I won’t miss this summer at all.
Photo of Paintball Wound
Air and paintball gun injuries caused more than 20,000 ER visits in 2008
ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2011) — Hospital emergency departments saw over 20,000 injuries due to air and paintball guns in 2008, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This represents a 20 percent decrease in emergency room visits for injuries caused by air and paintball guns from 2006.
There are two things that bring more people to this blog through Google. They are this photo of a wound from paintball and the words “clever trever.”
I have to wonder, is it just morbid curiosity? Do paintballers want to see a wicked wound? Does it please them?
Let me tell you the story that goes with the picture, if you don’t know it already. In 2003, my wife and I were walking our dog Lucky around our neighborhood after dark as we did every night. On this occasion, a car sped up behind us. We heard two small explosions and each instantly felt searing pain in our backs. As awful as that pain was — and it was intense — it was nothing compared to seeing the expression on Merri’s face when she cried “I’ve been shot!” while grappling with my own overwhelming fear and pain. It was horrible and I wish a comparable misery on the shooter and his gang. The shooter who cackled wickedly as the car sped by.
Remember, guns don’t shoot people, idiots shoot people. And brutal, cowardly idiots shoot strangers in the back. mjh
PS- Since many of the “clever trever” searchers come from the UK, I trust they are not looking for my take on the Albuquerque Journal’s not-so-clever editorial cartoonist, John Trever (Clever Trever Two, What An Ass We Have In Trever).
First published 6 years ago.
“Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates.”
Republicans Against Science – NYTimes.com
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 28, 2011According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.
So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe.
And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change. …
Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.
Mississippi Kite
Our guts “are like coral reefs inhabited by many diverse creatures interacting with each other and with us."
I’ve long used the Amazon jungle simile, but I like the coral reef reference. Keep this in mind when a doctor casually prescribes antibiotics – you may be killing an important part of you. Feed your gut; love your fauna; tend the world within.
Viruses in the human gut show dynamic response to diet
… said Dr. Frederic Bushman of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, senior author of the study…
The digestive system is home to a myriad of viruses, but how they are involved in health and disease is poorly understood. In a study published online August 30 in Genome Research, researchers have investigated the dynamics of virus populations in the human gut, shedding new light on the gut "virome" and how it differs between people and responds to changes in diet. …
The interactions between viruses, bacteria, and the human host likely have significant consequences for human health and disease, especially in the delicate ecosystem of the gut microbiome.
Not dead yet, despite the Governor and the Tightwads
New stop opens as Rail Runner marks 5 years – The Santa Fe New Mexican
The 13th Rail Runner Express stop, at Sandia Pueblo, will be open for commuters starting Monday. – Clyde Mueller/The New Mexican
New stop opens as Rail Runner marks 5 years – The Santa Fe New Mexican
Huntsman Again – too progressive to win a Republican primary
The first time I heard of Huntsman, someone joked he was running to the left of Obama. Hey, somebody should.
Jon Huntsman Wakes Up – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast
This is exactly what he needs to do: lose the caution, stiffen the sinews and take on the know-nothings:
When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science – Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position….I can’t remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a – a party that – that was antithetical to science. I’m not sure that’s good for our future and it’s not a winning formula.
Here he is on the GOP’s recent economic brinkmanship:
Well, I wouldn’t necessarily trust any of my opponents right now, who were on a recent debate stage with me, when every single one of them would have allowed this country to default. You can imagine, even given the uncertainty of the marketplace the last several days and even the last couple of weeks, if we had defaulted the first time in the history of the greatest country that ever was, being 25 percent of the world’s GDP and having the largest financial services sector in this world by a long shot, if we had defaulted, Jake, this marketplace would be in absolute turmoil. And people who are already losing enough as it is on their 401(k)s and retirement programs and home valuations, it would have been catastrophic.
Keep it up. Huntsman has a prophetic role in this campaign if he chooses to adopt it: the truth-teller. His chances are so slim, he loses nothing by speaking this candidly. At the very least, he lays down a distinctive marker for 2016. At the very most, he could break out in New Hampshire if Romney falters.
Jon Huntsman Wakes Up – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast