Author Archive | Matt Staggs

Is Someone Fudging Texting While Driving Death Statistics?

By on May 13, 2013 in News 0

Texting_while_at_the_wheel_(4351110509)Most of us can probably agree that texting while driving is a dangerous practice, but is it as deadly as we’re being told? Karl Henkel has been looking at the numbers, and what he’s found may surprise you:

The Numbers Game:

A few weeks back I wrote a blog post comparing two data points from two federal agencies: The number of deaths resulting from text messaging while driving and the number of deaths resulting from syphilis.

The conclusion was that more die from syphilis than from texting and driving.

But a new study claims that 3,000 teenagers die annually as a result of texting and driving. Remember, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said in 2011 there were 39 texting and driving “incidents.”

For those scoring at home, the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York says there were 77 times more deaths as a result of TWD than fatal TWD incidents reported by NHTSA.

… Read the rest

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People Are Pissed at Sylvia Browne. Again.

By on May 13, 2013 in News 0

Despite an abrasive personality and abominable track record for predicting pretty much anything, human lamprey and supposed psychic Sylvia Browne has successfully supped upon the misery of the desperate for decades now. Inexplicable as it may seem, there are those who continue to respond angrily every time another one of her psychic messages fails to deliver. The most recent episode of public outrage has occurred in the aftermath of the Cleveland kidnapping…

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Sheriff’s Deputies Seize Eye-Witness Video After Beating Man to Death

By on May 10, 2013 in News 0
Picture: Shepard Fairey (C)

Picture: Shepard Fairey (C)

Surveillance for thee, but not for me, says the Kern County Sheriff’s Office.

The Bakersfield Californian:

Blood stains are still visible on the sidewalk at the corner of Flower Street and Palm Drive, where a Bakersfield man struggled with as many as nine officers and later died this week.

David Sal Silva, 33 and the father of four young children, died early Wednesday morning after deputies say he fought with them and CHP officers who’d responded to a report of a possibly intoxicated man outside Kern Medical Center.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office says Silva resisted, a canine was deployed, more law enforcement arrived, batons were used and the man later had trouble breathing. He was taken to KMC, where he died. An autopsy was slated for Thursday, but no results have been released.

Some witnesses apparently took cellphone video of the incident but deputies moved quickly to seize the phones.

… Read the rest

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IRS Admits It Targeted Tea Party and Patriot Groups for Extra Scrutiny

By on May 10, 2013 in News 0

Tea-Party-MovementPatriots and Tea Party conservatives: Your suspicions about the IRS were correct.

Washington Post:

The Internal Revenue Service on Friday acknowledged that it flagged political groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, an admission that is fueling long-held suspicions among conservatives that the agency has been singling them out for unfair treatment.

The IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, Lois Lerner, said the actions, although not motivated by partisan concerns, were wrong, and she apologized twice on Friday.

She said that between 2010 and 2012, about 75 of these groups were selected for extra screening as part of a broader review of political advocacy organizations that were seeking tax-exempt status. Front-line IRS employees working in the tax-exempt unit in Cincinnati selected groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, she said, as a shorthand because of the proliferation of these groups in recent years.

… Read the rest

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Paramedic Who Responded to Fertilizer Plant Explosion Charged with Possession of Pipe Bomb Components

By on May 10, 2013 in News 0

BJ6lgt_CAAI2QuzVolunteer EMT Bryce Reed, one of the first-responders on the scene for last’ month’s fertilizer plant explosion, has been charged with the unlawful possession of pipe bomb components. No one is saying that the two events are connected, but the criminal investigation is ongoing.

Reuters:

May 10 (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors charged a paramedic, one of the first to respond to a deadly explosion last month in West, Texas, with unlawful possession of pipe bomb components, although authorities said no evidence linked the charge to the fertilizer plant disaster.

Texas state officials also announced on Friday that they had opened a criminal investigation into the April 17 explosion that killed 14 people and injured about 200 others. The state fire marshal’s office has said that ammonium nitrate stored at the plant detonated in the explosion but they have not been able to pin down the cause of the fire and blast.

… Read the rest

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Western Black Rhinoceros Officially Extinct

By on May 9, 2013 in News 0
Picture: Vassil (PD)

Picture: Vassil (PD)

I shouted out, “Who killed the [Black Rhino]?”
When after all, It was you and me..

Chalk another one up to humanity…

Via CNN:

Africa’s western black rhino is now officially extinct according the latest review of animals and plants by the world’s largest conservation network.

The subspecies of the black rhino — which is classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species — was last seen in western Africa in 2006.

The IUCN warns that other rhinos could follow saying Africa’s northern white rhino is “teetering on the brink of extinction” while Asia’s Javan rhino is “making its last stand” due to continued poaching and lack of conservation.

Keep reading.… Read the rest

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Why Anti-Authoritarians Are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill

By on May 9, 2013 in News 0

tia_2232234bPsychologist Bruce Levine shares his thoughts on why people with anti-authoritarian tendencies are at risk for being diagnosed as mentally ill. Good reading, especially if you’ve been told you have a “bad attitude” or “have a problem with authority figures”.

Via Mad in America:

Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one.

… Read the rest

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Eight Government Conspiracies That Could be True

By on May 9, 2013 in News 0

chemical-biological-weapons-terrorismMental Floss rounds up eight conspiracies that could be true. (Could be, Mental Floss?)

Via Mental Floss:

From 1940 to 1970, America was a giant germ laboratory. The U.S. Army wanted to assess how vulnerable America was to a biological attack, so it spread clouds of microbes and chemicals over populated areas everywhere.

In 1949, the Army Special Operations released bacteria into the Pentagon’s air conditioning system to observe how the microbes spread (the bacteria were reportedly harmless). In 1950, a U.S. Navy ship sprayed Serratia Marcescens—a common bacteria capable of minor infection—from San Francisco Bay. The bacteria floated over 30 miles, spread through the city, and may have caused one death.

A year later, during Operation DEW, the U.S. Army released 250 pounds of cadmium sulfide off the Carolina coast, which spread over 60,000 square miles. The military didn’t know that cadmium sulfide was carcinogenic, nor did it know that it could cause kidney, lung, and liver damage.

… Read the rest

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