A major earthquake has struck eastern Afghanistan resulting in at least 600 deaths, although the final number is likely to be higher.
Retired Anesthesiologist | I read JAMA so you don’t have to | Fair Gardener | Classical Composer | Married a great guy in 2004 | Dual Citizen - Can-Am | Voted BC, BO, HRC, JRB, KH — Should Tell You My Politics | Working on a memoir of my medical career
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A major earthquake has struck eastern Afghanistan resulting in at least 600 deaths, although the final number is likely to be higher.
California stepping up.
Rational analyses of Donald Trump are hampered by the almost complete lack of credible psychiatric and neurological evaluation. White House physician reports are either useless or absent. I’d bet if he was properly evaluated we’d learn the depth of his mental illness and physical decline.
We have a very good friend who, as an experienced lawyer, served as a court appointed Special Master to review all the data then available to see if anything credible supported the connection between childhood vaccines and autism in a product liability case. After 3 years investigation none found.
Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer deaths. A major study found that the risk increases as alcohol intake increases.
I doubt a commercial airliner could turn base (basically 90° to the runway) abeam (opposite) the number on the runway. A small plane could but even then a short approach isn’t usually done “abeam the numbers.” Here’s a pilot in a Bonanza A36 doing a short approach.
What if Alien (1979) wasn’t just a sci-fi horror film, but a warning about corporate betrayal and working-class struggles?
Vote to make DC the 51st state.
Working title - “Survivor: Assisted Living Edition.”
Trump, his GOP enablers and the SCOTUS6 are making a huge mistake beyond their current power grab. The mistake? They think no matter what they do the United States will remain intact so they can continue to pillage it. A Roman emperor in the year 450 probably thought Rome would endure. Wrong.
@earthbound420.bsky.social
I was getting caught up on my reading when I saw this. Although important reading it ruined my Friday night. (Gift Article)
Meidas Health is filling the void in healthcare leadership and trusted health information. 1 million views in less than 24 hours! We are just getting started. @meidastouch.com
Academics once loved Twitter—but in the age of X they’ve abandoned it in droves. www.wired.com/story/bluesk...
We’ll wait…🤔
Good on Nicolle. The moment Sam Stein comes on (MSNBC) I know he’s going to be (somewhat) obsequious towards the Trump Administration, which any “journalist” doing so is at least part of the reason we got Trump in the first place.
With 95% reporting, Drey won by 10 points. That’s a 21.5 point reversal from Trump’s win. No amount of gerrymandering can overcome these kinds of numbers. Nevertheless, our Democratic governors should continue to fight fire with fire. Put these illegitimi in their place.
⚡️Iowa Dems just broke the GOP senate supermajority by flipping a Republican seat on a special election in a district Trump won by 11 points in 2024. (This is why Trump is stealing seats) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...
Since Trump never goes to a supermarket to do his own shopping he has no idea that people who do, which is most of us, know he’s full of do do no matter what nonsense he spews.
The free world needs to boycott the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, just as they should have boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany.
Totally plausible.
If I was a multi-billionaire, I’d offer Jeff $1.5 billion cash for the Washington Post to see if his fealty to Trump is higher than his business sense. Remember, Bezos paid $250 million for The Post. So that would be a very good ROÍ. Calling Michael Bloomberg.
Canada to allocate $500 mn to purchase US weapons for Ukraine Canada's $500 mn pledge for US weapons procurement represents one component of over $1 bn in military assistance promised to Ukraine by September 2025 euromaidanpress.com/2025/08/25/c...
The wiki page for heart failure contains a portrait of Donald Trump
I’ve been thinking CHF (congestive heart failure) for some time. I’d bet Trump has had some sophisticated imaging studies of his heart, first to see if he actually has one. If he does MRI with contrast is a good possibility +/- an echocardiogram. Of course we won’t see the results.
Republicans are better at messaging because it’s easier to message the negative: “fear sells,” The political equivalent of “if it bleeds, it ledes.” Dems: Under Biden GDP growth is amazing. GOP: Eggs are so expensive I can’t afford them. Dems needs to ditch the macro and go micro.
Canada even with all of Trump’s threats gets it right.
PM Carney: “Just arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine. On this Ukrainian Independence Day, and at this critical moment in their nation’s history, Canada is stepping up our support and our efforts towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.”
Vaccine deniers bringing back contagious diseases and causing everyone to drive instead of taking public transportation thereby making us miss our climate goals is a link I hadn’t made before.
When this comes to an end and Avelo has to close down because the next administration cancels their contract and they’ve lost their commercial business, no air carrier should employ any of the pilots who are complicit in the inhumane travesties like this one.
Greenland breathes sigh of relief as it turns out Trump has decided on a military occupation of the United States instead.
Thanks for showing your true colors. Those people who months ago were saying you should run for president have been very quiet for good reason. The last thing we need is another billionaire as president who tells us he is truly only looking out for himself and his pocketbook.
Won’t work and will only embolden Trump the mentally ill bully.
