So long, Ted

You may not have had the best singing voice in the world, but you were a hell of a good senator. Thanks.

Barney Frank is Awesome

He really needs to teach every other Democrat how to do this:

Lobbying to cure a disease that may not exist

Science and health reporting in newspapers is notoriously pathetic. Reporters with no real background or knowledge about the subject on which they're reporting are forced to puke out stories that more often that not are full of inaccuracies and misunderstandings.

So I don't hold it against the reporter behind this article that he was taken in, but let's see if we can add a bit more informed commentary to the topic.

That topic is "Chronic Lyme Disease."

Please note in advance that CLD is not the same thing as the well-established and reasonably well-understood diagnosis of Lyme disease. More about that later, but first let's look a bit at this S&E article, entitled "Lobbying Hard for Lyme Disease Sufferers."

It's an awful feeling to hear a doctor say there is nothing wrong with you, when you know something isn't right, according to Groton resident Donna Castle. But for many people who contract Lyme disease, that's exactly what can occur, said Castle, whose daughter has the disease.

"'It's all in your head' is a classic diagnosis given to Lyme disease patients," Castle said. "There is no 100 percent reliable blood test for the disease, and the symptoms can vary so much, which makes it very difficult to diagnose."

Pretty weird, huh? Doctors treat Lyme disease all the time. They don't say it's all in your head, because it's not. And while no test is "100 percent reliable", the current test is about 90% accurate. That's actually a very reliable test.

Also note at this point the way that doctors and their extensive knowledge, resources, and familiarity with Lyme disease are presented as the bad guys, while the vague someone who "knows something is wrong" is presented as more reliable. Indeed, something may be wrong with that person, but there's a large gap between "I feel sorta funky" and "I have Lyme disease."

The fact of the matter is that the lobbying group (created by erstwhile congressional candidate Kurt Hayes) in question is not about Lyme disease. It's about Chronic Lyme Disease. Again, not the same thing.

So we'll just skip the part of the article where Lyme disease is discussed. Yes, Lyme disease is real, and yes it's endemic to this area. It's a public health issue that deserves attention, but that's not the attention that Hayes' group is going for. They're more interested in promoting the quackery of CLD.

Now would be a good time to talk about what CLD is, and the different groups that exist within those who believe they suffer from CLD. We'll use the four categories laid out by Feder et al. in this New England Journal of Medicine paper on CLD.

First, what is CLD? According to the NEJM:

This term is used by a small number of practitioners (often self-designated as "Lyme-literate physicians") to describe patients whom they believe have persistent B. burgdorferi infection, a condition they suggest requires long-term antibiotic treatment and may even be incurable. Although chronic Lyme disease clearly encompasses post–Lyme disease syndrome, it also includes a broad array of illnesses or symptom complexes for which there is no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to B. burgdorferi infection. Chronic Lyme disease is used in North America and increasingly in Europe as a diagnosis for patients with persistent pain, neurocognitive symptoms, fatigue, or all of these symptoms, with or without clinical or serologic evidence of previous early or late Lyme disease. [my bolding]

That's a pretty decent nutshell. But there are different groups within the CLD camp, and they're worth looking at too. Luckily, we have a nice little graphic to see them easily!



Okay, maybe that's too little. Let me reiterate here:

1. Patients in this category have vague and commonplace symptoms like fatigue, depression, headaches, etc. They have no observable evidence of having had a B. burgdorferi (the bacteria that causes Lyme disease) infection, and actually pop up pretty often even in places where Lyme disease is not endemic. Chances are reasonable that they've never had Lyme disease at all.
2. Category two patients have a disease, they just don't have Lyme disease. Rather, they have something else that has been misdiagnosed as CLD.
3. Category three patients have no objective history of Lyme disease, but do have antibodies against B. burgdorferi. Antibodies alone have a low predictive value, so the person may or may not have ever actually had Lyme disease, but their concern is understandable.
4. Category four patients have post-Lyme disease syndrome. They've actually had Lyme disease for sure, and now have something weird going on (often myalgias and the like). It's worth noting that evidence suggests this is not due to a chronic infection, and antibiotic treatment appears ineffective.

All the groups here are suffering from something (more likely, many different somethings), and it's totally understandable that groups 3 and 4 wonder whether Lyme disease is the cause. Groups 1 and 2, on the other hand, are just likely to be confused.

Back to the S&E article, here's someone in group 4:

Lunenburg resident Sheila Webb Richards was diagnosed with Lyme disease about a year ago, and continues to suffer from the symptoms.

A doctor put Webb Richards on antibiotics for 28 days and she felt better for a period, but her symptoms returned a short time after.

Doctors and an infectious-disease specialist have told her that although she continues to test positive for Lyme disease, the disease is not active. They refuse to put her on more antibiotics, Webb Richards says.

"It's frustrating, because my symptoms continue to feel very active," she said.

I'm quite sure that Mrs. Webb Richards is being honest when she expresses frustration, and I don't doubt that she feels crummy. But antibiotics are unlikely to be of any real benefit, at least if you exclude the placebo effect. You can't really blame her for wanting to feel better, even if it is a placebo effect.

Her husband is also frustrated:

Her husband, Tim Richards, said most doctors won't allow his wife to continue on the antibiotics past 28 days because of guidelines set by the Centers for disease Control.

"The heart of the problem is that the profession has guidelines that are decided by a review board," he said. "In the case of Lyme disease, they limit treatment to 28 days of antibiotics. The insurance companies go by that standard."

A "review board"? Yes, a bunch of extremely knowledgeable scientists, doctors, and epidemiologists got together and said "Hey, all this data we've got shows that antibiotics don't really help, but we'll recommend four weeks of treatment just to be safe." The bastards!

Worse yet, the insurance companies use this data to say they won't pay for unnecessary and pointless antibiotics that would only increase medical costs without providing any benefit to the patient. Jerks!

If Mrs. Webb Richards is one of those sympathetic group 4 cases, then our friend from the beginning of the article, Donna Castle, seems to fall into group 1 or 2, where I have much less patience for them. After all, she did seem to indicate that doctors found no evidence of Lyme disease in her daughter. So why does she talk like they did?

Castle's first experience with Lyme disease came about four years ago, when her daughter's Lyme disease was misdiagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).

"As awful as Lyme disease is, it was a relief that she did not have ALS, which is terminal," said Castle, who runs a Lyme disease support group once a month at the Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer.

Well yeah, Lyme disease is way better than ALS. But where's the evidence that she even has Lyme disease? She could be in the first group, where general symptoms lead to that self-diagnosis. Or she could be in the second group, and have something else wrong with her. I certainly hope that Ms. Castle is looking for the real cause of her daughter's suffering, though it sounds like she's put all her eggs in the rickety CLD basket.

So, what does this all lead up to? Legislation!

Hayes and Castle are now pushing for new legislation that would protect doctors who prescribe prolonged antibiotic treatment.

House Bill 1148, introduced by state Rep. Bob Hargraves, R-Groton, is tentatively scheduled for a hearing at the Statehouse, Sept. 22.

This bill is titled "An Act relative to the treatment of chronic Lyme disease" and the full text is here.

It's short though, so I'll just quote it:

Chapter 112 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 12CC the following section: -

12DD. A physician may prescribe, administer or dispense antibiotic therapy for therapeutic purposes to a person diagnosed with and having symptoms of Lyme disease of [Sic] a diagnosis and treatment plan has been documented in the physician’s medical record for that patient and no physician shall be subject to disciplinary action solely for prescribing, administering or dispensing long-term antibiotic therapy fo9r [Sic] a therapeutic purpose for a patient clinically diagnosed with Lyme disease if a diagnoses and treatment plan has been documented in the physician’s medical record for that patient. [my bolding]

Man, are all bills that poorly-spellchecked?

