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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Yet another pharmaceutical ethical cesspit. This is a classic example of why we do not have healthcare in the United States, we have an illness profit system, in which making money is more important than human wellbeing. Except like a few in Congress such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, there is no one even trying to change this.
For questions about lead exposure and poisoning, or if you need emergency assistance, call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 or visit PoisonHelp.org for additional resources.
Even low levels of lead exposure are toxic to brain cells and nerves and can lead to lower IQ scores and cognitive deficits. Credit: Busà Photography / Moment RF / Getty
In August, the US Food and Drug Administration greenlit a new maker of an old drug used for the most severe cases of lead poisoning, ending a shortage and stopping the need for importation of the medicine from France.
The only problem: The new version costsalmost 10 times as much as the imported version, about $32,000 per course of treatment.
“What we run up against with this pricing is that the hospitals are just not able to stock this drug,” said Dr. Diane Calello, executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center.
And though it’s rare these days for a child in the US to have blood lead levels that are high enough to require this medicine, called calcium disodium edetate or EDTA, it does happen, she said; at that stage, they could have seizures, coma […]
Michael T Klare, Defense Correspondent, Professor Emeritus of Peace and World-security Studies at Hampshire College and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Arms Control Association - The Nation
Stephan:
This is a very smart assessment of the AI trend as it has developed. The only thing that will save us from disaster, is character. Beingness. As individuals, and as societies, is wellbeing. Fostering wellbeing must be the first priority. Otherwise there is no other way but beingness that will stop AI from becoming a. monster. What do you think Putin would do if he had full AI weapons?
Attendee interact with a SoftBank Group Corp. Pepper humanoid robot at the COP28 Climate Conference.
The recent boardroom drama over the leadership of OpenAI—the San Francisco–based tech startup behind the immensely popular ChatGPT computer program—has been described as a corporate power struggle, an ego-driven personality clash, and a strategic dispute over the release of more capable ChatGPT variants. It was all that and more, but at heart represented an unusually bitter fight between those company officials who favor unrestricted research on advanced forms of artificial intelligence (AI) and those who, fearing the potentially catastrophic outcomes of such endeavors, sought to slow the pace of AI development.
At approximately the same time as this epochal battle was getting under way, a similar struggle was unfolding at the United Nations in New York and government offices in Washington, D.C., over the development of autonomous weapons systems—drone ships, planes, and tanks operated by AI rather than humans. In this contest, a broad coalition of diplomats and human rights activists have sought to impose a legally binding ban […]
Readers will recognize this trend; it is evolving as SR has described, and it is popping up in cities other than Dallas; I chose this becauwe that city is taking it more seriously.
DALLAS — From an 18th-floor apartment smack dab in the middle of downtown, a renter sipping coffee at a quartz countertop would have a view of towering office buildings and a distant horizon. If they moseyed to their bedroom window at the corner of Santander Tower, they could look down on bustling rush-hour traffic — and a giant sculpture of a eyeball.
Until earlier this year, no one could have called the two-bedroom apartment home. Before then, it was a vacant, unused workspace.
“This was someone’s corner office,” said Katy Slade, a Dallas developer behind the recent renovation of the high-rise on Elm Street.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work, the U.S. is sitting on a ton of vacant office space — and Texas is no exception. The state’s largest metropolitan areas are facing double-digit office vacancy rates even as their workers are back in the office at higher rates than employees in other major cities across the country.
At the same time, the U.S. is facing an acute and persistent housing […]
This is a very thoughtful and insightful look at what is happening to women in our culture, Millenials and Gen Zers particularly, as they consider having children and entering motherhood. I urge you to read it, and think deeply about what it is saying. In addition to everything else I took away from this article, what particularly stood out for me was how disordered and sick American society is compared to say countries like Sweden where social relationships and social support structures are so much healthier and fostering of wellbeing.
Illustration for Vox by Eleanor Davis
I had been seeing my boyfriend for about a year, and though things were going well, we never talked about our feelings on having children. I’m aware of the dating advice that says you’re supposed to broach that topic early on, but I didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t feel ready to talk about that fact.
That is, until Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I could no longer pretend that Roe’s gutting didn’t have real implications for us, or at least for me. So one night in the summer of 2022, I finally asked him where his head was at.
He looked surprised, considering the question. “I think I’ve always wanted to be a father,” he said slowly, adding, “That doesn’t mean it’s a deal breaker, though.”
