I'm fortunate enough to have decent medical insurance, a good salary, and a large number of medical providers nearby. However, even I find the US healthcare system to be really bad. The lack of integration, the poor communication, the mistakes on records.

It's honestly pretty dire, especially considering the costs.

I miss having a medical system where the goal was your wellbeing rather than mediating a business transaction.

“To Chinese Catholics, I ask you to be good Christians and good citizens."

Is this the pope subtly telling Catholics in China not to replay the Catholic approach to residential schooling of indigenous people?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/4/good-christians-good-citizens-pope-appeals-to-china-in-mongolia-mass

It's almost 9 years since the Scottish Independence referendum in which Scotland voted 55% to remain in the UK.

Since then, Scotland has been dragged out of the EU single market that had swayed so many voters in the Scottish Independence referendum to remain in the UK in order to avoid leaving the EU even temporarily.

How much longer must Scotland wait before becoming the kind of place it wants to be?

Fascinating discussion hosted by the redoubtable Ruth Wishart

https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/kezia-dugdale-lesley-riddoch-once-upon-a-time-in-holyrood/player

From Stewart Rhodes and Donald Trump to this guy. It's easy to mistake the wheels of justice as broken when it takes several years for them to even budge a little, but I have to say I've been enjoying watching consequences be a 'thing' in 2023.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66678562

"This is a clarion call to come to Washington” - Maybe they should ask Stewart Rhodes how things panned out for him the last time he responded to a Republican's call for an overthrow of the "administrative state".

Although they might need to wait a decade or so to talk to him in a studio.

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/national-international/conservative-groups-draw-up-plan-to-dismantle-the-us-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision/3123708/

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/john-eastman-vouching-clarence-thomas-integrity-rcna102466

@b4cks4w no doubt some will decry the insurers for listening to their actuarial models as somehow a bunch of woke Marxists.

@b4cks4w Citizens' policy count has grown significantly since October 2019:

October 2019: 420,000 policies
June 30, 2020: 474,630 policies
June 30, 2021: 638,263 policies
As of Friday: 1,345,403 policies

Citizens' policy count is expected to reach a record high of nearly 1.7 million in 2023.

@b4cks4w apparently insurers have been leaving the state in droves. Citizens insurance is the Florida insurer of last resort. It's effectively the state itself insuring the properties of Florida as this category 3 bears down on all that coastal real estate.

Not going to be a good month for the state governments finances.

Tomorrow, we'll see Tampa with 7ft sea level rise as a result of the storm surge.

When Thwaites glacier goes, we'll see 11ft sea level rise and unlike the storm surge it'll be permanent.

Anyone think it'll be a climate wakeup for folks?

@mcfate @LSWellesley can you indicate what criteria you're applying to reference Guatemala as a developed country?

@mcfate @LSWellesley allow me to demonstrate. None of the countries you've listed have a main opposition party where 70% of registered party members don't believe the election that led to their current political settlement was legitimate.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/politics/cnn-poll-republicans-think-2020-election-illegitimate/index.html

@AskTheDevil if their choice is to harm you because their holy book tells them that your choice means you should be burned, then their choice does more than merely insult your choice.

@LSWellesley well, not developed ones with education systems anyway.

@LSWellesley true, but from QAnon, to religions, to antivax, and climate denial, I'm not aware of another country that accords so many unsubstantiated beliefs the same credence as verifiable facts.

Jenna Ellis on her smiling mugshot:
“I smiled because I am resolved to meet this process with courage and acting in faith. They cannot steal my joy.”

That's OK. My joy isn't contingent on whether she's experiencing joy, but in watching her receive justice. So yay. We both win!

Trump really did expose a deep flaw in America's epistemology. As a country, we're just not very good at examining how the truths we believe are actually true.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66589065

Given that it will be considered indecorus to say this after Rudy kills himself, I'd like to take this opportunity to get out ahead of this and say right now that the world without him in it will be a marginally better world for humanity.