Saturday, July 14, 2012
News The Saturday Morning News
Posted by Unpaid Intern on Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 9:03 AM
Posted by news intern Mike Gore
Trooper fawns over baby deer: Po-po stops to save an adorable little baby deer from the side of the road after its mom dies.
Elephant advocates trumpet their displeasure: People who claim that the Woodland Park Zoo mistreats animals want to send the elephants to Tennessee. Sounds backwards to me!
Captain Hindsight strikes again: King County Sheriff's office urges people in freezing rivers to wear life jacket after yet another tragic death.
Maybe he doesn't want to eat his vegetables: DC police officer allegedly made threatening comments about Michelle Obama.
Thaw baby thaw: Huge 5 mile landslide in Alaska may have been because of melting permafrost, which, ya know, keeps things frozen.
Homoerotic Headline of the Day: "Sticky-Fingered Marine Found Guilty for Smuggling AK-47 from Saddam's Palace into US."
Obama's gloves come off: With most media outlets unequipped to deal with Romney's lies, Obama keeps on beating Mitten's alleged job record around.
We just thought we were soooooo smart:
1
I love how reflexively smug Seattle is. The DOJ didn't find the Memphis police to be systematically violent and racist.
The reason Seattle never learns is that Seattle thinks it's better than everybody else.
The reason Seattle never learns is that Seattle thinks it's better than everybody else.
2
the WPZ elephants are demonstrably unhappy. elephants are herd animals. every fucking elephant in every zoo and circus in america should be sent to a sanctuary in tennessee. its the best use that most of tennessee could be put to.
zoos are jails and the animals know it.
zoos are jails and the animals know it.
3
I suggest anytime "experts" tell you something is "harmless" you do your own research. I made the mistake of researching CAT scans after I had one instead of before because I was assured they were harmless. They cause brain tumors and luekemia.
4
Hey the sheriffs and others are ALWAYS telling people to wear floatation devices BEFORE they get into a water craft, but many people are too smarty pants (that's a medical term) and arrogant to listen. Then they stand up to pee or what not and fall onto freezing water. It's not Captain Hindsight that is the problem it's Citizen Arrogant that is. And their cold dead bodies prove it.
5
@3 My mother sends me chain emails all the time about the dangers of Monsanto's Round Up and how it causes cancer. I remind her that it replaced DDT and that DDT replaced arsenic before that. The reality is you can't farm without using herbicides & pesticide. Even organic farms use 'natural pesticides and herbicides' - all of them, by their very nature are toxic.
Its the same with CAT scans and other medical procedures. A CAT scan isn't going to cause instant cancer - but it might find an immediate threat and thus prolong your life. Everything requires a cost benefit analysis - its not as simple as X is bad just avoid that.
Its the same with CAT scans and other medical procedures. A CAT scan isn't going to cause instant cancer - but it might find an immediate threat and thus prolong your life. Everything requires a cost benefit analysis - its not as simple as X is bad just avoid that.
6
And there's this classic ad where radiation was used to test Dorothy Gray Salon Cold Cream, complete with a Geiger counter!
7
DDT wasn't banned because of harm to humans. It was banned because of harm to birds, specifically thinning their shells to the point where chicks could not develop.
8
DDT did a job on me. Now I am a real sickie. Guess I'll have to break the news. That I've got no mind to lose. All the girls are in love with me. I'm a teenage lobotomy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ssoBUb2c…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ssoBUb2c…
11
I have been to Woodland Park since I was a kid so I don't know/remember what the living conditions are like. I do know about the sanctuary in Tennessee though and it's a really amazing place. Any elephant who ends up there after a life in captivity is a lucky one indeed.
13
You know what's funny is watching a gasbag like Charles Schumer and other 'populist Democrats' arguing to hold up a tax cut for the real middle class just so he can include people making $970,000 a year.
14
@5 I lived through the very worst of the AIDS epidemic in the Castro. I know only too well about cost benefit analysis. AZT and Riboviron killed all my friends. They all got that cost benefit analysis rigamaroll.
15
#10
Yes, in fact the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, was a supporter of DDT. The case could be made that the failure to deploy DDT to Africa was the cause of one of the greatest genocides in history.
Yes, in fact the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, was a supporter of DDT. The case could be made that the failure to deploy DDT to Africa was the cause of one of the greatest genocides in history.
16
alors, les sloggeurs! we are having zee slog heureuse today from 5pm at the elephant and castle pub (in zee lion rouge hotel, centreville seattle). tout est bienvenue. join us and speak english in funny french accents as we attempt to sing la marseillaise all the way through without forgetting les mots. liberte! egalite! fraternite!
17
@ 7, 9, 10,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects…
You're right that the harm to birds was what led to it's ban, but the video speaks about how it's harmless to humans, which is demonstrably false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects…
You're right that the harm to birds was what led to it's ban, but the video speaks about how it's harmless to humans, which is demonstrably false.
18
@14: That is one of the most absurd comments I have ever read (that antiviral drugs were responsible deaths of persons infected with a disease that is 100% fatal without them).
