Disqus - Latest Comments for roguemedic

Re: Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:49:50 -0000

Podcast Jay could easily provide a video hookup, as if it is a podcast and PJ might consider that to be as much association with the little people as necessary, especially if he took a few questions before signing off. PJ could also have planned on flying in, speaking, and flying right out, but never got around to calling and telling the ADA coordinator for the conference that he wouldn't be able to make it. PJ seems like someone, who protects himself by withholding bad news until it cannot be ignored. Everything going according to plan, such as PJ is in the building, is also a possibility, but I tend not to have much confidence in PJ engaging in responsible behavior.

Re: The COVID Amnesia Project: Erasing Your Free Will to Preserve the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:57:44 -0000

Does Keith Richards look old because he is in his 80s? because he quit smoking? because he quit heroin? because he dramatically cut down on alcohol? because his genetics minimize the harm these substances do, even if he trips and fractures his skull in New Zealand?

So many possibilities, but while everyone knows Keith Richards, how many people have met him for longer than it takes to get an autograph, yet still he is the closest they know to someone who does all of the things that Keith Richards doesn't do?

Keith Richards looks like he is the evidence that people want to believe in, but he also has access to excellent medical care, as long as he ignores the quacks. Heroin is considered far more dangerous than smoking, but if you get medical grade heroin, and limit yourself to directly observed injections, you essentially eliminate the risk. With smoking, if you eliminate all of the dangers, you no longer have something people will pay for, because tobacco is inherently harmful to the human body, when used as intended, while heroin is not harmful when used as intended. If addiction does develop, but the supply is medical quality, the injections are medical quality, and the carbon dioxide level is monitored so that someone will stimulate the person to breathe, the person can lead an otherwise normal life, even while addicted.

If we really want to cut deaths from opioid overdoses, we probably can cut them to almost to zero without even decreasing use of heroin, but only improving the quality of the supply. We should try to end addiction, but we should understand that the addiction is not the problem.

If we want to cut much larger number of deaths from tobacco, we have to stop the use of tobacco. Safe use of tobacco is a myth.

Alcohol is somewhere in the middle. Alcohol is more dangerous than heroin, but less dangerous than tobacco. Alcohol's problems mostly come from addiction, but since repeated alcohol use causes a lot of damage to the liver (and the heart) and a healthy liver is important to a healthy life, alcohol addiction is very deadly.

The arguments that alcohol and tobacco are not deadly come from people who do not understand medicine or science. There is plenty of evidence. The idea that a glass of wine a day is good for you is due to study designs that did not adequately control for variables. Many of the people who do not drink at all have quit alcohol, because of alcohol addiction, having already caused significant damage to their livers and hearts, which caused them to die younger than people who only occasionally drank alcohol.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:08:43 -0000

It would be nice if people had some more agreement on what are the right terms for different aspects of being human. The problem seems to be that whenever a community settles on this is our preferred term to identify with, the far right starts using that in ways that are intended to be demeaning, so the far right can claim to be the victims. All I did was use their preferred terminology (ignoring everything else that went into the incident) and they flew off the handle.

What is needed is some sort of shibboleth for good faith, but any time somebody comes up with something, the far right weaponizes it to try to divide and conquer.

Unfortunately, we apes are not rational, so we tend to fall for it over and over.

Re: Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:53:09 -0000

Was Podcast Jay actually there? I am not going to try to track down the location of someone in the government in this hyperparanoid (too much?) administration, but it was "last minute cancellation," so maybe PJ was there and maybe this was just the justification for not going, or maybe it would have been a virtual presentation, or . . . So many possibilities.

It will be interesting to read whatever behind the scenes reporting comes out of this.
Unless Tommy lee Jones used a Neuralyzer on them. Official government podcasters can have some impressive tech. The Neuralyzer-in-Chief is denying he ever said, No new wars.

Long Live the Memory Holes!

Memory Holes? What are Memory Holes?

😱

Re: Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:20:31 -0000

See, their tract was saying right there that their opinion was not aligned with ~~ADA~~ MAGA/MAHA, so ~~ADA~~ MAGA/MAHA was in their right to have them thrown through the airlock.

Project 2025 The Heritage Foundation's Mandate For Leadership already described how this is what people were voting for.

I am exaggerating, but speaking of communism, I would not be surprised if the US were to deploy this year their own political commissars.

Project 2025 The Heritage Foundation's Mandate For Leadership already described how this is what people were voting for.

