When resources are scarce, birds will literally push the weakest chick out of the nest to increase the survival chance of the rest. They’ll keep going too, and kill them all if they have to

No, this guy was a civilian appointed by Trump, a major Trump donor, and clearly amoral. I’m reading it was because he talked to Trump directly and Hegseth wanted everything to go through him. It’s corruption and dysfunction as far as the eye can see

Or the Inca

If that’s your perspective, is anyone ever responsible for anything? Or is it all just genetics and hormones

Oof. And still topical

Agitato, saltato

This music gets me

For those unaware, it’s already been federal law for many decades that 18-26 year old men have to register for the draft, and it’s a felony not to. This law just makes it so people are less likely to accidentally commit a felony. There still hasn’t been a draft since 1973, and if there were one today, it would not go over well

“If morality is objective” doing a heavy lift there. Morality is consistently different between different cultures and societies, and it consistently changes over time, which is a pretty good argument that morality is subjective

I assume you mean well, but this is serious “confidently incorrect” energy. Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes bubonic plague, never changed to become less virulent and can still affect humans to this day. It has been killing a ton of humans for thousands of years and was still killing thousands of people at a time in localized outbreaks up until we discovered the antibiotics that cure it.

Also, it’s transmitted through the fleas on small mammals, not through the mammals themselves. Flea transmission is far and away the primary vector. Human to human transmission has always been pretty rare, since it can only be transmitted between humans through contact with bodily fluids, similar to how HIV spreads.

Heather Cox Richardson has been talking a lot recently about the period in US politics starting 1933 with the election of FDR, and how moneyed interests have been trying to dismantle everything he built for about 50 years now. It’s time for another FDR

I’ve worked in healthcare for decades and have literally never seen this. Are you sure you’re not thinking of coinsurance? Coinsurance and copays are two different things, a copay is a set fee dictated by your insurance that you pay up front, whereas coinsurance is usually the percentage you owe of anything billed to your insurance, which includes both facility and provider fees

Tbf, there is no “doctor copay.” The copay is a visit fee imposed by your insurance company that disincentivizes people from visiting the doctor. It’s also usually a paltry amount compared to the actual amount your insurance will pay the practice, and reimbursement fees for NPs and PAs are absolutely lower than for MDs

You’re welcome to choose to eat a bullet instead, then

Oh my god, Trump wants to lower drug prices, so he’s doubling the price of medications available from literally nowhere else.

Years ago, I worked at a hospital that hired an old psychiatrist who we quickly realized was prescribing Geodon to almost everyone. Schizophrenia? Geodon. Bipolar? Geodon. Depression? Geodon. Borderline personality disorder? Geodon. Well, he only last a few weeks before being relieved of duty, and turns out he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

This story is about Donald Trump and tariffs.

Same here. I’ve never had a card declined on a website. I’m decidedly anti-app and haven’t ever had a problem

Fortunate to have HEB in Texas. They treat their employees and their customers really well, also, and totally keep out all that Safeway nonsense. Aldi is rapidly expanding in the US, they have stores all over Texas, too

Are we reading the same comments

Lead is cheaper than chicken, so they’re just deep-frying dinosaur-shaped cakes of lead now

It’s really one of the most America things I’ve ever read. I’m fortunate to live in a city in the US, so have no issue avoiding Walmart like the plague, but most of rural America probably bought these nuggets and dropped their kids’ IQs even further

For therapy to work for you, you have to show up for it in a big way. Therapy is work. Not only is it work, but you have to be ready to work, which often includes letting go of your ego and admitting to yourself what patterns you engage in that aren’t serving you well. While advice giving can occasionally play a small role in therapy, it is not therapy.

Counterintuitively, many people are really, really attached to their negative patterns that perpetuate feelings of anxiety or depression. They may say they’re unhappy, but they aren’t ready to do anything different to change that.

Maybe take a look at yourself and try to gauge your own readiness for change. If you’re not ready to acknowledge that you yourself play a huge role in how you feel, therapy will not be productive. If you’re expecting a therapist to do the work for you, therapy will not be productive. If you’re not ready to do work to break out of patterns in your life outside of therapy, therapy will not be productive.