Notices by Augie Ray (augieray@mastodon.social), page 5

The US military has committed war crimes by bombing boats in international waters and has been unable to provide evidence these boats were engaged in drug trafficking.

At least 21 rural hospitals had closed or stopped providing inpatient services by mid-to-late 2025, and a third of rural hospitals are at risk of closing.

Stop pretending we have some reasonable differences on policies and start treating what's happening as a battle of fundamental values.

(2/2)

A few of my favorite signs from today's #NoKings march in Milwaukee, WI. It was a huge, peaceful, and diverse turnout!

I'd give anything to hear you say it one more time
That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes

Gorgeous song by Sleeping at Last. #bedtimemusic

https://youtu.be/yYdLGZN4-MM?si=jPvFdobFOL9qL7Wt

As of September 2025, the 400 richest Americans are worth a record $6.6 trillion, exceeding the wealth held by the bottom half of Americans.

If Republican voters could be objective, they'd realize the enemy isn't the poor, gay, or immigrant person next to them but the powerful people increasingly taking a larger share of wealth. And then maybe they'd stop voting for the party of tax cuts for the wealthy and benefit cuts for average Americans.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2025/09/09/the-2025-forbes-400-list-of-wealthiest-americans-facts-and-figures/

When your grandkids ask what you did when democracy and the rule of law was threatened, what will you say?

Will you say you used your voice in social media to inform, or that you didn't want to risk your relationships to do so?

Will you say you contacted your representatives to express yourself, or that you didn't think that mattered?

Will you say you marched for a righteous cause, or that you were too busy?

I plan to be at #NoKings rally on October 18. Will you?

https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/

Brought to you by the same people who screamed that Bill Gates was going to track you using nanobots in vaccines. 🙄

Accurate depiction of the situation.

GOP Bible:
“For I was hungry and you cut food aid, I was thirsty and you rescinded safe water regulation, I was a stranger and you deported me.”

Playing Monopoly is fun. Crushing your opponents by owning all the properties and controlling all the money feels good. But it's a game, and maybe we missed the point of it.

The game teaches us that everyone loses when one person controls too much wealth and power. Do we want an economy where no one but Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg gets to pass Go?

“I’m just waiting for a negative test, so I can leave my house and get on a plane and travel. I don’t want to put anybody at risk. I’m definitely disappointed — bummed out that I’m not able to be there with the team and get this ball rolling. As a leader, I don’t feel good about this, but at the end of the day, this is life.”

- Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo on missing the team's media day

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/breaking-news/article/giannis-antetokounmpo-not-in-attendance-at-media-day-because-of-covid-but-addresses-talk-about-his-bucks-future-174154952.html

Watching Hegseth and Trump today, I'm struck by their superficial concept of masculinity. It's so obvious they are terrified of being perceived as weak, so they convey a cartoonish version of masculinity that emphasizes anger, violence, and intimidation. But in your life, the most masculine men you know are confident, courageous, and independent. Men who put others down and strut around like puffed-up peacocks only project their fear and frailty. They are the least masculine men on the planet.

Distract. Distract. Distract.

Every time someone tells me they haven't had #COVID19 and that they're genetically immune to it, I think of all the studies I've read about asymptomatic infections.

This study found "Despite only 118 (48.2%) of participants reporting a prior positive COVID-19 test, 210 (85.7%) tested positive for anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, underscoring a high rate of undiagnosed or asymptomatic infections."

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2025.1667392/full

- I never thought I'd need a tab for pediatric studies, but there are several dozen of those that have been published. (Studies of COVID in kids are scattered in other tabs.)

- Reading this many studies makes it easier to be COVID cautious, but it's still not easy. I see my friends doing things I want to do and going places I want to go. They don't understand the risks they're accepting, but it sure looks like fun to pretend everything is normal.

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12VbMkvqUF9eSggJsdsFEjKs5x0ABxQJi5tvfzJIDd3U/edit?usp=sharing

- I thought we might learn of COVID's impact on cancer risks more quickly, but this takes a lot of time and study to understand.

- I had no idea when I started of the breadth of harm COVID might cause. My spreadsheet has tabs for cardiovascular, brain/neuro, cancer, immune, pregnancy, and other. I could've had tabs for pulmonary, fatigue, cognitive issues, psych issues, and reproductive system risks and filled those with dozens of studies. (They are all in the "other" category.)

2/3

Some thoughts from a guy who's tracked more than 2,500 studies on #COVID19's chronic impact:

- I naively thought this would be a short-term project and that once the long-term risks were clear, people would take COVID seriously.

- I didn't expect risks of Long COVID to accumulate with each infection as they do. I thought LC might decline over time.

- It's depressing to see how quickly we knew of COVID's chronic harm--early studies were published in 2020/21, and we ignored them.

1/3

#Bedtimemusic: Tonight's song is one of my favorite versions of Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer's Skylark. It comes from a very odd group I loved 40 years ago. Sky was a collection of exceptional and oddly diverse artists doing everything from classical music to prog rock: Classical guitarist John Williams, rock bassist Herbie Flowers, classical and rock guitarist Kevin Peek, classical and rock percussionist Tristan Fry, and prog rock keyboardist Francis Monkman.

https://youtu.be/RSmUB1NMVlQ

STUDY of kids and COVID:

"Compared with healthy peers, children recovering from COVID-19 infection show different changes in brain structure, including cortical volume, cortical surface morphology, and network-level organization. These findings align with a growing body of literature highlighting potential neurological sequelae in pediatric COVID-19, despite generally milder respiratory symptoms compared to adults."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/brb3.70905

I wonder if the articles that discuss new COVID variants and the "new symptoms" do more harm then good. I appreciate any coverage of #COVID19 surges, but I think the media makes too much of "new" symptoms, and those articles reinforce the focus on acute illness and not chronic risks.

https://www.today.com/today/amp/rcna224723

#Twitter/#X is just a completely authentic place full of real lifelong Democrats who suddenly realized Charlie Kirk was right, decided to cross the aisle and register as Republicans, and posted so in identical tweets. These are absolutely not foreign bots trying to influence US politics or increase partisan divides in our nation.