Out of curiosity, do you also believe in homeopathy?
Out of curiosity, do you also believe in homeopathy?
19
@17, the video actually says, "used right," it doesn't harm humans. And as far as we know, that's correct.
The studies cited are hardly definitive. Note the constant and repeated uses of the phrases, "may cause," "may effect," "may have," etc.
We know for an objective fact that DDT decreases cases of deadly malaria. We should keep studying it to increase its safety, but it's better to go with a certain knowledge of life-saving attributes, than an uncertain suggestion of health risks.
The studies cited are hardly definitive. Note the constant and repeated uses of the phrases, "may cause," "may effect," "may have," etc.
We know for an objective fact that DDT decreases cases of deadly malaria. We should keep studying it to increase its safety, but it's better to go with a certain knowledge of life-saving attributes, than an uncertain suggestion of health risks.
21
@21
The current iteration of the DDT "debate" was kicked up by this article:
http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_…
Conservatives love it, because it's all about how the hippies killed all the Africans with the Malaria (except not: DDT is still and always has been used for malaria control).
"Incorrect" use, i.e. broadcast spraying over fields rather than application to interior walls of buildings, is what's been linked to both the development of immunity in mosquito populations, and to bird eggshell thinning.
The current iteration of the DDT "debate" was kicked up by this article:
http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_…
Conservatives love it, because it's all about how the hippies killed all the Africans with the Malaria (except not: DDT is still and always has been used for malaria control).
"Incorrect" use, i.e. broadcast spraying over fields rather than application to interior walls of buildings, is what's been linked to both the development of immunity in mosquito populations, and to bird eggshell thinning.
22
@19 DDT kills off all the birds that eat the mosquitoes that carry malaria. DDT was a band-aid fix to the malaria problem, not a long-term solution. The banning of DDT did not cause a genocide by itself, in a continent rife with starvation and many other diseases, malaria is just another symptom of a larger problem
@20 Being a greedy capitalists and producing life saving medicines are not mutually exclusive.
@20 Being a greedy capitalists and producing life saving medicines are not mutually exclusive.
24
@22
There just isn't any evidence that DDT "kills off birds," and even the eggshell study has had replication problems.
DDT was not banned in countries where malaria is rampant, it was banned in the US.
The bigger problem with DDT for people actually concerned about malaria is mosquito immunity, which can be avoided simply by using DDT *only* for disease control, and not for agricultural pest control.
Being egalitarian socialists and producing life-destroying government policy are not mutually exclusive, either, though as far as I'm aware, such polices have simply never been implemented where and in ways that they'd do damage, when it comes to DDT.
There just isn't any evidence that DDT "kills off birds," and even the eggshell study has had replication problems.
DDT was not banned in countries where malaria is rampant, it was banned in the US.
The bigger problem with DDT for people actually concerned about malaria is mosquito immunity, which can be avoided simply by using DDT *only* for disease control, and not for agricultural pest control.
Being egalitarian socialists and producing life-destroying government policy are not mutually exclusive, either, though as far as I'm aware, such polices have simply never been implemented where and in ways that they'd do damage, when it comes to DDT.
25
@20: Specifically, do you think that people who have been determined to be HIV positive should not take antiviral drugs? And generally, do you think people should not take antiviral drugs for other reasons (like hepatitis)? Finally, are you trolling and I just missed it?
26
The really funny part about DDT is how neoliberal think-tanks (AEI, CEI, CATO, etc..) now claim that DDT is OK and how its ban resulted in an explosion of malaria (cue SROT regurgitating their propaganda @15), completely ignoring that it is a Persistent Organic Pollutant that accumulates in the food web and that it was widely used as an insecticide in commercial agriculture. The parallel with climate change denial is striking.
28
I remember an article in The New Yorker a couple of years ago about how totally banning DDT might have been misguided. It did a number on mosquito populations by just being used in the home. Apparently the dust clung to the walls which is where mosquitoes go after feeding - to rest and digest. Also, it was used widely in Europe as a delousing agent immediately post WWII. I remember seeing film of people crying after being dusted (via a implement that looked like a fire extinguisher with a hose). The hose would be inserted under clothing and they'd get a full blast. The crying came from relief. It was the first time in months they weren't itchy to the point of madness.
DDT, I've heard, was the also the reason why bed bugs in the US were non-existent.
Don't want to see the eagle population wipe out though - like it almost was done.
DDT, I've heard, was the also the reason why bed bugs in the US were non-existent.
Don't want to see the eagle population wipe out though - like it almost was done.
29
@19, there is zero evidence that "DDT kills off all the birds that eat the mosquitoes that carry malaria."
30
Sadly, @29 for the win.
Look, it's far more complex than you realize. Right now we're realizing male mosquitos that cause sterile children into the wild.
I'm not saying DDT is good. I'm just saying the main problem is people use too many tires that mosquitoes love to breed in.
Look, it's far more complex than you realize. Right now we're realizing male mosquitos that cause sterile children into the wild.
I'm not saying DDT is good. I'm just saying the main problem is people use too many tires that mosquitoes love to breed in.
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