Skeptic's Notebook
June 2013
3 posts
May 2013
3 posts
“Compared with Illinois, which has the nation’s second-largest number of high-risk sites, more than 950, but tighter fire and safety rules, Texas had more than three times the number of accidents, four times the number of injuries and deaths, and 300 times the property damage costs.”
—After Explosion, Texas Remains Wary of Regulation | Ian Urbina, Manny Fernandez & John Schwartz | NYT | 09 May 2013
I went to the largest gun show in Arizona awhile ago and tweeted…
Unbelievable how many cars are at University of Phoenix stadium for a gun show
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Line for tickets is 20 yards and snakes back and forth like 5 times. Also, lots of kids and strollers yfrog.com/kk4oyttj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Seriously. I count four strollers in line. At a gun show
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Fairly unsettling to me that anyone would need field surgical gear in the US yfrog.com/od67611675j
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
QuickClot is handy stuff though yfrog.com/gzevnvsj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
In today’s episode of cognitive dissonance: yfrog.com/ocaqzhj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Israeli gas masks apparently protect against nuclear weapons. Those crafty Jews. Keeping all the best tech yfrog.com/h8d1yiij
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
By far the most distressing thing here is the preponderance of tactical rifles chambered for rounds not practical for game hunting
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
This entire idea is kind of bad. But having a troop of the kids wandering around kitted out in BDUs is way worse yfrog.com/gywpkblfj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
. @jeremyscahill should I pick one of these up for you? yfrog.com/es7ggjj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Think they’ll sell me the name tape by itself? cc: @jeremyscahillyfrog.com/nvravoj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
For the more fantastically inclined weapon collectorsyfrog.com/h047imdwj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Yes. He is in fact drinking a Budweiser, has a pony tail, is wearing a BDU jacket and gun shopping yfrog.com/esi4zcyj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
WTF? yfrog.com/gzdwhlaj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Overweight vendors wearing ACU pants. Awesomeyfrog.com/j2lofxfj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Of course there’s Nazi memrobelia for sale here. Of course yfrog.com/kgpmycgj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Massage tables at a gun show. File under: sentences I never thought I’d write yfrog.com/kjhmvraoj
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
These Young Desert Marines are the creepiest thing ever. Check out the kid’s ribbon collection twitter.com/petulantskepti…
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Just so all my new readers are clear. I’m pro gun and bought a new hunting rifle. I only have issues with militancy and “tactical” rifles
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
If your rifle is only useful for shooting coyotes and people you should reexamine.
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
Just left. Will try to write up some stuff later. Have to go sight new rifle first
— Petulant Skeptic (@petulantskeptic)
“It has been four decades since the former first lady Betty Ford went public with her breast-cancer diagnosis, shattering the stigma of the disease. It has been three decades since the founding of Komen. Two decades since the introduction of the pink ribbon. Yet all that well-meaning awareness has ultimately made women less conscious of the facts: obscuring the limits of screening, conflating risk with disease, compromising our decisions about health care, celebrating “cancer survivors” who may have never required treating. And ultimately, it has come at the expense of those whose lives are most at risk.”
—Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer | Peggy Orenstein | NYT | 25 April 2013
April 2013
6 posts
“Like the dim remnant on the left that insists communism has yet to be tried, neoliberals will say that the free market still does not yet truly exist. Against this fantasy of market freedom, The Wire is saying: Look, this is how capitalism works.”
—The Rebirth Of Tragedy | John Gray | Prospect | 08 June 2012
“Through mandatory minimums and three-strikes laws, legislatures have redistributed judges’ power over sentencing to prosecutors, who essentially decide how a guilty defendant may be sentenced by choosing among possible charges. And public defenders are overworked in part because prosecutors bring too many cases for defenders to handle.”
—Pleading Out: America’s Broken Public Defense System | Simon Waxman | Los Angeles Review Of Books | 18 March 2013
“A 2009 paper in The Veterinary Journal concluded that ‘every one of the 50 most popular pedigree-dog breeds has at least one aspect of its physical conformation that predisposes it to a disorder’.”
—Beauteous Beasts | Emily Anthes | Aeon | 25 March 2013
March 2013
9 posts
“After his left arm was amputated Stonewall Jackson mentioned that he had heard the most beautiful music while under the chloroform. Upon reflection, he said, “I believe it was the sawing of the bone.”
—Under The Knife | Terry Jones | NYT | 17 November 2012
“
Fifteen years ago, Wakefield was the lead author of a paper published in the British medical journal The Lancet suggesting a possible link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Though the paper itself said that no causal connection between MMR and autism had been proven, the publicity surrounding it—in which Wakefield called for the suspension of the triple vaccine—caused panic among parents. The number of parents choosing to vaccinate their children fell dramatically, and measles rates went up: In 1998, there were just 56 cases of the disease in England and Wales, but by 2008 there were 1,370. In 2006, the country saw its first child measles death in more than a decade.
In 2011 the World Health Organization urged European countries to act to stop the spread of the disease after the largest outbreak in years. According to the agency’s report, there were more than 26,000 reported cases of measles in 36 European countries that year. Of those, nine people died, including six in France, and 7,000 people were hospitalized. Ninety percent of the cases occurred in people who were “definitely or probably not vaccinated.”
” —Autism Inc. | Alex Hannaford | The Texas Observer | 30 January 2013