Here's the thing about this bill, though. The way it's worded, it doesn't apply to Castle's daughter, and only may apply to Mrs. Webb Richards. Webb Richards doesn't have Lyme disease currently, she has post Lyme disease syndrome. Judging from the article, Castle's daughter doesn't appear to have ever been diagnosed with Lyme disease.

I won't even go into how prescribing an antibiotic that has no effect can't really said to be done "for therapeutic purposes".

But all that's just nitpicking. The purpose of the bill is to make sure people who think they have CLD can get vast amounts of antibiotics with no trouble. Even though antibiotics haven't been proven to do anything beneficial for them.

Nor would we expect antibiotics to do anything. Antibiotics in the treatment of Lyme disease are used to kill the B. burgdorferi bacteria. People with CLD don't have this bacteria around to kill anymore, and some of them never had it in the first place.

Of course, in addition to increasing medical costs for no reason, overprescription of antibiotics tends to lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They should just call this thing the "MRSA and drug-resistant tuberculosis promotion bill."

Anyway, local politicians have their stances. Jen Benson unfortunately calls herself a "strong supporter" of it. Jennifer Flanagan, on the other hand, is "very interested in hearing from both sides on the issue."

Consider this my side, Rep. Flanagan! Please note that it's the side that actually cites evidence.

This bill is a bad idea, built on willfully ignoring the scientific evidence. People with CLD are suffering, but there's no evidence to suggest it's Lyme disease at the root of their suffering or that they will benefit from antibiotics.

Let's spend our time trying to figure out what actually is wrong with them, whether it be mental or physical, and not waste money and endanger public health by throwing antibiotics at them. People need real help, not placebos.

At Least One Guy Gets It...

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Queen of the Birthers!

This is really remarkable. I knew that Orly Taitz is crazy, but I had no idea just how crazily she presents herself. This is the person at the head of the whole birther movement!



I can only imagine how insane (or racist) a person has to be to watch that and think "Oh hey, she made some really good points!" Pretty insane, probably.


[Addendum:] In case you're wondering, "Dr." Orly Taitz is a dentist. Which just goes to further confirm my theory that crackpots who prominently identify themselves as "Dr." never have a doctorate in anything even remotely related to what they're talking about. It's all about giving themselves an undeserved air of credibility.

[Addendum 2:] Hey, it's Obama's birthday today! Here is a card for him, courtesy of Progressive Fitchburg's official Chronologically Aware Correspondent!

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Guy with funny nickname running for mayor!

I'm a day late on this (due to laziness), but there's big news in Fitchburg politics!

According to the Sentinel, here's the deal:

Local sandwich shop owner Michael "Fuzzy" Voisine has pulled papers to run for mayor against incumbent Lisa Wong.

Voisine, 43, a Maverick Street resident, said he's running on a campaign of "change" and that he's fed up with the "good old boys" network that permeates city politics.

"I'm going to give it a shot," Voisine said.

I like that winning attitude, Fuzzy!

So, besides giving Mayor Wong something to do during the run-up to the election, what's Fuzzy all about? Besides sandwiches, I mean.

He's known widely around the city as "Fuzzy," a nickname he said he's had since junior high school.

I'm sure there's an interesting and/or humiliating story behind that nickname. Sadly, we don't get the backstory. I'm going to assume Fuzzy was either remarkably hirsute in junior high, had an unfortunate haircut, or maybe it was something to do with pubic hair (kids that age are crazy about pubic hair!).

What else do we know about Fuzzy?

He's worked on Main Street in Fitchburg for most of his life, first at Domino's Pizza, then managing Espresso Pizza for 14 years.

He left Espresso almost five years ago to start his own sub shop, Premier Subs, at 500 Main St.

"No one thought I would last a year, and I've been here for four and a half," he said.

Well, now I'm a little embarrassed. I drive by that place fairly often and had no idea it was still operational. My mistake! (Hey commenters, is the food any good?)

Anyway, it's nice to know that in addition to sandwiches, Fuzzy also enjoys pizza. He's a man of the people! Except maybe the people who think that sugary-sweet sauce they use at Espresso Pizza is incredibly disgusting, like me.

Maybe it's time to get into the part that's actually relevant to politics, though. Knowing his culinary habits is fine and all, but doesn't really say much about his qualifications.

Voisine said has been considering a run for public office for a few weeks.

He got frustrated during the Civic Days celebration when, he said, some city officials would not allow him to have a band or a vendor's tent during the city's block party celebration on July 3.

"I've had some tough runnings with certain people in the mayor's office and I don't like to be talked down to," Voisine said.

Crap.

Running for mayor after minimal consideration, based on some petty frustration, is not really the best way to get into things. Remember what happened with Rachel, who ran essentially the same way and then had to drop out due to shame health problems?

Also, dude, your name is "Fuzzy." If you don't like to be talked down to, you might want to choose a different nickname. I suggest "Admiral Ignatius." That would get you much more respect.

Perhaps it's part of a larger problem?

Voisine said that points to a larger issue of city officials not being receptive to local residents and business owners.

"It seems like they don't care about existing businesses," he said. "Whoever is in office needs to listen to everyone."

Well, those are some... pretty vague charges, actually. I mean, I agree that officeholders need to listen to everyone (within reason, anyway), but do you really think your one little difficulty means that the city government is ignoring huge constituencies? I'd like some more examples, please.

So, what are Fuzzy's plans for improving things?

He said after two decades of working on Main Street in Fitchburg, he would like to see more change.

"Downtown is dying with all the empty storefronts," he said.

One idea, he said, is to make parking more accessible and he likes Wong's idea of angled parking on Main Street.

He also said he would like to continue and expand Wong's First Thursday initiative, which encouraged residents to visit downtown shops on the first Thursday of each month.

Okay, those are really the current Mayor's plans for improving things. But they are good ideas, and there's nothing wrong with supporting them. They're just not really new.

Indeed, Fuzzy thinks Mayor Wong is doing a pretty good job:

Voisine does not have many criticisms of Wong.

He said "given the hand she's been dealt," she is, "doing as good of a job she can."

Oh no, Fuzzy! You're dangerously close to losing the crazy "I hate Mayor Wong no matter what she does" voters!

Actually, that's fine. There aren't very many of those, they're just disproportionately loud.

I have, however, detected another problem:

Voisine said he's not sure he can do better than Wong in terms of managing the city finances, but he would bring a different "mind frame."

Wha?

Okay, I know that Fuzzy hasn't run for office before, but I'm pretty sure that saying you won't actually do a better job with city finances (by far the single most important issue) than your opponent seems like a way to make sure nobody will bother to vote for you.

At this point I'm having a hard time figuring out just why anyone should vote for Fuzzy. He supports ideas Lisa Wong proposed, and he doesn't know if he could do a better job than her on city finances (which suggests he probably couldn't). Given that, why not just vote for Wong?

Give us something fresh, Fuzzy!

Voisine said he would be a down-to-earth, receptive mayor, and would rely on a group of trusted advisers.

He said during his campaign and if he gets elected, he hopes to surround himself with "the best people I can."

That's not fresh! Tom Donnelly said pretty much the same stuff in the last mayoral election, and now he spends every day shining shoes for nickels down at the bus station ^{[Citation needed]}.

But what's this?

Voisine said he hopes to run a clean and inexpensive campaign.

"Throwing dirt does no good," he said.

He said he may hold fundraisers and looks forward to researching city policies in the coming weeks in preparation for the election.

"Once I get going, if I surround myself with the right people, I think I can make it work," he said. "For my own peace of mind, I need to give it a shot."

Well, that's admirable. Ron Dionne did largely the same thing last election (sans fundraising), and Ron Dionne is awesome! He's not the mayor, obviously, but he's still very likable!

It's much too early to say with any certainty, but I suspect that's what we're going to get with Fuzzy too. A well-meaning guy who figures he might as well give running for mayor a shot. Because why not? I, for one, welcome him!

