- There are enough legitimate, fact-based scientific studies out there. Guys and gals in fancy labs with white coats and goggles and Bunsen burners and all that other scientific mumbo-jumbo. Give me a fiction-based, fabricated study to mix things up any day of the week. The world might be livid about a now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines being revealed as an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, but not me. I refuse to tastelessly pile on like the British medical journal BMJ, which conducted an “investigation” that concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible. "It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," fumed Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data." British officials already overreacted by stripping Wakefield of his medical license in May. No one has been able to get in touch with him of late and BMJ clearly feels he should be stepping up to accept blame for his supposedly horrific actions. "Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession," BMJ wrote. Thanks to sticks in the mud like the British government and BMJ, Wakefield’s work has been completely discredited and all we’re left with are the found memories of how it panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella. Sure, vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80 percent by 2004 and yes, measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years. True, Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. His co-authors for the study left him high and dry after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers. One small conflict of interest like that and you all jump ship? On days like this, I’m thankful that none of my friends are British scientists or government officials……….
- Maybe this will drive down the ridiculous price tourists are charged to ride up to the top of the Empire State Building……but probably not. Whether the owners of the Empire State Building agree to a two-year deal to buy wind-generated electricity to power the iconic skyscraper or not, there is no way they are going to stop gouging visitors to Manhattan for $20 a pop to ride an elevator up for a beautiful view of the city that never sleeps. Instead, those owners will thump their chests about reaching an agreement with Green Mountain Energy to make the Empire State Building the city's largest commercial user of renewable energy, according to the building's caretakers. "It was a natural fit for us to combine 100% clean energy with our nearly completed, ground-breaking energy efficiency retrofit work," ESB owner Anthony Malkin said in a statement. City officials will no doubt be pleased with the deal because it fits well with the city's ongoing green initiative. So why might a kook like myself throw out the idea that the deal should lower the absurd, gouge-tastic price for a basic elevator ride to the top of the building? Because my man Malkin is openly touting the financial benefits of the deal. "Clean energy and our nearly 40% reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents," he said. So pass those increased profits along by generously and magnanimously cutting the price of visiting the top of your building to a still-unreasonable, still-absurd $10………
- With college football’s top prize already on the line, what could make Monday night’s BCS championship game better? How about the quarterback of one team accusing one of the other team’s top defensive players of being dirty and then trying to explain the comment away as if he meant no disrespect? The accuser would be Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas, who said Thursday that Auburn defensive tackle Nick Fairley’s reputation as a dirty player is warranted. "Oh yeah, we've seen he's got a lot of dirty plays, throwing people around after the play and things like that," Thomas said Thursday. "But that's just football. I don't worry about it because it's a physical game." Oh, you don’t worry about it, you just said one of the most inflammatory things one athlete can say about another athlete, but you don’t worry about it? Calling a guy dirty is as offensive a critique as you can offer and throwing it out there before a championship game would normally be considered fightin’ words. Double that because Fairley’s coaches and teammates have already been asked about the talk that Fairley is a dirty player and they adamantly denounced it as being untrue. The Lombardi Award winner did take out his share of quarterbacks this year, knocking Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett out of the game with a concussion and sending Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray to the bench in the fourth quarter after a brutal hit to the knee. The hit on Murray came not long after Fairley was penalized 15 yards for spearing Murray in the back with his helmet. In spite of hit comments about Fairley being a dirty player, Thomas insisted that he wasn’t worried about being on the receiving end of one of the 6-5, 298-pound defensive tackle’s jarring hits. "If it happens, it happens," Thomas said. "You've just got to get back up for the next play." Right, because you don’t worry about that sort of thing………
