Free Republic

HOW TO RANK RISKS ? By Bernard L. CohenFrom Health Facts and Fears, 27 February 2002 http://healthfactsandfears.com/featured_articles/feb2002/risks022702.html My favorite way of putting risks into perspective is to consider the average loss of life expectancy they cause, LLE (indicated in parentheses throughout this article). I present here a brief catalog of these, taken from my paper published in the September 1991 issue of Health Physics Journal. Historically, diseases were one of the most important causes of life shortening, but now only heart disease (4.4 years), cancer (3.4 years), and stroke (250 days) cause LLE of more than six months. Aside from...

Dear World, It appears that you are hard to please. I understand that you are upset over us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry and outraged. Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset over us. Today, it is the brutal repression of the Palestinians; yesterday, it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily. Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we, ...

The assumption that 'religion' can't be at the heart of things in the present conflict is itself an unexamined article of faith. It comes from the tradition of naturalism which had defined religion as something dealing with the unreal, the merely believed, beyond the grave, pie in the sky by and by, and had defined politics as the manner of dealing with real things in this present physical universe. Two main attitudes flow from this worldview: 1. The harder leftist view: Since there's no reality behind any religious view (defined as a belief in the "supernatural" or a god or ...

Put the author of this missive along with gas gougers, people who would use this tragedy to expand government control and restrict liberty, and even the terrorists themselves. No wonder so many consider Christians to be nuts. However, note the links he has included at the end of his (her?) mass, unsolicited, junk emailing. They explain a lot. From boosflow@boosflow.iserver.net Wed Sep 12 08:10:34 2001 X-Apparently-To: aruanan@yahoo.com via web11405; 12 Sep 2001 01:10:35 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: To: aruanan@yahoo.com,aruba_77777@yahoo.com, arubhita@yahoo.com, aruiz_90037@yahoo.com, arul_anand_m@yahoo.com, arulpremnath@yahoo.com, arum1004_2000@yahoo.com, arume0502@yahoo.com, arumnya_koko@yahoo.com, arun_2000_hotcrush@yahoo.com From: WorIdTradeCenter@yahoo.com () Subject: 704963029 Content-Length: 1292 Below is the result of your feedback ...

Motorola unveils 'revolutionary' superfast microchip technology By Saeed Shah 05 September 2001 Motorola unveiled a microchip that is up to 40 times faster than existing technology yesterday, in a move that the US mobile phones and chip giant hailed as the most important breakthrough in the industry since the 1950s. The company developed the "revolutionary" semiconductor technology in partnership with the British company IQE, which saw its shares jump 14 per cent yesterday to close at 164.75p. The innovation allows silicon, which is relatively cheap but does not possess good optical qualities, to be married to higher performance compound semiconductors, ...

A gift from the gods: bottled cow's urine By Julian West in New Delhi (Filed: 02/09/2001) HINDU nationalists in India have launched a marketing exercise to promote cow's urine as a health cure for ailments ranging from liver disease to obesity and even cancer. The urine, which is being sold under the label "Gift of the Cow", is being enthusiastically promoted by the government of Gujarat, one of three states in India dominated by Hindu nationalists. The urine is collected daily from almost 600 shelters for rescued and wounded cattle set up by the Vishwa Hindu Parisad (VHP), or ...

lthough two widely used vaccines can make children run fevers that in rare cases may cause seizures, the seizures do not lead to lasting problems, researchers are reporting today in the largest study ever done on the side effects of vaccination. The findings come against a backdrop of recurring fears, in the United States and abroad, that those rare fever-related seizures may be linked to later autism and developmental problems. The fears are unfounded, the study concluded. "This study is very reassuring," said Dr. Karin Nelson, a child neurologist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who ...

Go figure Can you "kill" something if it's not alive? Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat, seems to think so. If not, the congressman might want to clarify his remarks during last week's markup of H.R. 2505 -- the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 when the full House takes up the measure today. Inside the Beltway has obtained a House Judiciary Committee transcript of the markup, held last Tuesday, during which Mr. Nadler broached the ultimate right-to-life question: Is an embryo a human being? "I say no," Mr. Nadler told fellow lawmakers on the committee. "At one point this ...

About 10 Chicagoland Freepers gathered at the Henry Crown Field House at the University of Chicago to give Bill Clinton a warm Freeping. They were able to stand directly across the street from the line of the participants waiting to get into the kick-off meeting of the City Year annual convention celebrating community service. Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker, chosen to excite the community servants with his insights on idealism and public service. It was rumored that his speech was initially titled, "The Ideals of Public Service, Where the Rubber Meets the Road" but was abandoned as being at ...