Unfortunately, so far he comes off as sane, reasonable, and unqualified to run the city. This all adds up to "sorta boring." As such, I have some unsolicited advice for Fuzzy.

Dear Fuzzy,

You seem like an okay enough guy, but from what I've seen so far you're probably not going to win this election. You probably already know this.

So, what to do? I have two options you may wish to explore.

The "Respectable" Option: While you're researching city policies, try to come up with some original policies of your own. They don't have to be great, but they should at least be new and interesting. Armed with these interesting new ideas, you can present them to the public and the current mayor as things to consider. Even if you lose the election, if your ideas are good enough they may get adopted by the winner.

Then you can sleep comfortably, knowing you ran a clean and respectable campaign and through the power of your ideas, you will have made an impact on the city, win or lose.

The "Batshit Insane" Option: Look at the past mayoral campaigns of Ted DeSalvatore and Rachel Rosenfeld, and try to be like them. Say lots of things that make no sense, and back them up with bluster and lies. Get personally offended by broad societal trends, and make bombastic, threatening gestures for no apparent reason. You can easily pull in the crazy asshole vote this way.

This option won't win you the election. It also won't make you look respectable, or even sane. However, it would be entertaining and make for some easy blog posts in which I'd be very mean to you.

Either way, good luck.
Pope Unicow

PS The second option will more easily allow you to start calling yourself "Admiral Ignatius," and is clearly the better choice!

FINI

Racism maybe not actually gone?

Thanks to another of those terrible "local leaders weigh in on _____" articles, today we get to learn what local officials think about the arrest of Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., a situation that you're probably already aware of.

For this we will turn to the Sentinel's catchily-named article: Gates' arrest draws variety of views.

This is probably going to hurt.

The controversial arrest of renowned Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has sparked a conversation throughout the country, including in North Central Massachusetts, where leaders are offering diverse views about the incident.

Police arrested Gates in his Cambridge home after he allegedly berated them and told them they didn't know "who they were messing with," when they came to his home to investigate a possible break-in.

Well that's not a very complete description of events! You get no context, you get only the officer's side of the story, and Gates is immediately portrayed as the bad guy.

Never mind that this whole incident should have ended the moment that Gates showed ID proving that he was in his own house. The guy was rude!

Apparently we're supposed to believe that it's a crime to be rude on your own property. I have no idea how I've stayed out of jail so long.*

Gates believes his arrest was motivated by race, while some, including Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested Gates, maintain the professor's belligerent tone, not his skin color, got him arrested.

This part of the tale is actually somewhat annoying to me. I don't know if the arrest was racially motivated or not (though I suspect it was to some degree). But really, it doesn't matter. It's not a crime to be a dick. We also don't know if Gates actually was a dick or not, but for the purposes of argument let's just assume he was.

Okay, enough of the setup, what do local leaders think?

Adrian Ford, the executive director of local community advocate group Three Pyramids, said the answer may lie somewhere in between.

"What I've found in working on these types of issues for 40 years is that we all have subconscious views and opinions that rise to the surface when we're not aware," Ford said Thursday. "It doesn't mean there's a conscious racism there, but this sort of thing is very common."

Yay, a smart person to start off with! I agree with Ford, and this sort of thing is unquestionably very common.

Now on to the dumbassery.

But Westminster Police Chief Sam Albert said police officers deserve more credit.

"I think trends are changing, the job is changing, and officers are becoming more educated," Albert said Thursday.

Well, that's nice. Those things are probably all true. They just have nothing to do with this case. You can be educated and still be a racist asshole or a power-hungry cop. Education doesn't fix those things.

Then the article gets sidetracked into talking not about the case, but about President Obama's statement that the cop did something stupid. How dare the president say such a thing!

The comments from Obama -- a personal friend of Gates' -- surprised most local leaders.

"It shocked me," Fitchburg community activist Yvette Cooks said. "I didn't expect that."

Cooks, an African American, is a member of the city's Human Rights Commission.

Okay, I guess that's nice too? But it doesn't tell us much. I'm a little surprised he weighed in on this too, but I also absolutely agree with him. And really, he only weighed in because he was asked about it at a press conference.

Who else has something to say? More cops? You know they'll give an unbiased opinion, because who's ever heard of a cop reflexively standing up for another cop even when they're clearly in the wrong?

John Collins, general counsel for the Massachusetts State Police Chiefs Association, called attacks on the Cambridge Police Department -- as well as Obama's comments -- "premature."

"It doesn't add anything to the situation, and knowing (the Cambridge Police Department) as I do, I suspect they'll address any issues quietly, and not necessarily in the newspapers," Collins said Thursday.

Oh, that's great. Yes, let's please keep important discussions about race and police misconduct quiet. It's not like we'd actually want to do anything about these issues.

Let's add yet another cop!

Chief Bourgeois, like Chief Albert, shot down Ford's assertion of "subconscious" prejudices.

"We train all our officers regarding any kind of racial profiling," Bourgeois said. "Officers approach every call objectively, no matter race, color or religious preference."

Okay, this is just blatant bullshit. There's no way even Bourgeois could believe this, unless he's the most naive man in the world.

Just because you "train" people not to be assholes doesn't mean they won't be assholes. I don't know what sort of training actually takes place, but does anyone with half a brain believe that it can eliminate the problem?

What's more, you can't just train subconscious prejudices out of people. That's sort of what subconscious means. They're not even aware of their prejudices, so how do you expect to train them out of them?

Also from the Obama part of this story, we had this:

Lancaster Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco said the White House "is too far from the situation" to comment.

Now, let's listen to Pacheco comment, because he is obviously right in the thick of things!

But minorities reported they sympathized with Gates, whether or not they considered Cambridge police racist.

"Profiling definitely happens, and I deal with it even in Lancaster," Pacheco, who is Dominican, said. "And it's not just races. Gays and lesbians, in some ways, are discriminated against even more."

When asked whether she has ever felt profiled by police, Cooks did not hesitate.

"Oh my God, yes," she said. "From police, from everybody. It's common."

Dang, that was actually a good comment. What the hell was his problem with Obama commenting? Also, yay our surprised friend Yvette Cooks is back! She's now relegated to the "minorities say this" part of the article, but at least she said something decent. I guess her surprise from earlier was similar to mine.

We'll also give Adrian Ford a little more to say, what with him being a minority and all:

Ford said profiling occurs regularly, and dismissed as "stupid" the notion that America has overcome racial tension by electing an African-American president.

Holy crap Adrian! Didn't you learn anything from Obama? Now everyone is going to get all mad at you for daring to call a stupid idea stupid.

See?

But Fitchburg Councilor at-large Dean Tran disagrees.

"The majority of people in this country have spoken, and voted for an African American, which means that race doesn't play as big a role," Tran said.

Tran is, of course, an irredeemable idiot.

He's actually using the exact same argument that the racists I profiled back in November were using (and will undoubtedly be using in the comments section of the S&E article).

Others have made this argument too. Here's a quote from an email that was sent to the W.E.B. Dubois Institute this week**:

"you can't possibly claim racism, don't you know we have a nigger in the white house?"

Presumably Tran didn't send that email, but he's making the exact same argument.

Never content to stop at saying one stupid thing when there's an opportunity to get even stupider, Tran continues:

Tran, who is Vietnamese, said he has never experienced profiling.

"For me, all this situation does is make me very fearful that police will be hesitant in responding to incidents that involve people of color because they will be afraid of something like this happening," Tran said.

Yeah, I'm sure that minorities (who are of course fully and respectfully served by the police now) will now suffer with sub-par police service because Skip Gates was arrested for being loud at his own home.

Talking about police abuse of power will make the cops scared of doing their job? Only if they're abusive cops.

Dean, you seriously need to take your own Twitter advice and look up "clueless."

Okay, enough of dumbass Tran. Perhaps there's someone out there who's not stupid?

Christina Gonzalez, youth development supervisor at the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center, said electing Obama doesn't mean a society has overcome its racial history.