- There has never been a firm agreement on how long a country must wait after a major natural disaster to start deporting citizens from a neighboring country. Some will argue for the six-month heave-ho, while bleeding hearts want to give outsiders two or three years to “find their way.” The Dominican Republic clearly falls more in the former category, as Haiti’s island neighbor has launched its first major crackdown on illegal Haitian immigrants since last year's devastating earthquake, rounding up and deporting hundreds of people in recent days. Dominican officials confirmed the crackdown Thursday, January 6, 2011. The two nations share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and have a long history of cross-border theatrics. Of course, a massive earthquake that devastates a country and sends it even deeper into Third World status by killing thousands and destroying cities tends to soothe tensions, at least temporarily. So in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 quake, the Dominican government did its neighborly duty by providing assistance and serving as a staging ground for the international relief effort. But even during that time, human rights groups complained that Haitians were subjected to bitter discrimination. The Dominican government suspended deportations after the Jan. 12 earthquake, but resumed all anti-illegal immigration efforts this week, stopping and detaining people at checkpoints around the country. They even kicked things up a notch by taking the rare step of setting up checkpoints outside the capital. More than 700 Haitians have been deported since Monday and many more are expected in coming days, confirmed Ambiorix Rosario, Department of Migration spokesman. Dominican officials counter that the crackdown is necessary to stem growing illegal immigration since the earthquake and to prevent the spread of cholera. The cholera fear seems mildly defensible, as the disease has killed more than 3,000 people in Haiti since the outbreak began in October. "We are trying to strengthen our immigration controls to prevent Haitian citizens and people of other nationalities from illegally entering our territory," said Sigfrido Pared Perez, director of the Department of Migration. "In no case have we violated anyone's human rights." Whatever helps you sleep at night, S. The sight of immigration agents and soldiers stopping and questioning people as they reached the outskirts of the capital in buses and vans that each day carry people from Haiti to Santo Domingo was more than a little jarring. Now, I’m willing to admit that having an estimated 600,000 Haitians were living illegally in the Dominican Republic (estimated by the United Nations) isn’t an ideal setup. In an impoverished nation of nearly 10 million, every extra mouth to food counts. However, allegations of racial profiling have dogged this week’s deportations and that’s never cool. If nothing else, the crackdown has ramped up the price human traffickers are charging in the Dominican, up from its normal $95 to a whopping $135. See what a monster you’ve created, Dominican officials, with your insensitivity…………
- I absolutely LOVE the idea of Mike Tyson having his own reality show, even if that show is about his lifelong passion for raising pigeons. Why? Is it because the former heavyweight boxing champion, convicted rapist, occasional actor and certifiably crazy Tyson makes for good television? Umm……sure, let’s go with that because my life policy is never, ever, ever to do anything that offends of upsets Iron Mike. So if he wants to bite off part of Evander Holyfield's ear in a 1997 bout, threatening to eat Lennox Lewis’ non-existent children or bite Lewis’ leg in a press conference, then I’m cool with it. Same goes for Iron Mike training racing pigeons and wanting to share that with the world. He calls his birds "the creme de la creme of the pigeon world. These are thoroughbred pigeons. Pigeons were men's first feathered friends." Sounds good, Mike. "Taking on Tyson,” will air on Animal Planet beginning in March, is a six-part documentary in which the former world heavyweight champion returns to his Brooklyn neighborhood to race pigeons. As part of the show, Tyson speaks about how, as a child, he skipped school to escape bullies but found peace and tranquility raising pigeons. The coop where Tyson keeps his pigeons these days in a tall house next to the gym where he trained for his early bouts. "This is what we do. Our lives are dedicated to pigeons, even when I have been fighting or getting locked up," said in an appearance to promote the show. "This is not no hobby. This is something we are going to do until the day we die.” And it’s something I will watch for as long as it’s on the air, partly because I think it will be entertaining and partly because I fear that if I don’t, Tyson will hunt me down and eat my non-existent kids before biting off both of my ears. He may not have been undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion since the 1980s, he may have declared bankruptcy in 2003 and retired from professional boxing in 2006, but I’m still terrified of him. As such, I laughed as hard as possible at his guest sports in the TV shows "Entourage" and "Brothers" and his cameo role in the hit comedy movie "The Hangover.” His new show makes it debut on March 6 on Animal Planet and if everything I’ve already laid out hasn’t scared you into watching, allow Iron Mike to make one final pitch. "There are things about my life. I had a pretty colorful past...We go to some places in the past which are a pretty dark place for me," he said. Good enough for me………
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