Show me a wall in history that kept people inexorably on the outside.
According to Prof. Krugman, the AI boom is keeping the US economy from stalling and Trump afloat. AI requires a lot of electricity. Trump may be in cahoots with the fossil fuel industry, but there isn’t enough dead dinosaurs to fuel the AI boom. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.
He or more likely Stephen Miller will manufacture the modern equivalent of the Reichstag fire to give Trump the excuse this fascist administration needs.
You only have checks and balances if each branch takes its responsibilities seriously and according to both the spirit and the law as setup by the framers and their Constitution. The Republicans have capitulated. Ditto 6 out of 9 on SCOTUS. Ergo limited or even no checks and balances.
Any housing cost decline is due to the economy sucking, which is due to instability, which is due to the tariff chaos. How weird of them to try to credit the absence of people.
This is so disgusting and tacky. Everything about him is so disgusting and tacky. This is what people with zero class think class looks like.
My anger at Merrick Garland continues apace. I will never forgive him for betraying this country with his weak and feckless bullshit.
JD Vance...the greatest tourist guide in the world....
ICBM — Russia to Washington DC: 25-30 minutes SLBM — Ocean to Washington DC: 10-15 minutes Big, beautiful ocean — fine 86 years ago.
Was Zelensky thinking while sitting next to Trump on Aug 17, 2025, hearing him say that four days ago DC was the most unsafe place anywhere: “WTF is wrong with this guy? Here I sit, president of Ukraine that Russia tries to bomb into submission daily. GFC, and he is telling me DC is unsafe.”
A Dyson sphere? Maybe they mean the ball in the eponymous vacuum cleaner.
The population of Texas in 2020 was 29.36 million. 7 million would be an increase of 23.84% in 5 years. A 7% increase would be 2.06 million. I know Texas is near the bottom when it comes to education, but really…
"A federal judge in Los Angeles denied a motion from the Trump administration Friday to throw out a decades-old settlement that outlines protections for immigrant children in federal detention." laist.com/news/politic...
As translated from the original Russian by a Trump Administration translator and so typical of them hiring a bunch of incompetents:
Kharkiv right now. Moscovia bombs sleeping families. 4 victims including kids. Don’t tell me about peace that Putin wants. Do not dare.
It’s becoming very obvious that far too many wearing a military or at least a militarized uniform, or are carrying a badge, are willing to go along with Trump. These are the seeds of a hot civil war going unnoticed by far too many.
If American democracy falls there won’t be an America coming to save it from itself like America did for Germany and Japan and Italy in WWII.
The Kremlin also has proof positive of how Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win. In other words, changing the “insufficient evidence” to charge conspiracy between Trump and Russia in the Mueller Report to “sufficient.”
Mike Pence had one moment of moral clarity in his life 4 years ago. That time has passed. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/u...
Exactly.
If Ukraine is thinking of trusting anything Trump says, even if it’s in writing, they need to remember how well the US upheld the 1994 security guarantee for which they gave up the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Had they still had those nukes, no way would Putin have invaded.
A high winds storm whipped through my DC neighborhood yesterday evening. A big tree fell across an intersection and took out a bunch of power lines and transformers. No injuries. I just went to see what was happening. Several workers, all Hispanic, were removing the tree. Trump/Miller, etc. can FO.
Every Democratic member of Congress should be in the streets of DC saying this dangerous authoritarian escalation must stop. Do they not grasp what’s going on here?
Agree 💯
They already ruled that states can gerrymander pretty much at will as long as they don’t overtly write “we’re doing this to disenfranchise POC” on the bill.
Give up much do we?
That’s an entirely different question. Hopefully more Democratic governors will follow Newsom’s lead. And since red states are already gerrymandered up the wahoo, blue states could yield more pickups.
That’s not the same thing as Congress passing a law that a Democratic president signs.
There’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prevents DC from becoming a state so SCOTUs cannot declare such a law passed by Congress unconstitutional.
When Democrats take back Congress and the WH, their first order of business had to be to make DC the 51st state. No excuses this time and regardless of things like the useless filibuster.
Trying to analyze Trump is a fool’s errand unless you’re a physician putting a specific diagnosis to his obvious severe mental illness.
Marooned by Air Canada flight attendant strike? Here are your options www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/202...
Yes. Yes, you are.
“Could be fooled?” Really. I don’t think there’s any “could” about it. Putin is Paganini and Trump is his violin.
If Trump thought his meeting with Putin is going to divert attention away from the Epstein files, him coming away with nothing, looking like a buffoon and Putin probably breaking out the Crystal on his flight back to Moscow for such a win, then Trump is sadly mistaken.
Trump walked away empty handed after giving Putin a series of gifts. Putin said the underlaying conditions for the war need to be addressed to achieve peace. Those conditions are ending Ukraine’s sovereignty/ movement towards Europe. I see some harsh terms being proposed to Ukraine. Trump’s a loser.
