Dave Fried: being a stylized object of male lust as an intentional, ironic gesture by the author. As opposed to, say, typical female characters in most internet/gamer comics, who are just hot gamer guys with boobs, in a disturbingly sincere and unironic way.
"This scene may look like exploitation, but it isn't, 'cause it's ironic, y'see? I'm actually making fun of guys going "Ooh! Ah!" at babes in bondage, 'cause it's so sexist and bad and crap! Yeah! All this so-called exploitation is really satire, y'know? Or parody, maybe...I can never keep them straight. Well, whichever one's cool, that's what my movie is!" — from Grunge: the Movie by Adam Warren.
Possibly a stupid question.
Can you explain the reason why you recommend phoning for an ambulance? It's a nasty break but it doesn't appear to be immediately life-threatening, so why not take the casualty directly to the hospital once you've put the arm in a sling?
The last couple of times I broke my arm I made my own way to hospital: did I make a mistake?
#61: having to tell everyone how to pronounce and/or spell your name for your ENTIRE LIFE doesn't sound like much fun to me.
This is an experience common to everyone who moves from one culture to another, so I think it has some value in helping you to be sympathetic. I have a perfectly ordinary Welsh name, but I live in England where it has to be spelled out. It's not a big deal and it helps me to imagine the difficulties I might contend with if I were called, say, Dhasanawalaya Sornsongkram.
#1: A name to make Dweezil and Moon Unit Zappa not feel so bad.
Wikipedia says,Dweezil's registered birth name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa ... He was always called "Dweezil" by his family and was unaware that this was not the name on his birth certificate. Upon this discovery at the age of seven, he insisted on having his nickname become his legal name. Gail and Frank hired an attorney and soon the name Dweezil was official.
So did he ever feel bad about it? Similarly, Moon Unit has kept her name and it seems likely that having a memorable name is an advantage to her in her profession as an actress, singer and writer.
An interesting commentary on the economic argument of Ezra Pound's Canto XLV is this piece by Daniel Davies.
@1: Bruce Sterling already wrote that one (Involution Ocean).
(Which is a long-winded way of say that you're quite right.)
Yes, I wrote "Lundy's Lane" but meant "the Thames". At Queenston Heights it was the death of Isaac Brock that was the significant result for the U.S. Brock had organized the defence of Upper Canada and inspired his troops in a way that none of his successors were able to. It's hard to imagine Brock mismanaging the retreat from Amherstburg in the way that Proctor did.
When asked, most English people would assume the greatest single loss of English lives in a battle occurred at the Somme, but Towton has that dubious honour.
About 100,000 British soldiers died at the Somme. So I'm guessing you're restricting the comparison to the first day of the battle (1 July 1916) when about 20,000 British soldiers died.
(Oops, for Lundy's Lane I mean the Thames.)
The most significant victory for the U.S. in the War of 1812 was the destruction of Tecumseh's confederation and the killing of Tecumseh himself at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813.
Tecumseh was among the victors over St Clair in 1791, and after the war ended in 1794 he continued to organize resistance against U.S. settlement of the northwest frontier, threatening to kill U.S. citizens who tried to settle on the lands acquired by William Henry Harrison in the Treaty of Fort Wayne, 1809.
With Tecumseh dead and the confederation dead and dispersed, there was no-one to prevent the U.S. settlement of Indiana and its accession as a state in 1816.
(Oops, for Lundy's Lane I mean the Thames.)
The most significant victory for the U.S. in the War of 1812 was the destruction of Tecumseh's confederation and the killing of Tecumseh himself at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813.
Tecumseh was among the victors over St Clair in 1791, and after the war ended in 1794 he continued to organize resistance against U.S. settlement of the northwest frontier, threatening to kill U.S. citizens who tried to settle on the lands acquired by William Henry Harrison in the Treaty of Fort Wayne, 1809.
With Tecumseh dead and the confederation dead and dispersed, there was no-one to prevent the U.S. settlement of Indiana and its accession as a state in 1816.
if I recall correctly, we pretty much lost every battle in the 1812 War
The U.S. had significant victories at Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, and New Orleans, plus a number of minor successes like Sacket's Harbor, Baltimore, single-ship actions in the Atlantic, and commerce raiding around the world.
For numbers of military deaths, a good resource is Matthew White's Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century; in particular his list of the Bloodiest Battles of the 20th Century.
In White's list, the nine bloodiest battles of the twentieth century were from the German–Soviet war of 1941–1945, then at number ten is the Somme, 1916. The bloodiest battle of the twentieth century in which U.S. soldiers took part is #22 in the list: Okinawa, 1945.
