A story by Seth Borenstein at the Associated Press (“AP ANALYSIS: VW EVASION LIKELY LED TO DOZENS OF DEATHS”), originally published on Saturday but currently carrying a Monday morning time stamp, claims that “Volkswagen’s pollution-control chicanery” has been responsible for “killing between five and 20 people in the United States annually in recent years.” Those results, based on an AP “statistical and computer analysis,” “cleverly” recast the effort’s raw results of “somewhere between 16 and 94 deaths over seven years.”

Given how poorly supposedly sacrosanct computer models have done in predicting “global warming” trends, and how gullible journalists, especially Borenstein, have been all these years about them, it seemed quite wise to treat his VW “analysis” with caution. In an op-ed at Investor’s Business Daily yesterday, Michael Fumento has demonstrated that such skepticism was warranted, and that the outrage over VW’s ruse, though wholly justified, is wildly out of proportion to the damage it has done.

(more…)

Here we go:

Topics:
– Government Corruption
– Joe Biden
– ISIS
– Lying Teenagers
– Hillary Clinton
– Facebook
– The Kardashians

Best Lines:

• “A possible presidential campaign by Vice President Joe Biden now enjoys 90 percent support — among television comedy writers.”
• “According to a new study, the average teenager lies five times in a day — or as Hillary Clinton calls them, amateurs.”
• “There’s more bad news for Hillary Clinton. Facebook is adding a ‘Dislike’ button.”
• “The National Enquirer is reporting that the Kardashian family is falling apart. But unfortunately, they’re not going away.”

This open thread is meant for commenters to post on items either briefly noted below (if any) or otherwise not covered at this blog. Rules are here.

From the skies over the Atlantic Ocean:

September 29, 2015

The asthmatic toddler was having a hard time breathing and without his medications — trapped on a transatlantic flight from Spain to the U.S.

That’s when Dr. Khurshid Guru, director of Robotic Surgery at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, sprang into action, fashioning a makeshift nebulizer to deliver oxygen and asthma meds to the toddler, saving his life.

The New York doctor made his “MacGyver” device with an odd assortment of items he scrounged aboard the Air Canada flight: a plastic water bottle, a cup, oxygen mask and a small oxygen tank.

The 2-year-old boy was having trouble breathing and his parents told the physician they had put his asthma medication in checked luggage, according to ABC news.

“The child had developed a cold,” Guru told the station. “We were three or four hours into the flight. I think the cold and popping of the ears and crying… He got worse.”

As the young boy’s oxygen level dropped dangerously — 87 or 88 percent — Guru faced a dilemma, there was only an adult inhaler on the plane. That’s when the robotic expert fashioned his improvised device, which delivered lifesaving oxygen and medication to the child.

To create the nebulizer, the surgeon cut up a water bottle and added oxygen to one end and the adult inhaler through a small hole in the bottle. That way the oxygen and medication could be delivered through the bottle’s opening directly to the child.

“As the bottle went near to the child’s face, he pushed it away,” Guru reported to ABC. “I got a water cup and made a hole in the bottle and focused it to his face… told [the parents] to keep it there. Within about half an hour and two treatments he was sounding much better,” and his oxygen level was at 94 or 95 percent. …

Go here for the rest of the story.