Author: A.T.

Of Octopi and Brain Fog

Old but fascinating:  Octopi are just so special.  Stop eating them!

I’m pretty good at Words With Friends (and a “genius” every morning with Spelling Bee).  Do you know who regularly beat me, back when she had time to play?  The new White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.  Hats off to her.

Know anyone suffering from “brain fog?”  Not your perpetually stoned pothead pal; I mean someone with long Covid or a Traumatic Brain Injury.  A new study confirms this is yet another thing BrainHQ helps assuage:

. . . Researchers at New York University enrolled 21 patients with chronic TBI that had persisted, on average, for more than seven years. Patients were diagnosed with mild, moderate, or severe TBI, and assigned to either an intervention group or a control group. The intervention group was asked to complete a total of 40 hours of training over 13 weeks (or about 3 hours per week). Before and after the 13-week period, cognitive function was measured with standardized neurocognitive tests, and brain connectivity was measured with fMRI brain imaging.

The researchers found that the brain training group showed significant improvements in standard cognitive tests of attention, memory, and executive function, as well as in standard measures of self-reported symptoms, as compared to the control group. Imaging revealed significant improvement in the functional connectivity across a key network of brain regions – known as the Default Mode Network (DMN). Lower connectivity is associated with cognitive dysfunction and deficits.

“This new study confirms and extends what has been seen in seven prior studies of chronic TBI and BrainHQ, which have shown study participants improved measures of cognitive abilities and symptoms, with imaging showing functional re-organization of the brain” observed Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science.

These type of persistent symptoms — following not just Traumatic Brain Injuries, but other types of injuries such as “chemobrain,” “cardiobrain,” and “long COVID” — are increasingly known as “brain fog.” Researchers increasingly believe that common brain mechanisms underly the brain fog seen across these disparate conditions – which may explain the similar pattern of results seen in three studies of BrainHQ in cancer patients and seven studies in heart failure patients showing similar types of improvement.

More than 100 published studies of the exercises in BrainHQ have shown benefits, including gains in standard measures of cognition (attention, speed, memory, executive function, social cognition), in standard measures of quality of life (mood, confidence and control, managing stress, health-related quality of life) and in real world activities (gait, balance, driving, everyday cognition, maintaining independence). BrainHQ is now offered, without charge, as a benefit by leading national and 5-star Medicare Advantage plans and by hundreds of clinics, libraries, and communities.

BONUS

Six months in, 4,300 infrastructure projects are underway.

At home: Putting people to work at good jobs rebuilding America.

Abroad: Rebuilding alliances and quietly leading NATO in the fight to defend democracy and the world order.

Big things.

BONUS BONUS

Al Franken on Roe V. Wade, Susan Collins, and Ted Cruz.

Have a great weekend!

 

Putin Is Losing

Six minutes that speak worlds.  In Russian, on state-owned TV, with subtitles.

As the Times explained:

A military analyst on one of Russian state television’s most popular networks left his fellow panelists in stunned silence on Monday when he said that the conflict in Ukraine was deteriorating for Russia, giving the kind of honest assessment that is virtually banished from the official airwaves.

“The situation for us will clearly get worse,” Mikhail M. Khodaryonok, a retired colonel and a conservative columnist on military affairs, said during the “60 Minutes” talk-show program on the Rossiya network.

It was a rare moment of frank analysis in a country where criticizing the war effort can result in a prison sentence and broadcasters have generally adhered to the Kremlin’s talking points. . . .

Part of what’s interesting, I think, is how sincere the moderator seems to be in pushing back.  She seems genuinely to have bought Putin’s false narrative.

But Ukraine is winning.

Putin is losing.

NATO, reinvigorated, is stronger than ever.

And President Biden has quietly and carefully done a great deal to make all that happen.

It’s worth remembering that the only change Trump made to the 2016 Republican platform was to weaken support for Ukraine.  It seemed bizarre at the time — why that, of all things?  Of what relevance to our lives would Ukraine ever be?

It’s fair to say that in 2016 Ukraine was on few minds in the U.S. — but very much on the mind of Vladimir Putin.

(Worth remembering, too: Trump’s first impeachment was over withholding Congressionally-appropriated military aid to Ukraine in pursuit of political advantage.  The idea to do that likely came from Putin.)