"That's like when someone tells a racist joke and then qualifies it by saying, 'It's okay, I have a black friend,'" Gonzalez said. "You still feel a certain way about those people. It still shows in your facial expression."

Thank you, Christina Gonzalez! What you've said is totally honest and self-evident to all thinking people. Sadly, we seem to be lacking in thinking people right now.

Let's wrap this up:

Ford questioned Gates' vocal reaction and his call for an apology.

"This is an opportunity to create a learning experience, and a leader's job is to influence other people," Ford said. "(Gates) needs to step back, make this issue less about him, and approach it from a less emotional standpoint as a chance for everyone to learn. That's not happening. All we're doing is perpetuating divisions."

Adrian, I think you've got your wires crossed somewhere.

Here's what Gates said in an interview (emphasis mine):

I've received thousands of e-mails and Facebook messages; the blogs are going crazy; my colleagues at Harvard are outraged. Allen Counter called me from the Nobel Institute in Stockholm to express his outrage. But really it's not about me-it's that anybody black can be treated this way, just arbitrarily arrested out of spite.

Now, you could argue that he's making it about him despite saying that, but in the end it really isn't about Gates no matter what he does.

In fact, I'm not even sure that the arrest itself is the really interesting part here. The arrest was absolutely stupid, but whether it was racially-motivated or not is hard to know for sure. Personally, I see it more as another authoritarian cop (and there are lots of those) arresting someone for "contempt of cop" than as a pure racial issue. Of course, minorities are arrested with those sorts of charges at a disproportionately high rate, so there's no reason it can't be both.

Rather, the part that's revealing when it comes to race is not the arrest, it's the reactions. It's the guys sitting behind their keyboards screaming about "reverse racism" and utterly denying that the real problems exist.

It's the total failure of people to appreciate that if they had just come home after a 20-hour trip back from China and a cop started treating them like a criminal in their own home, then maybe they'd get pretty pissed off too.

It's the inability of people to realize that yes, there are cops out there who will arrest you for things that aren't illegal, and will justify those arrests however they feel they need to.

We shouldn't be asking ourselves "was the cop right" or "was Gates a jerk"? We should be asking ourselves what we'd do in Gates' situation. Whether we'd feel that we were being protected and served, or intimidated and harrassed.

More importantly, we should realize that for every Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who gets arrested for no reason, there are a few thousand normal, everyday people (of all races) who suffer the same treatment, but don't have the means or influence to draw attention to it.

Whatever you think of this particular case, it's unquestionably true that people do get arrested for the crime of being black. It's unquestionably true that some cops are keen on showing how "tough" they are by mistreating those they are meant to serve.

If nothing else, Gates' arrest should be a wake up call. Like Adrian Ford desires, and like Skip Gates has said, it's not about Gates. It's about all of us.



* That's a lie. Of course I know how I've stayed out of jail: I'm white and I'm scared of arguing with people who could shoot me.
** Check it out, I have a contact! Take that, journalists!

Thanks, Fox News!

The following clip from Fox News is about the Netherlands, and I'm pretty sure viewers are supposed to find it terribly disturbing. Their intended effect isn't exactly what I got out of it.



Happy stoners? Uncontroversial same-sex marriage? Lots of sex? An aversion to religion?

Sounds good to me. Let's all go to Holland!

Compromise is a jerk!

Oh, crazy letter to the editor-writers, why must you tempt me so? I always feel a little guilty for mocking you, as if I were picking on the kids on the short bus. On the other hand, this particular crazy person is advocating imposing his religious beliefs on everyone, so he deserves it.

I am referring to this letter published in today's Sentinel with the headline of "Compromised values hurt America close to home." Damn dirty compromise!

Let the fisking begin:

America is losing the war, not the war on terrorism, but the war against the very soul of America. This enemy is cunning, highly intelligent and knows very well how to defeat America.

This enemy does not come at us from the outside, but from within directly attacking the core values and principles of this great nation and of its people. The very foundation that built our house and stood as a city on a hill.

Okay, so it sounds like the "enemy" here is Americans who happen to disagree with any of the views of our letter-writer. I guess that would be pretty much everyone who isn't the author of this letter. I'm pretty sure I know who will win this war.

As one who served in the military understands, to defeat one's enemy you attack the core.

This enemy is compromise, and it has been working in this country for at least 50 to 60 years now.

Oh wait, the enemy is "compromise"? How does that work? Compromise is "cunning" and "highly intelligent"? That's pretty good for an abstract concept!

Also, has compromise seriously only existed for 50 or 60 years? Didn't King Solomon propose cutting that baby in half as a compromise? Sure, they didn't go through with it, but clearly the concept was around.

Please explain your theory, sir!

The enemy of compromise could have started with one of the greatest deceptions in promoting separation of church and state. This deception has and continues to affect many Americans to compromise their core values and principles.

We as a people group, society and a nation are slowly giving over our core values and principles that our forefathers fought for and established for this great nation.

Umm... huh. Those sentences don't actually make any sense, but I think he's saying that separation of church and state is a deception? It must be a pretty good deception, since it's smack-dab in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Were the founding fathers deceived? Perhaps!

Or maybe they were the deceivers themselves! They did do an awful lot of compromising.

What else has this evil "compromise" done with its army of compromise-bots?

Compromise has taken prayer out of school.

Well, that's not really true, is it? You can pray in school all you want. You just can't force other people to pray, or to listen to you pray. But hey, if you want to pray in school, go for it!

Still, it wasn't "compromise" that removed official prayer from public schools. It was that pesky First Amendment again. Damn founding fathers!

Maybe compromise is up to no good elsewhere?

Compromise is removing the 10 Commandments from the public forum even though many of our laws are based upon them.

Which laws would those be?

I'm pretty sure having other gods before Yahweh is legal, as are making idols, using God's name in vain, doing things on the Sabbath, dishonoring your parents, committing adultery, bearing false witness (unless you're under oath), and coveting your neighbor's wife and oxen and assorted sundries.

Admittedly, murder and theft are both illegal. So that's two commandments that actually have laws related to them. Of course, murder and theft are illegal everywhere, and prohibitions against them predate the ten commandments by quite a bit. They're just sensible laws.

It's conceivable that our letter-writer is not a legal scholar. Maybe we should just move on.

Compromise gave us aborting innocent life and the acceptance of mercy killing of elders or those who are terminally sick.

Okay, at this point it's pretty clear that Mr. Crazy-Letter-Writer-Guy doesn't actually know what the word "compromise" even means. I suspect he thinks it's a synonym for "anyone I don't like," which it is not. But at least it makes the letter more coherent if we do a little mental substitution.

We have compromised the sanctity of marriage and allow people of the same sex to be married, and who knows what in the near future.

God dammit! Now he's actually using the word correctly. Jerk.

I do like that "who knows what" part. Indeed, who knows? Will fish start marrying televisions? Will clowns be encouraged to have sex on the steps in front of City Hall? Who knows, but it's probably terrible!

Further compromise is occurring within the area of underage drinking, illegal use of drugs, prostitution and gambling.

Fuck it, I don't even know what compromise means anymore. Maybe it's just shorthand for "compromises of my strict authoritarian standards."

Is this stuff still supposed to be related to Jeebus somehow? Because he pretty famously enjoyed hanging out with prostitutes, and didn't really have a lot to say about drugs or gambling.

He was way cooler than the jackass behind this letter, that's for sure!

We now see our government and judges willing to compromise these core values and our constitution as they continue to make laws that are contrary to basic moral and ethical values.

Translation: "Not violating the constitutional separation between church and state is a violation of the Constitution!"

Yep, clearly not a legal scholar.

I could go on and on with many other areas where we are compromising and diluting our values and principles and negating our constitution.

... but I'm far too drunk to do so right now. I need a nap.

Many say simply the times are changing and we should change with them.

