Is Jahi McMath Alive? | National Review

Winkfield sued, but after an independent medical examination, the judge ruled that Jahi was deceased and allowed a death certificate to be issued. He also played Solomon, and worked out a settlement whereby Children’s Hospital transferred Jahi to her relatives while still on life support. We now know, she was moved to New Jersey, where she remains today.

At the time, I believed Jahi was dead, and so wrote. But I also wrote that if she did not deteriorate as almost all people with properly determined brain death do, my eyebrows would raise.

Since then, Jahi has not deteriorated, but apparently, her body’s condition has improved. My eyebrows are above my hairline.

Source: Is Jahi McMath Alive? | National Review

Please go read the rest– especially the details that the symptoms of brain-death offered were, apparently, actually symptoms of maltreatment.

The State is Mother. The State is Father.

The Writer in Black

I am more than a little pissed off about this incident.

I speak of young Charlie Gard, the boy in England who has a mitochondrial disorder for which the National Health Service has no treatment, much less a cure.

Charlie’s parents raised nearly 2 million dollars to cover the cost of bringing Charlie to the US where an experimental treatment offers hope of significantly extending young Charlie’s life, however the government-controlled hospital has refused to release Charlie to his parents, going so far as to go to court to terminate their parental rights to facilitate the hospital’s plans to place Charlie on the Liverpool Care Pathway, a supposed palliative care protocol that in function is used to hasten the death of problem patients.

Let me repeat that.  The government run hospitals can’t help him.  They propose to put him into a facility which basically drugs him into “comfort” while he…

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Joan Lee Dead: Wife of Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee Was 93 | Hollywood Reporter

After a childhood sweetheart wed another woman, Joan Clayton impulsively married an American soldier during World War II and moved to New York, where she was extremely unhappy. Meanwhile, a cousin of Lee’s wanted to set up the struggling writer with a hat model. Lee tells what happened next:

“When I was young, there was one girl I drew; one body and face and hair. It was my idea of what a girl should be. The perfect woman. And when I got out of the Army, somebody, a cousin of mine, knew a model, a hat model at a place called Laden Hats. He said, ‘Stan, there’s this really pretty girl named Betty. I think you’d like her. She might like you. Why don’t you go over and ask her to lunch.’ Blah, blah, blah.

“So I went up to this place. Betty didn’t answer the door. But Joan answered, and she was the head model. I took one look at her — and she was the girl I had been drawing all my life. And then I heard the English accent. And I’m a nut for English accents! She said, ‘May I help you?’ And I took a look at her, and I think I said something crazy like, ‘I love you.’ I don’t remember exactly. But anyway, I took her to lunch. I never met Betty, the other girl. I think I proposed to [Joan] at lunch.”

Source: Joan Lee Dead: Wife of Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee Was 93 | Hollywood Reporter

Rest in peace, Mrs. Stan Lee.

I’m glad you told him to try before he quit.

Southern Poverty Law Center “extremist” lists used “to silence speech and speakers”

Q — What do you make of the labeling of Ayan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz as anti-Muslim “extremists”? Was it appropriate or overreach?

Q– One of Nawaz’s colleagues argued that by engaging with hardline opponents of Islam, Nawaz has been able to get people like Tommy Robinson of the English Defense League to moderate their critiques of Islam. Is there a possibility that the SPLC’s labels could shut down productive dialogue and further polarize society?

Q — What do you make of the addition of the Center for Immigration Studies to the “hate group” list? Was it appropriate or ovearreach?

A — The critical question is not whether a particular person deserves to be on SPLC’s Extremist list, but why SPLC has such a list at all for people who pose no threat of violence. For groups that do not threaten violence, the use of SPLC “hate group” or “extremist” designations frequently are exploited as an excuse to silence speech and speakers. It taints not only the group or person, but others who associate with them. Surely SPLC is aware of such chilling impact on political debate.

Q–In 2014, the FBI stopped linking to the SPLC’s hate group list as a resource. Was it appropriate for the FBI to stop endorsing the group?

A — Given SPLC’s obvious political bias against the political right-of-center, the FBI never should have relied upon SPLC in the first place.

While there may be other groups who compose lists of alleged hate groups, SPLC is by far the most prominent. Unfortunately, very often who gets placed on an SPLC hate list is very subjective and done from the perspective of SPLC’s liberal and Democratic leanings. For example. Dr. Ben Carson was once on the “extremist” list, but only was removed after my website called attention to it. Dr. Rand Paul also was once on an SPLC “extremist” list. That SPLC would put such mainstream conservatives and libertarians on its hate lists, but not similarly situated liberal or Democratic politicians, demonstrates an ideological bias.