There is a reason I keep referring to the Republican Party's behavior as Stalinist. Republican politicians hate the word communism and act as if anything not Republican is communism, but the Republican Party in power is imitating politics under Stalin. Political officers will tell you what you did wrong and how you should be punished, but if you slip them some money, or some favors, you might be spared . . . this time.

The most essential jobs are for those who keep the memory holes working.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:45:29 -0000

What are these "certain DEI policies" that you oppose?

Re: Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:39:06 -0000

For those wanting to skip to that part of your article, it looks like the new part adds 4 paragraphs and begins 6 paragraphs from the end with:

Unfortunately, the ADA didn’t do any of that—quite the opposite, in fact. Yesterday, the ADA issued a statement demonstrating that its leadership has learned nothing from the backlash:

I know you don't like punctuation and other corrections, but for those scrolling up, the paragraph right after this is part of the statement by the ADA, but it is not formatted as a quote. I sent the notification to sbmproofreading@gmail.com, but I realize it may take a little bit and the formatting can be confusing - at least it was for me.

Is the ADA being political by preventing people from passing out information, when the people are not acting in any official ADA capacity? Is the censorship political or would allowing people to express their professional opinions at a professional conference be the political action?

Re: Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?

Rogue Medic — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:07:51 -0000

“All attendees will conduct themselves in a professional and respectful manner, free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation, ..."

It's not discrimination when we do it to protect the image we want to present. It's not harassment when we do it to protect the image we want to present. It's not intimidation when we do it to protect the image we want to present. It is not a bad thing, when we use the police to prevent people who disagree with our speech from mentioning that they disagree by any kind of speech.

A safe space must be provided for political officers of the administration to speak without the appearance of any disagreement. Even the hint of criticism caused Podcast Jay to run away and hide, while sending someone else to be sacrificed to the violent mob. How did the unfortunate human sacrifice manage to survive the violence that clearly terrified Podcast Jay.

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." Speech is violence.

Freedom comes with responsibility, while freeDUMB rejects responsibility in favor of performative destruction. Cutting funding to researchers who follow the scientific method and increasing the funding to researchers who reject the scientific method in favor of other methods of knowing, that appeal to the political officers in charge of the Brave New Science.

The dog whistles of DEI, immigrants, women, trans, woke, . . . dependably motivate the cult members to destroy anything that can be destroyed.

We do not appear to be rational enough to understand responsibility, integrity, honesty, or much of anything else. Incompetence and corruption are being exalted by this cult that would be amusing in a work of fiction, but is truly deadly.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

😔

Re: The COVID Amnesia Project: Erasing Your Free Will to Preserve the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic

Rogue Medic — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:32:00 -0000

Knowing someone who lived a long life in spite of repeated self-destructive behaviors is something that is often noted about the person, but it is definitely not common that people have long healthy lives in spite of smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day or drinking a quart of whiskey a day.

Even if you have one of these rare genetic mutations, there are plenty of other aspects of the harmful behaviors that will cause problems.

Some people just look like they are 90 years old, because they drink or smoke or both, even though they are nowhere near 90.

Re: Planets Around Black Holes

Rogue Medic — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:06:10 -0000

We seem to be on the path of let's go to the stars, . . .

but first we should destroy ourselves, because it seems like so much fun!

😔

Re: Reason’s Next “Flame of Freedom” Winner Should be Someone Who Stood Up to Their Past “Flame of Freedom” Winner, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

Rogue Medic — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 16:45:19 -0000

The Reason Foundation - an ironically named organization behind the magazine. The Reason Foundation is financed by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers, Charles Koch and the late David Koch. These two also created the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center, and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Why mention David, if he is dead?

David was the Libertarian Party's vice-presidential candidate in 1980,[12] running on a platform of abolishing Social Security, the FBI, the CIA, and public schools.[33][34]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network

I mention David Koch, and not just Charles Koch, because David was the less reactionary of these two leaders of far right reactionary politics. Being less reactionary does not mean that David did not lead where the Republican Party was going. It just means that David Koch had to show where the Republican Party was being dragged by the Koch brothers. All of these policies are being supported/enacted by the currently serving Republican Senators, Republican Representatives, Republican President, and Republican SCOTUS.

There are occasional acts of rebellion by one, or two, even three, Republican politicians, when the media accurately report what the Republican Party is doing to the American government and to American citizens, but it is usually too little and too late, because we are irrational apes demonstrating death by cognitive dissonance.

