Archive for the ‘Neuroscience’ Category

TMQ watch: December 20, 2011.

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Oh, look! TMQ got us a Christmas present. To quote John Gruber (who is actually quoting Norm MacDonald): “Happy birthday, Jesus. Hope you like crap.”

After the jump, what we’ve been dreading all year…

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Random crap from the NYT some people might find amusing.

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

In the three months since Hurricane Irene, the state repaired and reopened some 500 miles of damaged road, replaced a dozen bridges with temporary structures and repaired about 200 altogether.

Hmmmmmm. What do you suppose is the difference between Vermont and…other states?

Part 3 of the Derek Boogaard series.

You’ll shoot your eye out, kid! But at least when you do, it will be set to music!

Hit somebody!

Monday, December 5th, 2011

I’ve spent most of my life living in Texas.

The current outside temperature is 41 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is hard to develop an appreciation for hockey when the number of sustained below freezing days can be counted on the fingers of both hands. I never have (though I did attend a Houston Aeros game once, and it seems to me that I had a good time).

So I’m probably not the best person to comment on this, but I did want to highlight the  NYT series on Derek Boogaard, former NHL enforcer. (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3 to come.)

I haven’t had a chance to fully digest this yet, so I really don’t have anything profound to say. But it does look like this is worth reading.

(Subject line hattip.)

TMQ watch: November 8, 2011.

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Here is a partial list of movies that Gregg Easterbrook apparently thinks are better than “The Dark Knight”:

After the jump, we’ll dig a little deeper into Easterbrook as film critic in this week’s TMQ…
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TMQ watch: noted.

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

One of the suggestions TMQ has been making for reducing concussions in football is expanded use of “anti-concussion” helmets, as well as better fitting mouth guards.

With that in mind, we wanted to point out this article in today’s LAT:

“I wish there was such a product on the market,” Jeffrey Kutcher, chairman of the American Academy of Neurology’s sports section, said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. “The simple truth is that no current helmet, mouth guard, headband or other piece of equipment can significantly prevent concussions from occurring.”

It is fair to point out that TMQ has never suggested this equipment will totally prevent concussions. However, the article indicates that the alleged benefits may have been overstated: the Riddell Revolution helmet, which TMQ has endorsed, only reduces concussions by 2.6%, not the 31% Riddell claims.

Edited to add: Also worth noting: this NYT article about the death of Ridge Barden, mentioned in this week’s TMQ.

TMQ watch: October 18, 2011.

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

The more TMQ columns we observe, the more we think Gregg Easterbrook needs a good editor.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ:

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TMQ watch: October 11, 2011.

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Let’s start off this week with a video:

The reasons why will become apparent. (Also, we have a couple of friends who are students of ti kwan leap.) After the jump, this week’s TMQ:

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TMQ Watch: October 4, 2011.

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

One of WCD’s favorite quotes is from the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr.:

The notion that authority is entitled to reverence per se is the most subvervise of all notions in a free society. “There is not worse heresy,” Lord Acton wrote, “than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” Authority is entitled only to the respect it earns, and not a whit more.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ:

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TMQ watch: September 27, 2011.

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Did TMQ spend the off season reading epic fantasy novels? (WCD wonders if Easterbrook is a big Game of Thrones fan. But we digress.)

Seriously, “great heroes”? “Muscular men with square jaws”? “gleaming heroes”? Who is TMQ talking about? After the jump…

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TMQ Watch: September 6, 2011.

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

We apologize for the delay in posting this week’s TMQ Watch. We’re taking a class on alternating Tuesday nights; last night was the first meeting, and it appears this class is going to eat up a significant chunk of time. Ah, well, onward and upward.

After the jump, haiku. Not our haiku, of course (we have already made our feelings on that subject known) but TMQ’s annual predictions haiku.

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Random notes: March 3, 2011.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

I went to the fights last night, and a case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy broke out.

Sirhan Sirhan has been turned down for parole for the 13th time. What’s interesting about this article is that it focuses almost as much on Sirhan’s lawyer, William F. Pepper, and Pepper’s previous efforts:

Pepper says [James Earl] Ray, who was convicted of killing King two months before Kennedy was slain, was framed by the federal government and that King was killed in a conspiracy involving the FBI, the CIA, the military, the Memphis police and organized crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis.

This gives me an excuse to plug Hampton Sides’ excellent (and Edgar-nominated) book Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt In American History, about the killing of King and the manhunt for Ray. I picked it up about two weeks ago, and read the first 300 pages in one night. The only reason I stopped there was because I was dozing off. Sides’ book has an amazingly strong narrative drive for a true crime work; it reads very much like a good novel.

I’m not going to say it deserves the Edgar;  I haven’t read any of the other nominated books (I did pick up The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science last weekend, but haven’t had a chance to read it yet.) but I do commend Hellhound to your attention.

This is not a strategy I had considered for driving up page views, but good for the Austin Bulldog.

Edited to add: This is the closest thing I’ve found to a discussion of food items at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this year. No photos. I’d apologize, but I don’t want a photo of the “Pulled Pork Sundae”, which frankly sounds disgusting.

TMQ watch: February 15, 2011.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

And so we’ve come to the end of our first season doing the TMQ Watch, with the final TMQ of this season: the annual bad predictions review.

No, we said the bad predictions review. After the jump…

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