Is It OK to Kiss Your Pet?

No.

Here's a list of diseases you can get from animals.  If you're a healthy adult who doesn't mind the possibility of missing a week of work so you can spend that time in the bathroom, you can go right ahead, but please don't tell your kids, pregnant women, people with organ transplants, or otherwise immunocompromised people that it's okay, like this guy.

And what's his (commonly used) justification?  "When's the last time you ever heard or read of a veterinarian dying of a zoonotic disease?" and "While disease transmission does happen now and then, it's usually more of an annoyance (like ringworm) than a threat."

Huh.  Tell that to these people.

Animals carry diseases.  They shed the organisms in their stool.  Then they lick themselves.  It doesn't take a genius (although it may take more than a DVM) to figure out the risk involved.

People get sick all the time from kissing their pets.  I'm sure some people have died from it.

But even if they didn't, it'd still be gross.

How Do I Know if a Restaurant Is Safe to Eat At?

I have to admit, I've never really been one to worry about how safe restaurants are to eat at.  I'm usually more worried about how much it costs and whether I like the kind of food they serve.  But the movement toward more openness in government has created a great opportunity to get a little better idea about how risky your favorite restaurant really is.

Rule #1: If a restaurant is open, it means that the health department determined on its most recent inspection that the restaurant was safe for you to eat at.  This doesn't guarantee you won't get sick, but it's definitely something good to keep in mind no matter how high or low the restaurant scored on its last inspection.

Rule #2: Restaurant inspections are anything but a guarantee.  How well a restaurant's most recent inspection went only tells you how how well the restaurant's most recent inspection went.  However, though restaurants certainly have good days and bad days, many restaurant inspection sites show inspection scores over several years, giving you a good idea of how a restaurant performs on average.

Rule #3: While restaurant inspection scores are a great tool, keep your eyes open.  Just because the restaurant you're at had a perfect score a year ago doesn't mean you should ignore the undercooked hamburger or the dirty silverware.  If something sets off warning bells, speak up about it.  Ask lots of questions, and don't be afraid to send it back.

Okay, here's how to do it:

1.) Find restaurant inspections in your area.  I don't know how often this list gets updated, and new jurisdictions are going online all the time, so if your area's not on the list, look up your local health department's website and look for it there.  If you have to, call them and ask about it.  That's what they're there for.  If they don't have online scores, many states now have open records laws so you can submit a request and get the scores you want.  It might take a while though, so plan ahead.

2.) Look up your restaurant.  Most, if not all, online databases should be searchable, so it should be pretty easy to find the place you're interested in based on the name and/or address.

3.) Check the most recent inspection score.  Most health departments give a grade or score to help determine how well the restaurant did.  Many places base their grades on fixed cut-offs (e.g., getting below a 10 gives you an "A," 11-20 gives you a "B," etc.), while others give a ranking based on how the score compares to other restaurants (e.g., getting an "A" if your restaurant scored in the best 25%, a "B" for the next 25%, etc.).  Every health department is different, so take a minute to read up on how your health department does things and use that to determine how well the restaurant's score measures up.

4.) If possible, compare the score to past inspections.  Does the restaurant usually score high, or low?  Was its most recent inspection a fluke?  If available, go through the individual violations in the report.  Gather as much information as you can.

5.) Add up all the information and decide whether you feel like the restaurant is worth the risk.  If a restaurant usually scores well, but had a low score at its most recent inspection, it may have just been a bad day.  If a restaurant scores poorly, but it was for violations that don't seem too serious to you, you may decide that it meets your personal criteria for safe food preparation.  It's your call.

6.) Go out and eat!  (Or cook up a delicious meal at home....)  But remember, if you do decide--based on the data--that a restaurant meets your standards, remember to keep your eyes open.  What looks good on paper may not be quite so appetizing in person.

What Is Science?

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one."

--Voltaire in letter to Frederick II of Prussia (6 April, 1767)

Somewhere along the course of its journey from Enlightenment to the present, science evolved from an aqueous unformed puddle of goo into the multicellular steel-boned behemoth we see today.  It converted from a gas into a solid.  The invisible incomprehensible God of the Westminster Confession reverted back into the vengeful Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament, creating a resolute Master from what had once been an ambivalent guide.

At least this is what appears to have happened in the public domain.

It has become routine for groups of people with different opinions to beat each other over the head with science.  Instead of a quest for knowledge, it has become a sledge hammer, an indefatigable weapon-of-mass-destruction that acts irrefutably in the possessor’s behalf against all others.  Whenever I see it employed in the media or being wielded in website Comments sections, I usually wonder of the combatants: do you even know what science is?

Science goes through cycles called “paradigm shifts” (see Thomas Kuhn’s seminal The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), where the previous model or perspective on truth is expanded or entirely replaced.  Some examples include Copernicus’ astronomic model orbiting the Earth around the Sun instead of vice-versa, Newton’s classical mechanics over Aristotle’s, and the emergence of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  While it is definitely the norm for scientists to go with the current paradigm and learn all that can possibly be learned within it, the fact that every previous paradigm has at some point been overturned and replaced should make everyone a little more amenable to opposing views.

Science is not a concrete comprehensive encyclopedia of all knowledge.  It is the pursuit of knowledge, the act of seeking to obtain it.  So to believe in science is merely to believe that there are those who seek to learn more about the world around them.  Which I think is true of just about everyone.

Rivalries definitely exist in the scientific community, especially when small groups of scientists start following outside-the-current-paradigm lines of study.  But it’s nothing compared to what we see in the public domain.

And it’s not limited to a particular political persuasion (see for example “Republicans Against Science” in the New York Times and “Is Environmentalism Anti-Science?” in Discover Magazine).

Now don’t get me wrong--there are some serious issues going on here, and things would probably be a lot easier on everyone if everyone would just go with the current scientific consensus and trust the scientists to identify when our current paradigm needs a face-lift.  But at the same time, every time there’s been a paradigm shift in the past, it’s been because of people thinking against the grain.  And every single time, the new paradigm has been better than the last.

So consider your position carefully the next time someone asks you the banal question: “Don’t you believe in science?”  It’s true, you could just be another liberal kook or another entrenched conservative--only time will tell.  But at least you know what science is.  And on the off chance that you aren’t just a kook--if you've done your research and stick to your guns and against all odds somehow manage to turn out right in the end--you’ll be in really good company.

Texas Pledge of Allegiance

"Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible." (See here.)

I remember reciting this pledge (without the "one state under God," which was apparently added in 2007) when I was in grade school.  It's amazing how little things can stay with you (and subliminally affect you) the rest of your life.  I left Texas in 2001, but I've still got this sense of patriotism for my home state.  Here are the first things that came to my mind when I thought about just what in my childhood could possibly make me still want to pledge allegiance to the flag of Texas.

Where else would childhood recollections include (in no particular order):

1.) Using a cattle prod to zap 3 inch tadpoles in a horse trough;
2.) Shooting a several-days-old dead cow with a Glock handgun and watching it explode;
3.) Cutting off snake heads to nail above the entrance to your clubhouse;
4.) Naming your favorite pet after a girl in school and then eating it;
5.) Calling the rodeo kids "hicks" and then going home to feed your livestock;
6.) Thinking your teacher was a liberal hippie because she had a picture of then-President Clinton in her classroom;
7.) Hearing that your classmate races lawnmowers and thinking it's cool;
8.) Thinking that anyone who didn't two-step couldn't dance;
9.) Collecting garbage bags full of cow pies for $1.00 a bag (for fertilizer) and thinking it was a heckuva deal;
10.) Having the temperature hit 119 degrees and your coaches still not cancelling football practice.