Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine ?

Wherefore art thou?

I was planning on doing some research on this Wi-Fi/Autism link to see if I could actually read the study to see how they came to their result. Guess what? I can't find this journal mentioned anywhere. A check of Google left me with little. One site suggested that this site, http://www.acnem.org/ was the publisher of the journal. But I still can't find anything. If you can find time to do a press release, you've had time to put up a website. Until I'm able to find out more on this, I'll assume this is little more than urban legend.

**Update: Thanks to an anonymous reader, a link to the study has been found:
http://www.internalbalance.com/emr-autism-acnem.pdf

***Read the follow-up to this post here

Wi-Fi linked to Autism?

This disturbing study reminds me of a post I did last year about the potential dangers of wireless networking. The study links the increase in the use of wi-fi and cell phones to the increase in autism. Who knows if the science behind the study will hold up.

***Read the follow-up to this post here

A few Lucky Virginians Have Another Nasty Surprise In Store -- Compliments Of The Legislature

After the public outcry over the last 4 months related to the "Abusive Driver's fees" it's fascinating that another provision in the very same transportation funding bill (House Bill 3202) has not come under more public scrutiny.

Starting January 1, 2008, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) and the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority (HRTA) will begin taxing all sorts of activities in the Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads areas. These taxes will be imposed on residents in the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park, Norfolk, Newport News, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Williamsburg and Poquoson and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Isle of Wight, York and James City.

Here are the new taxes and fees (.doc), all of which are in addition to any existing tax on these activities:

• 2% tax on all motor vehicle rentals
• 5% tax on all automotive repairs, including things like oil changes
• $10 fee for your annual vehicle registration
• 1% (of the purchase price) additional fee for your initial vehicle registration
• $10 additional fee for motor vehicle inspection
• 2% additional hotel tax
• A $0.40/$100 of valuation sales tax on all real property sales (this is an tax increase of 500% from the current tax of $1/$1000 of value. No doubt this will help the ailing housing market)

The money will go into a State Treasurer fund (Special Sales and Use Tax Motor Vehicle Repair Fund) and will be doled out to the NVTA or HRTA as 'appropriate'. What does appropriate mean exactly? Well neither Authority is required to follow Virginia procurement guidelines and is free to issue “no-bid” contracts to whomever they wish. I'm sure it will be frequently 'appropriate'.

The Authorities were also given the ability to issue bonds and to obligate your future taxes to the payments on those bonds. And all of this power, in a pseudo public body that is run by appointees. That’s right, the NVTA and the HRTA members are not elected by the public, so you are being taxed without representation.

The only ray of hope in this is that Loudoun County and attorney Robert G. Marshall were just granted a joint appeal by the Virginia Supreme Court in their cases against the NVTA. Hopefully, the VASC will put a halt to this bureaucracy run amok.

The TASER Has Become Just Another Way To Kill People

When the Taser was introduced a few years ago, it was touted as being an alternative to lethal force. Police departments all over the world were sold on the idea that many of the situations where they would normally draw firearms could now be defused with a device that would only incapacitate an aggressive subject. However, in the last few years, it is undeniable that in situations where police officers would never have drawn a firearm they are drawing and using their Tasers.

Take for example the situation with the "Don't taze me bro!" guy. Police would never have felt justified in drawing a handgun on a subject who had no weapon, and was only resisting arrest. Yet they felt free to whip out the Taser and blast away. Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was electroshocked in the Vancouver airport because he had become unruly (after not being cleared by customs for 8 hours!). He clearly had no knife or firearm as he had been cleared past security checkpoints. Would police 20 years ago have drawn their handguns against this man? Never. Yet they Tased him twice and as a result, he was killed. In Canada alone, at least 17 people have died as a result of being electroshocked by Tasers since 2003. Of course not to be outdone by our northern neighbors, the United States has seen more than 270 Taser related deaths since 2001.

Supporters of the Taser argue that it has saved lives, as subjects are shocked rather than shot. However, a study in Houston Texas showed that the number of people shot did not decrease after Tasers were issued to police. Yet Tasers were used more than 1,000 times. And in 95% of those incidents, the Tasers were "...not used to defuse situations in which suspects wielded weapons and deadly force clearly would have been justified".

The truth is that police are using Tasers in situations where they would have previously used strong-arm tactics to control a subject. Wrestling someone to the ground and cuffing them used to be the way this was handled, now it's become a push button affair with a growing body count. What was sold to the public as an alternative to lethal force has quickly become the primary and routine method of gaining an unwilling subject's cooperation. And for that convenience, local governments and police are apparently more than willing to offer up a few dead citizens.

**Update: Frederick, MD Sheriff's dept killed a man today with a Taser (11/18/2007)

Thinking The Impossible – Could Ron Paul Actually Win?

As hard as it might be to believe, I think the perfect storm is brewing for the 2008 elections. Assuming that the current front runners are the nominees of their respective parties, we’ll end up with a Clinton/Giuliani election. Barring any surprise Vice Presidential nominations, I would predict an easy win for Clinton. Giuliani is going to inspire few republicans to vote. And in spite of Pat Robertson’s deal with Satan, the religious right is going to have a hard time swallowing a vote for Rudy. So Republicans and Democrats alike will assume that Clinton will be a sure thing.

Now suppose, with that mentality, the protest vote comes out in favor of Ron Paul, running as a 3^rd party candidate. Ron Paul would pick up the ‘rabid’ Paul supporters he has now and will surely gain in the coming months. Anti-war democrats will cast a protest vote for Ron Paul, to show their displeasure of Hillary’s hawkish views. Religious right voters will cast a protest vote for Paul to show their displeasure of Rudy’s pro abortion pro gay marriage views. What happens when Ron Paul ends up with all those protest votes? Who knows, but it could be a very interesting election for sure.

Pat Robertson Endorses Rudy Giuliani? Huh??

What's next? Robertson endorsing Satan for VP? At this point I wouldn't be surprised.

When the founder of the Christian Coalition backs a two time divorced, pro-abortion (tax payer funded no less), pro-gay rights presidential candidate with a 'thing' for dressing up in women's clothes, you know something in the world is just not quite right. Perhaps Robertson thought he was selling his soul to this guy instead of Rudy? Isn't he going to be disappointed when he finds out that Rudy can't deliver the goods. But then again, maybe that's not what Pat is looking for.

I'm beginning to believe that Alex Jones might have called it right when he raised suspicions that Pat Robertson and his televangelist friends are not quite what they seem.

WTF is going on at the George Washington University?

Less than a month after hate-speech fliers were posted around campus in the name of a conservative group (but were actually posted by a self proclaimed "anti-hate" group), a bunch of swastikas have shown up around campus, drawn on student's doors. The police have finally arrested someone and guess what? The woman, Sarah Marshak, who complained that someone was drawing the swastikas on her door (ostensibly because she's Jewish) was caught drawing them on her own door! And in another, completely separate incident, another student was caught drawing them on his own door!!! WTF is going on down there? The news keeps reporting that "racial tension is high". Clearly, but why is it self generated? Very bizarre.

BTW, GWU has not yet punished the original hate instigators for the fliers. Surprise, surprise....