However, I challenge you with this. It is not time that changes but people and how they think and what they want changes.

Actually, time does change. It goes forward. People change too, which is sometimes called "growth." How is this a challenge?

This very enemy is causing the American people to become selfish, arrogant and prideful.

Wait, which enemy? Change, compromise, or people you don't like? Maybe the founding fathers? I'm so confused.

As for the sun, it will always rise in the east and set in the west. Likewise with so many of our values and principles and constitution are deep rooted, they should never be compromised.

So because the Earth rotates in a certain direction, nothing should ever change? Hell of a theory you've got there, buddy. Also, you really need to stop throwing the Constitution in with your own personal biases, because I'm pretty sure most of the founding fathers would think you're a clueless asshole.

Finally, the coup de grace!

Many of you who read this may not agree, but then, why should you?

Oh, I get it! It was all just a big joke. He's making fun of people who take this kind of nonsense seriously.

Well done, sir! You had me thinking you were just another whiny theocrat, demanding that everyone follow your personal values system, and using your utter lack of understanding of the Constitution to try to give yourself some credibility.

I'm pleased to see that you are, in fact, merely a joke.

In search of a credible search engine

The internet is obviously a wonderful source of information. Unfortunately, a lot of that information isn't actually true.

The misinformation isn't usually intentionally malicious. It's just the byproduct of every dumbass with a computer having the ability to put their own mistaken beliefs on the web. Some of the resulting misinformation is more widely-believed than the actual truth, and this leads to problems.

Google is really a very good search engine. I use it all the time, and generally the first few results you get from a Google search are decent enough. But not always.

Recently, I've been contemplating how much better searching would be if the results for certain kinds of searches were sorted not by popularity, but by credibility. Far too often have I encountered search results where the misinformation heavily outranked the truth.

Well, as it turns out there are at least two search engines out there who claim to promote credible information on searches related to health care (but nothing much else at this point). Since bad healthcare information dominates the internet, and since that misinformation can actually have pretty severe consequences for people who believe it, health information seems like a great place to start.

Today I'm going to examine these two new search engines and compare their results to Google on a number of health issues. Let's see how they work.

The following search engines will be used:

• Bing - this is Microsoft's recently-renamed search engine, that they stupidly choose to call a "decision engine." I don't know what that means either. Wikipedia (itself not exactly the most credible source) describes its "Bing Health" search services as follows:

  Bing Health (previously Live Search Health) is a health-related search service as part of Microsoft's Bing search engine. It is a search engine specifically for health-related information through a variety of trusted and credible sources, including Medstory, Mayo Clinic, National Institutes of Health's MedlinePlus, as well as from Wikipedia.

• hakia - I just discovered this one last night. It's still in beta, but does make a very concerted effort to provide credible information. As they describe it, hakia gets librarians to submit credible sources, and require a source to be peer-reviewed, lack commercial bias, have current information, and not be controlled by outside parties for it to be considered credible. At this point, their credible search element is limited to health and environmental information.
• Google - really needs no introduction.

I'll be using a few different health-related search terms to see how these three compare. They are:

• diabetes - basic, easy one to start with.
• vaccine ingredients - simple enough, just give me accurate information on what's in vaccines.
• swine flu - because big stories draw scammers.

I'll submit each of those italicized search terms to the three engines, and let's see what we end up with. I'm only going to deal with the top five results from each, because that's where the vast majority of people are going to end up.

Test #1 - diabetes

Google - The first five results (discarding ads, duplicates from the same domain, and news results) are pretty good. At the top is the American Diabetes Association, with WebMD, a journal of diabetes, and NIH information in the top five.

Unfortunately, this site ranks third, and it's little more than a marketing site for the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. Pretty blatant conflict of interest there.

Bing - Bing separates its results out into different categories (like "Diabetes Symptoms," "Diabetes Prevention," etc). I'm just going to use the top-level stuff that doesn't have a subheading, and again ignore the ads at the top.

Bing does okay here. The top results is from the Mayo Clinic, who clearly have partnered with Microsoft here. Second is the ADA. Third is Wikipedia's article on diabetes, which is not exactly what I'd consider a credible source (Wikipedia articles are a great example of popular ideas winning out over true ones). GSK's little propaganda site is up there too.

hakia - A search at the default hakia.com domain brings up a special diabetes page. All the information seems pretty good, with the ADA, Mayo Clinic, and some other fairly respectable sources of information available. Notably absent are GSK's site and Wikipedia, which is nice.

Clicking on the "credible" tab for results gives us several PubMed articles, as well as a couple of top results for the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides. Which is a decently reality-based page, but probably not what you're actually looking for if you just search for "diabetes."

Verdict! - They're all pretty decent, actually. hakia is maybe a tiny bit ahead for keeping out GSK and Wikipedia, but loses points for relatively useless "credible" results. Let's call this one a tie.

Test #2 - vaccine ingredients

This one is going to be interesting. There's a large antivaccination contingent on the internet, so getting accurate information about what's actually in vaccines is tricky.

Google - It's not pretty. The top two results are both antivacine sites, publishing lists of dubious quality to try to scare people away from vaccines. Lots of talk of thimerosol, which crazy people insist causes autism despite tons of evidence to the contrary.

The third result is the CDC, which is the only credible source in the top five. Then it's back to the antivaccine propaganda. Just below the CDC, we even get Rense.com. One look at that site should be enough to show just how credible their information is.

Bing - Holy crap. Google's results were already horrible, but Bing's are even worse. Rense has moved up to the top spot, with the even more batshit-insane Whale.to taking up third place. The entire top 10 is utter crap, except for the CDC at number 8. Horrible results.

hakia - Well, the "Web Results" are still incredibly bad. But hakia does put the "Credible Sites" right next to them.


So we have batshit insanity right next to very good stuff. It would be nice if the credible stuff actually showed up in the general "web results" too, but perhaps that's something that will come about at a later stage (note that hakia is still in beta). Additionally, hakia's credible results are poorly-ranked. They skew towards overly-specific when people are looking for general information. Again, this is something that might be worked out later.

Verdict! - They all suck, but hakia sucks slightly less than the others. Bing is actually even worse than Google, despite their claim to provide credible health information.

Test #3 - swine flu

Google - Not too bad. The CDC's excellent swine flu portal is in the top position, with the rest of the top five rounded out by Wikipedia, a mostly-reasonable but ad-heavy medical portal, the World Health Organization, and Medline. Wikipedia's presence is probably okay in this case, because of H1N1's newsworthiness.

Bing - Again we get the Mayo Clinic at the top, with Wikipedia following close after. Then some stuff from the Guardian which is pretty reasonable.

But right after that we get a really stupid blog, which has a lot of bad information (like telling you to disinfect your shoes, which is just dumb) and appears to be a veiled attempt at selling you an herbal supplement. It's a scam site part of a network of identical scam sites, plain and simple.

Overall, the Bing results for swine flu appear to be about 20% credible and 80% scams and bullshit.

hakia - Pretty good! The credible results are indeed very credible, though they once again suffer from not being particularly relevant. The normal results are also pretty credible, and there's nary a scam to be found. The normal results do skew a little newsy at times, but overall not too bad.

Verdict! - Google and hakia both win this round. They avoided nonsense and provided good information. hakia's "credible search" is still giving good, but often irrelevant results, but their normal search made up for it. Bing was fine for two links and then turned to crap.

Results

I had intended to do a couple more test searches, but this is getting lengthy and there's a pretty clear pattern emerging.

Basically, when it comes to health information your best options are either Google or hakia. Google has a lot of bad stuff mixed in, but the top few results are usually decent. hakia has a way to go before it's truly useful, but the credible results it delivers are certainly credible. They're just not necessarily very relevant. If it works out the kinks, maybe by the time it's out of beta it'll be something quite good.

