agorist

Now we’re moving on to nutrition and her eating habits.

While waiting at the dealer for routine car service, I’m hearing a young woman’s whole health history on speakerphone.

@alisoncook Walked across Buffalo Speedway bridge, water was still a foot or so below the concrete apron. Still, that's a lot of water!

Harris County FWS site [harriscountyfws.org] indicates no reason to be alarmed right now at my neighborhood's flood gauge. Thank goodness. Should have checked earlier.

Some May Day this is. Afraid to go look at the bayou.

@ivanmaldonadotx @andreacerrato2 Got it. Would be nice if applied to Federal House of Representatives as well.

@agorist @andreacerrato2 I mistakenly typed state lege when I meant state house. But the section that describes the county line rule is under House of Representatives redistricting. Since it’s in the state constitution, it would say “Congress” if it applies to US House.

An effective way you could reduce gerrymandering is that for metros >1.5M people at least 80% of the population in that urban area has to be in districts that are contained entirely within that metro. For example, DFW has only has 30.5% of its population in DFW only districts!

@ivanmaldonadotx @andreacerrato2 Is apparently not enforced for Texas Senatorial Districts. And, where in the Texas Constitution does it say is not applicable to Congressional districts?

@agorist @andreacerrato2 It’s only for state legislative maps and is enforced

@andreacerrato2 @_fat_ugly_rat_ That’s already in the Texas Constitution. Seems like it’s ignored, though.

@_fat_ugly_rat_ Or mandate that districts must be drawn within a single county if possible, e.g., 3 within dallas county and 2 within tarrant

@sphorrigan Ahh, good to know. Years ago, wasn't there a bike store at that location? Or, wait, that building was torn down, is now a parking lot?

@agorist It moved around the corner to 4215 Bellaire. Just a stone’s throw away.

I see that Cyclone Cycles in West U is no more …

Oof ...

@Invictussoldeus @Broekm @fakehistoryhunt @afro_hamza Or maybe it originated in the Étaples camp in France, which was overcrowded and also had a piggery. It was, after all, a type of swine flu.

@Broekm @fakehistoryhunt @agorist @afro_hamza The misnamed Spanish Flu originated in the United States. Spain was, apparently, the first country to report on the disease because, as a neutral nation during World War I, its media were not subject to the strict censorship imposed in wartime by the belligerent nations.

Fun fact The Europeans never knew what soap and personal hygiene was until the African Moors,arabs and Persians civilized them. Europe was literally the petri dish of pestilence, that's why they used to buy perfumes so much, they used to arrive to indegenous communities all over the world cloaked in plague and perfume. Look at what happened to the Aztecs in South America when the Spanish arrived

@JeffEisenach @united Just landed at IAH via United yesterday. App gave me up-to-the-minute tracking of our bags. What did their app show you?

Arrived IAD 8:30. Now 9:15. No luggage. No announcement. Crickets. Do better @united

@fakehistoryhunt @Tasnigm @afro_hamza Cholera: The Biography, is worth a read.

@agorist @Tasnigm @afro_hamza Yet mortality rate in non-European cities were not that different from European cities during the black death. The inadequacy of hygiene or sanitation situation in medieval european cities is often misunderstood. fakehistoryhunter.net/2025/11/26/art…

@fakehistoryhunt @Tasnigm @afro_hamza … as a whole were inadequate, leading to them becoming petri dishes for major communicable diseases, much so so than comparable contemporary cities. /end

@fakehistoryhunt @Tasnigm @afro_hamza Granting that ancient Europe had much smaller population density and fewer domesticated animals - both major sources for communicable disease transmission, *maybe not* origins. However, and i be overstating the evidence, as European cities grew, their *sanitation systems* … /2

@fakehistoryhunt @Tasnigm @afro_hamza Interconnected ancient Euroasian origins - hard to isolate Europe or not. Considering how sparsely populated early Europe was, *maybe* not. However, as population centers grew, certainly famously became a petri dish for disease.

@agorist @Tasnigm @afro_hamza I shouldn't and I wouldn't. How can you overstate evidence? The evidence is pretty clear on where these diseases likely originated or at the very least that they didn't originate in Europe.

@fakehistoryhunt @Tasnigm @afro_hamza So, you shouldn't be offended if a disease did indeed originate from Europe. You're just overstating the evidence. I'll echo @Tasnigm , "most likely" is not good enough. Your research on soap is solid, but on epidemiology, less so.

@Tasnigm @agorist @afro_hamza Not sure why anyone would be offended about a disease originating anywhere. jpmh.org/index.php/jpmh… pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10… semanticscholar.org/paper/On-the-O…

@fakehistoryhunt @afro_hamza I'll repeat my assertion: one cannot be definitive about origins of many of these old world diseases. Tuberculosis, leprosy, for example, may be candidates of European origin, but given population centers were more in Middle East & Egypt, would not surprise that origins go back.

@agorist @afro_hamza I'm yet to find an old disease that originated in Europe.

@fakehistoryhunt @afro_hamza I'd question your "not a single old disease originated there". Europe and Asia are a connected continent, thus a connected petri dish as well, many old world diseases festered in Europe, one cannot be definitive about exact sources.

@afro_hamza Actual fact: Europeans have known soap & personal hygiene for 1000s of years, may have been the ones who first made hard toilet soap ever, were civilised long before Moors etc. invaded parts of Europe and not a single old disease originated there. fakehistoryhunter.net/2026/03/14/the…

@SolomonFlux @ATabarrok I've never met the Medicare board. Are they actually publicly accountable? Feels very anonymous to me.

@ATabarrok The issue is that corporations are making those decisions instead of publicly accountable and independent doctors and specialists using a triage principle to ration care for more rational and medically necessary reasons than what paying for it will do to the stock price.

There isn’t a single country in the world where claims for medical care are not sometimes denied. Not a single one.

@evan7257 Hmmm, will Nuclear Winter raise or lower sea levels?

Really hope President Trump doesn't start WWIII before we get a chance to Build the Ike Dike.