If the media accurately reported on what the Reason Foundation, the Republican Party, and the rest of the far right propaganda organizations are doing to America, would enough people care? Would we just scroll to the next thing, because the leopards are not eating my face this time?

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:01:22 -0000

The religious right sets out to offend, so anything that offends is promoted.

Reasonable people prefer to not offend people, because that is the right way to treat other people. Unfortunately, the religious right will take anything that could be taken out of context as far out of context as possible, because it causes suffering and suffering is what Gods love.

Suffering is Sacred in some religious dogma - for example, Mother Teresa prolonging the suffering of her victims by preventing them from having competent medical care in her warehouses for the suffering, as if she were harvesting suffering as an offering to her Gods.

The way to tell the difference between an intentional offense and an unintentional offense is the response. People tend to recognize that I am sorry if you were offended by what I said/wrote, is not an apology, but is just performative BS.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 07:51:28 -0000

Is your position that all DEI is bad?

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:10:11 -0000

"So when did you stop beating your wife?" First time I had to write a DEI statement was when I was asked to lecture at a local community college a few years ago. Rubbed me the wrong way. As if there was an assumption I was a racist or misogynist unless I checked the DEI box. There has got to be a better way.

Feelings over substance is an understandable for anti-DEI people to recruit people to their cause of feelings over substance.

As I wrote above:

The problems of Cochrane condemning preventive health measures appear to be due to obsessing on feelings about how to best measure the effects of interventions, even though Cochrane ends up mocking their claimed objectivity, in order to protect their feelings.

The anti-DEI propagandists use feelings to get people to ignore reality, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion all strengthen science and make science more resilient to error, but the anti-DEI propagandists only have to get people to think that DEI feels wrong.

The arguments against DEI are full of logical fallacies, because the logic of excluding people from jobs based on their gender, or based on the color of their skin, is not real. Scientists who should reject bad logic are still people and still capable of making these very human mistakes to try to protect their egos, once someone has emotionally manipulated them.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 11:49:04 -0000

I'm sympathetic towards some arguments related to DEI overreach and cultural sensitivities that supplant science with "other ways of knowing,"

Opposition to DEI is a very popular form of "other ways of knowing."

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:34:41 -0000

Cognitive dissonance is seeing a problem and stating that it is not a problem, when it clearly is a problem. Cognitive dissonance is seeing something that is not a problem and calling it a problem, when it is something good. The refusal of those not on the right to recognize that DEI is good is cognitive dissonance. The refusal of those not on the right to see GMOs as good is cognitive dissonance. The support of the both sides "Ground News" approach to news is cognitive dissonance. The belief that meeting extremists half way is good, because compromise is sometimes good is cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is not seeing a problem, recognizing the problem, and admitting that this is probably the best that can be expected at that time. That is just being reasonable. It would be great if more people could be reasonable, but we are not a reasonable species. as Jerry Coyne demonstrates, we are able to be emotionally manipulated to help our enemies destroy us.

Re: The COVID Amnesia Project: Erasing Your Free Will to Preserve the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 09:03:19 -0000

The Darwin awards are often for the early adopters. They test out the things that don't quite work out, or things that don't work . . . yet. They perform a necessary function, but probably get too much praise for what they contribute, but that is the way evolution works. Evolution is not a rational plan. Evolution is a measurement of risk vs. benefit. Survival of the good enough means a lot of below average survival.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:56:47 -0000

If you can convince a white man that his failure is due to the color, or due to the gender, or due to the color and gender, of his competition, it is difficult for the white man to reflect on that objectively.

Science demands objectivity, because when science heads in the wrong direction, it is often due to a lack of objectivity, and when there is a lack of objectivity in science, it is often going to prevent progress, because the quality of the science will be bad.

The anti-DEI propagandists use feelings to get people to ignore reality, Diversity, equity, and inclusion all strengthen science and make science more resilient to error, but the anti-DEI propagandists only have to get people to think that DEI feels wrong.

edited to correct the first sentence to "... or due to the color and gender, of his competition, it is difficult for the white man to reflect on that objectively." Originally it read "or his competition," which could be misleading. They are terrified of actual competition. The easiest way to avoid competition is to change the competition to complying with traditional race and gender roles, because who can argue with the race and gender roles exemplified by a probably dark skinned Jewish Palestinian who does not appear to have held a regular job? Not exactly the ideal poster boy for Kolor Konscious Konservatives, but they will white wash anything.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:43:24 -0000

DEI is held back by the aggressive efforts of mediocre white men to see that it is never honestly implemented, but is always sabotaged. It is sad that so much time is spent trying to hold back some of the most competent people in society, out of a fear of embarrassing mediocre white men, rather than celebrating the mediocrity of these men.