I bought some CMRX yesterday with money I could truly afford to lose.

 

FFOMO

Stocks we bought with money we could truly afford to lose are way down, so this seems to be a good time to tell you that — in taxable accounts — what I usually do when a stock is way down is  buy more.  Then wait 31 days to avoid the “wash sale rule” and sell the original shares for a tax loss.  Except that by then they’ve often fallen further still, so again I buy more, planning to wait another 31 days and . . . well, you see where this is heading.

Sometimes, it actually works out.  Other times, I’m just doubly and quadruply proven to have been an idiot.

What many people do is sell first, wait 31 days, and then reestablish the position.  Not me.  I can’t bear the thought the stock might snap back while I’m sidelined.

It’s not rational, but I find it less painful to lose real money than to miss out on a gain.

FFOMO.  Financial Fear Of Missing Out.

From the Lancet:

. . . What is so shocking, inhuman, and irrational about this draft opinion is that the Court is basing its decision on an 18th century document ignorant of 21st century realities for women. History and tradition can be respected, but they must only be partial guides. The law should be able to adapt to new and previously unanticipated challenges and predicaments. Although Alito gives an exhaustive legal history of abortion, he utterly fails to consider the health of women today who seek abortion. Unintended pregnancy and abortion are universal phenomena. Worldwide, around 120 million unintended pregnancies occur annually. Of these, three-fifths end in abortion. And of these, some 55% are estimated to be safe—that is, completed using a medically recommended method and performed by a trained provider. This leaves 33 million women undergoing unsafe abortions, their lives put at risk because laws restrict access to safe abortion services. . . .

Ireland and Italy were great.

 

Winning In Ukraine

At least as of now, the good guys are winning.  The details are interesting and heartening.

In backing Putin’s mass murder, Patriarch Kirill seems me to have misinterpreted Christ’s word.

All the more troubling that, as noted yesterday, he is attracting American Evangelicals to his church.

I have caused great calamities.  I have depopulated provinces and kingdoms.  But I did it for the love of Christ and his Holy Mother.

— Queen Isabella of Spain

BONUS

Designer neurons offer new hope for treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

If solutions for stuff like that are on the horizon, can’t we just learn to live with each other, even where we disagree?

Have a great weekend.

 

Inflation

Last week I posted Paul London’s Beware Inflation Hawks.

Today: Kevin Drum’s How High Is Medical Inflation?  (Thanks, Matt.)

One obvious answer: Too high!

See, for example, One hundred and ninety-three House Republicans voted against capping the price of insulin at $35 a month.  (“Americans pay about five to eight times more for insulin than Canadians do.”)

But Drum’s answer: perhaps not as high as you think, though exceptionally hard to calculate:

. . . If the average treatment for a heart attack cost $100,000 in the year 2000 and provided five extra years of life, how does that compare to a modern treatment that costs $115,000 (adjusted for inflation) but provides seven? The cost of the treatment is 15% more, but the cost per additional year of life has gone down 18%. So what’s the right inflation measurement for that?

I get that gas and food prices are all most people see.

And that too few recognize Putin caused a huge spike in both (Ukraine being one of the world’s principal breadbaskets) . . .

. . . with much of the rest of the inflation coming from COVID: supply chain disruptions plus the huge fiscal and monetary stimulus to avoid a depression.

(So don’t vote for Putin or his fans.  Don’t vote for Trump, who slashed the CDC task forces Obama pre-positioned around the world after Ebola — or for his fans.)

Instead, read: This Will Not Pass, the book generating all those tapes out of the Trump White House.  Democracy is on the line — which didn’t sound like more than talk in Germany and Italy 90 years ago . . . but then democracy was lost, and only restored with unimaginable pain.

Putin admires Stalin; Trump admires Putin and kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside; Republicans admire Trump and strip Liz Cheney of power for daring to defy him.

Will we step up in time?  Or give only once it’s too late to be adequately effective?

 

Plastics!

Here’s some wonderfully hopeful news for Dustin Hoffman 55 years after the movie.

If we can use artificial intelligence to potentially solve such a complex problem, can’t we use simple human intelligence to avoid being awful to each other?