Bing, on the other hand, sucks really hard. I'm not sure how a search engine that goes out of its way to provide credible health information managed to provide worse information than Google (which makes no such attempt), but it did. Avoid this one.

Also notable is that all our engines did pretty badly with the vaccine ingredient search. This was not the least bit surprising, and is actually the reason why I chose that term. Faced with the tons of stupid out there, hakia seemed to do the best. Dealing with these sorts of controversial topics may be the most difficult test of a search engine, so hakia's relatively good performance may signal good things on the way.

Of course, it's necessary with any search engine to use your own critical thinking skills and actually sort out what's true from what's not. Even the most credible and well-respected sites can contain errors, and no search engine is going to be able to make the final call for you.

Hopefully we can reach a point where a simple health-related search can bring back mostly-credible results instead of mostly-nonsense results. There's still a way to go, but it's good to see some people trying.

A great musician is dead

Let's take today to remember a truly great musician. A man of great honor, talent, and principle. A man whose death reminds us just how fleeting the best things in life can be.

I speak of course of the legendary D. Boon, singer and guitarist for the Minutemen. He died in an auto accident in 1985.

In memorial, here's an old, grainy video of the Minutemen performing "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" (lyrics here).



To the best of my knowledge, Jackson never actually did sing that song. His loss.

Swine Flu (probably) Hits Leominster Schools

There's an interesting article in the S&E today about high absentee rates in Leominster schools. This is most likely an outbreak of swine flu/H1N1, but it seems as if those quoted in the article are reluctant to admit it.

Let's look at the article.

A large number of students have been out sick at Fall Brook Elementary School over the past week, but there have been no confirmed cases of swine flu, according to Superintendent of Schools Nadine Binkley.

"There has been a lot of flu going around, but it's of the fairly light variety," Binkley said.

Binkley said 65 students at Fall Brook were out sick Wednesday. The school has between 20 and 25 absences per day during an average week throughout the year, Binkley said.

Fall Brook has a total of 664 students.

Okay, that's a good chunk of students out. It's about 10% of the total student population, and three times the normal level.

There being "no confirmed cases of swine flu" doesn't actually mean a whole lot, because of the way the word "confirmed" is defined. According to the CDC, here's what it takes to be a confirmed case:

A confirmed case of novel influenza A (H1N1) virus infection is defined as a person with an influenza-like illness with laboratory confirmed novel influenza A (H1N1) virus infection by one or more of the following tests:

1. real-time RT-PCR
2. viral culture

So yeah, to be considered a "confirmed case," you have to actually do lab work to confirm it. You can have swine flu without being a confirmed case, and most people at this stage will not be confirmed cases simply because these tests are no longer being done for most cases.

This was pointed out in the article, though they neglect to give you the background about what "confirmed" means:

Leominster Health Director Christopher Knuth said Wednesday that there have been no confirmed cases of swine flu at Fall Brook, but also noted that the state recently stopped testing for it.

"We wouldn't get notified anymore," Knuth said.

Bingo. There actually can't be any confirmed cases if that testing isn't done. Hell, there probably can't even be any "probable" cases, since those also require a lesser degree of testing.

So when you read "but there have been no confirmed cases of swine flu", it really tells you nothing at all. These cases are going to be considered "suspected," as will the vast majority of swine flu. It's just not practical to test everybody at this stage.

Binkley's statement about there being a lot of cases of the flu going around, but them being "of the fairly light variety" is also telling.

First of all, there's no reason for that "but." H1N1 at this stage doesn't appear to be much more severe than the seasonal flu. Having had the seasonal flu, I'd never refer to it as "light," but if you're expecting H1N1 to be a death sentence you might.

Secondly, if there's a lot of flu going around currently, it's almost certainly H1N1. Here's a chart of flu cases by week from the CDC:

A very good explanation of this chart (including its weaknesses) can be found here, but I'll sum it up for you.

The orange bars represent swine flu, yellow is non-subtyped influenza A, which may or may not be swine flu, and the other colors are not swine flu, but are mostly what we'd consider the seasonal flu.

Knowing that, you can pretty easily see the seasonal flu fading away and the swine flu taking off. The little spike at the end of flu season is probably an artifact of increased testing as swine flu began to appear, but we were near the end of flu season, and subsequent weeks show it falling off.

The important thing to take from this is that the seasonal flu is basically done for this season. The swine flu is likely responsible for the vast majority of current flu cases.

Certainly it's possible that there are other factors at work in Leominster's situation. Absenteeism increases at the end of the year, normal colds and allergies may be getting misidentified as the flu, etc. But if it is indeed the flu, it's most likely the swine flu.

So, it's a possible flu outbreak. What are they going to do about it?

"We're going to sit tight with it for right now," Binkley said. "There are a lot of factors we weigh before we would close a school."

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education advises schools to remain open as long as the absences have not affected teaching and learning, Binkley said.

"We don't have a high number of teachers out, and we feel that the classroom environment is still productive," Binkley said. "We don't think it's serious enough to close the school."

This is probably fine. There are indeed a lot of factors to consider before closing a school. A closure doesn't just affect the students, it affects the whole community. Sick kids means parents staying home to take care of them, which means those parents aren't at work, which means your plumber can't come fix that leak because he has to cover for his coworker whose kid is sick. The impact reaches a lot further than you might first imagine.

Since Leominster's last day before summer recess is tomorrow, it's probably more reasonable just to finish up the year than to close early and make a mess of things.

The article gives several good pieces of advice about what to do if you have the flu, most of which you've heard before. Most importantly, if you're sick, and especially if you have a fever, stay home.

Let me repeat that: stay home. That doesn't mean going to the grocery story instead of work or school. It doesn't mean hanging out with friends. It means sitting around in your house, feeling crappy. (If you want to kill time, I suggest playing this flash game about sneezing on people. It's oddly satisfying.)

When school gets out on Friday, any student who does have swine flu will suddenly have a lot more opportunities to infect others in the community. Even on vacation, staying home and not becoming a disease vector to those around you is important.

Finally, if you're healthy, don't worry. Yes, there is flu in the community. There's not much you can do about it outside of normal disease control measures (hand washing, careful with sneezing, etc). If you get it you'll probably feel pretty lousy, but unless you have underlying medical problems you're unlikely to die from it.

It's nothing to panic about, and it sounds like keeping the school open is a perfectly reasonable decision. But let's call a spade a spade. Yes, this is probably swine flu, and there's no reason to pretend otherwise. Now let's deal with it.

Fitchburg's Bond Rating Improves

This is actually pretty important news, but holy crap is it boring.

The Standard & Poor's bond rating agency increased Fitchburg's bond rating, Mayor Lisa Wong's office announced Tuesday.

Wong credited conservative budget practices, including increasing the stabilization fund and negotiating lower health care costs, with the improvement.

The bond rating was BBB minus with a negative outlook.

S & P officials upgraded the bond rating to BBB plus with a stable outlook, Wong's office announced.

Yay! Good news!

This is also news that is pretty much impossible to say anything funny or interesting about, so you're just going to have to make do with that picture of Timothy Dalton. We're nowhere near Connery level yet, but at least things are moving in the right direction.

Conservatives embrace political correctness, stupidity

One of the more profoundly annoying things to come up in recent weeks has been the whole manufactroversy about David Letterman (a comedian) making a joke. If you're not familiar with it, consider yourself lucky.

If you're one of those people and want to maintain your blissful ignorance, please stop reading now.

See, I would have happily avoided writing about this if it weren't for yet another neuron-apoptosing editorial by (unbylined, but presumably) Jeff McMenemy, wittily titled Liberal media slow to scold Letterman for Palin comments.

Okay, let's get this over with...

If you don't believe a double standard exists in much of the mainstream media when it comes to how inappropriate or tasteless comments are treated, just consider the case of late-night talk show host David Letterman.

Letterman, before referring to what he described as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "slutty flight-attendant look," made a truly tasteless and classless joke early last week about the governor's 14-year-old daughter, saying she had been "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez during a trip to watch a New York Yankees game.

