Despite their traitorous turn towards neiliberalism in the 80s the ALP remains a competent liberal party, whereas the Liberals are an incompetent boys club only interested in protecting the class interests of their corporate masters.

This should be printed and mailed to every registered voter. Thankyou

Okay, I've been happily ignoring your little idee fixee on LDL aside from one gentle comment but I feel the need to comment here again.

This article is utterly disingenuous and sets up a complete strawman to knock down. It sets out to disprove a notion of cholesterol that was last current decades ago. Right in the first paragraph and throughout the article LDL is referred to as “the” major cause of atherosclerosis which to my knowledge even the Framingham authors wouldn't have been comfortable with, it is however a significant contributing factor.

It is well known that some people with elevated LDL or total cholesterol are at low risk(this is the reason for weak or negative results in whole population studies), atherosclerosis is a complex disease with multifactorial causes, no practising doctor I know thinks it is “the” major cause, or even the most important contributing factor.

That being said it is thoroughly established that statin use in select patients reduces the risk of MI and CVA, especially in those with established atherosclerosis, but also those with other substantial risk factors (high BP, family history, smoking, diabetes etc.). This is totally uncontroversial and the pathogenic mechanisms, while complex, are increasingly well understood.

I have been a doctor for over a decade and I consider myself diligent in keeping up with research, and although the selection of patients for statin therapy is an ongoing and regularly changing area of research on which experts can disagree, the fact that select patients will have substantially lower risk of coronary events due to statin therapy is uncontroversial.

Here is an article written by people who payed attention in stats class and have bothered to make their case with evidence rather than knocking down strawmen

Efficacy and safety of long-term treatment with statins for coronary heart disease: A Bayesian network meta-analysis (2016)

Or for a more succinct and easy to read summary here is the Cochrane conclusion

"Of 1000 people treated with a statin for five years, 18 would avoid a major CVD event which compares well with other treatments used for preventing cardiovascular disease."

Statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease

Ugh, that one and the cook one of everything have been staring at me for years. Maybe I'll try for those on my current playthrough

I think this is true and until we have easily accessible and free mental health services it is the next best option and far more likely to do good than harm.

In the recent WA state election we saw a pretty substantial shift towards greens and independents especially in rural seats away from nationals and libs. This is in part due seachangers and treechangers but interesting none the less.

I don't think the downvotes are because you're misgendering them. It's just baffling why you've gendered them at all. It's unfunny and out of place.

I keep seeing commentary saying that we shouldn't use the ADF for disaster relief.

We have an organisation full of people with exactly the skills and organisation required that we maintain at great expense and barely use. Can someone give me a sensible explanation why it's not a good idea to use them for disaster response.

On a second note I know for a fact that small scale politics and wasteful spending are endemic in volunteer emergency services. I'm not sure what reform is needed but something certainly is. I'm about to re-enter a volunteer fire brigade for the first time in years so I'm sure I'll be full of opinions in a few months.

The budget deficit has been reducing over time under the current government, the man promoting nuclear is Dutton the opposition leader, his plans for nuclear power are being criticized as expensive, he is being portrayed as stupid in promoting nuclear which would reverse the trend of reducing deficits.

It's a bit convoluted and not particularly funny but it does make sense.

Modern guns a extremely precisely engineered devices that are incredibly easy to use, for better or worse. I know modern sporting bows are also but it's no contest in my opinion.

I've shot both, bows as a complete amateur and relatively competent with a rifle. There is no question that a modern gun is way easier to pick up as an amateur and hit what you want to hit and I cannot possibly believe there are anything other than extremely niche uses where a bow is superior.

I'm very much a privacy amateur but am interested in comments on my set up, I'm sure it's not ideal.

I use [email protected] for personal email. Anything @lastname.tld forwards to my main email so for the rare occasion I need to access Facebook my account is [email protected] and so on for any other untrustworthy sites.

I can easily block emails from a leak or just if unsubscribing is made difficult.

Spoiler: The fact that the ALP is Neoliberal is kind of the point of the article.

You've laid out the RBA position fairly enough.

Part of the subtext of this piece is an ongoing debate, historically through the second half of the 20th century and into the GFC it seems that countries that adopt excessively tight monetary and fiscal policy have a lower quality of life long term in a way that is difficult to reverse, whereas the long term consequences of a slower, or even labile, return to target levels of inflation is likely nothing.

This is something that professional economists disagree on and I abandoned economics the second I got my bachelor's but the historical evidence is compelling.

Because the interest rate has a direct impact on quality of life. Everything else being equal a lower interest rate is better.

Cross post from https://lemmy.ml/c/dataisbeautiful

Thanks [email protected]

It's really common to get weird dreams when quitting smoking. Especially if you're using nicotine replacement and extra especially if you're using a patch and not taking it off before bed.

Changes in the amount of nicotine in your blood disrupts REM, it's more fragmented and this seems to have the effect of more intense dreams.

Ug r the khez th ia2zugk8

It is fine, unless you want a brand that doesn't have a deal with Bunnings, or unless you want garden furniture that is remotely durable, or unless you want some advice from someone who has experience in hardware.

Back when Bunnings was one of several large chains and small local hardwares were much more common it was easy, even Bunnings was made better by the competition. Monopolies are bad for consumers.

I don't understand how the heck Bunnings manages to have so much public good will.

It's a total monopoly that has run all of it's competition out of business and over the past 20 years has become progressively shitter at customer service.

I miss other hardware stores 😔

I think this is a bit of a misrepresentation of political correctness. I think the term political correctness is a bit outdated but I'll use it here.

Reclaiming derogatory language by minorities is obviously very empowering and has been done successfully. It's also the case that words that are offensive in one context can be neutrally used, demented and retarded are often used in medical contexts without anyone becoming offended.

Now one can come up with hypothetical situations where it can be difficult to negotiate whilst being politically correct, especially if the person speaking may not have the vocabulary. But in almost every real life instance of someone complaining about political correctness all that is being asked of them is to be considerate, kind, and inclusive. It can be taken too far but that is the exception, overwhelmingly people are understanding of slip ups or of people not knowing the correct terminology.

Empathy and kindness are important for their own sake, whether it's labelled as political correctness or not.