Here’s a Gary Larson cartoon masquerading as a news story.
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Monthly Archives: October 2007
Larsonesque
26-Oct-07Selling obesity
19-Oct-07A couple of days ago a BBC news report on the radio suggested obesity was a potential crisis on the scale of climate change. It was immediately followed by another item concerning a potential mechanism for developing a cure for obesity. Today the news is that obesity is not an individual’s fault, but a consequence [...]
Ignorance-derived form of polio
16-Oct-07Nigeria has a Polio problem:
Nigeria is fighting a rare outbreak of a vaccine-derived form of polio, says the UN’s World Health Organization.
It says 69 children in the north have caught the paralysing disease from others who had already been immunised.
The WHO says such rare outbreaks have occurred where immunisation campaigns did not reach enough of [...]
True Believers
16-Oct-07An excellent article by Arthur Allen about the True Believers who still argue for a vaccine-autism link. It’s slanted to the US experience, but it can equally be applied to UK groups like JABS who clung onto the corroded HMS MMR-Autism as it dragged them deep beneath the waves of irrationality they had created.
People who [...]
Wi-fi investigation
13-Oct-07The government are to investigate the risks of wi-fi.
Philip Parkin, the general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers, says:
“If they don’t do a thorough investigation, people will see it as a whitewash,”
Let’s rephrase that to reflect reality.
“Even if they do a thorough investigation, people will see it as a whitewash,”
Death – the last ten seconds may be OK.
13-Oct-07“Death was Nature’s way of telling you to slow down.”
Terry Pratchett,
The New Scientist hosts a page completely concerned with the subject of death. The latest grisly news piece is How does it feel to die? They ask “is it distressing to experience consciousness slipping away or something people can accept with equanimity?”
They cover a host [...]
It’s a simple question
12-Oct-07But perhaps we should just give up expecting sensible answers.
It was the thalidomide disaster that first captured public attention about the risks associated with drugs and ensured that major regulatory changes in drug safety would occur throughout the world, including the UK. Paradoxically, thalidomide was initially introduced and marketed to address a serious safety concern. In the 1950s barbiturates were in widespread use. However, [...]
That crack
11-Oct-07Mick Hartley, in fine form, on the latest addition to the Tate Modern:
The concerns with racism, postcolonialism, difference, whatever, are all contrived and arbitrary impositions seeking to impart a spurious relevance to a self-indulgent piece of banality. If meanings have to be assigned, why these? Why not say it’s about the shortcomings of a two-party [...]