“Be kind and be useful.” — Barack Obama.  End of story.

[I am “abroad.”  In case one of this week’s posts strikes you as even  more than usually disconnected from the news, or tone deaf, it’s because I pre-posted it before I left.]

 

9.62%

You’ve probably already seen this ages ago, but the current rate on I-bonds — limited to $10,000 per person per year — is 9.62%.  Risk-free, and free of state income tax.

See page 91 for more.

[I am “abroad.”  In case one of this week’s posts strikes you as even  more than usually disconnected from the news, or tone deaf, it’s because I pre-posted it before I left.]

 

Of Billionaires and Biden

I know some billionaires — even some multi- and deci-billionaires — and I like them.

That said, even some of them agree they should be taxed more.

Things have become too unequal.  It’s not fair, it’s not sustainable — it’s not necessary — and it points toward a dark future.

Take 30 seconds to check out Billionairestax.org.

And then three minutes — or nine — to hear from the President about the economy.

Pressed for time?  Start here.  Three minutes.

Otherwise, watch from the beginning.  Everything from how so much was stolen from the rescue money (at least in part because the disgraced former president got rid of inspectors general) to plans to lower drug prices, utility bills, inflation, and the deficit.

 

The other party handed Obama a world on the verge of global depression, terrible unemployment, and unprecedented deficits.  Obama turned it all around.

The other party handed Biden a world on the verge of global depression, terrible unemployment, and unprecedented deficits.  Biden turned it all around.

The President is old and imperfect.  Reagan wasn’t?  Eisenhower wasn’t?  Churchill wasn’t?  (Warren Buffett, 91, isn’t?  Charlie Munger, 98, isn’t?)  But just as I’d be cautious shorting Berkshire Hathaway, so would I be cautious selling the President short (79).  Or, for that matter, Speaker Pelosi (82).

For my money, we’re really fortunate to have them.

Have a great weekend!

 

Joe, Noah, and Tucker

But first: I think we’re gonna win Ohio.

Yes, aided by the disgraced former president’s endorsement, JD Vance won almost a third of Republican primary voters (leaving, by my math, more than two-thirds who preferred someone else).

(And, yes, five years ago Vance, a “never-Trumper,” called Trump “noxious, reprehensible, and an idiot.”)

But Tim Ryan is so good . . . and so right for the Ohio electorate . . . and for the women of Ohio who might not be happy with the prospect of Mitch McConnell controlling their reproductive decisions . . . that my money’s on him.

Indeed, we could flip not only that Ohio seat but also Republican seats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida.

Republicans have 20 seats to defend this November; Democrats, 14.

Our House majority, as everyone knows, will be tougher to defend, let alone expand — but it is absolutely doable.

Join your local chapter of the League of Women Voters!  Join Field Team 6!  Join Vote Forward!  Fund the Party!

And now:

Imagine being able to attend the black-tie Washington Correspondents’ Dinner without having to fail — yet again — at following YouTube’s instructions on how to tie one.  (I know: it’s just like tying your shoes, but on your neck.)

Not that I’ve ever been invited to that dinner, but C-SPAN allows me to attend in short pants.

Here is President Biden opening for Trevor Noah.  The press, he says, is NOT the enemy of the people.

And here is the tail end of Trevor Noah’s remarks. You can of course back it up to watch from the beginning — some of it cringingly tough on people in the room.  But the fact that he could be so tough free from fear was his ultimate point; how the press uses that freedom was his challenge. Watch.

What I liked best about the evening was the way the President could genuinely laugh at himself.  As democratic leaders around the world and most people in this country know — even Lindsey Graham — this is a fundamentally decent, decent man.  “As good a man as God ever created.”

Tucker Carlson, on the other hand . . . not so much.

He was the subject of 20,000 words Sunday, described here.  One of the on-line segments — mostly graphics and video clips — charts his evolution.

(Once, walking a step or two behind him on the way to the Democratic National Convention years ago, before he had become so famous and frightening, I saw he had dropped his press credentials.  He didn’t notice; kept walking.  I picked them up, contemplated mischief, thought better of it, tapped him on the shoulder, and got a big thank you.  Back then, he just seemed like a doofus.  Now, he is a clear and present danger.)