Tag: death

spinach chain letter stupidity kills

I got a chain letter which I will not reproduce here about how the spinach is just fine and it’s a big conspiracy and no one is really getting sick from the spinach and it’s the evil spinach-hating anti-raw-food forces spreading the lies about the virtuous spinach because “they” don’t want you to eat nice raw healthy spinach and live forever.

It was sent from a local raw food place which may well make very nice food themselves but will never get a goddamn dime from me after seeing this. Thanks for the dangerous tinfoil hat bullshit, goodmoodcafe.com

Please don’t forward crap like this. It’s not “just another side to the story.” It’s deadly paranoid garbage.

It’s bad enough that this country is trashing its public health infrastructure and letting Big Agriculture “regulate” itself. Let’s not make things worse. Hundreds of underpaid and underappreciated scientists and public health experts are working 24 hours a day to trace the source of this and every other food-borne disease outbreak and save lives. Calling them liars is nasty and irresponsible.

There is no anti-spinach conspiracy. If you want safer food, pay attention to things like this and why they happen. Super E. Coli bacteria exist because of brain-dead factory farming, and they get into the food because big food corporations wrote the laws that say they can wipe their asses on your food if they feel like it.

There’s your conspiracy and it’s right out in the open.

Sociopathic Soccer Moms Kill 3

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1237890.php

1. Drunk driving mom in her big fast Lexus passes on the right at 90, hits guardrail, kills her 6 year old son by hitting it so hard that the seatbelt is ripped out of the car and he’s ejected.

2. Hapless hamburglars running from botched auto theft get run over on freeway. Woman calls cops from a bar some time later to say that there was clothing and human remains stuck to the bottom of her minivan and she “may have been involved in an accident” earlier.

I’m not including the other news story about the woman whose tire blew up and her 12 year old kid was ejected due to no seat belt, even though three other occupants of that car had no seatbelt either, because for all I know she could have been yelling at them to buckle up when it happened.

The banality of evil: It’s an R.N. now

Email from HR: Never, ever good news. In this case the exciting update that our “deny your health care” company is being upgraded.

Dear VixenCo Health Plan Participant:

Effective September 1, 2006, Nationwide Better Health (“NBH”) will replace SHPS Healthcare Services as the disease management and medical management vendor for the VixenCo Health Plan.

NBH will be an important part of your health coverage. Youl call NBH to get your hospital stay or surgical procedure pre-certified. NBH will also provide access to other valuable services.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll get to know NBH. Watch your mailbox at home and your work e-mail for more information coming soon.

This message is being sent to you by the VixenCo Employee Benefits Department from an e-mail address that does not accept return messages. If you have any questions, please call the Benefits Hotline at (888) 555-1212 or send an e-mail to employee.benefits@VixenCo.com

I especially like “Over the next few weeks, you’ll get to know NBH.”

I have a special deep burning anger in my heart for Utilization Review “nurses.” They’re the Good Germans of the healthcare world, reducing cost by using their medical expertise to choose the cheapest option every time, deny anything they can, and talk people out of seeking care. Nowadays they don’t just keep you from getting surgery or tests, they also send out colorful brochures urging you to call them when you feel unwell so they can keep you from going to the doctor.

From New Scientist Technology, your ACME Inc. update

Human cannonballs

The old circus trick of firing a person from a cannon is being considered by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a way to get special forces, police officers and fire fighters onto the roofs of tall buildings in a hurry.

A ramp with side rails would be placed on the ground near the target building at an angle of about 80°. A (very brave) person would then sit in a chair, like a pilot’s ejection seat, attached to the ramp.

Compressed air from a cylinder underneath would be rapidly released to shoot the chair up the ramp’s guide rails. At the top the chair would come to an instant halt, leaving the person to fly up and over the edge of the roof, to hopefully land safely on top of the building.

Of course, the trick is to get the trajectory just right. But the DARPA patent suggests a computer could automatically devise the correct angle and speed of ascent. It also claims that a 4-metre-tall launcher could put a man on the top of a 5 storey building in less than 2 seconds. I think I’ll take the stairs.

Read the full patent here.

Source: http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9170-invention-human-cannonballs.html

News articles we didn’t really need to finish

VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — A new study shows that a release of liquefied natural gas from one of four proposed terminals off the Southern California coast could spread a fireball over several miles, but pose no threat on land because the facility would be more than a dozen miles offshore…

TOTALLY SAFE SIX MILE WIDE CLOUD OF FIERY DEATH HERE, FOLKS.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/04/18/state/n012001D47.DTL