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Welcome to Britain, Where Death Stalks You at Every Turn Posted: 09 Feb 2011 09:05 AM PST If you read British newspapers, and thanks to the miracle of RSS, I do, England may be the most dangerous country in the world. If the roving gangs of “Asian youth” or crowds of spoiled rioters ticked that they have to pay a little more for their mostly-subsidized college educations don’t get you, you can be felled by teeny tiny particles of FLYING DEATH! Living near a petrol station can be a health hazard, researchers warn. They say the air in the immediate vicinity of garages is often polluted with airborne particles from evaporated fuel and therefore harmful to local residents. Scientists from the University of Murcia in Spain studied the effects of contamination at petrol stations. They found dangerous airborne pollutants from garages could contaminate buildings as far as 100m away. And don’t think that you’ll be safe if you barricade yourself in your home, with that toasty wood stove for warmth. Nope, you’re just doomed. They’re a timeless, charming and effective way to keep your home warm and inviting in the winter months. But the smoke from wood-burning stoves or open fires is as dangerous to your health as breathing in emissions from a car exhaust, research has revealed. Inhaling the invisible particles in the smoke can lead to fatal heart disease and cancer, toxicology experts warn. I suspect that these studies are mostly what you get when government-funded academics have a lot more money than useful things to do, but they do make the world seem pretty darned bleak and deadly, don’t they? And that does seem to be the point of studies like these. They are often long on threats (go back and see how the minimal threats are buried deep in each article) but very short on useful advice for how to eliminate or mitigate those threats reasonably, or even if the threats are, well, threatening. Is living relatively close to a gas station really that much of a threat? How short will you cut your life if you enjoy a roaring fire in your wood stove during cold winter nights? We don’t really get that information — just the panic, which is starting to get just a tad bit out of hand. Who knows how much more unwarranted stress these stories have added to the lives of good British folks who have far more pressing problems in front of them? Well, I say that until these ivory tower types and the newspapers who rush to publish their unhelpful studies start giving us information we can really use, we should ignore them and live our lives with all the petrol stations and homey fireplaces we bloody well want.

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Delivery Download Wednesday Edition Posted: 09 Feb 2011 03:10 AM PST I don’t have a lot to say this morning. The podcast will be up this afternoon (with link to follow, of course) and you’ll want to grab it before CPAC begins. I got a few minutes with Lisa DiPasquale, the woman behind the massive undertaking we know as CPAC, and she shared some little behind the scenes tidbits that I thought were pretty neat. There’s also a special offer tucked in there for those of you who will be at the convention this week, so be sure to listen and take me up on it! And now, links! The folks who say that the Tea Parties aren’t having a tangible effect on our electoral politics either don’t know what they’re talking about or want us to believe that they’re not. Here’s a nifty Instapundit link to a video about the present and future of private spaceflight from Bill Whittle and Rand Simberg. Remember all the ruckus about faulty Toyota cars caused largely by the irresponsible public statements from our Secretary of Transportation and panicky hearings in Congress? Well, all those politicians owe Toyota a very public apology. I think we can safely say there is no such thing as a moderate wing of the Democratic Party any longer. If the President really wants to get rid of harmful and needless regulations, he can start by prevailing on states to get rid of those that prevent people from starting their own small businesses. Speaker Boehner had a chance to bring some real transparency to the House of Representatives, but he couldn’t get past the old dinosaur way of doing things. Ed Driscoll has everything you always wanted to know about that adorable Volkswagon commercial, but didn’t think to ask.

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