NB COVID info

How opioid deaths are hollowing out the construction industry Workers in the skilled trades make up a large share of overdoses fatalities, at a time when their labour is needed more than ever

A 2021 study in Ontario found that, of those people who were employed when they died of an overdose, 1/3 worked in the trades. And in BC, it's half.

every single baby had to be
hospitalized.

But I was assured that rejecting AI in the newsroom was EXACTLY LIKE rejecting the Sony Walkman.

This is the 2nd time a major government report from Deloitte has been found to contain errors likely generated by AI.

First in Australia and now, as The Independent has confirmed, in a major healthcare policy paper for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli #AI #deloitte

This is the second report for the Newfoundland government that I have seen this year with AI errors. One by academics and now this one by consultants

Straight outta Halifax...

"Earlier this year, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board dropped its net-zero greenhouse gas emission commitment."

It's "committed an estimated $7.1B to new oil, gas, coal and pipeline assets in the last year despite facing litigation for allegedly mismanaging climate related financial risks."

UKHSA says 'wear a mask' as four viruses spread in UK Health bosses expect to see 'further increases' in winter virus levels as the colder months hit

Wear a #respie *before*, during and after your “winter bug”… because there are lots of them, and the next one is waiting.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news...

Pretty much everyone agrees that e.g. Harvey Weinstein had vast power over the news media - catching and killing/legal threats to kill negative stories about him and his crimes while planting negative stories about his accusers - but if you suggest a similar phenomenon exists for political journos..

Just remembering how one of the most important and widely read and dropped-with-maximally-damaging-timing "Biden is old and senile" pieces was reported by Nuzzi. It makes you think!

Cop30’s watered-down agreements will do little for an ecosystem at tipping point Delegates made minimal headway on timetable for replacing oil and gas or on firm commitments to reducing carbon emissions

Johan Rockström, said “Truth is that our only chance of keeping to 1.5C is to bend the global curve of emissions downward in 2026 and then reduce emissions by at least 5%/yr. Need roadmaps to phase-out of fossil fuels and protection of nature. We got neither.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

a doctor talking to a young boy in a hospital room ALT: a doctor talking to a young boy in a hospital room

Tough week in paediatric offices this week.

•discussing vaccine misinformation
•assuaging maternal guilt for Tylenol during pregnancies
•addressing unprecedented requests for vitamin B9 ‘scripts for autistic patients
•reaching out w/ empathy to terrified teens w/ gender identity anxiety.

Bird flu patient dies, marking second U.S. fatality in 2025 The Washington state resident, an older adult with underlying conditions, was infected with a strain that has previously been reported in animals but never before in humans.

This was the H5N5 patient.

"Public health officials are continuing to monitor anyone who was in contact with the patient — including more than 100 health care workers — for symptoms to ensure that human-to-human spread has not occurred."

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Headline from The Independent: "Boris Johnson could face legal action over pandemic failings after damning Covid inquiry report". Below the headline, the article text begins: "Nadine Dorries and Michael Gove have led attempts to undermine the damning report by Heather Hallett after it found inaction by Boris Johnson's government may have cost 23,000 people their lives." The article is by David Maddox, Political editor, and was published on Friday 21 November 2025 at 19:32 GMT.

Bereaved families are pursuing all legal action to hold Johnson accountable for his abject failure during the pandemic.

"Justice for those we lost means real consequences for those who failed them, and we will not stop until that justice is delivered."

#covidinquiry

I have never been able to convey her near-total obsession with Bobby properly. What I can say with authority is that it seeped into every corner of her life, affected every relationship she had, and drove every decision she made in late 2023 and all of 2024, including her catch-and-kill operations on his behalf, the campaign strategy memos she wrote him, and the other journalistic transgressions that have still not been disclosed.

His life's work is the infection of children with preventable illnesses, why the fuck would you try to help him win

Off to see friends! Tested and all negative. Happy to gather today!

this is why ILL matters!!

Ah, I'm awake again. Time to open the psychological harm app

This is a wonderful time to support journalists who do the work, don’t fuck sources, and actually have moral clarity.

Why acute infections can lead to neurodegeneration Researchers are uncovering the mysteries of why early-in-life acute infections can lead to neurodegenerative diseases in later years.

Researchers are learning more about how early acute infections can increase the risk of neurodegeneration - sometimes a decade or more later

stanmed.stanford.edu/infections-l...

There need to be social consequences for enacting anti-evidence policies that kill kids.

One of Danielle Smith’s staffers just called me over (??) at an event wanting to say hi.

Once I realized who she was, immediately questioned her about trans rights.

Teachers fight off grizzly bear attacking schoolchildren A grizzly bear attacked a group of elementary schoolchildren and their teachers on a walking trail Thursday in British Columbia, injuring 11 people,

Grizzly attack on 11 kids & teachers in BC.

“one teacher jumped in front of the bear to allow the children to get away…he jabbed the bear’s eyes with his fingers and that’s how he was able to… how the bear just left him.”

“That teacher was later airlifted from the scene.”

Teachers are heroes.

I watched the video of the YouTuber who did everything that ChatGPT4 told him to do as they pursued a delusional belief in his being the most intelligent baby of 1996 and now I understand how AI has enabled both suicides and a murder

wtaf #AIPsychosis

www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/...

Yup. I also get emails from people asking me if I published articles and books that I didn’t, but chatGPT is telling them I did.

Finally, I know of at least one case where the letter writer, deep into an episode of AI-induced psychosis, asked the LLM why scientists were not responding. The machine suggested that perhaps the scientists were trying to steal his discovery.

This will get someone killed sooner or later.

The letter writers are being convinced by LLMs that they have made monumental discoveries that they don't remotely begin to understand, not even to the point of being able to explain for themselves what they think they have found.

While letters of yore would attempt to signal seriousness with exhaustive if often incoherent technical detail, the current crop of LLM-induced letters are hopelessly vague, carrying grandiose names (a unified theory of fractal cybernetic enthalpy) but without any detail, mathematical or otherwise.

Of course I've received crank letters for decades. But there's a decided shift in the frequency and the tenor of what is arriving now. The LLM-induced ones are immediately recognizable as such.

Lots of calls for me to publish these emails.

Last thing I'm going to do is publicly mock people dealing with mental health challenges for being exploited by OpenAI etc.

A nontrivial fraction of these people appear to be seriously unwell.

OpenAI claims that they have the situation well under control.

My inbox suggests otherwise.