get symptoms, and prevent it ever developing.

I for one am very happy for the army of 75-year-old grannies who made up most BLM protesters in my area, that they are apparently getting so much pussy/disk. I just hope they do not break a hip during their anarchist bacchanal.

Yes, I was thinking that too. And not even just online commies - "Take all the billionaires' stuff and dismantle the state" is quite literally out of the Communist Manifesto.

It's funny, but that doesn't mean HE is funny. It means he is *laughable*.

Man of the Year (2006 film) - Wikipedia

Robin Williams also made a movie of this premise in 2006, which you'd think would be absolutely brilliant but is unfortunately a bit meh. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_...

Servant of the People (2015 TV series) - Wikipedia

The actual president of Ukraine made this exact show and then it happened in real life! (And then Putin invaded and it turned out he was quite a lot more than just a funny dude.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant...

Fortunately she wasn't a giant bigot so dementia didn't cause huge issues there. But she WAS a professional dietician, and while she retained the ability to eyeball your weight to within 3lbs, she LOST the ability to, uh, not to tell random people a) they're fat and b) exactly how fat 🫣

My MIL confabulated a woman stealing her stuff. She'd hide stuff for safety, forget where it was, then blame That Woman. You can't argue with a dementia patient so we'd say "We'll look into it but let's see if we can find it, just in case". She'd be relieved to have it and forget til next time.

But then everyone else in a 5-row radius is collateral damage! Alas!

I suggest the accidental spillage of a drink as a high-impact, single-target option.