Monthly Archives: July 2010

This is delightful

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In the 70s, [James Williamson][1] played guitar and shared songwriting duties with Iggy and the Stooges, most notably on on the seminal Raw Power record. The band subsequently broke up, despite the success of Raw Power, and Williamson went back to school before, eventually, joining Sony for the bulk of his electrical engineering career.

Last year, Sony was issuing early retirements, and Williamson took one. The Stooges had of course reformed around 2003, but when Williamson couldn’t rejoin them they’d used their original guitarist Ron Asheton — who died suddenly around the same time Williamson retired, and all of a sudden a former Sony VP was back playing punk rock again (Video link, but short and worth it).

The Stupid! It Burns!

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The vaccination rate is low enough in some place to produce whooping cough epidemics.

A statewide whooping cough epidemic has not changed how Danielle Lawson of San Anselmo feels about vaccinating her 5-1/2-month-old daughter.

Lawson has declined almost all of the standard vaccines recommended for infants, including DTaP, which protects against whooping cough.

“I haven’t categorically ruled them out,” she said. “But I just think at this point she’s too young, and her immune system is still developing. Nothing goes into my baby right now, except for breast milk, so I don’t feel comfortable injecting her with strange chemicals.”

[…]

Unfortunately, public health advocates say, the consequences of rejecting vaccination are not strictly personal. Widespread vaccinations not only make disease outbreaks less likely, but they also help protect vulnerable populations like newborns who are too young to get shots.

“Anything that leaves people unimmunized and unprotected, thereby reducing the overall rate of protection in the community, would be a contributing factor when you have an outbreak,” said Dr. Fred Schwartz, Marin County’s public health officer.

Parents who do have their children vaccinated are troubled by others opting out, fearing outbreaks of disease.

“This is the first one to hit us, but how long until we have a chicken pox outbreak, or mumps or polio?” said Sara Sonnet of San Rafael, a mother of two young girls who are both fully immunized. “We take it for granted.”

The article concludes with this winner: “Others remain unconvinced. Lawson now avoids taking her daughter to the pediatrician, taking her to see a chiropractor instead.”

More on Sherrod

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Rachel Maddow pretty much destroys Fox and their embrace of the Sherrod controversy, and subsequent (and ongoing) blatant hypocrisy.

When the Brietbart injected this bullshit into the mediasphere, Fox couldn’t contain their glee, and led the charge to get Sherrod dismissed. Their full court press was positively frothy. But we shouldn’t be surprised that, once the whole thing blew up, and people saw the whole, unedited tape, and it became clear that Sherrod’s speech was in no way racist, Fox changed their tune — this time, tut-tutting that the Obama Administration had jumped the gun in firing Sherrod, and expressing outrage at anyone would rush to judgement without getting the facts straight.

We’ve been through years of this with the doofuses at Fox, but it still astonishes me that they are so craven and so clearly uninterested in actual journalism.

Squirrel or Stoat?

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Um:

Twelve bottles of The End Of History ale have been made and placed inside seven dead stoats, four squirrels and one hare.

And at 55 per cent volume, its makers claim it is the world’s strongest beer.

More here and at the manufacturer’s site, where we find this:

This 55% beer should be drank in small servings whilst exuding an endearing pseudo vigilance and reverence for Mr Stoat. This is to be enjoyed with a weather eye on the horizon for inflatable alcohol industry Nazis, judgemental washed up neo-prohibitionists or any grandiloquent, ostentatious foxes.

What better way to say “I have given up?”

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How about a wine glass that holds a full bottle? Check out the first Amazon review:

I am the third trimester of my pregnancy and I have put myself on bed rest. Any little convenience that helps with repetitive movement is a blessing, as staying in a relaxed state is critical to the well being of both mommy and baby. So having a large glass that negates the need for repetitive pouring of a wine bottle is one of those tiny little aids that helps add up to a state of relaxation. The only thing that could have improved this would have been the inclusion of a very long straw.

Excellent.

Dear Lt. Gov. Dewhurst: You’re an Idiot.

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Last month, Texas Lt. Gov. Dewhurst insisted publicly that Phoenix, Arizona was second only to Mexico City in kidnappings.

Some journalists investigated, and found that (as expected) this was horseshit, and then said so, which irked Dewhurst.

“This is regrettably a new low for the Austin American-Statesman and for this particular group,” Dewhurst told NPR. “It shouldn’t be in the newspaper. It should be on the editorial page. I mean, for heaven’s sake.”

No, buddy, I don’t think so. Fact-checking politicians is exactly what belongs on the FRONT page, right where the American-Stateman put it. We live in a world where it’s astonishingly easy to do basic research; maybe you should try that before you go shooting your mouth off for political gain.

Undercover Karaoke

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Funny Or Die isn’t always funny, but that’s kind of clear in the name, right? Anyway, this is one of those times. Precis: What would happen if a famous singer put on a disguise and sand their own songs at karaoke? Jewel finds out. It sounds hokey, but it’s sort of delightful.

Can someone explain to me how this is legal?

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A ProPublica reporter was followed, harrassed, and detained by BP security and Police as he attempted to report on the spill. From the shoulder of a public road.

Further, journalists are now being actively threatened with arrest and fines for reporting “the wrong way” on the spill.

WTF?

BP is clearly trying to limit coverage of this thing, and they’ve been doing it since day one. That’s understandable. However, we have a First Amendment here, and the media has an obligation to the people to report on what’s actually happening. It’s been often said that “news” is only the stuff someone else doesn’t want reported; the rest is PR. The government ought to be helping the journalists, not BP — heads oughta roll over this bullshit.

Innocent? 9th Circuit doesn’t care.

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Radley has more, but it should be noted that the most prominent booster of the “we don’t care if you’re innocent as long as you had a trial” view is, of course, Scalia:

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected an Oregon man’s petition for habeas corpus relief (PDF). This despite acknowledging that the man has established actual innocence for the crimes for which he’s being imprisoned (sexual abuse and sodomy of a four-year-old). The reason: He was late filing his petition. By the panel’s reckoning, adherence to an arbitrary deadline created by legislators is a higher value than not continuing to imprison people we know to be innocent.