It was as diplomatic an answer as I could have hoped for — clear, honest, and with no ultimatum attached. Still, I felt nervous and even a bit lonely, because I am not someone who has dreamed of […]
I just did my 13th episode of the SR podcast, and it was about the increasing failure of American education. How is it possible that 48 million America adults are functional unable to read about early elementary school level and 32 million are not competent enough with a computer to do a Google to find a recipe. American adults rank 21st in the developed world on math skills, and 17th in problem solving. Only 33.4% of adults have a college degree. And American children are far behind children in other developed nations. Why? Because in the United States education is not a major priority particularly in Republican controlled states. The sad truth is except for making and selling weapons, things that kill people, we no longer lead the world in a positive way in anything including the health of our democracy. The only thing that is going to change this is your vote for men and women who seek to foster wellbeing.
A scientist works at BioLabs Pegasus Park in Dallas, Texas on Sept. 13, 2023. Credit: Shelby Tauber / Bloomberg / Getty
More than 75% of STEM-related workers say other nations have topped — or will soon surpass — the U.S in science and technology, according to a new report being published Tuesday.
The big picture: As the world’s science and tech power centers shift, the U.S., China and other countries are racing to train — and competing to attract — top talent that can drive innovation and the economic growth and national security advantages that often stem from it.
The State of Science in America report from the non-partisan Science & Technology Action Committee (STAC) calls for the U.S. to develop a national science and tech strategy and for policymakers to at least double federal funding for scientific research over the next five years.
By the numbers: The reportincluded a survey of nearly 2,000 people in the U.S. working in five sectors that intersect with science […]
Timothy Puko, Climate Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
Not surprisingly, like roaches crawling over an abandoned doughnut, COP28 has been overwhelmed by a coalition of petroleum advocacy groups as described in this report. They don’t care about your wellbeing, or the damage climate change is doing as a result of carbon energy. All they care about is their profit.
People gather during at COP28 in Dubai on Sunday. Credit: Ali Haider / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Fossil fuel interests are swarming this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference, possibly like never before, according to research released Tuesday by a coalition of advocacy groups.
More than 2,400 people with ties to companies that produce or consume oil, natural gas, and coal — or from trade groups that advocate for those industries — are registered to attend COP28 in Dubai, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, which reviewed public registrations. That outnumbered nearly all the national and civil society delegations on hand to negotiate at the world’s biggest climate summit, according to the group.
The fossil fuel representation is rising even faster than overall attendance, which has also surged this year as global temperatures hit records and more companies, financiers, world leaders and activists see rising stakes at the event. Compared with last year’s summit in Egypt, four times the number of people with fossil fuel ties […]
The Biden administration is not doing very well resisting the corruption being funded by the petroleum industries. Here is the report.
The United States is poised to extract more oil and gas than ever before in 2023, a year that is certain to be the hottest ever recorded, providing a daunting backdrop to crucial United Nations climate talks that hold the hope of an agreement to end the era of fossil fuels.
The US’s status as the world’s leading oil and gas behemoth has only strengthened this year, even amid warnings from Joe Biden himself over the unfolding climate crisis, with the latest federal government forecast showing a record 12.9 million barrels of crude oil, more than double what was produced a decade ago, will be extracted in 2023.
Records will also be broken this year for gas production, with a glut of new export terminals on the Gulf of Mexico coast facilitating a boom that will see US exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) double in the next four years.
Tellingly, the US government expects this frenzy of oil and gas activity to continue at near-record levels right up to 2050, a point at which scientists say planet-heating […]
We now have a man, Mike Johnson, who is Speaker of the House, and the second in line to become president should something happen to Biden who is an open homophobic White supremacy christofascist. That is how far down the road to fascism America has gone. It also tells anyone who understands anything about how our government is supposed to work — which is to say about half of adult Americans — that the Republican Party is explicitly a White supremacy christofascist political entity that has no interest in preserving democracy in the United States. I look at the polls daily, and the Great Schism Trend, and I am beginning to feel I am becoming part of a minority. Maybe the reality is that America is not going to survive as a unified democracy. It may be that there just aren’t enough voters in the country who want that to continue. What do you think?
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to media during a press conference with House Republican Leadership, at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, November 14.Credit: Graeme Sloan /Sipa USA / Reuters
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote the foreword and publicly promoted a 2022 book that spread baseless and discredited conspiracy theories and used derogatory homophobic insults.
Written by Scott McKay, a local Louisiana politics blogger, the book, “The Revivalist Manifesto,” gives credence to unfounded conspiracy theories often embraced by the far-right – including the “Pizzagate” hoax, which falsely claimed top Democratic officials were involved in a pedophile ring, among other conspiracies.
The book also propagates baseless and inaccurate claims, implying that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was subjected to blackmail and connected to the disgraced underage sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Other sections of the book defend podcaster Joe Rogan from racism charges after it was revealed he used the N-word, which Rogan later apologized for. The book also disparages poor voters as “unsophisticated and susceptible to government dependency” and […]
