All My MPs

Such fun, federal politics.

• Peter MacKay and Belinda Stronach date.
• Stronach changes parties; becomes Liberal. Hearts are broken.
• Awkward silence.
• MacKay alludes to Stronach as a “dog”.

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Watch TV

A new study has found a strong correlation between autism and hours spent watching television by young children.

For all the theoretical mechanisms that (falsely) implicated thimerosal-containing vaccines, it turns out the culprit may be something even more familiar and seemingly benign than the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Ninety-eight percent of American households had at least one television in 2001.

The study, as summarized by Gregg Easterbrook at Slate:

“[...] the study has two separate findings: that having cable television in the home increased autism rates in California and Pennsylvania somewhat, and that more hours of actually watching television increased autism in California, Oregon, and Washington by a lot.”

Of course, even strong correlation is not a causal link. More investigation needs to be done by independent researchers. But in the meantime, I think it would be wise to heed the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and keep children under two away from the TV. They’re pretty sure it increases attention disorders, why risk autism too?

It Feels Good

We are all selfish.

There is no such thing as a truly altruistic person, someone who gives and really expects nothing in return. I am not, and neither are you.

When you give a donation for a ribbon, you aren’t “raising awareness” of the cause. You’re saying, “Look at me! I gave money to something worthy!” When you give the Girl Scouts money, you expect delicious cookies in return. When you buy a charity lottery ticket, you expect a dream home.

On October 28, I am giving blood. And I can guarantee you, on that day my MSN name will be declaring it to all my friends. Because it feels good if people think you are a decent person. As an added bonus, I expect there will be delicious cookies and maybe even a sticker or ribbon to advertise my good deed to the world.

But, to paraphrase my favourite TV doctor, “If the end doesn’t justify the means, what does?” It doesn’t matter if I’m actually trading blood for a cookie. What matters is that the Red Cross has my blood. It means I’m less of a saint than you might have been led to believe, but no less than any of you schmucks.

Slavery is Freedom

Call me unenlightened, but I don’t see how exotic-dance lessons make you a feminist. If you define measure your femininity by your ability to please men (whether in the kitchen, the bedroom, or the strip joint), you may have missed the point of the last 90 years of women’s rights advances.

Far be it from me to tell you how better to define yourself. I have all the wrong chromosomes for that. But I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t involve seeking approval from men.

(EDIT: clumsy word choice)

Ban the ‘Book Burning’ book!

People make my head hurt.

Some guy in Texas, Alton Verm, wants the book Fahrenheit 451 banned from his 15-year-old daughter’s school because it contains adult situations and crude language.

“If they can’t find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn’t have a book at all.”

It’s sickeningly ironic, really. Verm wants to ban a book about book burning. But wait, it get’s better: this all happened during Banned Books Week at the end of September.

Not that over-protective Daddy gets any of this. He didn’t even read the book.

“He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, “dirty talk,” references to the Bible and using God’s name in vain.”

You, sir, are a moron.

The girl is fifteen! She’s probably knows more about being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, “dirty talk,” and using God’s name in vain than you could learn from “looking through” a thousand books on such sordid topics.

Exposing students to the concept of freedom of speech and other intrinsic rights is way more important than shielding them from four-lettered-words. Especially when they already know more than enough about the latter and barely anything about the former.

[HT: Andrea]