IS THE MOST POPULAR TREATMENT FOR LOWER BACK PAIN no more effective than a placebo?
Two thoughts. One, from The Simpsons: “Where can we obtain this placebo?”
Second, my lower-back pain has been pretty much cured by, well, you know.
Archive for 2014
November 16, 2014
NEWS FROM THE LEGAL PROFESSION: WSJ: California State Bar in Turmoil After Shake-up Triggers Whistleblower Claim.
AMY ALKON: “On a side note, there’s a certain kind of nerd who wears that kind of shirt, and I’ve always had a soft spot for that guy and the way he sees the world. The sort of hope and love of space fantasy and dream of a bullet-bra’d fantasy woman of that guy is the stuff jobs landing spacecraft on comets are made of.”
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Local Elementary Teacher Indicted For 25 Counts Of Rape. “A local elementary school teacher was jailed and accused of rape of a child under the age of 13, sexual battery and gross sexual imposition. Lori Ann Anderson, 50, of Cridersville in Auglaize County, was arrested Friday on multiple charges that include obstructing justice and obstructing official business.”
IT’S NOW A VERB: The Fine Art Of Grubering.
November 15, 2014
TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL: School board fires Texas teacher over Ferguson tweet.
The tweet, sent Nov. 7 from Hegwood’s personal Twitter account, referred to Ferguson, Mo., where rioting occurred after the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in August. The town is awaiting a decision by the grand jury into Darren Wilson, the white police officer who killed Brown.
“Who the (expletive) made you dumb duck (expletive) crackers think I give a squat (expletive) about your opinions about my opinions RE: Ferguson? Kill yourselves,” the tweet read.
This sort of racist hate speech makes me wonder how she was in the classroom.
IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY, but today I made it not just once, but twice.
I’m pretty tolerant of online attacks, but I draw the line at actually-defamatory lies.
OH, GOOD GRIEF: Time Apologizes For Including “Feminist” In Its Poll Of Words To Be Banned. And, I guess because I mentioned it in my USA Today column, they even emailed me to tell me. Of course, it doesn’t change the outcome of the poll. . . .
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Why the US Had Only 1 Wrench for 3 Nuclear Bases. “A prime example of the problems Hagel cited Friday was a toolkit that included a wrench needed to install a nuclear warhead atop an ICBM. Only one of the toolkits remained available, so the three bases that maintain the fleet of 450 Minuteman ICBM’s would share the toolkit. How? Hagel said they would use Fed Ex to ship it to the base that needed it at the time.”
HARVARD PARODY: “Eve of Destruction: Ron Klain, Ebola Czar.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Why Are So Few Blockbuster Drugs Invented Today?
HEH: Brilliant Anti-Feminist Spoof Claims Space Scientist’s Shirt Is ‘Sexist.’ “Because this can only be a spoof, right? Some kind of trolling or stunt? No sane person, particularly not writers for those esteemed organs, The Verge and The Atlantic, can possibly have thought his choice of clothing was a problem.”
BRING BACK DDT: A Rare Form of Malaria Is Spreading in Malaysia.
A rare and sometimes lethal form of malaria usually found only in monkeys is becoming so common in Malaysia that it accounts for most malaria hospitalizations there, scientists have found.
In the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo, a parasite called Plasmodium knowlesi causes severe malaria three times as often as Plasmodium falciparum, which has long been considered the deadliest form of the disease. The finding was presented by Balbir Singh, the director of malaria research at the University of Malaysia in Sarawak, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene last week in New Orleans.
P. knowlesi is normally found only in long-tailed and pigtailed macaques, who get only mildly ill. But as loggers and palm oil producers have pushed deeper into Malaysia’s forests, more humans have been bitten by mosquitoes carrying it.
Malariologists had believed that mosquitoes must pick up P. knowlesi from a macaque before they could transmit it to a human, so transmission outside monkey habitats would be impossible. But recent research in Vietnam raises the possibility that mosquitoes can pick it up from humans, meaning urban areas could also have epidemics.
Well, that’s disturbing.
MORE THOUGHTS ON FEMINIST SHIRTOPHOBIA FROM GEORGINA YOUNG: One of Humankind’s Greatest Achievements of the Decade overshadowed by Hawaiian Shirt.
The offending shirt which was made for the scientist by a female friend, has received outrage from several outlets, most notably the Verge, for depicting leotard wearing women, and forced Taylor to make a very public apology where he choked back tears. What should be the greatest day of his life has now been tarnished by the wide variety of hate and harassment he has received over wearing the offending item. Harassers made one of the most brilliant men in science cry for his choice of clothing. It would be almost comical if it wasn’t so horrifying.
Indeed.
WELL, IT’S A PIT — BUT DEMOCRATS CONTROL IT, SO THAT’S A WIN, RIGHT? Sultan Knish: Super-Amnesty Will Turn Every City into Detroit. Their policies make clear that they’d rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
AT REASON: More On Feminism And Funny Shirts. “Reynolds notes that just 23 percent of American women and 20 percent of us overall ‘identify as feminists, even though most are in favor of gender equality.’ A tendency to pivot toward humorless disgust in virtually any situation can’t be helping the numbers.”
I JUST FOUND OUT THAT NICK MCCALL IS CURRENTLY ON C-SPAN2’S BOOK TV, talking about his World War II history, Pacific Time on Target: Memoirs of a Marine Artillery Officer, 1943-1945.
BUT HILLARY SAYS SHE FEELS FINE NOW, “READY TO BE PRESIDENT:” Woman Wakes Up in Morgue After 11 Hours.
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP EARLY: 1 small shirt for a man, 1 giant leap backward for women: How feminists took a major scientific event and made it all about what people were wearing.
UPDATE: Sarah Hoyt: No Space For Sewing Circles. “Why a woman who can’t even do her own research for her own articles should be allowed to bully a man who as part of a team (incidentally led by a woman) landed on a comet is beyond me. Or rather it isn’t. It’s a symptom of the sickness in our society.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Well, I don’t know why I bothered to write about this now that Sheldon Cooper has weighed in:
Was Matt Taylor's shirt inappropriate for the workplace, maybe, but it's certainly not sexist nor discouraging women to get into science.
— Dr. Sheldon Cooper (@RealSheldonTBBT) November 14, 2014
THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE: Cop Who Obtained Warrant To Take Photo Of Teen’s Erect Penis For Sexting Case Sues Teen’s Lawyer For Defamation. “The department, however, still backs the decision to create child porn in order to charge someone else with child porn creation and distribution. A close look at its statement indicates that there’s a bit of post-debacle blame-shifting going on.”
LEAVING ASIDE THE FREE SPEECH ANGLE, THAT POLYGRAPH TESTS ARE VOODOO CRAP-SCIENCE ANYWAY SHOULD BE A DEFENSE: Polygraph.com owner indicted for training customers to beat the polygraph.