- It was bad enough when we learned the government was withholding information from us about secret CIA programs and warrantless wiretapping. But this cover-up about how distracted driving can kill you … this is our generation’s Watergate. (Seriously, it’s pretty bad.) [New York Times]
- Guess what happens when you Taser a guy who’s been huffing gasoline? He bursts into flames. [BBC News]
- Peace in our time! Governor Schwarzenegger has reached a deal with the recalcitrant California state legislature to enact $15 billion in spending cuts and balance the budget. [Reuters]
- People are feeling slightly more sanguine about the state of their healthcare this month, so no need to do all that pesky overhaulin’. [AP]
- Southwest Airlines, which has a reputation for savvy fuel-price hedging, ended up on the wrong side of the market for most of 2009 and as a result their Q2 profits look pretty bad. [Wall Street Journal]
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the nation’s largest health insurance lobby are releasing separate ad campaigns to show they support a health care overhaul, just not one that has a prayer of making it through Congress or that actually overhauls anything. [Wall Street Journal]
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{ 23 comments }
Norm Mineta was originally a Clinton appointee so using Wingnut Lawjik it’s all Clinton’s fault for covering up the study that shows: talking and driving = traffic stupid/death. Having been nearly in several accidents because of jackasses on cellphones, that study is really a no shitter. It’s no surprise to me as most people can’t walk and chew gum at the same time so why do folks expect them to drive and talk at the same time?
Good thing Science And Industry never came through with my goddamn jetpack — hundreds would plummet from the sky every time Sarah Palin twatted.
Comedy gold here: “Those stakeholders, Dr. Runge said, were the House Appropriations Committee and groups that might influence it, notably voters who multitask while driving and, to a much smaller degree, the cellphone industry.”
to a much smaller degree, the cellphone industry? Riiiight.
[re=366703]Come here a minute[/re]:
I think it would have been a great idea. That and the flying car. Imagine. Most of the idiots wiped out in a matter of months. Sigh. What a wonderful world that would be…
Besides, considering the fattiness of the average US American, more like hover pack and hover car.
When I’m on a motorcycle the most fritening sight on earth is a fat diabetic in a huge SUV busily texting away. This is someone who neither sees me nor even cares that I exist. Terrifying.
So if I visit California in the near future, I should expect to be hassled by thousands of street urchins whose schools have been budgeted out of existence?
Don’t tase me, BroOOOOOOM!
On the cellphone research it seems that was the way of the previous administration, climate change, cellphone use and who knows what else. Sweep it under the rug. Corporations 1 public 0. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
We don’t need no pesky health-care overhaulin’.
We don’t need no pesky pandemic flu preparations.
We don’t need no silly “volcano monitoring.”
And, Sarah Palin, you’re tough up there in Alaska, so I know you wouldn’t have accepted any kind of flood monitoring, right? It was only a small town or two, probably meth labs anyway.
Sorry, been up all night reading science-y stuff which tends to, like, you know, sometimes have to deal with reality (which, whisper is biased).
Hell, just walking down the street texting can kill you. Some twit was so intent on texting she failed to notice open main hole in front of her and fell in up to her calves in fecal matter. Of course, she and her parents are suing the city….
Arnie’s working hard on the Cali budget to distract folks from speculating that it was him with that NYC call girl.
[re=366704]ALIVE![/re]: That took me a bit to get to / understand.
I liked the juxtaposition of two popular articles published two days apart: “# Driven to Distraction: U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving” and “# Driven to Distraction: Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks”
So if we stop letting people use cell phones, I can drive drunk?
Pansie-ass pussy americans and their hysteria over auto accidents! This hand-wringing over the “carnage on the highways” is just typical, standard scape-goating. You make the automobile your most common method of transportation, there is going to be an inevitable death rate related to it. Here is the cool part: “motorists talking on a phone are four times as likely to crash as other drivers, and are as likely to cause an accident as someone with a .08 blood alcohol content.” Jesus fuck, I never realized that the likelihood of an accident at .08 is only four times greater than stone cold sober! Thats ridiculous, insane, to criminalize that paltry level of risk. I mean, really, its saying “taking a 1 in 500,000 risk is perfectly acceptable, but taking a 1 in 125,000 risk is criminal.” Its like saying “buying a lottery ticket is a stupid investment strategy, but buying 4 lottery tickets is a prudent investment.”
Distracted, tired, drunk, masturbating, angry, inbred, stupid, inept, old, getting a blowjob, all these things increase the risk, what, are we gonna criminalize road head, whats the fucking difference?
People don’t understand statistics, and they insist on finding individualized causes and place individualized blame on inevitable occurrences inherent in the system as it exists.
[re=366705]ManchuCandidate[/re]:
Until one of those imbeciles comes crashing through your roof.
[re=366747]Prommie[/re]:
Inbred, stupid, inept, and old are not decisions.
[re=366757]Servo[/re]: Won’t somebody think of the children! I point my finger of blame, you made a decision!
[re=366757]Servo[/re]: When you get run over by the inept, stupid, old, or even a distracted moralizing scold, you are just as dead.
[re=366728]Uncle Glenny[/re]: You get to pick one, not both.
[re=366725]Uncle Glenny[/re]: Science is elitist boogity-boo, plus it’s hard — all that “watts = volts x amps” nonsense. Whatever happens next is what Jeebus wants to have happen. He said it, I believe it, that settles it. Now, where’d I leave my Lipitor? Get me another Coke to wash down these Ho-Ho’s, will ya?
The real problem with cell phone-related automobile deaths is they are messing up the 40-year study on whether cell phones cause brain cancer, by dying early. Now we’ll never know if our most talkative & texty are more likely to develop Ted Kennedy Syndrome.
Ye gods. How high do you have to be to run toward armed police officers carrying a can of gasoline and a lighter?
[re=366794]hobospacejunkie[/re]:
For safety, I’ve always terminated RF signals of considerably less power levels. If my memory is correct, a Penn State lab used RF signals to simultaneously remove and ignite the hydrogen from saline. Most of our mass is comprised of saline, right? Oops.
[re=366812]Servo[/re]: My tin-foil-hat protects me from cell phone cancer, cell phone car crashes, police tasing combustion, and falling oil prices. It’s worked so far!
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