Wow, lies right off the bat. That didn't take long.

Let's look at the actual joke, delivered as part of a top-10 list about Sarah Palin's trip to New York:

One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

I don't know about you, but when I first heard about that I assumed it was about Bristol Palin, who is Sarah Palin's famously knocked-up daughter. That is, in fact, who the joke was about, according to Letterman.

Clearly, it's also about a baseball player that I know little about, but I guess he's sort of sleazy? Arguably, the joke is more at his expense than Palin's. I wonder why nobody is coming to his defense.

But since Palin was at the game with her 14-year old daughter Willow (a fact that wasn't exactly common knowledge), all the deeply politically correct conservatives decided that Letterman was actually making a joke about statutory rape. Even though he wasn't. But when has the truth ever stood in the way of manufactured outrage?

Anyway, Letterman apologized and made clear his intentions, but Bible Spice was more interested in using her 14-year-old daughter as a political tool (which is totally not unethical) than accepting that it was a joke that went a little wrong and moving on.

So there's the background. It pretty much invalidates McMenemy's entire rant, but let's just check out what he has to say anyway. I'm sure it's enlightening.

Palin called the liberal-leaning Letterman "pathetic," and her husband quite rightly said that "any jokes about raping my 14-year-old are despicable."

Well yeah, that would be despicable. Not really relevant though, since Letterman didn't make any such joke.

McMenemy:

And if you think such a joke is harmless, please take a moment to consider how you would react if someone made a joke about "knocking up" your teenage daughter.

I suppose that would depend. If it was about my very knocked-up 18 year old daughter, I don't think I'd have a whole lot to complain about. But I'm not desperate to keep my name in the news for a 2012 presidential run, so maybe that would change things.

But while other less liberal talk-show hosts, like Don Imus for example, have been summarily fired from their job and attacked by the liberal media when they made tasteless comments, many were slow to respond correctly to Letterman's tasteless joke and basic lack of decency.

Here, McMenemy is whining about not enough people whining. About a joke on a late-night comedy show. Which didn't mean what he has decided it means.

I wonder how quickly McMenemy condemned Bill O'Reilly when he said this:

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

... and then later dismissed it as a "satirical riff."

I bet Pope McMenemy, scourge of tasteless jokes, was right on top of that!

It hurts to go on...

But as slow as much of the mainstream media was to respond to the incident, Letterman was even slower, waiting a full week before he apologized for a "bad joke" that couldn't be defended.

But when he apologized on Monday night, Letterman still insisted he was making the joke about Palin's 18-year-old daughter.

Well, yeah. Of course he was. That's why people laughed (jokes about raping 14 year olds don't get a lot of laughs). That's how it was intended, and that's how it was taken by virtually everyone who heard it. The manufactroversy came later.

Also, it's worth noting that the apology a week after the joke was the second apology. The first came pretty quickly, but I guess Palin wasn't ready to stop exploiting her daughter for political points yet.

We find that claim to be unbelievable, but even if it is true, does that really make things any better?

"Unbelievable" is used in a nonstandard way in this sentence. It doesn't mean something that can't be believed, it means something that McMenemy chooses not to believe. Because he's a dipshit.

Anyway, yes it makes it better! Bristol Palin was knocked up! That's widely-known, and is the reason she goes on tv advocating... ummm... abstinence. Because it worked so well for her!

I'm also pretty sure that 18 is the age of adulthood (and consent, many places) in this country. That makes a huge difference. It's not a joke about a girl having sex, it's a joke about a woman getting knocked up. Even though she actually became pregnant before she was 18. Hmm... Levi has some 'splaining to do!

Enough of the intentionally-misrepresented comedy bits though, let's get to intentionally-misrepresented media response.

The big issue here is not whether Letterman should be fired -- that's up to his advertisers and his viewers -- but why so many in the media think it's OK to cross all lines of decency and verbally attack 14-year-old girls, as long as they're the daughters of Republicans.

Oh, there was still some intentionally-misrepresented comedy bit in there. Oh well.

Regardless, nobody in the media thinks that! Even this joke, which wasn't about a 14 year old, has gotten all kinds of media attention. Far, far more than it should have.

We're glad that Letterman has finally apologized, but we find it troubling that the same liberal pundits who have gleefully attacked conservatives when they make tasteless comments, remained silent after Letterman's comments.

Damn right! Those faggy liberal pundits should recognize the difference between a late-night comedian making a joke that went wrong, and prominent conservative pundits using eliminationist rhetoric that they later dismiss as "satire."

See, when Ann Coulter includes a line like like "I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" in a speech to CPAC, and then follows it up with "You know, ok. I made a few jokes — and they killed 3000 Americans. Fair trade." that's an hilarious joke! Ha ha ha!

But when David Letterman (an actual comedian) makes a joke that right-wingers interpret incorrectly, that's a terrible affront to civility. People should be outraged!

Stupid liberals, don't they know that the only funny jokes are ones that denigrate Muslims or feature some sort of violent rhetoric? Jokes about celebrities having sex are just wrong!

Of course, no McMenemy piece is complete without an appeal to "civility":

And we hope that all political discourse, whether it's a serious political debate or just late-night jokes, will remain civil above all else.

Yay, civility!

Here are McMenemy's allies in the fight for civility. Enjoy.



Now that's funny!

Yet More Streetlight Nonsense

Ha.

Just yesterday I was complaining about the lack of stupid scaremongering articles in the S&E of late. I even said I wanted "something about scary loud noises caused by kids exploding soda bottles, or about unlit streetlamps coming to life and killing everyone."

Obviously, Jeff McMenemy is a devoted reader, because today he delivers another steaming pile of stupid about streetlights. To wit: Editorial: No fiscally bright side to turning off streetlights.

Having had several months to refine his arguments down into a light paste, let's see if he does any better with the scary "Unlit streetlights will doom us all!" rhetoric.

It doesn't start off very well:

Leominster Mayor Dean J. Mazzarella made it clear before he recently released his fiscal 2010 budget that he would not cut core city services, and we applauded the mayor for producing a budget that didn't call for any layoffs in the middle of a recession, although it did include a 2.5 percent tax hike.

That's why we were disappointed to learn that his budget does call for turning off about 200 of the city's 3,000 streetlights, in a move that would save about $20,000, according to Department of Public Works Director Patrick LaPointe, who talked about the plan during a budget hearing Monday.

Hilariously, McMenemy has just falsified his own title. Saving twenty grand is definitely a "fiscally bright side to turning off streetlights."

Following this poor start, the editorial includes quotes from Leominster city officials talking about how they're going to be careful about which lights are included in the less than 7% of the city's streetlights that they're considering shutting off. Which is reasonable, but I'm more interested in the arguments against turning them off at all.

Like this:

Turning off streetlights is a bad idea for many reasons. First, it makes the city less safe, both from a crime standpoint and just for kids playing at night or residents walking, jogging or bicycling.

Well, that's an interesting argument by assertion. Too bad it's not supported by facts. The evidence itself is inconclusive at best, which may be why the FBI doesn't list lighting under its review of variables affecting crime.

Two can play this game! I assert that leaving 93% of Leominster's streetlights on constitutes an attractive nuisance for invasion by space aliens. If they were to turn off all the streetlights, then the alien invaders would have more difficulty finding the town from their hiding place in the troposphere.

In other words, turn off all the streetlights or get ready for a lot of anal probes.

You've been warned!

When lights are turned off near homes, the value of the homes can also drop.

Can they?

I don't actually know, but probably. Lots of things can happen. That doesn't mean they do, and some quick searching didn't lead me to any evidence that turning off street lights makes home values drop. Admittedly, such evidence would be almost impossible to collect. Home values are affected by a lot of things, and I'm betting that an unlit street light is pretty unimportant in the bigger picture. But who knows?