Putin saying all the “root causes” that led to his invasion of Ukraine must be resolved before ending the war, is nothing new. Putin has been saying this for years and is based on his warped view of Ukrainian-Russian history, and that the dissolution of the USSR was a huge mistake.
For all we know, and especially since Putin truly only talked trade during their non-press press conference, I’d bet the whole thing was a discussion about business, including Trump Tower Moscow.
Can you imagine how Republicans would have reacted if President Biden had let Putin and his cronies near our 5th generation fighters (F-22s and F-35s)? They would have impeached him already and had the Senate trial scheduled.
Long dead Romanian dictator (executed by firing squad on Dec 25, 2025, Nikolai Ceauseșcu’s former secret police name is available: “Securitate.”
Trump speaking last almost incoherently at the “press conference” with no details, Trump repeating that Russian interference in the 2016 was a hoax multiple times and neither Putin or Trump taking any questions. Oh and Putin blowing copious smoke up Trump’s generous derrière.
You know those mRNA vaccines that Booby Brainworms vilifies, well, they saved an estimated 2.5 million lives worldwide during the worst of the COVID pandemic, especially in the 60+ crowd. Booby is currently 71.
СОЮЗ СОВЕТСКИХ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСПУБЛИК (CCCP) = UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS (USSR) Безумный царь Путин встретится с Безумным королём Трампом (Mad Tsar Putin is going to meet Mad King Trump)
If this was a real news outfit they would have also included DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s letter to DC Police Chief Pamela Smith informing her there is no law that permits AG Bondi to replace Chief Smith, and that DC police must continue to follow Chief Smith’s orders.
Alaska stands with Ukraine. ♥️ American people protest against the russian war-criminal-in-chief coming. Video Ostap Yarysh.
it’s become clear that state level gerrymandering bans were just unilateral disarmament and the only real solution is a federal gerrymandering ban… And the only way to get that is Dems pushing for maximal gerrymandering until we get a trifecta to pass the law and pack the courts to enforce it
@dcattorneygeneral.bsky.social finds the Bondi order claiming control over DC police "unlawful" and advises the DC chief of police not to follow it.
Where are the rest of the Dem governors,they should be doing what Newsom is doing!? Fight Fire With Fire!
The next time Democrats control Congress and the WH they need to make DC into 51st state no matter what it takes to accomplish that.
When Trump is finally gone, Bondi and any Trump sycophants who violated both the spirit of and actually went against the Constitution should be prosecuted, even if Trump pardons them on his way out the door. Otherwise this will happen again.
Shameful that Black officers who comprise 52% of DC police are going along with this.
Unless the DC Police and the DC National guard rebel against Trump and Bondi there’s very little the DC Mayor and Council can do because DC is not a state and they have no one they can call on.
this is just straight-up dictatorship and it’s repulsive and pathetic our newspapers and TV stations still won’t say so. there is no emergency. there is no precedent for this in US history. Trump is establishing military and paramilitary control of the capital
ICE kidnapped Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero Cruz—Reseda Charter High senior—tied his dog to a tree, laughed about a $2,500 bounty. Brad Sherman did nothing. When our rights are ashes, ICE will have my permission to be abolished. #CD32 #ChrisAhuja #AhujaCongress2026 #Ahuja #ChrisAhuja
Remember Trump has a habit of meeting Putin without an American translator in the room. So Putin places a document in Russian in front of Trump and tells him if he signs it there will be peace in Ukraine, and Trump will get the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump signs and voila, Alaska is back under Russia.
Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick envisioned “millions” of Americans screwing in “millions” of tiny screws to make iPhones in the US. He should visit this Lamborghini factory in Italy to see what modern manufacturing actually looks like:
Two teen boys surprise John Williams.
Two incredible John Williams moments. First, John conducting his Imperial March on his 90th birthday. Next, two teen boys playing the Imperial March outside John’s home.. They get a surprise! #StarWars
❤️
🚨NEW PAPER ALERT🚨 Fab work from my amazing colleague Daniel Beard using a novel technique to improve blood flow post-stroke 🧪 advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
The President cannot commandeer any local law enforcement. The President does not run the Smithsonian. The monthly BLS jobs report is required by law. Release the Epstein files. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Easy for billionaire Mark Cuban to praise the 15% AMD and Nvidia tax, which will ultimately be passed on to American consumers, since he can afford whatever he wants without any problem. Anyone thinking we need Cuban running as the Democratic presidential candidate needs to rethink their position.
At some point the DC police who are going along with this travesty and trampling of Constitutional rights are going to have to go back to just being DC police and not Trump’s diversionary henchmen. Their reputations should not recover.
If no crime has been committed then what these federal agents are doing is a violation of the 4th Amendment (unreasonable searches and seizures).
As might be expected, Cervical Cancer in terms of incidence and mortality is higher in low-resourced (rural + lower income) counties. This study looked at Texas, Idaho and New Mexico and found almost twofold higher incidence, late-stage diagnosis and mortality. The big ugly bill will make it worse.🧪