Still shows as donations disabled to me. No doubt that $400k will be sorely needed despite the boys getting the drugs covered.

Go fund me is paused as they got the insurers to change their minds (with pressure from Missouri lawmakers I believe). The kiddos will get the drug they need.

Don’t worry, I have a life threatening illness and reduced life expectancy anyway. And I’m not suicidal. It was already my preferred way to go, this ordeal with my mum just made it crystal clear in my mind. Thankfully I have access to everything I need already so I wouldn’t get anyone else in trouble and my loved ones understand my decision and feel similarly. It being legal would be a bonus, but I’m not letting a law stop me.

My mums been in hospital for 10 weeks. She only 62 and was admitted for a fairly routine infection after chemo for breast cancer. Since she’s been in hospital I’ve lost count of all the things that have gone wrong but the most distressing thing is the hospital delirium she’s developed. I’d never have believed my mum could become so violent and abusive, it’s like she’s a completely different person. She has absolutely no agency over her body at the moment, she can’t even sit up unaided. It’s so horribly undignified that it’s completely cemented my decision to commit suicide once I get a terminal diagnosis (or a diagnosis that I know I couldn’t deal with graciously). I can’t have children so it’s a small comfort that I won’t inflict the pain and heartbreak I’m experiencing from my mum, but I don’t ever want to treat my partner how she’s treating my dad. I’m going out on my own terms if at all possible.

It touches on it briefly, but refeeding syndrome is a killer and is very hard to treat even in hospital not in a war zone. Even if the war stopped tomorrow and food was abundant, there’s nowhere to treat patients who have been starving - more will die.

20+ years ago I had to read Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love for English A level and swore off hot air balloons forever more. Great book for anyone not wishing to take a balloon trip though.

Boo. A taped off hole in the plane with a random window affixed is much funnier than just what’s under the interior “walls”.

I love the photo in the thumbnail. “Yup, that should do it. She’s good to go!”

I just added “mod” to the end of my username for my alt account. Obviously that wouldn’t work if my username had a slur in it or something, but it’s a pretty straight forward fix. It allows me to block idiots on my browsing account, offers a helpful separation between things I say as a user vs things I say as a mod, but subscribers to my communities still know who I am so there’s some accountability.

The $3 million criminal penalty was the maximum possible fine under the charges.

My understanding is the USA officially has separated church and state (as it’s written in the constitution) but in practice, the US is a fairly religious country. Politicians regularly talk about their religious beliefs, religious agendas affect state schools, and a large amount of population believe “pastors” over teachers.

The UK on the other hand is offically a Christian country but in reality it’s secular, or “multifath”. Politicians tend not to talk about their religious beliefs at all. Religious state schools are common and yet they tend to be more secular than American schools, and with the exception of a very few, schools here don’t deny science. People that do identify as Christian in the UK tend to be more progressive and tolerant than American fundamentalists/evangelicals/baptists.

As for there being COE bishops in the House of Lords, that’s correct. There’s 26 of them in fact. It’s an archaic, undemocratic hangover that really needs to be reformed. But despite their potential interference/sway, analysis of the way they vote on bills shows they tend not to rock the boat, voting in line with whatever political party is currently in power.

So despite America supposedly having separation of church and state and the UK not, it’s kinda the other way around in practice. Theres no excuse for bishops in the House of Lords though. I’m not convinced there should be a House of Lords at all.

Thank you for this!

Idk, hate speech has been illegal in the UK for a long time. Race, ethnicity, sex, nationality, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation and religion are all protected under hate speech laws. The statues have been continuously updated since 1986 and we’ve still managed to not criminalise asking your doctor for an abortion.

I think I’d rather live with hate speech laws than without them, but if I lived in a country that couldn’t separate church from state, or in a dictatorship, I suspect my opinion would change.

Look, I was forced to learn R (very badly) for my PhD (which I didn’t complete). So technically I’m not a nerd (it’s sadder than that). Yay!!

Slightly related; I’ve always loved this quote from Aneurin Bevan, former health minister who established the NHS in the UK:

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”

This is a really excellent take, written with thoughtfulness and without scorn. Nice one @liztliss@lemmy.world 😊

I hadn’t heard of this case but I googled the diary entries and at first pass they do seem very damming - no unlike Lucy lettsby’s notes. But the testimony from multiple experts is pretty clear that they are not confessions but the tangled thoughts of someone suffering from multiple child bereavements. Of course she wasn’t in her right mind, but that doesn’t mean she killed them.

Joanna Garstang, a consultant community paediatrician and designated doctor on a child death review panel in Birmingham, reviewed Folbigg’s diaries and submitted an expert witness report to the inquiry, released publicly on Tuesday.

“Much of my clinical work involves the investigation of unexpected child deaths, regularly working alongside police,” Garstang wrote. “In my opinion, the expressions of self-blame and guilt in Ms Folbigg’s diary fit with those described in the literature or that I have witnessed in my clinical and research practice. I do not consider them true confessions of guilt.”

Garstang said each of those comments was an “expression of self-blame in keeping with published literature” about bereaved parents. “Ms Folbigg is blaming herself for the deaths, she may be considering that her stress caused the deaths. This is in keeping with published literature and not of concern.”

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Sophie Callan, SC, foreshadowed last week that two psychiatrists and a psychologist would also give evidence this week about Folbigg’s diaries, none of whom was expected to say the diaries contained expressions of criminal guilt.

This is something I started doing fairly recently and it’s really cathartic! I’d say 90% of the replies I write to people who are rude or looking for an argument, get deleted without sending.

How about fencing? (That’s a terrible joke, I’m sorry).

What does “altfedi” mean? And what content is illegal in Germany and Czechia?