95% of the population got their water from aqueducts, if the PFASs make it that far I think it's safe to assume a fairly uniform distribution within the affected municipalities.

Of course they couldn't because they don't know the full mechanism. Suppose PFAS exposure causes hypertension and hypertension causes heart disease. Well you adjust for hypertension and the heart disease effect goes away and you falsely conclude that the PFAS didn't cause heart disease.

Again, if you don't know the pre-exposure rate of mortality then what exactly are you supposed to calculate?

They're saying the PFAS exposure doesn't perfectly follow the boundaries of the regions.... but it's good enough.

Because a natural experiment is never going to be completely clean and flawless data. But if you find a strong effect in a natural experiment, even with the limitations, it's still damn valuable data.

You had electrons? We had to affect quantum states by sticking cats into boxes.

Congress doesn't like residents. I likes voters in their own party the most, which means they still dislike them overall. They like voters from other parties less than that. They like swing voters not much at all (wishy washy unpredictable masses). They like non-voting citzens very low indeed. And legal non-citizen residents they often feel must be deported to somewhere in the Antarctic if only it was inexpensive to do so. Expecting congress to do something good for the people in the nation is something we grow out of about the time we stop believing in the tooth fairy, santa claus, and elvis.

The key is to really lean into what you enjoy.

For me, reading slashdot regularly has helped me to fully embrace misanthropy.

More to the point, they're *guaranteed* bucks.

People don't understand the significance of risk to profitability. By underwriting 80 billion dollars of risk for banks, it's essentially guaranteeing them profits. When it's politically infeasible to spend money on something, the government guarantees loans. That's politically popular across the board because it's spending *later* money and it puts money in bankers' pockets.

To be clear, I think nuclear can and should play a key role in our response to anthropogenic global warming. I just think we shouldn't (a) talk about it like it is *the* answer in and of itself and (b) misunderstand the full breadths of risks and challenges, the most difficult of which are likely to be economic rather than political objections by environmentalists.

Ss you point out, climate change is in effect an economic externality that fossil fuels get a free ride on. This is a key reason for nuclear power's economic non-competitiveness -- in effect fossil fuel use is subsidized by future generations. If you made fossil fuel users pay the true cost of their energy use, nuclear would *instantly* become competitive. But politically that's not going to happen. The only politically possible way around that is to subsidize other energy sources as well.

If you haven't seen any nuclear advocates claim that we should stop investing in renewables, you haven't been paying attention. Usually they come out in response to some article on climate change or perhaps renewables and they will trot out the bogus argument that environmentalists killed nuclear, which is (they say) the only solution to climate change.

The argument that a particular technology is a panacaea isn't confined to nuclear advocates; I think renewable advocates oversell what's possible in the near future, just as anti-renewable people -- and yes, they exist if you're paying attention -- exaggerate renewables' limitations. Really any all-eggs-in-one-basket approach is unnecessarily risky and likely more costly than having several approachs that can work together and compete economically. Key to making that happen will be improvements in grid infrastructure, which will increase the size and therefore the efficiency of the energy market, allowing multiple sources of power to compete.

As for thorium, that's something we'll have to turn to if fission remains a long-term part of our energy supply, but it's not really a help in the time frame we have to respond to climate change. I think the most promising developments are in the development of fail safe reactor technologies and small modular reactors. There are such things as both economies of scale and *dis*-economies of scale, and SMRs are a different way of scaling production than the traditional and every expensive nuclear power plant.

It was never the case that the public being scared caused nuclear to be outlawed, or even *discouraged*. The problem is that investors are scared by the high capital costs, long construction times, and uncertainties about future electricity prices.

This is why nuclear requires government subsidies, either in straight grants, loan guarantees or price guarantees. It's no coincidence that the only country in the world that did a serious nuclear crash program was France, where the electric system was *nationalized*. They didn't go in big for nuclear to make a profit, for them it was a national security issue in result of the OPEC oil embargos. As soon as France privatized its electric system, nuclear construction stalled, just like it did in every other privatized system.

In any case, even if we *were* to underwrite a crash nuclear program, it's neither necessary nor desirable to put *all* our eggs in the nuclear basket. One place we can put investment in is a modernized grid. This will not only help renewable sources like wind and solar, it will be a huge boon to nuclear plants, eliminating questionable siting choices that were driven by the need to locate the plant within 50 miles of customers.

