Hijack This Thread

[Rolodex]

Yeah I was offered that design on a renwal. NOPE

[bill_g]

You know you have one anyway when the security chip pops off just as you try to tap.

[RTH10260]

‘A history that’s been suppressed’: the Black cowboy story is 200 years old
Historians estimate a quarter of settlers of the US west were Black, moving cattle on horseback, settling towns and keeping the peace

Maria C Hunt
Sun 19 May 2024 16.00 CEST

When Larry Callies went to the movies as a boy in Rosenberg, Texas, the heroes riding horses and wearing 10-gallon hats were all white men.

But the real cowboys Callies knew were Black. His great-grandfather Lavel Callies was an enslaved cowboy who worked with horses professionally after emancipation. “We’re cowboys for three generations back,” says Callies, 71, who runs the Black Cowboy Museum.

Historians estimate that 20% to 25% of the people who settled the continental US west – a region from Washington state to Montana and New Mexico to California – were Black men and women. They moved cattle on horseback, settled towns, kept the peace and delivered the mail in the wild, wild west. But Black cowgirls and cowboys have been pretty much invisible to most. For nearly 200 years, two separate cowboy narratives, one Black and one white, have trotted side by side in the US. The two have rarely crossed paths. Until now.



https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng- ... rls-rodeos

[RTH10260]

out of the UK

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay: I lost all my arms and legs to sepsis

The Telegraph
21 May 2024

Craig Mackinlay has shared footage of himself in hospital before his operation in order to help raise awareness of sepsis.

Some people may find the footage distressing.

The Conservative MP for South Thanet contracted sepsis in September 2023, a little over two months later he had a quadruple amputation.

He recorded this video from his bed at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, just a few hours before he underwent a five-hour operation to remove his legs and arms.

[pipistrelle]

This says “legs and arms,” but other articles show he lost feet and hands. That’s bad, but not equal to losing the entire limb.

I don’t see how this could be prevented-it’s unpredictable. He got treatment right away.

[Sam the Centipede]

I don’t see how this could be prevented-it’s unpredictable. He got treatment right away.

Sepsis is truly nasty and will probably always be a killer because the symptoms are non-specific so it's too easy to think "let's see how he is tomorrow" so missing the narrow window for early aggressive treatment with antibiotics and fluids.

Earlier this year I was chatting to an emergency doctor while we were running some training. Our trainees were given a scenario where the supplied observations suggested that the patient had sepsis (or possible sepsis, I don't recall). I asked him whether he expected the trainees to spot the (possible) sepsis and he said firmly "they should!" He then explained that the decision process is essentially "assume sepsis until you have good reason to rule it out" (with the criteria for ruling out enumerated). And the largest posters in the hospital carry similar messages.

Over-treating for sepsis isn't especially harmful, but, as Mr Mackinlay's case shows, missing that prompt treatment window can lead to very bad outcomes.

I didn't watch the video so I don't know what led to the initial development of sepsis.

[RTH10260]

I didn't watch the video so I don't know what led to the initial development of sepsis.

It just say "he contracted sepsis" but doesn't indicate how it might have happened.

[pipistrelle]

I didn't watch the video so I don't know what led to the initial development of sepsis.

A very strange blue'
It was on 27 September, when Mr Mackinlay, 57, began feeling unwell. He didn't think much of it, took a Covid test (which came back negative) and had an early night.

During the night he was badly sick but still didn't think it was anything serious.

However, as the night wore on, his wife Kati - a pharmacist - began to get worried and tested his blood pressure and temperature.

By the morning, she noticed that his arms felt cold and she couldn't feel a pulse. After ringing for an ambulance, Mr Mackinlay was admitted to hospital.
Within half an hour he had turned what he calls "a very strange blue". "My whole body, top to bottom, ears, everything, blue," he says.

He had gone into septic shock. The MP was put into an induced coma that would last for 16 days.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-69037424

Edit:

Mr Mackinlay said when he returned to work he would campaign to make sure "the health service recognises sepsis at the earliest opportunity".

He said: "It would have done nothing for me, mine was unusual.

[bill_g]

Ultimately necrotizing fasciitis and sepsis led to Mrs' death.

I did not watch the video. I got to watch in real time in person up close. My best wishes to the man.

[Sam the Centipede]

Mr Mackinlay said when he returned to work he would campaign to make sure "the health service recognises sepsis at the earliest opportunity".

He said: "It would have done nothing for me, mine was unusual.

[/edit]

I get it that when someone has personal experience they wish to campaign for better treatment of that condition, be it a health or other issue. It's a great motivator.

But Mackinlay is a Conservative (government) MP in the UK so presumably voted repeatedly for that government's chronic and deliberate downfunding of their national health service. Yet now he needs it, suddenly he thinks it should be better. Me me me, as with all right-wingers. He can have sympathy for his plight but he doesn't deserve a saintly halo.

As for health services recognizing sepsis, I'm sure hospitals do now, although reliability of identification will vary. Worldwide there are about 50 million cases of sepsis each year causing about 11 million deaths, which is why the World Health Organization (WHO) has active working groups and (some?) guidelines. Sepsis is dangerous, important, expensive and difficult.

