Category: Bad News

Horrible, unpleasant stuff

Never Mind The Joke

Bad News, Health

So this asshole got some joke award for his charlatanry:

The man who published a widely-dismissed paper claiming the MMR vaccine could make children autistic has been ridiculed with an award for bad science. Andrew Wakefield, a former gastroenterologist who is now believed to be in a relationship with the model Elle Macpherson, has been awarded the ‘Rusty Razor’ award for pseudoscience by magazine The Skeptic.
Wakefield’s so-called research fueled the ‘anti-vaxx’ movement, by suggesting jabs could make children autistic, but his studies were fabricated.
Experts have called the paper, published in medical journal The Lancet in 1998, but retracted in 2010, ‘the most damaging medical hoax of the past 100 years’.

Never mind the Rusty Razor Award, someone should have used a rusty razor to cut this fucker’s head off.  Countless children have died and others fallen dangerously ill because of his “pseudo-scientific” study, and at least he should be in prison for life instead of dating a dim-bulb ex-supermodel.

I am not a vengeful man by nature, but if one day some bereaved parent were to shoot Wakefield in the face and I were in the jury at the parent’s trial, my vote would be an unshakable “Not Guilty”.

Imagine Being Patient #4,154,560

Bad News, Gummint, Health

The next time some dreamy pinko starts whining about how wonderful Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is, feel free to show him or her this article (when you are done kicking their ass, of course):

The NHS waiting list in England is the longest it has been in 11 years, official figures have revealed today.
A staggering 4,154,559 people – around six per cent of the entire UK population – were waiting to start hospital treatment at the end of August.  This number is the highest it has been since August 2007, and more than 3,000 people have been waiting more than a year for routine treatment.
A&E [ER] departments are also getting busier and cancer treatment waiting times have been missed for the 32nd month in a row, NHS data showed.  Experts today warned ‘alarm bells’ are ringing and the health service is heading straight for another winter crisis as it buckles under ‘relentless pressure’.  An ageing population and shortages of doctors and nurses have been blamed for increasing strain on the NHS and it taking longer to treat patients.

But hey… as long as it’s free, right?

And speaking of free, of course it turns out that “free” also means “rationing” (emphasis mine):

Shortages of Fluad, a new super-vaccine offering better protection for over-65s, means pensioners across the country are being turned away by GPs.  Deliveries of the vaccine to surgeries and pharmacies are being staggered due to supply problems and 40 per cent of the 7.8 million doses will not be available until next month.
The Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended Fluad last December, but it took NHS England until February 5 to tell GPs and pharmacies they needed to buy it.  Clinics that failed to order by the April 12 deadline have had no stock delivered, forcing them to beg for supplies from others.

So if you’re (say) 63 years old, British and catch a potentially-deadly strain of flu, that’s just too bad.  Life’s lottery — or, to be more precise, the NHS lottery — just gave it to you between the cheeks.

Wear boots when kicking.

 

News Roundup

Bad News

1) Candy bars lose sugar, also taste — FFS, if you think a candy bar is unhealthy or bad for you, then eat something else.  Don’t moan and complain until the manufacturer brings out a watery, tasteless variant of the classic. (see:  lite beer)

2) Man fucks with black mamba, with predictable results — there is a good reason why snake handlers in South Africa cannot get life insurance, no matter how much they’re prepared to pay.

3) Cold weather causes vag-freeze — as we’re heading into winter, you may want to get yer Missus a box-warmer (don’t ask).

4) Freaks and pervos hit the streets — where else but in San Francisco?  (Never an errant daisycutter bomb when you need one.)

5) Italy to become the “new Argentina” — as long as they don’t invade the Falklands, we’re cool.

6)  Tropical Storm Rosa will not wash the entire state of California out to sea — and a nation mourns.

News Roundup

Bad News

1)  “Sobbing vegan, 23, breaks into a slaughterhouse and chains herself next to a calf for animal rights protest” —  They should have spared the calf and slaughtered the vegan.

2)  “Sex robots BACKLASH as brothel workers reveal fury over ‘dehumanising and dangerous’ droids” — wait a minute:  prostitutes are accusing their competition as “dehumanising” ?  We will now observe two minutes’ silence to mark the death of irony.

3)  “Jane Fonda tells accused #MeToo harassers like Louis CK looking to make a comeback to ‘sweep the floor at Starbucks until you learn!’ ” — Tell you what, you rancid Commie traitor:  you could sweep the floors at every Starbucks in the world, and we still wouldn’t forgive you for the Hanoi trip.

4)  Britain’s armed forces are about to go tits-up — My favorite take out of this article is the description of an armored unit as “Operation Tethered Goat”.  Actually, it’s a tragic story, so read it all.  (In case anyone starts murmuring “Malvinas”, the only military in worse shape than Britain’s is Argentina’s.)

5)  NYC Home Sellers Are Slashing Prices “Like It’s 2009” — so prices of NYFC residential real estate are now simply “exorbitant” as opposed to “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me”.  My feelings on the matter:

…and finally, some happy news:

6)  Oktoberfest has begun in Germanland — although my experience with Oktoberfest (in Munich, anyway) has been weak beer and raucous drunks, neither of which I can tolerate.  There are a couple of compensations, though:

Then again…

Oy.

 

Big Picture

Bad News, Business

Yesterday I bitched about Levi Strauss and their support for gun control.  Then, on reading about the new Nike marketing campaign featuring that asswipe quarterback as a symbol, I stumbled on this gem at The Last Refuge which, as always, put both events into perspective:

The bigger risk to Nike has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter, U.S. Consumers, or Antifa-like political advocacy. The bigger financial risk to the Nike Corporation has everything to do with geopolitics and a reset of international trade agreements.

You must read it all;  but as a spoiler, let me just hint that both Nike’s and Levi’s campaigns are being driven by a secret textile manufacturing agreement with… North Korea through China.  In fact, instead of bringing the manufacturing of their products back to the United States (which is actually a viable option), it seems that both corporations would rather undermine the U.S. government’s trade policy, just to keep their own foreign business deals going.

Bastards.  Bastards.