We see apotheosis of this ideal in the members of the current administration. This clown car of incompetents is a clear demonstration of opposition to DEI in action.

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:37:26 -0000

The thing about being a mediocre white male, promoting other mediocre white males is that it is easy to tell who is a white male. The biggest problem is that you might promote a competent white male, because the mediocre white males do not understand competence. Imagine the horror of promoting someone, expecting that they are as incompetent as you, because they are also white and male, only to find out that they are competent and you have just hurt your own career prospects by advancing the career of someone competent. This is the kind of failure mediocre white men dread almost as much as the terror of competing on a level playing field with women, or with people of color, or horror of horrors, competing with women of color.

😱

Re: The Authors of the Book “The War on Science” Won Their War. Are They Happy Now?

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:30:37 -0000

Claims about being too woke appear to be just examples of white supremacist males complaining that they are not being privileged as much as they traditionally have been. There is no benefit to society of having mediocre white males overrepresented in positions of influence.

There appears to be a natural experiment to demonstrate that putting thse mediocre white men into positions of power can take a world power and topple that power in a matter of a few years.

Science is woke, because diversity, equity, and inclusion are each essential to objectivity. science without objectivity is just a bunch of opinions with cherrypicked evidence.

Woke is anti-incompetent. Anti-woke is anti-science.

Re: Retconning Acupuncture

Rogue Medic — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:32:36 -0000

Science works by eliminating the influence of bias as much as is practical.

Some people appreciate the ability of science to show us reality that we are otherwise blind to. Some people cannot face reality.

Re: The COVID Amnesia Project: Erasing Your Free Will to Preserve the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic

Rogue Medic — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 22:07:43 -0000

Some of the decrease in traumatic deaths is from the lack of survival to that point of many of the more reckless people at younger ages. Apparently, it is difficult to be a repeated winner of a Darwin award. Why don't the past recipients tell you that? 🤔

However, some of the increases in heart disease and cancers are the result of longer term Darwin award activities, such as regularly smoking cigarettes and regularly drinking alcohol.

Yes, we all know about the grandfather of the libertarian propagandist who drank a quart of whiskey every day, smoked 2 packs of cigarettes every day and only died, because when his lover's husband came home, the grandfather jumped out of the 10th floor window of his lover's bedroom, landed in front of a speeding bus and was knocked into an exploding volcano. it is never explained why the grandfather fled, since he is tougher and more imaginary, than Homelander, but libertarians and evidence . . . never the twain shall meet. 🦸‍♂️

😱

Re: The COVID Amnesia Project: Erasing Your Free Will to Preserve the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic

Rogue Medic — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:25:14 -0000

The comment by Akeakamai that provided that research in response to you is:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/lockdownjay2/#comment-6881083970

Re: The COVID Amnesia Project: Erasing Your Free Will to Preserve the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic

Rogue Medic — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:24:13 -0000

In other words, how many people followed the deadly advice of the Great Barrington Declaration disinformation spreaders and survived; how many survived with long term complications; how many died; . . . ?

You have already been presented with evidence that Republicans died at higher rates than others, because Republicans appear to have believed the disinformation and refused to take precautions against infection.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617:xHhuI8xNXdmZ4kr3Q_lrUB_oNBY

You seem to be insisting that Dr. Howard run a bunch of pandemics, perhaps with people randomized to be repeatedly subjected to GBD disinformation to the point where these subjects of these illegal experiments believe the GBD BS or to valid scientific information. Doing to research subjects what Republicans voluntarily do to themselves is a violation of the rules that protect research subjects. This would appeal to Dr. Mengele, but it is now a violation of the Nuremberg Code, the Belmont Report, and the Declaration of Helsinki.

You seem more concerned with whether the first Trump term was worse than the current Trump term, when that is a distraction from reality. The current Trump term would not be as bad if the first term had not paved the way.

Having a randomized controlled trial making it clear that the GBD is deadly would probably not convince anyone to be reasonable. They still claim that evolution is a lie; they still claim that Jesus supports the things they do, even though almost everything Jesus says in the Gospels condemns their actions; they still claim that climate change is a hoax, or that humans are not the cause of the rapid acceleration of climate change, or that we must continue to accelerate climate change, because there is nothing we can do to decrease the harm we are doing; . . .