When I approached the building, there were a bunch of folks with bullhorns saying, "We're here to protest the racist views of the racist David Horowitz", after which they launched into a big spiel about blacks and Hispanics on death row and Free Mumia, Free Mumia, Free Mumia. Inside the place was relatively quiet except for normal conversation. I saw the suited serious looking guys (who were black) wearing the ear buds and checking out the crowd. Later Horowitz would say that he had been here twice before but on neither occasion had he had to have bodyguards. It because ...

First US Case of Sexually Transmitted Typhoid Reported CINCINNATI, Ohio (Reuters Health) Apr 26 - Health officials have documented the first incidence in the US of sexually transmitted typhoid fever, an illness normally transmitted through contaminated food or water. A Cincinnati man who contracted typhoid fever on a trip to Puerto Rico last May spread the disease to at least seven men upon returning home, through oral and anal intercourse, Cincinnati health commissioner Malcolm Adcock said. Adcock said that researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have ascertained that the man was the source of the ...

Role of Chimpanzee-Derived Polio Vaccine in Origin of HIV Refuted WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Apr 25 - Three independent reports published this week refute the theory that chimpanzee kidney cultures used in the preparation of oral polio vaccine (OPV) stocks in Africa in the late 1950s introduced a precursor to HIV in humans. Dr. N. Berry and colleagues, from the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, Hertfordshire, UK, report in the April 26th issue of Nature that they found no HIV-1 related nucleic acids or chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA in frozen samples of the vaccine. Furthermore, the cells from ...

Slaughter of the innocuous BY ABIGAIL WOOD Foot-and-mouth is as serious to animals as a bad cold is to human beings. So why the concern? Foot-and-mouth has gained a grip on this nation — and fear of the disease seems as powerful as the disease itself. We recognise foot-and-mouth not by its symptoms, but by what we do to control it: the restrictions on movement, the slaughter of animals, the burning of carcasses. From the panic and the headlines you would imagine that this is a most dreadful disease. Yet foot-and-mouth very rarely kills the animals that catch it. ...

n the evening of Aug. 21, 1986, a cloud of carbon dioxide erupted from Lake Nyos in the mountainous region of northwestern Cameroon. Heavy and deadly, the gas rolled down hills, into valleys and villages, suffocating everything in its path. By the next morning, 1,700 people were dead. Because of that eruption, and a 1984 emission at Lake Monoun 59 miles to the southeast, the people of the region have lived with the fear that these lakes will kill again. Indeed, both lakes contain more lethal gas than they did before the eruptions. But now, an international team of scientists ...

A widespread belief about the onset of puberty in girls is coming under vigorous attack, led by a group of medical specialists who say that it is based on flawed science and that it can have dire medical consequences. The belief — that girls are now starting puberty as early as age 6 or 7 — began with a single study that critics say has serious problems. The study led some experts to suggest changes in the guidelines used by pediatricians in deciding whether girls whose puberty starts early need to be evaluated by specialists to look for medical ...

At Home with Al and Tipper: Tipper on the throne. SFX: Tipper yelling from behind the upstairs bathroom door to Al who is measuring the width of the closet door. TIPPER: "Aaaaal! Gimme another roll of toilet paper." AL: "Okay, Tipper, but did you know that originally modern toilet paper came in stacks much like Puffs or Kleenex; in fact, this older form--" TIPPER: "Just gimme a roll, Al. It's right there in the closet." AL: "Okay, Tipper, but this older form can still be seen in some of the institutional single sheet dispensers. Interestingly, this type of paper still ...

I just heard some national newswoman on ABC say that Algore is being praised for urging Clinton to include Bush in national security briefings which would "normally be done only for a president-elect". She went on to say that they were going to go ahead with background checks "even though Bush has refused to concede".

I just saw a Honda commercial featuring a couple getting a sonogram of their baby. They tell their doctor they're going to get a new car. He asks what kind. The fetus perks up. The dad says a minivan. The fetus gets agitated and shakes his head, pounding on the uterine wall to get their attention. The doctor asks what kind of minivan. The dad gives the name of the Honda minivan. The fetus relaxes upon hearing the name and give a double thumbs up.

I just talked to someone at the Supervisor of Elections absentee ballot division in Pinellas County, FL. I found that the order of the presidential candidates on the absentee ballots was the same as that of the ballots at the polls. Bush Gore Browne Nader Harris Hagelin Buchanan McReynolds Phillilps Moorehead The voting 'machine' in FL consists of a device into which the ballot is inserted from the top until two anchor knobs pop into place through two holes in the top of the ballot. Once the knobs are in place, the ballot cannot be moved until the top is ...

FL: Bush 54% Gore 44% GA: Gore not yet posted Bush not yet posted SC: Bush 64% Gore 34% VA: Bush 57% Gore 42% NH: Bush 67% Gore 31% VT: Gore not yet posted Bush not yet posted IN: Bush 57% Gore 42% KY: Bush 55% Gore 43%