White has a good summary of US deaths in war. Some measure of the relative savagery of theatres of war is that his figure of about 1.3 million U.S. soldiers dead in all wars since 1775 is less than the number of Soviet soldiers and civilians killed in the siege of Leningrad, 1941–1944, just one of the many bloody battles on the eastern front.
Notes On Rhetoric skewers many of these rhetorical tropes.
Teresa@478:
Adams' 1982 paper The Efficicacy of Seat Belt Legislation covers the same ground as "The Failure of Seat Belt Legislation" but was peer reviewed. But if you didn't like the one you won't like the other.
I'm sorry to say I can't find another systematic review, which is rather a shame.
For a smaller area study with similar findings to Adams, see Asch et al. (1991), Risk compensation and the effectiveness of safety belt use laws: a case study of New Jersey, Policy Sciences 24:2.
Teresa@479:
I always wear a seatbelt. What I have more trouble justifying is driving a car at all.
Teresa@452:
Your criticisms would be fair if there was plentiful evidence that seatbelt laws reduce numbers of casualties. Then the laws would be fair, because the imposition is indeed a small one. Perhaps there is evidence from the United States, which has introduced seatbelt laws more recently than Europe?
I get the feeling that I'm not putting the case clearly. The point against compulsion is ironically that the evidence for the protective effect of seatbelts is very strong: case-control studies of accidents suggest that something like 40% of fatalities can be avoided by wearing a seatbelt (this is the kind of evidence that Jim sets out so eloquently in the original post, and is why I wear one). But in all countries that introduced laws, even though the rate of seatbelt wearing went up dramatically (e.g. in the UK from 40% to 90%) the number of fatalities didn't fall by anything like that amount; indeed in some countries (e.g. Denmark) the number of fatalities rose. So there must be some confounding factors. It looks like selective recruitment and risk compensation are the culprits, and indeed there's direct evidence for this, for example the Janssen study.
If risk compensation is indeed to blame, then it's reasonable to ask if other road users are affected. The statistical evidence for adverse effects on pedestrians and cyclists is fairly weak, but the Isles report (prepared for the UK government before the 1981 introduction of a seatbelt law) looked at pedestrian injury rates for 8 countries (Finland, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany) that introduced seatbelt laws in 1973–76 and reported:Although none of the results is individually significant, it is remarkable that the estimated effects are all positive, whether the law was introduced before, during or after the fuel crisis.Combine this statistical evidence with the known risk compensation behaviour, and, without suggesting that this is conclusive, I think there is a case that deserves to be answered. After all, pedestrians and cyclists suffer in just as gory and distressing ways as occupants of motor vehicles.
Alan@465:
I don't think you're being fair here. I think Jim simply misunderstood what I was saying because I didn't explain myself very clearly. Sorry about that.
Teresa@454:
I'm not really sure why you're asking this, but the answers are (1) no, yes (2) no, yes. Same as everyone else, I expect.
James@405:"Given the data presented by Adams, the best we can get is on the low side of Not Proved."
I'm not disagreeing with you here, the evidence is suggestive but by no means compelling. But a verdict of "not proved" normally means that the accused goes free. I think the standard for justice ought to be just as high when it comes to criminalizing people in the name of their own safety.
Aconite@400:
It looks to me as though you're phrasing this as a question of morality, so I'll answer it in that vein. (If I've mistaken you, and you're actually asking about public policy, then say so.)
I think people have a moral duty to reasonably reduce the risks they impose on other people. But the same reasoning should make us reluctant to drive motor vehicles unless absolutely necessary, because of the hazards we present to other road users: half a ton of metal can cause much more damage than 70 kg of unrestrained driver or passenger.
If the freedom to drive at all is an acceptable balance between convenience to ourselves and risk to others, then I don't why driving without a seatbelt is on other the unacceptable side of that balance.
John@386:"The wearing of seat belts (or not) doesn't make me more reckless behind the wheel, and I doubt it really does for anyone else either."
That's nice for you, but not everyone behaves the same way, or has such accurate introspection. I know I am prepared to attempt much more dangerous rock climbs when I'm protected by safety equipment than when I'm not. I don't see why something similar wouldn't be true of driving, though it's hard for me to tell because driving manoeuvres aren't graded in the way that rock climbs are. Janssen's 1991 study (see Adams, pages 8–9) supports this.
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| 2009 | 2 |
| 2008 | 3 |
| 2007 | 19 |
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