A representative Republic may not be the best way to do all that but I do think it’s better than most alternatives, like Lassaiz faire capitalism, anarchy or any totalitarian state.

They’re(the new/old bosses) aren’t really bosses. They’re servants and like many servants, if left unsupervised, they’ll steal you blind. Thus the solution is obvious: WATCH them like hawks and make certain they leave the silver ware behind when they leave,,,

GAry 7

Yes, it’s indeed looking more and more like we will. Sort of reminds me of a song I once heard:

There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

There is a lot of bad science going around these days. Science being put forth by real scientists. Just this week on Naked Scientists they talked about how to increase your life by 14 years by following 4 Good Behaviors. The study didn’t say anything close to this. (It was the EPIC study, Sandy at Junkfoodscience shreds it apart quite well at http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/01/if-only-it-were-true.html ).

I like Naked Scientists, but their credulity when it comes to epidemiology is frightening. If they can’t get it right, how the heck can McCain and Obama get it right.

I’m all for conserving energy, but if I hear one more company or product “going green”, I’m gonna puke…green.

But that being said, it’s still just a correlation — which is cause, and which is effect? Does the individual have autism because they were exposed to high levels of mercury, or is the same issue that’s causing the autism also messing up the body chemistry which causes it to retain mercury more than other people?

McCarthy’s problem is basic, she’s just latched onto one key thing, that of the mercury level, and made a huge assumption that since the kid received a shot with a tiny amount of mercury in it, by golly that must be where the mercury came from.

Is this the piece by Steven Novella you meant?

What a bunch of suckers.

We shall see, won’t we? This is not a debated issue amongst the scientists. Obama would have to reject all the advice of all his scientific advisers to go ahead with this. Unlike what happened under Bush with global warming (a far more contentious issue anyway) and abstinence-only sex ed. (a purely ideological decision) I do believe that Obama will listen to his staff on this one.

Obama was wrong to issue that statement, and I will be the first to criticize him if he does take action in line with it. But I believe that Obama is willing to listen and accept what the reality community will tell him. Imagine Sarah Palin doing the same thing? I think not.

What a bunch of suckers. Obama is being thanked by the anti-vax crowd for promising to support autism/vaccination research. And now you folks think he’s supporting your side. The guys makes ambiguous statements that can be interpreted multiple ways. Of course, if McCain does the same thing he gets slammed but with Obama all is forgiven. His wonderful advisers will set him straight and all will be well. Is that your critical thinking operating there?

Yeah – slight problem there, thiomersal hasn’t been in the MMR shot since 2001. And yet, there are still kids – born in the last seven years – who are getting diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders. Second, thiomersal is also used in other stuff which has NEVER been accused of causing ASDs. It’s a preservative in tattoo inks! But you don’t hear the antivaxxers getting in to hysterics about how tattoos turned their teenagers and adult offspring autistic (which, if it truly attacked the neurological system, would do so regardless of age), do you? Or the myriad other products that thiomersal is in, like immunoglobulin products, skin test antigens, antivenins, eye drops, and nasal sprays. But those never get accused, because not every autistic person has used those.

No, vaccines become the scapegoat because nearly every autistic child in America has had that shot (completely ignoring other countries, like Sweden, which had abolutely no rise in ASD diagnoses after the 1982 introduction of the MMR shot, or Japan, which had the multishot introduced in1989 but stopped it in 1993 for single shot vaccines – with absolutely no change in the rise of autistic diagnoses), ignoring the fact that that’s only because nearly EVERY CHILD in America gets the same shot. And for every autistic kid, there’s two hundred-odd who get the same shots and never show the slightest hint of ever being on the autistic spectrum.

Sorry, antivaxxers, find a new scapegoat – one that won’t risk public health – or the health of their kids.

April 22, 2008
THANKS TO OBAMA FOR SUPPORTING VACCINE RESEARCH
David Kirby has a piece running over at Huffington Post today titled, “Obama Climbs on the Vaccine Bandwagon” in which he writes: No matter who wins in Pennsylvania today, the next President of the United States will support research into the growing evidence of some link between vaccines and autism.

Here’s Senator Obama’s quote:

“We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.”

–Barack Obama, Pennsylvania Rally, April 21, 2008.

See:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/if_celebrity_antivaccinationist_jenny_mc.php

I gotta say… dude… you rock!

Thanks for the thorough, clear-eyed, reasoned response to PW5.

I mean, really… thanks!

Just wanted to chime in with a fact: McCarthy has never stated that she is anti-vaccine, merely that the FDA needs to take steps to “green our vaccines”. She is opposed to additives such as thimerosal (mercury, which is known to cause mental, physical, and neurological harm) and aluminum (known to cause myriad medical and mental deteriorations including alzheimer’s).

First off, aluminum is not linked to Alzheimer’s. Steve Novella did a very good explanation why a while back; I’ll try to find the link. Second off, mercury in vaccines has never been linked to autism or other neurodevelopmental problems. It just hasn’t.

No, Jenny McCarthy’s claim to be “not antivaccine” is a disingenuous and Orwellian statement designed to hide her antivaccinationism. If she is not “antivaccine,” why did she say that if she ever had another child she would never vaccinate–ever? Why if she is not antivaccine does she not say what it would take to “green” vaccines enough that she would agree to vaccinate her child. She just blathers on and on about vague “toxins” and how there is “antifreeze” in vaccines (there is not) and formaldehyde in vaccines (a trivial amount that is less than your body makes as part of its normal metabolism and certainly less than you’re exposed to sitting in a traffic jam or living in a house with finished hardwood floors and a lot of plastic items). She says there’s ether in vaccines. There is not; she confused ethyl ether (commonly known as just “ether”) with trace amounts of polyethylene glycol pisooctylphenyl ether, a mild detergent found in many consumer goods. The woman is a total scientific ignoramus on a monumental scale and full of hubris in that she thinks she actually understands anything about science.

In any case, I’d love to ask Jenny point-blank what, specifically, it would take to “green our vaccines” enough to make them “safe enough” for her. She can’t do it because she is antivaccine. It’s the vaccine itself that scares her, and no matter how many components are removed she’d find a reason to say they still aren’t “green enough.”

I didn’t read comments like “See if you can follow along here” as being condescending toward the readers at all. I read it more as an appropriately snarky jab at the twists and turns in the account of the story between the ‘official’ story from McCain’s people and McCarthy’s version.

More likely, she is making that part up, but could actually believe it.
“People hear what they want to hear, and disregard the rest”….especially the woo woos.

Quite interesting, so far.

^_^J.

You probably added them to keep then tone of the post light-hearted, but to me it came across as mildly insulting. While you have a wide variety of readers, I think others will agree that by-and-large we’re an intelligent bunch , so there’s no need for this type of comment into your posts (unless you start talking about something like quantum mechanics of course!).