Trump wants to ban drug advertising on TV

I see it as a free speech issue but Trump being Trump wants to protect us.  I see a little Bobby influence here.  RFK Jr. the nation's doctor.  Actually these Big Pharma produced TV ads are so well made you want the drug even if you don't have the ailment.  Guy or gal climbing a mountain at sunrise or kayaking.  Rare side effects may include swallowing your tongue or sticking your head in the oven.  I don't think Trump will ever get to the cost-of-living in his second term.  Too much on his plate.  Maybe he's saving it for his third term.

And Happy Tremfya to you.

I suppose I have to talk about it

 I had wanted things to become less contentious around here but it's inescapable.  RFK Jr. being grilled by the Senate.  From the clips I watched seemed mainly about covid and the covid vaccines.  They really built a religion around these covid vaccines so many people were predicting there would be an orchestrated coordinated attack against RFK Jr. by the elites right about now.  In fact there's a leaked memo from Bio about this.  The rest of us have moved on however but some people are still taking the shots.  I'm not sure when full immunity is supposed to kick in maybe after the 17th booster?  I'm thinking there would be at least a public clamoring for a better product on the market by now.  This is not about the public health it's about the $$$$$$.  I didn't want to go down this road again.  Not a fanboy of RFK Jr. but a large swath of the public has lost faith in ThE SciEnCe.  You know it's really weird the Left used to criticize Big Pharma.  Guess times have changed:)

Gain of Fauci

 So what's new on the health front?  YouTube is the McDonaldizing of information so I tend to go there.  Bite-size med news.  Casual hobby of mine poking around health topics.  Did not know gum disease can cause severe headaches.  Teeth can be at the root of a lot of stuff.  The human body is complicated.  The lymphatic system is your sewer system and it can get clogged from time to time.  In my YouTube feed.  After 60 everything goes downhill.  Ass leakage, fungal toes.  Sore hip.  Hair growing out of your ears.  Scattered sleep.  You laugh you pull a muscle.  Brain fog.  Nowadays when you see the doctor you're supposed to tell him what drug you want him to put you on.  Saw an old guy once in the library walking down the stairs backwards.  My late Dad did that.  Supposed to ease the pain or something.   Things to look forward to.

I still have my goblet of Christian Brothers in the evening and two good cups of strong coffee in the morning.   No rest for the weary.  Keep going.  Learn some things.  Posting about Trump everyday hurts the brain.

How did Biden's prostate cancer turn turbo overnight?

 Latest conspiracy theory.  How did Biden's A-team of doctors miss the early signs?  The PSA is known to be one of the more accurate medical tests out there.  My tiny bit of medical knowledge proferred here.  Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men but is often the most manageable except when it turns aggressive and even that takes time so how did Biden get a clean bill of health in July of 2024?  I believe presidents even have oncologists on staff now so did this just show up now and at such an advanced stage?  So many people are now saying he had the cancer while in the WH the whole idea being to keep Trump out of the WH in the first place so it was covered up basically.

Can Woodward maybe get to the bottom of this?

Trump reminds me of Mr. Mayhem on the Allstate commercials

 Shock and Awe.  The DOGE.  Have Musk and Trump showered together yet?  Do we really need cancer research?  When am I going to get my tax refund?  Will Trump change the street cleaning days in Yonkers?  Layoffs of thousands of federal workers.  When can I expect my first DOGE check?  Will Medicaid still cover nurse visits?  When is ICE coming to Yonkers?  Trump wants Zelensky to pay the money back with rare earth minerals.  Like what?  Hannity was more interested in what Musk had to say.  Why does Musk want the personal details of millions of Americans?  When are we going to Mars?

Chaos.

Hide the Lucky Charms RFK Jr. confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services

 If RFK Jr. were a veterinarian would he advise against getting shots for your dog or cat?

The RFK Jr. confirmation hearings

 

Rather intense.  Dems didn't warm up to him but no Repubs really came out against.  Said he's not anti-vaccine but pro-safety.  Not against the measles or polio vaccines or kids getting their shots.  Says he'll keep more in line with Trump's views on abortion mainly being an issue for state control.  Appeared at points to confuse Medicare and Medicaid.  No discussion of roadkill recipes.  Another day of questioning. 

Thoughts?

What happened to the drones?

 Lots of assorted topics out there not really coalescing into a blogpost per se.  The LA fires and the politics of the LA fires.  Elon Musk opiner-at-large now wading into British politics and the groomer gang scandal which is at least ten years old.  Melania's outfit at the Jimmy Carter funeral.  Congestion pricing in NYC.  TikTok.  Just off the top of my head 17,000 doctors signed a letter opposing RFK Jr.'s nomination to be HHS Sec'y.  That one kind of surprised me.  Diddy updates.  Mangione.  My God it's COLD outside!!!  The Trump Follies.  News cycle going too fast for me.

