Stastically Meaningful Brains.

[elfs]

You have a peanut, and a dose of Ecstasy. You must give one to a complete stranger. Which do you give?

It's a thought experiment: You are facing a complete stranger. You have a peanut, and a dose of Ecstasy. You must give him or her one or the other. Which?

The Ecstasy, of course. Stastically, it is less likely the victim will have a health-threatening reaction to Ecstasy, whereas peanut allergies are common enough that one might very well cause death.

A good editorial from New Scientist emphasizes this distinction and discusses how public policy over drugs makes victims out of everyone.

Similar math haunts the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I used to admire the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (Suck: they've let the URL "missingkids.org" go, and it's now a parked, unused URL. The nearest URL they have for sale starts at nearly $3000.) As I'm sure you're sick of being reminded, I designed and built NCMEC's very first website in 1995 and ran it single-handedly for three years years.

One of the people who recently did the study concluding that teenagers are at far greater risk from each other and the normal bullying and clique-arrangement of high school life than they ever were from adult "predators," fires back against critics of her work that they need to understand the stastics to make meaningful public policy, rather than reject the study's conclusions out of hand because they don't match "political reality."

Crazy guy says crazy things

Alan Keys sounds just like a lefty during the Bush Years:

Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist."

Rush: Democrats ought to defend "that Muslim" guy who cut off his wife's head.

They must be stopped. I don't care why they see this county the way they see it. I don't care why a murderer does it. I don't care why a rapist does it. I don't care why this Muslim guy offed his wife's head. The "NOW Gang" is out there saying "Ah now thats not domestic violence, thats just uh, thats just uh, what'd they call it, culturally honor killing and this woman was gonna divorce him its against the law, and, and, and, that's that's that's his diversity. You know it, uh, I don't care, I don't care why anymore. I mean if I figure it out I will be glad to tell you.

Can I just say that, once again, the eliminationist rhetoric coming out of right wing radio is way, way scarier now than it was even a few years ago? Rush is positively unhinged, and I worry that the people listening to him are much more likely to be convinced that both God and guns are on their side. I hope the Secret Service has beefed up its routine.

On the other hand, I stumbled across Fred Thompson's radio show the other night. Now that's scintillating radio, let me tell you. Boy howdy. Why that man isn't president, I'll never understand.

Letter to the editor complains that neither Katie Couric nor Hudson river plane crash survivors thanked God.

A bizarre little sideline here, with a letter complaining that:

On the Feb. 8 "60 Minutes" program, we were captivated while viewing the Katie Couric interview of the crew and passengers of Flight 1549.

However, we were struck there was not one mention of God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.

We have written CBS and asked them for more realistic programming. Help protect our freedoms. Write CBS about this.

Sometimes, you have to wonder about the opportunism of a moment like this. I would much rather the survivors thank the command crew, that got them down safely, or the steward crew that got them out onto the wings and the liferafts in a disciplined, orderly fashion, or the ferry captains and crews that responded to the plane in the water immediately, and so on.

For people like this letter-writer, "realism" comes with angels attached. (via Ed Brayton)

Anti-gay madness in Utah

There are telltale signs that a website is run by the unhinged. Random capitalization, animated gifs, incoherent random color and text size changes, badly dithered images, atrocious grammar. This anti-gay website has it all. Their section "Anti-Species Syndrome" is beyond precious; not only that, but it begs for police monitoring of private homes in case parents discuss the birds & the bees too early for the writer's taste. This group recently bought a full-page ad in Utah's Salt Lake Tribune, and it throws into the mix a little racism to keep the nuts exercised.

For context, a bill legalizing civil unions was introduced into the Utah legislature recently. The governor backed it. The committee charged with vetting the bill for public vote scheduled a meeting for its consideration, held the meeting, asked not one question of panelists who had come to speak, and killed it unanimously.

More Utah: Chris Buttars paints all gay men with the "pig sex" label

You can just see Buttar's eyes light up when finds a topic of discussion that he can beat up gay people with. Besides, Buttars "unthinkable" was thought about by the Marquis de Sade in a heterosexual context two centuries ago.

