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I Heart Natalie (while laughing myself to death)

2009-06-07 12:53PM / 會員可以看

If you haven't seen the Natalie Tran's Community Channel on YouTube, you are missing out. The questions is, why hasn't some smart agent signed her up for her own show already?

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR9tS1f1f6k&feature=channel

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Self-portrait

2009-06-05 3:59PM / 會員可以看

5個評論– 我來說兩句
"Puke in My Mouth" Spoof Video

2009-05-04 10:57PM / 會員可以看

Check out the "female response" to the infamous SNL video from the wacky guys at The Pantless Knights.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJsQcnB6GC0

Mad props to Peter Furia and gang for yet another episode of hilarity!

1個評論– 我來說兩句
What is a "pandemic?"

2009-05-02 5:33AM / 會員可以看

Total number of confirmed swine flu cases (U.S.): 141
Number of deaths caused by swine flu (U.S.): 1

Total number of positives for regular flu last week: 259 (out of 2873 specimens tested by the CDC)
Number of pediatric deaths last week as a result of regular flu: 8
Total number of infants and children who have died of regular flu this season: 55

Percent probability media is will freak out, sow fear, and salivate over the ratings on doing 24-hour coverage of the (8) kids who died as a result of coming down with plain flu last week, or the (55) kids who've died in the last 15 weeks because of the common flu: 0.01%

Percent probability that media will equate the (1) U.S. death caused by swine flu to the Black Death: 99.9%

By the way, Egypt just decided to slaughter 300,000 pigs immediately despite the fact that there hasn't been a single case of swine flu in the entire country.

I, for one, refuse to participate in this media farce. If you're reading this, I hope you consider some of the numbers in this post the next time some news hack or self-important politician/medical professional breathlessly refers to the swine flu as a "global pandemic."

3個評論– 我來說兩句
Putting the swine flu in perspective.

2009-05-02 12:13AM / 會員可以看

Here's a sampling of some headlines about the swine flu:

Confirmed number of cases jumps to 331! [cnn.com]

Swine flu cases pass 100 in U.S., vaccine pursued! [Associated Press]

WHO confirms 331 flu cases and 10 deaths! [Reuters]

So okay, I added the exclamation points. But the point is how news media is manufacturing this atmosphere of fear and more fear.

To put this in perspective, let's take a look at the Center for Disease Control website where they actually do things like track the regular flu as a normal course of business. Let's take a look at the data for the week of March 1 to March 7, 2009 - way before "swine flu" become part of the popular lexicon.

2009-2009 Influenza Season Week 9 ending March 7, 2009

Nation (U.S.): 23% of samples tested positive for flu
No. of specimens tests: 5446
No. of positive specimens: 1252 or 23%

Number of Pediatric Deaths: 5
Pediatric Deaths Cumulative for Season: 26

So in just a one average week a couple months ago, the CDC confirmed 1252 flu cases out of 5500 samples which resulted in 5 pediatric deaths - numbers which are a small subset of all the flu cases in the country at the time.

By any comparison, the regular flu appears to be a lot more contagious and widespread, and so far caused a greater number of deaths in the U.S. than swine flu, even if you look only at deaths among infants and children.

Yet you don't hear about schools being closed and Vice Presidents warning people not to take public transportation when the numbers clearly show that regular influenza is (so far) proven to be much more virulent and serious than swine flu so far.

Now, I'm not saying we should throw caution out the window; this is, after all, a "novel" virus. However, every time a news organization writes a swine flu headline, I'd love to have them throw up stats on the regular flu in parentheses right in that headline.

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统计信息

I was born in a small town near Kunsan, South Korea but grew up in the Philadelphia area. ...
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I was born in a small town near Kunsan, South Korea but grew up in the Philadelphia area.

Co-founded DesignReactor.com and RottenTomatoes.com along with many of the AliveNotDead crew.

Worked as an English teacher in Korea for 2 years (including privately tutoring Korean gasu Eru when he was still in middle school).

I play both the piano and violin, but the latter is just a memory.
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