For paramedics (the article said the paramedic was reluctant to take him to hospital, perhaps for other reasons – the UK's emergency medical services are creaking with long waits at all stages, sometimes patients might be better at home). Paramedics are well-trained these days but they have a wide variety of medical problems to deal with and limited resources with them so it's more difficult for them to identify issues. But they should share the same "Could it be sepsis?" approach.

[RTH10260]

‘My songs spread like herpes’: why did satirical genius Tom Lehrer swap worldwide fame for obscurity?
In the 1950s and 60s, his songs stunned and delighted listeners with their irreverence, wit and nihilism. Then he gave it all up to teach mathematics. Lehrer is still alive at 96 – so I went in search of answers

by Francis Beckett
Wed 22 May 2024 06.00 CEST

In 1959, at the stifling, snobbish Jesuit boarding school to which my loving parents had unwisely subcontracted my care, Tom Lehrer’s songs burst upon my consciousness like a clown in a cathedral. Days there began with mass, and ended with an uplifting homily in the chapel from an elderly and skeletal priest, generally about death. “Your best friends will desert you leaving you nothing but a winding sheet,” was one of his more cheerful messages. Between the two there was catechism, rugby, occasional bullying and fairly frequent beatings.

But we had the “playroom”, where we could relax and listen to records, and one day an American boy called Ed Monaghan turned up clutching Lehrer’s first LP. It was a medicinal dose of the irreverence, nihilism and rebellion that I craved. To this day, I am word perfect in many of the songs I first heard then. There was Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, all about the joys of spring, and as darkly funny as its title suggests. There was the American football song Fight Fiercely, Harvard, which seemed to make cruel mock of those cold, dreary afternoons I was forced to spend watching my school play rugby. It was all done with such bouncing musicality that I doubt whether the Jesuits ever realised the subversive nature of what we were listening to.

Lehrer made my life bearable. I have never been able to tell him so, and it might not please him, for he has been quoted as saying: “If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worthwhile.”

I didn’t know then that Lehrer had started out, six years earlier, by paying to have his own record cut because the record companies were shocked by his songs, and selling the LP to fellow students at Harvard. This early samizdat recording was the underground success of the decade with almost no publicity effort from Lehrer – “My songs spread slowly, like herpes, rather than Ebola,” he later recalled.

At that time, Lehrer’s principal accomplishment was that he was a mathematics prodigy who had entered Harvard aged 15, in 1943, taken a first class degree aged 18 and a master’s a year later. Born into a New York Jewish family in 1928, Lehrer had, he has said, every advantage: piano lessons, an expensive school that could get him into Harvard, and “the Broadway of Danny Kaye and Cole Porter”.

[sugar magnolia]

https://www.wlbt.com/2024/05/22/fbi-rai ... ody-owens/

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Federal authorities have raided a business owned by Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens.

Several federal vehicles were outside the Downtown Cigar Company on Wednesday morning when our cameras arrived.

The business is located along East Pearl Street and is associated with Owens, according to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office.

FBI officials also were searching Owens’ offices, which are located at the Hinds County Courthouse.

Also, his home, his PO box and his vehicle. They removed printers and boxes of documents, and cell phones.Nobody downtown seems to have any idea what is going on, but this should be interesting.

[MN-Skeptic]

I have no idea where to put this, so I'll put it here.

Political consultant indicted for AI robocalls with fake Biden voice made to NH voters

A man who admitted to sending out robocalls mimicking President Joe Biden's voice on the day of the New Hampshire primary is now facing criminal charges.

Five indictments have been returned against Steve Kramer, each related to a different alleged victim. He has been charged with bribing, intimidation and suppression.

The robocalls went out to people across New Hampshire in January on the day of the first-in-the-nation primary. The calls used artificial intelligence to mimic the sound of Biden's voice and told listeners to save their vote for the November election.

Kramer, a political consultant, claimed in an interview with News 9 that he only sent out the calls to drive home the need for more regulation of AI. He said that if investigators wanted to come after him, they should "bring it."

Kramer had previously been contracted by the Dean Phillips presidential campaign, but both he and Phillips said the campaign had no knowledge of the plan for the fake robocalls.

News 9 reached out to the New Hampshire attorney general's office but was told it could not comment. Kramer has not returned requests for comment.

That's the entire article because it was short. In my opinion, Kramer is an idiot.

[Flatpoint High]

he is an idiot and a convicted one at that

[RTH10260]

America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’
Elon Musk (father of 11) supports their cause. Thousands follow their ideology. Malcolm and Simone Collins are on a mission to make it easier for everyone to have multiple children. But are they really model parents?

Jenny Kleeman
Sat 25 May 2024 08.00 CEST

The Collinses didn’t tell me Simone was eight months pregnant when we were making plans for me to spend a Saturday with them at home in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, but I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. They are the poster children of the pronatalist movement, on a mission to save humanity by having as many babies as possible.