The drone thing.  Wha' happened?

Building a better blog

 Cats?  Pipe smoking?  The Middle East?  No foreign policy post for Dennis Rodman in a Trump Administration?  My drone is better than your drone?

Recent case in Yonkers.  A couple brought a very young cat which was severely injured to a local vet clinic and dropped it off without giving their names or phone numbers.  Anonymous good Samaritans but there's a bad twist.  Cat later died and tested positive for rabies.  The County Health Department is desperately trying to track the couple down to have them tested for the virus.  Got me googling rabies again with my hundred other topics.  Rabies is still generally considered fatal but...

As always though talk about anything you like.

RFK Jr. meeting with the Senators this week

 To shore up support for being confirmed as Secretary of HHS.  Possible topics of discussion:

Dead bear cubs.  Whale heads.  Cap'n Crunch.  Chocolate Twinkies.  The benefits of drinking raw milk from a bucket after squirting it from a cow's udder.  Under his tenure where to go for a tetanus shot if you step on a rusty nail.  How he seduces so many women (is it the croaky voice over a romantic candlelit roadkill dinner?)  Will we all have to shop at Whole Foods from now on?

Not a shoe-in by any stretch.  I give it about a 50/50.

Health insurance is great until you get sick

 That's the sentiment of many.  In the wake of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last Wednesday outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel many folk have gone on social media and unleashed a torrent of vitriol against the health insurance industry in general and Brian Thompson and United Healthcare in particular.  Seems some ai-driven program denied the claims of at least one-third of United Healthcare subscribers who actually had to use their insurance.  The wonders of our health insurance system - you pay into the program your whole life, you get really sick one day and finally get a notice in the mail "Claim Denied" and have to foot the bill yourself.   You're not Diddy.  Never understood how so many cancer survivors and their families use up their entire life savings and eventually go bankrupt.  I thought that's why we have health insurance.  Hannity would probably say at least that's not socialism.  Health care in America.  I thought Obama fixed all that.  I can't wait for the Singularity.

Rachel Maddow and the Covid Chronicles

 Maddow has issues with Trump's cabinet picks particularly Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to head the NIH.  He was a signer to the Great Barrington Declaration out of Stanford University which was basically against covid lockdowns in general and said herd immunity is the way to go.  There was an important caveat to this however: targeted protection for the most vulnerable groups (e.g. the elderly, people with co-morbidities etc.).  In other words during that covid timeframe you didn't invite Grandma over for the holidays.  We all understood this, everyone was on the same page but Maddow has outright lied about Dr. Bhattacharya and his views.  This wasn't exactly the Swedish model that basically said go about your business and the deaths will frontload early and then level off.  In the U.S. we had one of the highest covid death rates despite the lockdowns and mitigation efforts the 6 Foot Rule not even based on science as Fauci later admitted.  No matter to Rachel Maddow.  We also have early footage of Maddow stating emphatically that when you get covid-vaccinated the virus can't use you as a host and transmission stops with you blah blah blah which we now know is not true.  My brother has been hyper-vaccinated which is what most doctors still recommend these days and he still came down with a few cases of hardcore covid.   I'm not even clear whether Maddow and her hero Dr. Fauci even believe we have functioning immune systems but many people say she's in the pocket of Big Pharma and the military/industrial complex.  Word on the street is she's dragging MSNBC down the tubes with her.  Rumor is Musk might buy MSNBC outright.  Maybe Walmart, maybe Yonkers, maybe a feral cat colony island.  The times they are a'changing.

RFK Jr. hit the honey pot

 RFK Jr. tapped to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.  A powerful post which oversees the CDC and the FDA.  Cross-pollination or people who were once in Big Pharma now working for the FDA a big issue for Kennedy.  Also don't expect any massively expedited vaccines on the market without long-range safety data first.  Operation Warp Speed belongs on Star Trek.  Dunno about the raw milk.

An interesting and eclectic Cabinet.

Kamala Chameleon

 Kamala Harris was once against fracking now she supports it.  She was once in favor of a looser immigration policy now she advocates for tighter border controls.  She now agrees with Trump's idea of no taxes on tips.  You have the right to adjust and tweak your views but this smacks of political opportunism.  Speaking of tweaking Trump is now playing around with the abortion issue instead of just sticking with his state by state approach thus potentially alienating that part of his base.  He wrote on Truth Social a second Trump term would be great for women's reproductive rights.  Maybe Trump nephew Fred is right he's showing early signs of dementia.  The Hulkster can't save him at this point.  His proposal to require insurance companies to pay for IVF treatments is hardly in line with smaller government.  I don't think Trump was ever a true conservative in the first place.

This election can best be summed up as Make America Confused Again.

