conuly

Bike trailers, child safety and the media's fear agenda

The title pretty much sums it up.

Here's another one. You'll love this... for a given quality of the word "love", that is. Apparently, Houston has a backlog of sexual assault kits that have never been tested. The city now wants money to deal with them. Great, right? Yeah! Except the police department wants that money not to run through the kits and test them, but to study why they have a backlog.

Oh, and I've heard about this Japanese show about sending small children out on their very first solo errands, but I've never seen a clip of it. This is even slightly subtitled! Of course, the comments suck, but that's to be expected. Is it just me or is there a middle ground somewhere between sending two year olds off to do the grocery shopping and not allowing twelve year olds to stay home alone for half an hour?

(Quite a lot of them have to do with the TSA situation, I'll try to group them together.)

Placards, kilts part of plans for scanner protests
Oversecured America
AP Exclusive: Color-coded terror alerts may end
Schneir on Security's recent update about it all
And an LJ link
An update from the ACLU saying the TSA isn't training its scanners
Why Cavity Bombs Would Make the TSA Irrelevant
TSA chief: Resisting scanners just means delays
For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance
TSA Chief: US Will Never Ease Screening Policy
You, apparently, can't just say "Screw it, I don't need to fly today"
Shirtless 8-Year-Old Boy Gets TSA Pat Down
A Pat's Papers article on flying dead bodies
And he happens to think the TSA blog is "actually sort of fun"

Whew! That's a lot!

Bizarre squidworm discovered

Behavior change causes changes in beliefs, not vice versa

On turkeys. Hey, could I raise my own heritage turkey for the holiday next year? You *can* keep poultry in the city if they aren't noisy. And we already have wild or feral turkeys in Staten Island, among other places.

On stuffing your turkey with White Castle burgers.

Coyotes have been released in Chicago to help keep down the rodent population. I suppose that's not very much different than encouraging peregrine* falcons in NYC.

*Peregrine means wandering, of course, and is related to the word pilgrim in the obvious way.

A fluffy little article on Yiddish.
And for that matter, you can check out a nifty language map to see where Yiddish is spoken in the US!

It's time to sign up for SantaThing. This also makes a good gift. However, I will get you nothing in return, so bear that in mind.

University Kicks Student With Down Syndrome Out Of Classroom; Other Students Protest And Are Ignored

On tattoos to improve/monitor your health

Our Disappearing Apples

On taxes

Some graphs on race and the death penalty

Obama, S. Korea leader agree to hold joint military exercise. If somebody manages to start the Korean war up again, I'll be very irked. I'm already irked, frankly, because I see the likelihood of this.

Allergic Teen Seeks High School Perfume Ban

Conservatives at odds with Vatican over condoms

Children Born 'Late Pre-Term' More Prone to Low IQ
Minnesota is using paperwork to deter induced labor

The use of braces for younger kids is increasing

And one from Motortrend.com that's... just well-worth reading for the fun of it.

And FINALLY (I think) one on a school which banned... wait for it... wait for it...





PENCILS!

And how many Chinese are urging boycotts of Western companies because of the normal non-Chinese stance on Tibet.

It has a video.

They ask one Chinese woman why, exactly, people in the West are protesting the next Olympics, and do you know what she says? She says that we're just jealous. We wouldn't protest or boycott or anything if we weren't jealous of China's success.

Boy, does that sound familiar. Y'know, I didn't really think the "they're just being mean because they're jealous" argument was very compelling when my own country used it after 9/11 - why the fuck would it convince me on anything China says?

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There is a related article about "China's Loyal Youth" here.

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Actually, if you want to read something truly interesting, go read the comments to this NYTimes blog. The entry itself is so-so, but the comments are fascinating.

One about the "Guide to Pirate Parenting"

"Cap'n Billy will help you turn your boring, lazy, disrespectful, disobedient
child into an exciting, disrespectful, disobedient plunderer of the high seas or suburbs!"

Then there's one on the pudding hat. Apparently, being scared of every bump and fall your kid might ever make is not a new phenomenon. But then, medicine was more hit-or-miss in those days, so avoiding concussions was probably a sensible safety precaution.

One on alumni from Soviet Youth Camps, and their nostalgia.

A heartfelt plea to put your kids to work

I'll just have to copy the article's title here: "Theme park to offer adult world to Chinese kids". Go read it.

An article on a village made to help foster kids

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And an article on play

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