Ok. State Rep asks that opening prayer be stricken from the record because pastor mentioned "my dear partner and fiance, Michael."

This one is pretty much par for the course. It is routine that the prayer be included in the Oklahoma legislative record and this is the first time anyone can remember an objection be raised or a vote being called for. Although the vote failed, one of those voting for it was Sally Kern, the legislator who last year earned notoriety calling homosexuality "the biggest threat facing the United States."

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Were you being sarcastic about Fred? Was just wondering; he comes from a unique area of Tennessee that tends to breed decent politicians, and I was wondering whether he bred true or he'd drunk the kool-ade Rush is putting out... (damn, that guy been popping pills again?)

Speaking as one who has quite a few hours in the air, some of the actually solo... you see "God is my Co-Pilot" often enough, but frankly? I'd rather have a human being along who knows which switches to flip when things get interesting. Heck, a rank newbie who takes directions well and doesn't panic works well enough when you've got a double handful of recalcitrant airplane to fight... and there's the other proverb I've often heard in hangar flying (telling stories to one another)... $DEITY helps those who help themselves. Sully may have had a little extra help (it was not a bad day to be putting a bird down in the Hudson), but dangit, I think he gets full credit for knowing how to do it right. This whole giving of credit (and troubles) to the Ineffable strikes me as.... badly codependent.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was being sarcastic about Fred. He's about as exciting as an aging hounddog on Valium, which to be honest he sometimes resembles.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

At least he's not a hound dog on speed. (Rush?)

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, hon.

There's PLENTY of folks like me, with reason and guns on our side, willing to take out those gun-toting God Freaks if they get outta line.

And they know it. Which is probably the ONLY reason they haven't tried anything too particularly stupid in the last 50 years.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Under the drugs notion, though, can we please give Rush his oxycontin back?

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

However, we were struck there was not one mention of God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.

Was it the same god, or a different one that tossed the geese into the engines?

On that note, i forget if you'd happened across it, but somebody came up with a drink to honor Cpt. Sully for his heroic landing of that flight.

The Sully: Two shots of grey goose, and a splash of water.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

The Sully: Two shots of grey goose, and a splash of water.
Works for me as long as it's not water from the Husdon!

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

To quote spider Robinson, "Thank any and all Gods . . . once they are cleared of complicity in the original offense."

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

While her note is too brief to mention it clearly, but I don't think what she is saying is that the show should have said it was God's work. A community I am in was discussing it, and we really think that her assumption is that with that many people surviving, the odds are very good that someone that was interviewed did, in fact, give some of the credit to God, and the show edited that out. We think it was more of that Christian Oppression Conspiracy Theory.

Oh, and I'd save all the E for my friends that are into that sort of thing, and give the strangers the peanuts. If it does turn out they are allergic, then it's just evolution in action.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.

Well hell, I guess we can give the NTSB their pink slips now and save a few billion a year in the budget.

And if the plane was filled with thankless and godless heathens, then why did God save them? And more to the point, was God directing the pilots who put those planes into the WTC? *Those* pilots seem to have been pretty convinced of that fact. How about the pilots that dropped atomic bombs on Japan? That's some complicated God you got there!

Either that or you're just conveniently attributing to God the things that you want to attribute. That sounds like a more likely story.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

I don't supposed there's a transcript of Sen. Buttars' comments? I'd take the time to listen to him, but I have an urgent appointment to gouge my eardrums out with a screwdriver.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

That Buttars guy must have a heck of a complex brought on by massive childhood teasing over his name.

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

With the peanut or E thing.. I'd just ask which one they wanted. Or I'd give them the peanut and keep the Ecstacy for someone who might have use for it. If they had a contact allergy to the peanut, I'd use a napkin or a piece of paper. If it was a consumption allergy, wouldn't even have to do that much. Or if I were hungry, I'd give 'em the Ecstacy and eat the peanut.

So many options, really. And all of them utterly miss the point. :3