Yes, and he’s no doubt having a pretty thorough psych eval done, too. There are not too many forensic neuropsych practitioners available…
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i really miss batboy.
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I hear they became targets when the Capitol was invaded.
IKR… I have always had a problem with how we interpret and regulate “free speech.” It is supposed to work to our advantage (a wide range of discussion on controversial issues between/among citizens), but only if these citizens are able to think critically. We have not had that ability in probably the last 50 years, if ever, in this country. across the board. The movement to teach critical thinking skills is good, but it won’t happen in closed, conservative, parochial schools, or a lot of the alternative and charter schools. And it won’t happen when we all sit and read our own social bias platforms on our devices, instead of talking or listening to fair, unbiased, reputable news organizations. If there are any left. JMHO. It is a tough issue to fully and fairly address in any detail in a short post. And I am not in expert in any sense of this topic.
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Wonderfully said! Thank you. 
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Agree, completely
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Which is why local newspapers are so important. They provide the same set of facts to the entire community. This was stated and explained by Prof Timothy Snyder of Yale. I can see it in our rural community. Some of the LTEs are nutty, but at least there is a dialogue of sorts because the owner and publisher, who is Republican, realizes that without broad support the paper would go broke.
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Some excerpts from an article-- “Why Facts Don’t change People’s Minds”
by James Clear–
There is another reason bad ideas continue to live on, which is that people continue to talk about them.
Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is never spoken or written down dies with the person who conceived it. Ideas can only be remembered when they are repeated. They can only be believed when they are repeated.
Each time you attack a bad idea, you are feeding the very monster you are trying to destroy. As one Twitter employee wrote, “Every time you retweet or quote tweet someone you’re angry with, it helps them. It disseminates their BS. Hell for the ideas you deplore is silence. Have the discipline to give it to them.”
And an idea of what to do instead:
Your time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. Don’t waste time explaining why bad ideas are bad. You are simply fanning the flame of ignorance and stupidity.
The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared. It makes me think of Tyler Cowen’s quote, “Spend as little time as possible talking about how other people are wrong.”
“Feed the good ideas and let bad ideas die of starvation”.
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If there is no justice, equality, and equity, there will be no understanding, peace ,and prosperity.
True, especially They provide the same set of facts to the entire community. And it’s always interesting to get local news. But the quality of the reporting is pretty bad most of the time. As is the case with local radio and TV news. There are really good writers and reporters, but it is a rarity. Mediocre is pretty much the rule. But, never forget the importance of consistency.
I’m sorry I missed the story last night on one of the news shows, but mixed in with the feds inability to get vaccines out is individual states’ distribution woes with the doses they have received, including concerns of spoilage as doses are defrosted, but eligible recipients are always available.
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Moderna’s vaccine can be stored at -4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Both of my chest freezers at home go well below that.The older Whirlpool will hold 16 below zero and the newer one will hold 18 below zero.Most any chest freezer will hold 4 degrees below zero. They have also discovered that it can be stored at normal refrigerator temps for up to 30 days. But Pfizer’s vaccine is a different story. It needs special freezers.
Moderna, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA), a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines to create a new generation of transformative medicines for patients, today announced new data showing that mRNA-1273, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, remains stable at 2° to 8°C (36° to 46°F), the temperature of a standard home or medical refrigerator, for 30 days. Stability testing supports this extension from an earlier estimate of 7 days. mRNA-1273 remains stable at -20° C (-4°F) for up to six months, at refrigerated conditions for up to 30 days and at room temperature for up to 12 hours
.
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Brandenburg is a professional - there is a higher expectation of responsibility from him than the general public. Brandenburg’s deluded beliefs won’t be a viable defense. Any good prosecutor will weed out cranks from the jury pool.
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That obviously won’t work in an environment of aggressive peddling of disinformation.
It’s the monolithic nature of the Right-wing media sphere that makes it so hard to penetrate. Even my conservative acquaintances who would be considered low-information voters watch Fox News, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and mostly socialize with people who do the same. For the most part they don’t spend a lot of time on the interwebs themselves but consider their friends and family who do as “experts”. It’s not a matter of facts or logic per se for them but lack of exposure to alternative viewpoints that keeps them tied to the GOP and its lies. I expect the vast majority of non-hardcore Trumpsters fall into this category.
My take away from years of trying to talk friends and family down from the conservative ledge is that the best we can do is be sure the truth is available and provide an off-ramp for those who are starting to question because you can’t help them unless they themselves stick their heads out of the RW propaganda bubble.
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Disinformation is amusing. It titillates, intrigues, poses provocative questions with no grounding that allow the mind to run like wild horses. It’s even entertaining when you know it’s false.
Social media are set up to promote conspiracy theories. Clickbait gets lots of “likes”. Then the platform algorithms are set up to direct the user to similar posts and likeminded groups. This a is because the purpose of the SM platforms is to sell.
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Remember, if you’re not the one handing over money, you’re not the customer, you’re the product…
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The other vaccine requires minus 80 I have read for stability. I had an ultra low freezer in my lab. But they are not at all common even in most medical situations.
I guess my hope ultimately is that, considering COVID doesn’t seem to be going away, the smart people will continue getting the vaccine, the dumb morons won’t, and eventually the only people the virus will have to feed on will be the dumb morons. Maybe in the long run this will work out just like we would like?
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Healing will only be possible when every insurrectionist – and I mean ALL of them, including Trump – is in prison for a long stretch.
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