(https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/texas-church-shooting/fact-check-no-more-guns-won-t-prevent-mass-shootings-n818126)
". . . But there’s no evidence that more guns can reduce gun violence broadly, said Daniel Webster, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. . . “As a researcher, that drives me nuts,” he said, explaining that guns increase the number of everyday moments or interactions — like bar fights, road rage, suicidal thoughts — that turn lethal. “The more guns are readily available, the more shootings occur. That’s what the latest research shows. When states make it more easy for people to carry guns, the number of incidents of aggravated assault grows.”. . . According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 93 people die a day from gun violence, including 32 murders and 58 suicides. A study out of Stanford Law School analyzed crime data from 1977 to 2014 and found that areas with more relaxed “right-to-carry” gun laws saw higher rates of violent crime. . . “If more guns made America safer, we’d be an awfully safe place,” said University of California Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.". . ."
The Broad Institute, a biomedical research center, announced a $650 million donation for psychiatric research from the Stanley Family Foundation — one of the largest private gifts ever for scientific research. It comes at a time when basic research into mental illness is woefully inadequate, and many drug makers have all but abandoned the search for new treatments. It's been about 25 years since any major pharmaceutical strides have been made in treating psychiatric disorders. Broad Institute officials hope that Mr. Stanley’s donation will change that, and they timed their announcement to coincide with the publication of the largest analysis to date on the genetics of schizophrenia.
Why did Ted Stanley make such a generous gift? In 1988, his son Jonathan Stanley (a college dropout) was visiting New York City when he became convinced that government agents were closing in on him. He bolted, and for three days and nights raced through the city streets and subway tunnels. His flight ended in a deli, where he climbed a plastic crate and stripped off his clothes. The police took him to a hospital, and he finally received effective treatment two years after getting a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. “My son’s life was saved,” his father, Ted Stanley, said recently. When he himself was in college, he added, “those drugs didn’t exist; I would have had a non functioning brain all the rest of my life.”
(thanks to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/science/650-million-psychiatric-research.html?_r=0)
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
As if the real news isn't weird (and depressing) enough, the satire is even goofier. And adding insult to injury, many people think it's real upon first glance. Things like:
-Santorum's divorce
-Teen who only texts and rolls eyes to be euthanized
-School of arts seeks to transform boys and girls into insufferable young men and women
-ORCA Act ensures all food and medicine to be 100% GMO within four years
The internet is a wonderful thing. It makes research and entertainment easy and convenient.
Just be careful not to confuse the entertainment with the research.
(taken from http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/ by Viveca Novak on Friday, April 10, 2009)
A widely circulated e-mail contains a number of false claims about the urban legend-busting Snopes.com and its proprietors, Barbara and David Mikkelson, who started the site in 1995 and still run it. They’re accused of hiding their identities, doing shoddy research, producing articles with a liberal bent and discrediting an anti-Obama State Farm agent out of partisanship.
One issue prompting the tirade was a sign Gregg posted last summer outside his office in Mandeville, La. It said, "A taxpayer voting for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." Snopes.com wrote it up in an article headlined "Chicken Hawked." The e-mail writer says that "they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ‘ever’ took place." But that’s exactly what did happen, according a company representative.
In her article, Barbara Mikkelson didn’t actually use the word "pressured" as the e-mail claims. What she said was: "A State Farm representative said that Bud Gregg’s office sign bore these messages until 3 July 2008 and that the company had requested the sign be removed as soon as they became aware of it because the sign was inconsistent with State Farm’s policy of not endorsing candidates or taking sides in political campaigns."
And State Farm spokeswoman Molly Quirk-Kirby confirmed in a letter to us the same thing she had told Snopes.com earlier: "Management requested the sign be removed as soon as its presence became known. It was taken down on July 3, 2008. Mr. Gregg’s sign was not endorsed by, nor consistent with State Farm’s corporate practices. The company does not endorse candidates, nor take sides in political campaigns." The e-mail’s author says the Mikkelsons didn’t call Gregg, and David says that’s true. He says he sent the insurance agent an e-mail, but did not receive a response.
The e-mail goes on: "Then it has been learned the Mikkelson’s are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal," adding: "There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson’s liberalism revealing itself in their website findings." The author cites no evidence and no sources for either of these propositions.
We asked David. He told us that Barbara is a Canadian citizen, and as such isn’t allowed to vote here or contribute money to U.S. candidates. As for him, "My sole involvement in politics is on Election Day to go out and vote. I’ve never joined a party, worked for a campaign or donated money to a candidate. . . You’d be hard-pressed to find two more apolitical people," David Mikkelson said. . ."
The e-mail also accuses the Mikkelsons of "hiding" their identities. "Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it," the message claims. That’s nonsense. It may well be that the author of this e-mail was ignorant of the Mikkelsons until recently, but it’s never been a secret who is behind Snopes.com. We even dug up a reference to David Mikkelson from 1995, a year when the Internet was in its infancy. A collection of short items under the headline "A Special Report: The Virtual Valley" in the Los Angeles Times included a photo of him.
The e-mail’s last paragraph advises that everyone who goes to Snopes.com for "the bottom line facts" should "proceed with caution." We think that’s terrific advice, not just in connection with material on Snopes but for practically anything a reader finds online — including articles on FactCheck.org. The very reason we list our sources (as does Snopes.com) and provide links is so that readers can check things out for themselves. . .
The mistakes (in the email) could have been avoided if the authors had contacted the couple. "None of them did," Mikkelson said.
Not many fail to recognize the origin of that line. I was reminded of it again today when the news presented me with the results of a study about the hazards of eating red meat. Fortunately, my source for the story was NPR and they actually presented a balanced approach to the story. That is, they presented a contrary point of view, which actually made good sense. I fear my local television stations probably presented it as simply, "Red meat will kill you." The end.
Regarding the study itself, one article stated, ". . . Sure enough, Pan (the doctor conducting the research) and his colleagues found that the men and women in the
study who ate the most red meat also tended to be heavier, less
physically active, and more likely to smoke and drink alcohol than their
peers. However, the researchers did take those and other factors into
account in their analysis. . . "
So why did they bother me with this in the first place?
What
do YOU think?
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