To be clear, I would fully support any bylaw imposing fines for feeding pigeons, because they are a filthy nuisance.
However, this article’s suggestion that the fate of this young woman has any clear connection to pigeon droppings and (worse) that your elders, children or even you might suffer a similar fate “in a heartbeat” if something is not done is pretty absurd, if you know the most basic things about cryptococcal meningitis. (Like that the infecting fungus is ubiquitous in soil worldwide, that everyone is who ventures outside is exposed on a regular basis, and that meningitis is a risk in people with underlying immune problems, and that fungal meningitis is vanishingly rare – affecting something on the order of one in a quarter-million people.)
You’d think you’d be able to pass a bylaw like this by sticking to the significant issue - the staggering costs associated with pigeon countermeasures and cleanup.
Here in the States the NFL and the players are engaged in a labor dispute, their first in over 20 years.
Because of the labor dispute, the bullshit statistic about “the average NFL player has a life-expectancy in the mid-50’s” is making the rounds again. Most of the recent articles that make this assertion base their claim on a 2006 Newsmax article (http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/10/3/122610.shtml) which states:
This opinion piece has been cited as factual so often that the author had to recant his claims, saying:
However, you will still hear people claim a “study” was made that “proves” NFL players lose 20 years of life, on average, just for playing football. What you won’t hear them cite is an actual study, performed in 1997 by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which shows that the average NFLer has the same lifespan as everybody else, though some positions (like linemen) are more prone to heart conditions.