Gastric bypass, extreme edition

The 850-pound woman in Texas who decided to have gastric bypass surgery? Died last night of a massive heart attack, almost two weeks after the surgery. Turns out the risks are much greater for people whose body mass index is over 60, and hers was 137.5....

There but for the grace of God

Friday: Authorities say a 6-year-old boy who collapsed on a Harrison County school bus died from an abscess where two teeth had been removed from his lower jaw.

Coroner Gary Hargrove says Alexander "Alex" Callender went into shock from the infection and his body shut down. Callender collapsed on the bus after leaving Lizana Elementary School Thursday.

Saturday: The death of a Prince George's County boy this week from an infection that started with an abscessed tooth has spurred lawmakers to demand better dental care for poor children and has prompted a deluge of calls to local dentists for advice and appointments.

Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old homeless child, died Sunday in a District hospital after an infection from a molar spread to his brain.

Seriously, what the hell, America? When did we become the lesser-developed country? How is this at all acceptable?

(And sorry to be so depressing today. I'm not even bringing up BSG until tomorrow.)

Picspam, moose vs. helicopter edition

Just a reminder that in the eternal battle between moose and helicopter, there can be no true winners, only downed choppers and filleted moose. This is true on the base literal level and the metaphoric level -- you have to ask yourself, am I a moose? What is my helicopter? And do I charge it? Do I wait for it to land? Do I go ramming into the tail rotor like an idiot? Or do I bide my time, study for my license and take off in it?

...Uhm, yeah, I'm a little tired. ( 40 pics below.... )

Ron Borges, professional asshat (again)

Ron Borges, columnist for the Boston Glob, previously notable for asserting that five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong was not an athlete (since taken offline; don't worry, you're not missing anything), has been suspended for two months for plagiarizing.

My question: what the hell does that solve? He either committed an egregious offense utterly contrary to the acceptable code of conduct for his profession, or he didn't. If he didn't, he deserves no punishment. If he did -- if after being a columnist at one of the nation's major newspapers for this long he is incapable of realizing the thievery and fraud of stealing another's work as his own -- he deserves to be (a) fired (b) drummed out of the quasi-professional field of sports writing and (c) kicked in the face repeatedly. A suspension? He's not seven years old, he doesn't need a time-out. It's people like this that've turned most of sports journalism into a morass of half-witted hackery, and it's treatment like this that keeps it stagnant.