Hm, that’s good to hear I suppose. I certainly don’t see much sign of it from the ground in rural PA, but I don’t take many drugs so I guess it is possible that doctors are adjusting dosage to bodyweight and collecting and sharing data about results somewhere. I like to think so...  Thanks for your reply

That balloon didn't look terribly airtight to me, so I bet it needed pressurized air constantly pumped in.  Oxygen might not be a problem in that case, although power for the pumps might be.

Honestly, that doctors or researchers can't be bothered to account for body weight consistently horrifies me.  I get that doing math is hard, and a nuisance, but if vets can do it people who treat people can do it.

Although as a hill dweller myself, I want to point out that they are the opposite of hillbillies. Those are elite city folk to the bone, don’t be putting them on us. Closest thing we’ve had to a hillbilly in the White House was Carter, maybe Bill Clinton, although it’s not like he went back to the farm.  I laughed tho

Good for you working on science journalism!

But is anything stopping him from fusing with a tree? Who knows what he can do.  And wasn't he the one who made the Night King in the first place?  Tzeentchi wierdo...

Ya, unions didn't just die naturally.  There is a strong faction in America that views wages as an expense and seeks to minimize them.  This makes sense for an employer, but not for a society.  Gutting unions, and even taxing wages in my opinion are unhealthy results from this misguided effort.

Hm, call me a troll if you like, but I’m not lying or speaking in bad faith. America handicaps collective bargaining by forcing unions to negotiate on behalf of all workers rather than just their members, which allows free riding unless the unions can tax the free riders. I think FDR gave them that right but unions in…

I wish you well. I guess I will armchair diagnose autism spectrum, which often causes such symptoms (I armchair diagnose myself the same way). I don’t think CBT can make that go away, but I do think that CBT could possibly help with the thoughts and behaviors that are giving you trouble. “Fixing” root causes is often…

In America I think you mean not any city, US infrastructure is garbage IMO. Maybe New York and San Francisco, but only because their systems were built like a hundred years ago when no one living was around to NIMBY it because it might help poor people get around.

Ha, the clear answer is to be able to rate your driver as a conversationist, so his yapping has a separate value from his driving.  Better feedback if they disentangle the driving from the chat.

Why do people like minimum wages so much?  It's like someone sat down and tried to think of a way to cast poverty as poor people having too many rights.  How can you reduce poverty by taking away the rights of the poor?  Just illegalize working for low wages!  Problem solved.  Is there some evidence that minimum wages…

What? Why would a UBI work better if the money was going overseas? The money would go farther but it would defeat the purpose of reducing income inequality in America and stimulating the US economy. It might create less inflation, and UBIs are inflationary, but we are doing tons of stupid inflationary stuff now, just…

No, they said the worst they can do to a person is indict. They are clearly doing worse than that unless you are saying Chelsea isn’t a person(well worse depending on how bad the indictment is I guess...). Maybe Manning wants the drama, and is winning this fight but it's hard for me to say. How did Kissinger put it,…

I think that they are saying that she can’t plead the fifth because they have already jailed and tortured her so she doesn't have to fear them doing that again so they are jailing her.

Well, except that they appear quite capable of detaining people for indefinite periods of time and fining people for unlimited amounts of money. I don’t know how much more powerful power gets.

Even if you aren’t going fast, lol. I won’t forget the time a wasp hit my arm and got knocked into the car and was crawling around on me all dazed and confused.  Didn't sting me but sure made it hard to concentrate on driving.

It's hard to say.  The overall debt is 22 trillion, not the deficit.  And international deficits are complicated things that can be a good thing or a bad thing I think...  And honestly I don't know how we can run a 500 billion dollar a year deficit and only owe them like a trillion dollars anyway?  I don't think there…

Well, I mean the Bernie supporters were supporting the guy that could have beaten Trump. I doubt Hillary would be as bad at governing, but I doubted she could be as bad at campaigning, and she certainly pulled that one off...