Category: General

My two week cold was on the way out when Deanna infected me with a new, more virulent strain! Lucky me I cancelled all my weekend plans and stayed home filling various parts of the house with mucous.

In other news, I watched an episode or two of The Simpsons the other day, and it is surreal to think that they are still making episodes. The Simpsons started the year after I got out of high school. Kids who graduated last year have had the Simpsons on TV their entire life. We’re used to cartoon characters not aging, but Bart has been 10 years old for twenty years now – meaning if he were a live action actor he’d be 30. In season one and two there was no world wide web, no mobile phones (except car phones) and certainly no youtube. Considering the TV environment of that time consisted of Cheers, Cosby Show, Home Improvement, Golden Girls and Wings, many of the references from the first 10 years are lost on modern viewers. Not to mention the fact that it seems to me that TV itself is going out of style, what with torrents and whatnots.

Now Simpsons is in HD and they’ve revamped their opening titles.

This whole thing makes me feel weird inside.

The reason I was asking about good names for breakfast restaurants a while back is because Amir, the guy who owns/runs Canteen Mitra and Falafully Good is starting up a breakfast joint on Main street. You guys really came through for me and him and here’s a follow-up:

Hi Toren,

I was thinking to use those names on the breakfast menu. Since opening the kitchen is very costly I thought I should have dinner too. And maybe a standup comedy or a live band on weekends. Make the story short, I was really impressed by those names and I am hoping if is not too much can you think of more name for the new idea.

Thanks

Amir

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work

Here’s an amazing photo from NASA of the International Space Station passing between us (Lick Observatory, specifically) and the moon.

[link]

Bold added by me.

The UK-based Sunday Times has a potential bombshell on their site; they claim Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who started the whole “vaccines cause autism” garbage, faked his data to make that claim.

About 10 years ago, Wakefield published a study dealing with children who were autistic, developing symptoms shortly after getting their shots, and linked this with irritated intestinal tracts. This study came under a lot of fire, and eventually most of the authors retracted the conclusion that autism was associated with “environmental factors”, that is, vaccinations. By then, though, it was too late, and the modern antivaccination movement was born.

The Sunday Times investigated Wakefield’s original research, and alleges that the symptoms Wakefield reports in his research do not match hospital records of the 12 children studied at the time. In only one case were there symptoms that arose after the injection; in many of the other cases symptoms started before the children had been vaccinated (in fact, there have been allegations for some time that neurological issues occurred in the children before they had actually been vaccinated, casting doubt on Wakefield’s work). Also, hospital pathologists reported that the bowels of many of the children were normal, but Wakefield reported them as having inflammatory disease in his journal paper.

If these allegations are true, then it means that Wakefield out-and-out lied in his original work. He has denied this, according to the Sunday Times, but won’t make further comments.

This may cause a firestorm in the antivax community, but there are two things I will guarantee: the first is that in the end antivaxxers will stick to their beliefs that vaccines cause health problems like autism, because this is not and never has been, for them, about the facts and evidence. It’s a belief system, and like most other belief systems, it is impenetrable to evidence. If you have any doubts, I suggest you read the comments to the post I made the other day about measles being on the rise in the UK. One commenter on that post is saying all manners of outrageous things, and ignores the evidence that I (and a pediatrician) have left in the comments to him.

Second, and somewhat related, this hardly matters. Many, many independent tests have shown that vaccines are unrelated to the onset of autism. There is vast evidence that vaccines are very safe, and what small risk they pose is massively outweighed by the good they do. Whether Wakefield faked his results or not, he’s still wrong.

I guess you may be wondering how the rock show went on Saturday. Here’s a summary from a fan:

I really loved the show at the bourbon tonight. The opening bands were good, but you guys were on fire. Toren asked the crowd who had made something in the slow cooker and I shouted out chili. I thought you might like the recipe. This is good for about 4-6 servings of chili.

2 cups of dried black beans (soaked overnight)

1 can of red kidney beans

1 lb. stew beef, cut into 1cm x 1cm pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 diced onion

1 diced green pepper

2 diced red chile peppers

1 can tomato paste

1 cup of beef stock or 3 cubes of beef bouillon in 1 cup of water.

3 tsp. ground cumin

2 tsp. chili powder

1 clove diced garlic

1/2 tsp. salt and pepper

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack or Mozzarella cheese

brown the following before placing in the crockpot use the oil to slick the panbeef, green pepper, onionsplace all except cheeese in the crockpot and leave for 8 hours on low or 5 hours on high.

stir at the end and let cool for 30 minutes sprinkle shredded cheese on bowl of chili.

Best Regards,

Mike Leeson

Fan

Waaaaaaaaaaaay in the background