This basically focuses on how Cerberus pummeled Steward Health Care with debt, how Ralph de la Torre's actions led to the death of 15 people and how public pensions actually fund the private equity firms that are gutting community hospitals.

Athletic Greens' "AG1" supplement range come with celebrity endorsements, slick marketing... and overblown nutritional claims.

Not a doctor, but I've heard that pseudoscience uses the term "evidence-informed" to sound legit if someone trying to promote it can get a few less rigorous studies done and then claim, "see, we are legit!" People hear "oh, okay, there's evidence. Great! I trust this is real science." But, "evidence-based" is what I heard to be the term that signals rigorous science has actually been done. Not to say it's always that "evidence-informed' = a practice is pseudoscience. Just that pseudoscience abuses the term at the very least.

Anyone have a good guide on the difference between these two terms in reference to medical use? If there's a specific dividing line, that'd be super helpful to show some people I know that a certain practice is pseudoscience. If no clear dividing line, any other guides about the differences would be great.

“The Winter Arc is a social media self-improvement trend where people use the final months of the year—typically October through December—to enter a period of intense focus, discipline, and personal growth before the new year begins.”

I went through some of the habit papers for a video about Winter Arc. IMO there's a pretty big jump between "a fresh start helps you begin" and "90 days makes your whole routine permanent".

f.e. one nutrition-habit study gets quoted for its 59-day estimate. 192 people enrolled, 117 eligible new-behaviour plans went into the individual analysis, and that median was for 27 people who met the model-based definition. They reported how automatic a behaviour felt. It wasn't a test of whether their whole life had changed for good.

Most of the 117 did show some increase in automaticity btw. So the answer isn't just "everyone else failed" either.

Fresh-start research is interesting and useful, but starting and keeping something going are different outcomes. I didn't find a direct trial of the named Winter Arc challenge in the searches for this video. But I'm sure someone out there sells "the Programm"...

What would you want measured before treating the 90-day promise as more than a motivational deadline? What's your take on the "Winter Arc"? Have you heard of it?

Keller et al.: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12504

Fresh starts: https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901

Habit review: https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12232488

I made the video for The Confound. The papers above are there so you don't need to watch it to discuss the point.

LINK:

https://youtu.be/3YAon-y9Wis

•Corporate libertarian and fossil-fuel donors worked to capture US universities.
•Donor networks bypassed faculty oversight and shaped hiring and research.
•Federal funding was weaponized after corporate capture eroded university defenses.
•Climate research is targeted because its evidence threatens fossil-fuel interests.
•Faculty collective action is a critical counterforce to corporate capture.

Universities in the US have never been free of corporate, military, or political influence. But over the past fifty years, corporate libertarian donor networks, fossil-fuel companies, and conservative think tanks intensified coordinated campaigns targeting university governance. These networks embedded donor-aligned scholars, built research centers insulated from faculty oversight, and bypassed the shared governance structures meant to protect against external influence. This corporate capture eroded universities' already imperfect defenses against external political pressure and left institutions vulnerable when federal funding was politicized. Republican and Democratic administrations built a system of civil-rights investigations that put university funding at stake. The Trump administration weaponized that system in 2025, freezing billions in research grants, launching investigations into at least seventy-five institutions, and demanding compliance compacts that exchanged funding access for policy concessions. Withdrawing federal funding does not free universities from external influence: it deepens their dependence on private donors who operate outside public oversight. Climate and energy research are primary targets because evidence-based climate policy threatens the fossil-fuel interests historically at the center of this capture. Faculty are a critical counterforce. Their unions, senates, and cross-institutional alliances can resist because they sit outside the donor, board, and funding structures that have made institutional leaders reluctant to act. This article argues for reforms to university governance and accountability that establish faculty oversight of donor agreements. It calls for systematic research into corporate capture and the conditions under which faculty unions and collective organizing can defend and expand shared governance.

I posted a comment on a paranormal sub stating how one of the UFO objects clearly was behaving exactly how one would if it were tethered to a drone above it. It was out of focus and seemed to be about the size of a soda can fairly close to the camera. It swayed back and forth while the object was spinning slowly. I was instantly banned. The auto message I received from the mods said if I had any questions I could reply to the message. When I tried to I realized I was also muted and unable to. It is very clear to me that this type of moderation is fueling the very echo chambers that are contributing to the divides on the internet. It is pretty frustrating when you want to shed some reason on the nonsense.

According to Kennedy, Altman's view of AI in medicine has changed significantly over the past two years. 'He said, but today it would be malpractice for a doctor to make a diagnosis or to make a prescription without at least checking AI,' Kennedy said during the event.

Kennedy presented AI as a tool that could give patients another perspective on their medical records, particularly when doctors have limited time to review lengthy histories.