For a man who refused anesthesia for a colonoscopy

I don't understand his vacillation over the proposed debate with Kamala Harris slated for Sept. 10 hosted by ABC News.  According to the new book I'll Take Your Questions Now by Stephanie Grisham Trump's former WH press secretary then President Trump made a visit in 2019 to Walter Reed Medical Center for a routine colonoscopy but refused being put under so as not to give temporary power to VP Mike Pence.  WOW.  I mean a lot can happen in 20-30 minutes a war could start or something .  FF to now and I still don't know if there will be a debate.  It's on again off again on again off again.  He would still prefer Fox News to host the debate I guess with Sean Hannity as moderator.  He still wants to campaign against Joe Biden, he's stuck in a reverie about it and can't seem to adjust to new circumstances.  He had his nursing home jokes all lined up.  This whole thing makes him look weak and shows his campaign is still dangerously off course.  Meanwhile JD Vance continues to defend his cat lady comments like give it up already.

I wish I didn't have to write this stuff.

Doctors

I asked my doctor once how often should you eat red meat.  He said twice a month.  If everyone followed that the beef industry would go out of business.  Then I asked him how much coffee should you drink in a day.  He said one cup.  Look I'm paying for the visit I may as well pick his brain.  Why do they say drink 8 glasses of water a day?  He says nobody knows how that started just drink water.  What causes tinnitus?  It's mostly related to hearing loss as you get older but he did bring up RF hearing once which is an actual noise so he can think out of the box a little.  Insurance didn't cover my Colovantage blood test for colon cancer.  Oh well.  Spanish chef at work said flip the questions back to him.  If he asks you how your bowel movements are ask him how his movements are.  Asked him once what's a good sleep aid.  He said melatonin.  Gotta agree with him there.  Another time he suggested brisk walking is better than regular walking.  Just be glad I'm walking.  Was in the waiting room once and glanced at the table with the reading material and next to Golf Digest was Heart Failure magazine like am I dead and don't know it yet?

Doctors are ego-driven.  They want you to respect their expertise.  Never be afraid to question them.  If you catch them googling leave.

The aging blogger

 I have a large backyard and every year it gets overrun with weeds.  Large weeds.  Couple weeks back was whacking with one of them manual whackers and later into the day and into the next my left arm became very sore.  Now I get this intense pain in my left elbow to the point I suffer if I even use a spray bottle with my left hand.  I'm partial ambidextrous no matter.  It's a jungle down there could have been a black widow who knows?  I'm older now and Nurse Nancy would probably have one of my feet in the grave.  Bought some Tylenol arthritis power but will wait until a sufficient time has elapsed after imbibing my last adult beverage for the night.  I have my priorities.

Ever have everything go wrong with you AT THE SAME TIME?  You want to go to the doctor's office and present him with a list of at least five ailments and say here fix them.  We can rebuild him we have the technology.  Funny thing is my friend can eat sushi and down it with chocolate milk no problem. 

My cumbersome labeling system.  Gonna file it under health.

Thank you for practicing unemployment

How are the people who have binge watched "The Munsters" gonna vote?  The media churning out as many anti-Trump articles as possible can work in reverse.  Will Dr. Fauci retire sometime next year and hit the links?  Meanwhile the New York Times somehow thinks they're mainstream.  Are they performing colonoscopies yet?

Race - How does defunding and dismantling police departments work in practice?  If you hear gunshots in your neighborhood do you call your local community activist?

I haven't been going to church lately.  I don't want to go and they say we're at 25 or 50% capacity and get turned away.  I haven't been tithing either.  Take it up with the Lord.

The mystery of depression

Whenever I've suffered from depression I can almost always trace it to some major life event that triggers it and it can run the gamut from romantic rejection or breakup, lost loves or betrayal, guilt/remorse/regret to an illness or problem in the family to prolonged joblessness and even job rejection itself can at times get it going. It could be the job itself is depressing, I've had those and they say a major side issue of cancer patients is depression caused by having the cancer. There are those however and there are millions out there who are depressed and don't know why, who can't get out of bed in the morning but can't trace it to any life-situational thing. This is the common everyday depression we hear about in the news and a whole pharmaceutical industry has burgeoned up around it. I don't deny this reality but I've never fully understood it either. It's not spiritual depression or angst or a midlife crisis or a state of mind caused by your overall life situation it's just, well depression. It's all about the chemistry of the brain, neurons and gray matter and stuff. In other words people who should be happy but are dragging all day. It'd be like being in the Garden of Eden before the original sin and not being happy and God scratching His head. It's over my head so feel free to elucidate and clarify.

Hippyfied health care

CVS won't sell tobacco products but medical marijuana dispensaries seem to be sprouting up everywhere these days.  Alcohol continues to be heavily demonized (e.g. nearly every insomnia website warns don't drink before bedtime) but hemp use is actually being medically encouraged within a limited for now framework of course.  Granny don't smoke, Granny don't drink, Granny light up a joint in the cancer ward.