It's probably not going out too far on a limb to assume that McMenemy didn't even bother with this sort of quick search, so we have another argument by assertion. There are few people whose fact-free assertions you should trust less than McMenemy's, so I guess this one fails too.

Perhaps another?

And even in great neighborhoods, fewer streetlights can encourage more property crimes, even if it's just car break-ins.

Okay, yeah, every one of these claims is an argument by assertion.

This one is a throwback to the first crappy argument. Less streetlights equals more crime. This assertion is still not supported by the evidence, so let's move on.

And turning off streetlights sends the clear message to residents and businesses that the city is in trouble, which Leominster is not.

No it doesn't. Most people wouldn't even notice this small number of streetlights being off. Futhermore, only a lunatic jumps from "the city shut off a few street lights to save money" to "OMG Leominster is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!"

If streetlights and crime are as tightly connected as McMenemy seems to believe, then we should be able to eliminate crime just by adding ridiculous numbers of streetlights so that everything is lit up. After all, it's not like crimes ever occur during the day.

Oh, wait. The FBI disagrees.

# Offenses for which time of occurrence was known showed that 57.4 percent of burglaries took place during the day and 42.6 percent at night.

# Offenses for which time of occurrence was known showed that more residential burglaries (63.6 percent) occurred during the daytime while 56.4 percent of nonresidential burglaries occurred during nighttime hours.

Dang. I guess we'd better start keeping street lights on all day.

Beware of Scary Flowers!

It's been awhile since we had a good fearmongering article in the Sentinel. You know, something about scary loud noises caused by kids exploding soda bottles, or about unlit streetlamps coming to life and killing everyone. Those are great articles, and I've been missing them.

Luckily, today we get this article, ripped from the pages of the Lowell Sun (which has the same parent company and is just as terrible a newspaper as the S&E).

It's about the horrors of Morning Glory abuse, and how "teens" are looking to get high on them. Oh no!

Let's see what our intrepid mountain-of-a-molehill reporter has to say:

Groups of young teenagers would ride their bikes to the garden store to buy packets of morning glory seeds.

Their specific interest in the small black seeds wasn't for gardening, but rather a hallucinogenic high similar to taking LSD.

Teenagers eating legal plant seeds so they can convince themselves they're high? This is trouble!

This is also a topic that pops up every couple of years, when some heroic reporter realizes that yes, some people stupidly try to get high off morning glory seeds. Said reporter then tries to draw public attention to this huge problem and writes a dumb newspaper piece about it.

The chemical is Lysergic Acid Amide (LSA), the same chemical used to make Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, commonly known as LSD.

LSA is derived from ergot, a type of fungus that grows on grains, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Well, if the National Institute on Drug Abuse talks about it, then this must mean it's a dangerous drug, right?

I would have just checked Wikipedia myself, but that's why I'm not a newspaper reporter. Of course, I'd have found out that each seed contains about 10 µg of ergine/LSA, which is sort of interesting.

Anyway, it's well-known that Morning Glory seeds are a source of LSA, and that stupid kids try to use this property to get high (whether they are successful or not is a different story). So why should we, as a society that freaks out about drugs, care? What's the danger?

While LSD has been widely studied and documented, information about LSA isn't listed on the National Institute on Drug Abuse or U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Web sites.

However, because LSA mimics the hallucinogenic effects of LSD, doctors say it could be dangerous.

Know what else "could" be dangerous? Jumping to idiotic conclusions that aren't supported by facts.

LSA is not LSD, just like Ethylene glycol (antifreeze, basically) is not Polyethylene glycol (used in a bunch of stuff, including toothpaste and eyedrops). Little differences matter quite a bit when you're dealing with chemicals.

Furthermore, there are plenty of things that produce hallucinogenic effects, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're dangerous. Unless you think hallucinations themselves are dangerous, which I suppose they are in some situations. Luckily, most of those situations are not ones in which a Morning Glory junkie is going to find himself in.

So, "doctors," care to elaborate?

"LSD is a potent hallucinogenic; not only is there an acute effect, but people get all sorts of flashbacks and psychological damage," said Dr. Wayne Pasanen, vice president of Medical Affairs at Lowell General Hospital and medical director for Habit Management in Lowell.

So far, Pasanen has not seen any cases involving LSA, but Mike Miles, a Dracut School Committee member and Lowell police patrolman, has counseled two teens who have used morning glory seeds to get high.

Okay, so LSD is potentially bad news, because of the highly-scientific dangers of "all sorts of flashbacks" and other vague stuff. I can't argue with those facts!

LSA, which is what we're actually talking about, apparently isn't a huge deal. Dr. Pasanen hasn't seen any cases involving it, though this School Committee cop guy claims that he's known two (2) dumbasses who used it "to get high."

How'd that go?

Miles, a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in child and family therapy and drug and alcohol counseling, said both teens said they became sick to their stomach.

Oh, so those two didn't actually get high. They got sick. From eating a bunch of seeds. It's a drug epidemic!

Maybe someone else can provide better scares?

Other local law enforcement officials in communities surrounding Dracut say they haven't seen any incidents involving morning glory seeds, but are aware that it can be used as a drug.

"It's definitely on our radar," said Chelmsford Deputy Police Chief Scott Ubele.

So, even though they've never seen a case, and even though there's nothing illegal about Morning Glory seeds, the Chelmsford police are aware that some people might use them to try to get high. Hey, so am I! So is everyone reading this blog post. So what?

Maybe another cop will have more information?

In Billerica, Sgt. Roy Frost hasn't seen any cases, but is familiar with the ways morning glory seeds can be manipulated.

"These kids can smoke it (morning glory seeds), they can chew it, or cook with it just like traditional marijuana," Frost said. "With a lot of these drugs, kids unfortunately think it's OK because it hasn't been criminalized."

Again, no cases. Why was this article printed, exactly?

Still, at least Frost knows that this drug, which is nothing like marijuana, is "just like traditional marijuana." He also thinks you can smoke it and cook with it. Since LSA breaks down at high temperatures, either of these techniques will just leave you with seeds that are worthless both for getting high and for growing flowers.

In other words, Frost is totally talking out of his ass. Just like everyone else in this pathetic article.

One more cop!

However, the legality of LSA in morning glory seeds remains murky, said Richardson.

The use of morning glory seeds as an illicit drug is not listed under state law, only under federal law, [Dracut Police Chief Kevin] Richardson said. Local officers do not have the authority to enforce federal statutes, Richardson said.

Allow me to clear up the legality of Morning Glory seeds for this police chief.

They're legal.

There, that wasn't so hard. LSA is indeed a Schedule III controlled substance, but LSA is not the same thing as Morning Glory seeds. The seeds aren't rendered illegal just because eating several hundred of them might get you high. Opium is made from poppies, but that doesn't make poppy-seed bagels illegal.

Okay, enough of this fact-free article full of totally clueless cops. If this is the best they can do to drum up scary outrage about seeds, that's pretty sad. Hell, they didn't even mention that some of the seeds might have been treated with antifungals, which could make you feel lousy if you eat them! Lame.

As for the actual subject of using Morning Glory seeds to get high, it's idiotic. If some dumbass tries it they're not going to die, they pretty much can't overdose, they most likely won't even get high, and they stand a decent chance of ending up with some pretty unpleasant diarrhea.

It's also not the kind of thing anyone's going to do very often, because it's a giant pain for very little reward. Plus, anyone with half a brain is going to make fun of them for doing it in the first place, because it's incredibly lame.

In the end, this is a non-story about something that doesn't seem to be happening very often (two kids with tummy aches does not really support a whole article). It's full of logical fallacies and outright falsehoods, and it lacks any firm grounding in the real world. It also interviewed way too many cops, who are apparently all idiots.

In other words, it's almost a perfect Sentinel Lowell Sun article.

Way to go, MediaNews Group! I eagerly await your expose on the danger of smoking banana peels.