Source: Southern Poverty Law Center “extremist” lists used “to silence speech and speakers”

Taking On the Scourge of Opioids | National Affairs

Much of the conventional wisdom surrounding the opioid crisis holds that virtually anyone is at risk for opioid abuse or addiction — say, the average dental patient who receives some Vicodin for a root canal. This is inaccurate, but unsurprising. Exaggerating risk is a common strategy in public-health messaging: The idea is to garner attention and funding by democratizing affliction and universalizing vulnerability. But this kind of glossing is misleading at best, counterproductive at worst. To prevent and ameliorate problems, we need to know who is truly at risk to target resources where they are most needed.

In truth, the vast majority of people prescribed medication for pain do not misuse it, even those given high doses. A new study in the Annals of Surgery, for example, found that almost three-fourths of all opioid painkillers prescribed by surgeons for five common outpatient procedures go unused. In 2014, 81 million people received at least one prescription for an opioid pain reliever, according to a study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine; yet during the same year, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that only 1.9 million people, approximately 2%, met the criteria for prescription pain-reliever abuse or dependence (a technical term denoting addiction). Those who abuse their prescription opioids are patients who have been prescribed them for over six months and tend to suffer from concomitant psychiatric conditions, usually a mood or anxiety disorder, or have had prior problems with alcohol or drugs.

Source: Taking On the Scourge of Opioids | National Affairs

H/t NeoNeocon– who is right, it is comprehensive!

Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job

At one point Gramins heard a doctor exclaim, “We may as well stop. Every bag of blood we give him ends up on the floor. This guy’s like Swiss cheese. Why’d that cop have to shoot him so many times!”

Gramins thought, “He just tried to kill me! Where’s that part of it?”

When Gramins was released from the hospital, “I walked out of there a different person,” he said.

“Being in a shooting changes you. Killing someone changes you even more.” As a devout Catholic, some of his changes involved a deepening spirituality and philosophical reflections, he said without elaborating.

At least one alteration was emphatically practical.

Before the shooting, Gramins routinely carried 47 rounds of handgun ammo on his person, including two extra magazines for his Glock 21 and 10 rounds loaded in a backup gun attached to his vest, a 9 mm Glock 26.

Now unfailingly he goes to work carrying 145 handgun rounds, all 9 mm. These include three extra 17-round magazines for his primary sidearm (currently a Glock 17), plus two 33-round mags tucked in his vest, as well as the backup gun. Besides all that, he’s got 90 rounds for the AR-15 that now rides in a rack up front.

Paranoia?

Gramins shook his head and said “Preparation.”

Source: Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job

 

Go read the rest– it’s very well written, especially for something so scary– and think about it.

 

A gun may not work.

 

Pepper spray– even military grade, there are some folks who are immune to it right off the bat.  The Navy usually identifies them in the “confidence chamber”– where they use an incense form of personal defense spray to make sure you trust your gas mask, and man do you not forget that if you’re not immune– and that immunity can be built up; the guys who run the “confidence chamber” all do it.  (There are some women– I asked.  Can’t assure the percentages, though, they probably try to make sure to use any female trainers on the all-male units for better effect.)

Anybody who uses pepper spray in the Navy has to be “qualified” with it each year– that is, they get sprayed.

Responding to it like you just had someone squirt water in your face is common enough that they have a protocol for it; go get a new bottle, spray for double the allotted time.  My boyfriend’s class had one guy like that, and they actually did the double-check twice— and it just made his clothes stink, as far as he was concerned.  They said they get it about every two or three classes, but that doesn’t help on figuring how common because the classes vary wildly.

(I ended up marrying said boyfriend, and I think we still have his pepper-spray utilities somewhere.  Made more sense than throwing them away, although he still had to buy new.)

THERE IS NO MAGIC TRINKET.

At least one lady retreated all the way to the crawlspace in her house, with her two sick kids, was on the phone with her husband, had called the cops, and emptied a .306 revolver (so five or six bullets) into the attacker’s chest at point-blank range…and he only walked off because they could hear the cops coming.

He made it to his car, drove for a few miles, and I can’t remember if the cops caught him or he drove himself to a hospital but he was WALKING THE WHOLE TIME.

That case involved drugs, but you cannot know what the Bad Guy(s) you’ll be facing are.

Eliot Ness: Legend Eclipses Reality – The American Catholic

Bad history but good drama.

Source: Eliot Ness: Legend Eclipses Reality – The American Catholic

So go read the article to get some good history, and details of the good drama. :D