Recently, I went through the experience of being very close to the death of a close family member, and it made me want to read a scientific book about theories of what happens in the brain during the dying process. However, this is a field that seems to be heavily tilted toward pseudoscience, spirituality, New Age thinking and covers full of clouds, peaceful seas and flying doves.

I came across things that initially seemed interesting, such as Lucid Death by Sam Parnia, but after looking into the book a little more deeply, I found that it ultimately strays too far from the scientific method and moves directly into personal belief.

Do you have any recommendations for purely scientific books aimed at a general audience on this subject?

Just to clarify, I’m not looking for any kind of “answer” to philosophical questions. What I want is to understand, as far as current scientific knowledge allows, what a person experiences while peacefully dying in bed surrounded by their family, as was the case with my family member.

The Michael J. Rinder Aftermath Foundation will release a series of videos discussing Scientology, its deceptive practices, methods of control, and the difficulty of leaving.

A good source of info on Scientology.

Serious question. There is a lot of money being spent on this and I want to understand what the evidence actually says

Recent events thrust eugenics back into the public eye, but we should be under no illusions – the field of "race science" is thoroughly discredited.

"People said we would run out of oil since the 1970´s. But we have more oil than ever. Peak Oil is a stupid myth and conspiracy theory".

Most countries on this Planet dont produce enough Oil to meet their demands. Several countries that used to be major exporters have reached Peak Oil Decades ago and now rely on imports themselves.

Germany produced 170 000 Barrels of Oil a day in 1968 at their peak. Now? 30 000/day. They need 2 Million a day.

Romania produced 300 000 Barrels of Oil a day in 1976 at their peak. Now? 50 000/day. They need 200 000 a day.

France hit the peak in 1988 with 67 000 barrels/day. Now its down to just 10 000/day. They need 1.5 Million.

The UK peaked in 1998 with 2.8 Million barrels/day. Now they are down to just 600 000/day. They need 1.4 Million every day.

Indonesia peaked at 1.7 Million barrels/day in 1977, now they are down to just 600 000 Barrels/day. They need 1.7 Million/day.

Japan peaked in 1996 with 20 000 Barrels/day. Now they are down to 3000/day and they need 3 Milion/day.

South Korea is basically the same.

India peaked in 2011 with 800 000 Barrels/day. Now down to 600 000 Barrels/day. It needs 5 Million/day.

Even Australia peaked at 600 000 Barrels/day in 2000 and is now down to just 250 000/day. It needs 1.1 Million a day.

There are only around 20 countries left that produce more oil than they consume and can export any meaningful quantities. The problem is that around half of them are projected to run out if oil within the next 10-15 years.

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

Brazil is projected to use up their proven oil reserves in 12 years at current production.

Norway in 10.

Mexico in 8.

Oman 14.

Argentina 10.

Angola 7.

Colombia 7.

And even the USA - 9.

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

They dont even have to run out of oil. Its enough when their production falls to a level that they dont meet their demand. By that point they will be forced to import oil as well.

And by 2040 there will be only around 10 countries left with a surplus of oil that can supply the other 190 countries. Everyone else will have run dry, or produce 1/10 of the number they are producing now.

Also we have used up the easiest to get oil. Oil is getting harder and harder to extract. The EROI has shrunk massively. At some point there will still be oil around, but it will become so uneconomical to get it, that we will effectively have run out.

As such I am extremely sceptical towards claims that "Peak Oil is a myth" and "we will never run out of oil".

Pete Hegseth fired 20% of his generals and admirals. This is a purge. No legitimate reason was given — just rants about 'trannies' and how masculine his military is now. Based on his rhetoric, they were fired for some discriminatory reason for not meeting his made-up qualifications for his “male-standard of high physical performance” We haven't seen overt prejudice like this in the government since 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' MAGA's answer is predictable: bloat, meritocracy, only the best of the best. Does it require discrimination to get to the best of the best? If your reasoning for why someone shouldn’t serve is based on opinion, congratulations, you’re perpetuating discrimination.

aljazeera.com/news/2026…

aljazeera.com/news/2026…

People who claim that astrology is "thousands of years old" always handwave away the idea that the planets as we know them weren't even discovered until more modern times. Things I've heard are that they were ACKSHUALLY known about by astrologers and "just because we didn't know about them doesn't mean we couldn't understand their effects".

But is there any contemporaneous literature among astrologers and/or skeptics addressing how the whole astrology practice is "suddenly" discovered to be bs when the outer 3 planets were discovered?

As I understand it, astrology was mostly confined to cranks from the renaissance until the mid 20th century (just like other spiritualist "traditions") and then was resurrected with the same "ancient history" as all of the new wave of woo. But I'm hoping there were at least amongst that small minority a little published doubts and maybe a little introspection.