It's An Assortment of Stuff

Because the news is never static.

Slicker than oil:

While the BP oil geyser pumps millions of gallons of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama and members of Congress may have to answer for the millions in campaign contributions they’ve taken from the oil and gas giant over the years.

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

On top of that, the oil giant has spent millions each year on lobbying — including $15.9 million last year alone — as it has tried to influence energy policy.

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

I feel safer already:

After the Christmas Day incident, the participant said, the meetings "became much more focused on the specific details of counterterrorism operations." On Tuesday, the briefing focused largely on a single incident, as officials gave Obama an extended "walk-through" of the events of the previous 48 hours.

The sessions have included some "uncomfortable moments," one person said, "when an individual's unpreparedness or lack of ability to articulate exactly what their agency or department is doing becomes apparent." In those instances, Obama has been "sharp" in ordering changes, the person said.

Denial: the sad realisation that one is incredibly wrong yet won't admit it:

Whenever something goofy happens — bomb in Times Square, mass shootings at a US military base, etc. — there seem to be two kinds of reactions:

a) Some people go, "Hmm. I wonder if this involves some guy with a name like Mohammed who has e-mails from Yemen."

b) Other people go, "Don't worry, there's no connection to terrorism, and anyway, even if there is, it's all very amateurish, and besides he's most likely an isolated extremist or lone wolf."

Unfortunately, everyone in category (b) seems to work for the government.

It turns out that happier marriages and more book-smarts make one less likely to allow one's daughter to get a suspect vaccination (emphasis mine):

A new study suggests parents with more education are less likely to let their daughters get vaccinated against HPV.

Researchers at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control did a large telephone survey in the province to try to find out why parents did or didn't let their daughters get the HPV shot.

They were surprised to find families with both parents still in the marriage and where parents had more education were less likely to accept the shot for their daughters.

Lead author Dr. Gina Ogilvie says the finding shows public health needs to do a better job informing those parents and countering anti-vaccination information on the Internet.

But vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit wasn't surprised by the finding, saying research into which parents refuse childhood vaccines for their kids shows the same trend.

Offit suggests what's happening is that people who are used to making their own decisions are finding misinformation about vaccines on the Internet and making choices based on it.

Or perhaps they smell a rat:

Dr. Harper joins a number of consumer watchdogs, vaccine safety advocates, and parents who question the vaccine’s risk-versus-benefit profile. She says data available for Gardasil shows that it lasts five years; there is no data showing that it remains effective beyond five years. This raises questions about the CDC’s recommendation that the series of shots be given to girls as young as 11-years old. “If we vaccinate 11 year olds and the protection doesn’t last... we’ve put them at harm from side effects, small but real, for no benefit,” says Dr. Harper. “The benefit to public health is nothing, there is no reduction in cervical cancers, they are just postponed, unless the protection lasts for at least 15 years, and over 70% of all sexually active females of all ages are vaccinated.” She also says that enough serious side effects have been reported after Gardasil use that the vaccine could prove riskier than the cervical cancer it purports to prevent.

Please don't respond with ridiculous accusations that I am anti-vaccine or that I want people to get sick. Pig crap. I would like proper research done into a vaccine that is effective in only a few instances and even then only some of the time and has yet to be proven effective with the least amount of side-effects. Red flags should have been popping up like crazy when the province of Ontario was offering this vaccine for free in school gymnasiums but at a great cost in the prepared environment of a doctor's office. Perhaps someone ought to have mentioned that (dare I say it?) the notion of abstinence- that quaint "Victorian" attitude- might be a preferable route for people far too young to appreciate the social and physical dangers of polyamorous engagements.

Unbelievable:

A northern Alberta teen, once hailed as a hero, is being sued for $350, 000 for a 2007 fire which destroyed the home in which she was babysitting and damaged the one next door according to the Edmonton Journal.

Aaliyah Braybrook, of Clairmont, Alta., was just 12 years old at the time of the fire, apparently begun when one of her charges was playing with a lighter in the bathroom. Ms. Braybrook had taken a babysitting course and a Red Cross safety course. Local firefighters called her a hero because she got the two boys and the family pet out of the burning home.

Now 14 years old, the babysitter was served with a statement of claim on Sunday in a suit which naming her and Douglas Mills, the father of the two boys she was babysitting and resident of the trailer next door which was destroyed in the fire on July 12, 2007. The lawsuit was filed by Mr. Mills’s parents, who owned both homes.

The babysitter’s father said Wednesday that the claim alleges negligence on his daughter’s part, suggesting she was not trained properly to look after the children, who were three and five at the time.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.