Who doesn't love the sight of fireflies?
Fireflies face 'one-two punch' of climate change, habitat loss, and light pollution
Corporate-controlled medicine is so evil, so vile, making your own medicine might be a sane alternative. Here's an anarchist collective with some chemistry know-how, teaching folks how to make their own meds:
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| #452 [archive] SEPT. 7, 2024 |
Excerpt: ... Unlike many other drugs that treat viruses, Sovaldi does not suppress hepatitis C, a virus that kills roughly 250,000 people around the world each year. It cures it.
"Normally you have a virus, and your body fights it off or your body fights it to a standstill and you just have it forever, basically, and hope it remains dormant more or less," Laufer said. "The holy grail for every virologist is to find a way to drain the viral reservoir, and Sovaldi does this. You take one pill of Sovaldi a day for 12 weeks and then you don't have hepatitis C anymore."
The problem is that those pills are under patent, and they cost $1,000 per pill.
"Literally, if you have $84,000 then hepatitis C is not your problem anymore," Laufer said. "But given that there are other methodologies for managing hepatitis C that are not curing it and that are cheaper, insurance typically will not cover [Sovaldi]. And so we've got this incredible technology and it's sitting on the shelf except for people who are ridiculously wealthy."
So Four Thieves Vinegar Collective set out to teach people how to make their own version of Sovaldi. Chemists at the collective thought the DIY version would cost about $300 for the entire course of medication, or about $3.57 per pill. But they were wrong.
"It's actually just a little under $70 (83 cents per pill), which just kind of blew my mind when they finally showed me the results," Laufer said. "I was like, can we do the math here again?" ...
I've spent a morning browsing the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective's website, and declare them good guys.
Of course, I can't cook anything more complicated than a grilled cheese sandwich, so I won't be homebrewing my pills, but it's the right thing to do, if you can do it.
Ideally, some co-op or good people with the ability will start making these meds and offering them at a reasonable price, even for a reasonable profit.
Which is, in itself, election interference.
It's always the little things you never stop and think about:
Surprising new research links infant mortality to crashing bat populations
Texas sues to unmask women who get abortions out of state
New Mexico starts building an abortion clinic to serve neighboring states, train medical students
JD Vance laments that school shootings are "a fact of life" and calls for better security
⚰️ DEAD PEOPLE ⚰️
Richard Aspinwall
math teacher
Aysenur Eygi
activist
Chance Gainer
football player
Christopher Garcia
football player
Aamonte Hadley
in county jail
Cristina Irimie
math teacher
Will Jennings
songwriter, "My Heart Will Go On"
Sérgio Mendes
bossa nova
Margaret Miller Johnson
forgotten person
Screamin’ Scott Simon
rock'n'roller, Sha Na Na
George Washington
in county jail
Howard Ziehm
porn pioneer
9/7/2024
Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer. All opinions fresh from my ass. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip 'o the hat to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, Atomic Raunch, Bleepity-Bleep, Breakfast at Ralf's, Dopplegänger Rental, Ensalada de lengua de pajaritos, A Sudden Violent Jerk, Mr Souza's Happy Place, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo emeritus, Jeff Meyer, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.
Have you read much about the Russian influence plot revealed a few days ago? I have to admit I'm fascinated, and I never gave much of a shit about this stuff before.
ReplyDeleteEssentially they hired a Canadian right-wing influencer couple to do work for RT network, then used them as a trojan horse (your post inspired that term) to recruit other right-wing influencers after RT was banned following the invasion of Ukraine. It's like a who's who of whackpack YouTubers and influencers that were caught up in it, getting paid upwards of $5 million/year and not asking too many questions about where the money was coming from.
The best part (other than their "shock" that they have been recruited by the Russians) is that minus the cloak & dagger stuff to hide the source, it's basically the same model that right-wing influencers have always used. Oligarch puts Ann Coulter on the radio, directs his companies and "charities" to advertise, dumps a few hundred thousand more in their pocket via syndicated "columns" nobody reads and you've manufactured a superstar. We taught them so well!
I have not read much about this current scandal, nope. YUour comment is about the longest coverage I've read.
DeleteShut it down, yes, but it's much, much bigger than the tiny bits now known, and it's no surprise. We all know the USA/CIA does the same thing in any/every country where there's money to be made from altering the politics, so I can't really be mad at the Russkies.
And yes, I am certain that our homegrown right-wing has been seeding such content in America for at least a century, however long there's been a national media to buy into. They set the parameters of what's to be discussed, and especially what's not.
Gotta love the term "influencers" — at least it's up front about what's going on, it's right there in the name. It has always been this way, only now it's more so, but I don't see any way to get the money out of the influence without having the power of government and regulation on our side, which we never have and never will.
Color me pessimistic. It'll be for real when they jail the execs at Tenet Media and a hundred other propaganda farms just like it, but much more likely what we're seeing now is all for show. They went after the most obvious of them, the ones where the trail was poorly covered. The incompetent ones. Even if they root out all the dumb-funded propaganda, that's just one joist in a mansion that still stands and publishes and broadcasts 24/7.