Malcolm, 37, answers the door of their 18th-century farmhouse with four-year-old Octavian George, who is thrilled to have a visitor, bringing toy after toy to show me like an overexcited golden retriever. His little brother, two-year-old Torsten Savage, is on his iPad somewhere upstairs. Simone, 36, in an apron that strains across her belly, has her daughter, 16-month-old Titan Invictus, strapped to her back. The imminent arrival of their fourth child, a girl they plan to name Industry Americus Collins, turns out to be only the first in a string of surprises – and one really shocking thing – that I will encounter during my day with the pronatalists.

We begin talking in Malcolm’s office, which is also the kids’ bedroom, with a desk and a stack of bunk beds three storeys high from floor to ceiling. “Children use the room at night, I use it during the day,” Malcolm shrugs. “Why have two separate rooms?” Simone and Malcolm work together – in separate rooms – as what Simone describes as “CEOs and non-profit entrepreneurs”: they acquire businesses with investor money that they improve and eventually sell “or turn into a cash cow”, as she puts it, ploughing their earnings into their charitable foundation, which encourages people to reproduce. They plan on having a minimum of seven children.



https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ne-collins

[Flatpoint High]

oh, c’mon south DAKOTA
https://apnews.com/article/pronouns-tri ... f4ed575a5f

Two University of South Dakota faculty members, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw and her husband, John Little, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents.

“I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” Little said in an email to The Associated Press. “I believe the exact wording was that I had ‘5 days to correct the behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then administrators would meet and make a decision whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.”

[Foggy]

Only seven months of shopping left before Christmas.

[RTH10260]

[Rolodex]

America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’
Elon Musk (father of 11) supports their cause. Thousands follow their ideology. Malcolm and Simone Collins are on a mission to make it easier for everyone to have multiple children. But are they really model parents?

Jenny Kleeman
Sat 25 May 2024 08.00 CEST

The Collinses didn’t tell me Simone was eight months pregnant when we were making plans for me to spend a Saturday with them at home in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, but I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. They are the poster children of the pronatalist movement, on a mission to save humanity by having as many babies as possible.

Malcolm, 37, answers the door of their 18th-century farmhouse with four-year-old Octavian George, who is thrilled to have a visitor, bringing toy after toy to show me like an overexcited golden retriever. His little brother, two-year-old Torsten Savage, is on his iPad somewhere upstairs. Simone, 36, in an apron that strains across her belly, has her daughter, 16-month-old Titan Invictus, strapped to her back. The imminent arrival of their fourth child, a girl they plan to name Industry Americus Collins, turns out to be only the first in a string of surprises – and one really shocking thing – that I will encounter during my day with the pronatalists.

We begin talking in Malcolm’s office, which is also the kids’ bedroom, with a desk and a stack of bunk beds three storeys high from floor to ceiling. “Children use the room at night, I use it during the day,” Malcolm shrugs. “Why have two separate rooms?” Simone and Malcolm work together – in separate rooms – as what Simone describes as “CEOs and non-profit entrepreneurs”: they acquire businesses with investor money that they improve and eventually sell “or turn into a cash cow”, as she puts it, ploughing their earnings into their charitable foundation, which encourages people to reproduce. They plan on having a minimum of seven children.



https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ne-collins

I'm pretty hard to shock, but these people are shocking. Absolutely terrifying. For a lot of the article I thought, "Why don't they adopt some kids - so many kids need a family!" but then by the end...NOPE.

[MN-Skeptic]

Gift link to a New York Times article about Mike Dunford’s law firm. Mike is quoted in it!

How a Profane Joke on Twitter Spawned a Legal Army

Edited to add Mike’s tweet about the article -

Mike Dunford
@questauthority

This is such an amazing team to work on, and everything about all of this is so surreal.

Also: there is one key to our success, and it's Debbie, Kat, Kathryn, Akiva, Dylan, Thomas, Lane, Don, Hilton, Marty, Sara, Cathy, Yvette, and our clients.

[Sam the Centipede]

Simone, 36, in an apron that strains across her belly, has her daughter, 16-month-old Titan Invictus, strapped to her back. The imminent arrival of their fourth child, a girl they plan to name Industry Americus Collins, […]

Invictus? Americus? So they're relaxed enough about gender that they give their daughters masculine gender names! Bizarre people. Or just ignorant.

[bill_g]

oh, c’mon south DAKOTA
https://apnews.com/article/pronouns-tri ... f4ed575a5f

Two University of South Dakota faculty members, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw and her husband, John Little, have long included their gender pronouns and tribal affiliations in their work email signature blocks. But both received written warnings from the university in March that doing so violated a policy adopted in December by the South Dakota Board of Regents.

“I was told that I had 5 days to remove my tribal affiliation and pronouns,” Little said in an email to The Associated Press. “I believe the exact wording was that I had ‘5 days to correct the behavior.’ If my tribal affiliation and pronouns were not removed after the 5 days, then administrators would meet and make a decision whether I would be suspended (with or without pay) and/or immediately terminated.”

My pronouns are fuck sodak.

[Foggy]

This weekend was Numbah One Son's 25th birthday. He's ready for a quarter-life crisis.

[raison de arizona]

Incredible queue on Mount Everest.

[neonzx]

The only thing my 25th bday brought was hope that my car insurance rate would go down. (It did that year)