I’ve given up on watching TV news, at least until the “BP Gulf Oil Spill” saga is over. I’m simply tired of hearing earnest-sounding news anchors earnestly intone “the largest oil spill in American history.” With absolutely no background information – other than a vague idea about the Exxon Valdez – those words are pretty [...]
The headline is more than a bit shocking: AstraZeneca to pay $520M over drug Seroquel. Half a billion dollars. Wow. The case involves AstraZeneca promoting Seroquel for uses that are not approved by federal drug regulators, including insomnia and psychiatric conditions besides schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Oh. My. FREAKING. God. They develop a drug for [...]
A very sad story: In a closed courtroom in one of the few government buildings still standing here, Laura Silsby and nine other American missionaries were charged Thursday with abducting children from this earthquake-ravaged capital. snip or Ms. Silsby it was the latest in a series of wrong turns on a road her parents and [...]
Thus saith the Lord: Get thee post haste to Haiti and swipest thou some darkling children in their tender years so that thou mightest destroy the ties of culture and family, and takest them thou to the ironically named “black market” to sell them for adoption to holier-than-thou couples who will congratulate themselves on supporting [...]
Exactly as most of us who bothered to consider the causal relationship thought: Vaccines do not cause autism: A major British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a flawed study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease. The retraction by The Lancet comes a day after a competing medical journal, BMJ, [...]
The Washington Post asked several people to respond to Pat Robertson’s contention that the people of Haiti are being punished by God for making a pact with the devil. Jim Wallis chooses to sidestep the issue and simply says he is heartbroken. James Standish has a meatier answer, but he eventually shrugs and says, “People [...]
From Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed: True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the “rejects of life,” to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands – whether of individuals or entire peoples – need [...]
I have a lot of sympathy for the people of Haiti. I’m glad there are people who are on their way to help them dig out and rebuild. But, if I’m totally honest, I’m freaking tired of the news reports. I think, at this point, anyone who is going to respond has. It has moved [...]
People are just wa-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay too sensitive: Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco apologised on Tuesday after complaints that a Christmas card it sold was offensive to people with ginger hair. The card in question shows a child with red hair sitting on the lap of Santa Claus under the banner: “Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones.” [...]
From The Christian Science Monitor: In that nonsensical statement lies this little country’s big challenge. Swiss voters appear to have been caught up in the general European fear – some real, some imagined, and some manufactured – of Islamic extremism and culture clash. What makes this particularly tough for the Swiss government, which opposed the [...]