Stalin fervently believed in certain socialist ideas, as well as believing everything the loyal Lysenko told him, and forcibly put into plan a revolutionary system for agriculture. But because Stalin and Lysenko were morons, this failed badly and caused famines. Because this was done by force means Stalin was criminal in this and not merely a bumbling idiot.

It was the hardliners in a last bid to slow down perestroika who started the ill-fated coup attempt, and that failure is what caused the union to collapse. Many of the SSRs wanted out badly but had always been strong-armed to stay. Stalin always insisted that Russia be the primary SSR and all others were subservient (which Orwell famously characterized in as "more equal than others"). So as soon as the union look weak, away they went without even bothering to ask first. So don't play perestroika, blame the old school hard liners. It would have been a much smoother transition without them. Gorbachev with a slow transition versus an abrupt collapse with Yeltsin catapulted from petty functionary to head of state.

What are you handing over in retirement? Medicare is cheap if you're retired and will greatly subsidize health care plans if you combine them. While working, a lot of your benefits go into health care, even though you might not see it. Sometimes an employer will deduct different amounts from your paycheck depending upon your health plan choice, which encourages the workers to avoid the expensive plans.

You might not pay directly out of your paycheck for the health care plan, which hides the true cost. If you're ever laid off and can continue with your plan by paying COBRA, you will see just how expensive it really is. Because the cost of healthcare is hidden from so many salaried workers it remains kind of invisible to many in the middle class; they may even ignore the politics behind it and wonder what all the shouting is about. If you're self employed, the cost is evident up front and they will look forward to the day when they can cut costs with medicare

Had a coworker who moved to Finland for a job with his wife for a couple of years. They had a baby, it was all paid for, *including* prenatal care and checkups (some insurance plans in US limit these). Didn't cost a cent to them. Granted tax rate is high, and yet no one bitches about it like they bitch about the low tax rate in America, because they can see the benefits from the taxes.

Health care is a hit or miss even with nationalized systems. In America they like to point to Canada, as if it's the one and only example, and relate some story about a friend of a friend who had to wait a long time (which also happens in the US). In UK service can be spotty if you're more rural, which seems to be a problem even in America (rural hospitals can't afford to operate so they shut down, and you get larger regional hospitals that may be a few hours away). But other countries seem to do quite well, in Scandinavia, Germany, etc.

We have that with medicare. By expanding medicare over time it would help drive down costs. Start lowering the age requirements, or lower it only for drugs. Though the anti tax people despire medicare despite them all loving the hell out of it once they're retired.

Ideology (like anti-tax zealotry) needs to be tempered by pragmatism (make people healthier).

And yet, many many other countries manage just fine. Are you implying that America is the only country in the world with great health care, and the reason for the great health care is that most people can't afford it?

Here are some of the competitive processes drug makers use: When a drug is ready to have its patent expire, they devise a slightly different formulation, perhaps adding an anti-nausea component, then market this patented drug to the doctors so that they prescribe the new expensive one instead of the now patent-free version. Doctors rarely know the cost of the drugs, they are mostly following highly biased marketing literature.

Drug prices vary wildly for the same product, depending upon your insurance or health plan. I have $10 copay for all drugs, off of a very affordable HMO plan. But some for-profit insurance plans want to recoup all the costs or don't negotiate drug prices as well. So some entities negotiate well, others do not. The "competitive" market means lots of small players trying to get good prices for drugs, whereas big players like Medicare negotiate much better. Having a single player would drive down prices and keep them in check.

So Wikipedia editors not entertaining your alternative science is totally like censorship by a fascist dictator.

I agree that hate speech laws can go overboard, though you're looking at a bunch of outlier incidents.

Sounds messed up but all we have is the student's account and nothing from the University.

From your link:
Police officers unlawfully interfered with a man’s right to freedom of expression by turning up at his place of work to speak to him about allegedly “transphobic” tweets, the high court has ruled.

So your example is literally the courts saying the police were out of bounds.

Yeah, the hate speech laws can go too far. But HOLY SHIT IT'S WAY WORSE IN RUSSIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm waiting for your followup post where you use a story about someone's gunshot wound to complain about your splinter.

I'm not saying I agree with the rationale, but I definitely read people online making that connection of masks with Chinese. I guess pointing to idiots and laughing also makes me an idiot, so fair point.