U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe tosses a snowball

YouTube link.

The travesty is detailed at ABC News:

Sen. Jim Inhofe, a devoted climate change denier, tossed a snowball at someone on the Senate floor today as he tried to debunk climate change. 

“In case we had forgotten because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair: You know what this is? It's a snowball and that just from outside here so it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonal,” he said. 

“So, Mr. President, catch this,” Inhofe, R-Okla., said on the Senate floor, tossing the snowball to someone off-screen as he tried to suppress a smile. 

“We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record but now the script has flipped and I think it's important since we hear it over and over and over,” Inhofe, 80, said. “As we can see with the snowball out there, this is today. This is reality.” 

That degree of ignorance in a person who helps make the laws for this country is virtually incomprehensible to me.  I can't even comment without resorting to offensive expletives.

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Perhaps he was thinking of a fistula

BOISE -- An Idaho lawmaker received a brief lesson on female anatomy after asking if a woman can swallow a small camera for doctors to conduct a remote gynecological exam.

The question Monday from Republican Rep. Vito Barbieri came as the House State Affairs Committee heard nearly three hours of testimony on a bill that would ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing medication through telemedicine.

He later claimed he "wasn't being serious" when he posed the question.  It's worth noting that he "sits on the board of a crisis pregnancy center in northern Idaho."

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I was never invited to "chicken pox parties" - updated

"Chicken pox" (varicella) was in the news last month [November 2011] when offers for infected lollipops were posted on the internet:

Wendy Werkit, of Nashville, offered to send other parents a "fresh batch of pox" on lollipops or cotton-buds in return for $50 (£31) via PayPal...

Her advertisement was placed on a Facebook page intended to help parents find a "pox party" in their local area, where children can mix and pick up the virus, which can be more dangerous if suffered later.

Advice for the best way to send chickenpox emerged in a thread of postings on the site. "Tuck it inside a ziplock baggie then put it in the envelope," it said. "Don't put anything identifying it as pox." 

The photo above comes from a detailed article at Inhabitots, which discusses the pros and cons of naturally vs. vaccine-acquired immunity.

Not getting vaccinated against chicken pox can result in some serious health issues. For example, anyone who has gotten chicken pox naturally in their life (not been vaccinated) can later get shingles. While the chicken pox vaccine doesn’t guarantee immunity from shingles, it increases the odds you won’t get and if you do, it makes the disease less severe...

It's not a new topic; "Inside New York Chicken Pox Parties" was published in 2009.

More kids stopped by throughout the afternoon to play and rub elbows with the sick celebrants. The younger kids passed the time chasing each other, playing make-believe games about forest animals and gnomes and watching Snow White, while the older kids kept busy reading books, playing video games and practicing the guitar. " The 12-year-old son was joking about how, normally, his mother tells him to cover his mouth," Penelope says. "Now all of a sudden, his mom's trying to spread his germs. He was enjoying pointing out the hypocrisy of it all." On her way out several hours later, she had an idea. "I have a friend who couldn't find a pox party, so a mother in California overnighted her son's pajamas to her. Her kid slept in them and got chicken pox," Penelope says. "So I asked, 'Do you mind if I borrow some [dirty clothes]?' The mom gave me a pair of just-worn pajamas. My daughter slept in them that night and then I mailed them back." Alas, Dr. Gershon says this plan isn't likely to work: "Chicken pox does not spread by clothing. It requires being in direct contact with a person with active chicken pox or shingles." And, indeed, after all the trouble, Penelope's daughter remains pox-free, though she plans to try again.

Those of you with children may want to read more at one of the links.

Addendum:  Reposted from 2011 to incorporate this report of "measles parties."

She was approached recently by a friend who knew her kids were unvaccinated. The friend offered to help set up a play date with another child who was sick.

“She said, ‘I know someone who has the measles, would you like to be connected with them?’” Schiffman said.

Measles parties and chicken pox parties are practices that developed in eras before vaccines for those diseases were available... “People did this with chicken pox all the time,” said Art Reingold, an epidemiology professor at UC Berkeley who worked at the Centers for Disease Control in the 1980s. “Parents would have kids lick a lollipop and give it to other kids, or mail it to other kids.”

The chicken pox vaccine was licensed for use in 1995; for measles in 1963. Today, some parents are still deliberately getting their kids sick because they don’t believe in vaccines.

“The basic notion is ‘this is my opportunity for my kid to get immune the old fashioned way, the way God intended,’” Reingold said. “’The way nature intended.’”

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Christian mother sees pentagram on school bus lights

YouTube link.

I mean... I can't even... comment...

Via Cynical-C, which has been resurrected to resume a 12-year-long tradition of cutting-edge posts.  Welcome back, Chris.

Addendum:  A hat tip to reader Soubriquet, for reminding us that the Congressional Medals of Honor are pentagrams (photo cropped for size from the original here).

Addendum #2:  An anonymous reader has reminded us of the official logo of the Republican party:

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American schoolchildren advised to arm themselves. With cans of soup.

This is not from the Onion; it's reported this week in The Telegraph:

Children in the US have been told to bring cans of soup to school to use as a weapon in the event of a school shooting.

The strange request was made by a secondary school in Alabama, which said the cans could be used to "stun the intruder or even knock him out until the police arrive". Parents at the WF Burns Middle School received a letter saying the school was "arming our students with a canned food item" in response to "school shootings throughout the United States".

"We realise at first this may seem odd, however, it is a practice that would catch an intruder off-guard. The canned food item could stun the intruder or even knock him out until police arrive," read the letter [embedded at right]. 

"The canned good item will give the students a sense of empowerment to protect themselves and will make them feel secure in case an intruder enters their classroom." 

The letter explains that this procedure was developed based on research done on the internet (links provided).

The broader context is that this is part of an A. L. I. C. E. program (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) designed to teach students what to do in the event of an invasion by a shooter.  Similar programs have noted that soup cans are not de rigueur: staplers, shoes, books, binders, lab beakers, chairs and music stands are all acceptable projectiles.

The canned soup advice has been mocked by Vice on the left -

"When setting up an edible arsenal, one must first compare the relative densities of various canned foods. Eight tall ounces of pineapple juice is fine for a teacher to handle, but eight ounces of heavy corn syrup is the perfect size for preteen fists and packs equal wallop" 

and by Townhall on the right -

It’s preposterous. Why not arm and train faculty and staff? Or bring in armed guards as the NRA advocated long ago?

Of course, if it's being mocked by the left and the right... perhaps the canned soup is the best middle ground.  Hmmm....

We should note before closing that the canned soup is to be stored at the school in locked cabinets to prevent, you know...

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