I've had four tests in four days. I have a lot to say, just no time to compose it.
Post coming soon, hopefully by Thursday evening!
I'm feeling a little down tonight. I think I'll bring you all down with me:
Carl Sagan was amazing. RIP, my friend.
A New York Times article asked, "Are there any adults in charge of the House?"
My question: Are there any adults in the House at all?
I mean, I like to think that people elected to the House of Representatives are educated, experienced, and worldly. At the very least, I believed that they would have a big-picture outlook accompanying their domestic policy ideologies. Apparently, I was mistaken.
The Republican Party understandably wants to live up to its freshly picked slogan as the Party of Fiscal Responsibility, but these cuts are juvenile and poorly supported, and this House reminds me more and more of that home-schooled hillbilly everybody whispered about - but not too loudly, because he's probably packing (which may soon be possible nearly everywhere in Indiana).
Seriously - just look at some of these proposals:
More than 500 amendments were filed, mostly from Republicans trying to cut still more out of - or end - programs they dislike. One would stop paying dues to the United Nations. Others would cut all financing for the health care reform law, or Planned Parenthood, or any foreign aid to a country that regularly disagrees with the United States at the United Nations.
What? Do these people have no idea how domestic politics work? Or international politics, for that matter! Representative Kristi Noem (R, South Dakota) blatantly stated, "A lot of us freshmen don't have a whole lot of knowledge about how Washington, D.C., is operated...And, frankly, we don't really care."
What? You can't just not care, or remain ignorant about the political system! Sure, you may dislike it, you may not participate in it, you may try to change it, but you have to KNOW IT. If you're going to wage war on Washington, even The Art of War says "know thyself, know thy enemy".
But these aren't the old, complicit members of Day Care the House, right? These new freshmen are always forward thinking, right?
Or not. Let's think about some of the consequences, both here and abroad. Republicans want to slash extremely important government programs or government sponsored endeavors. Internally, that means less investment in cancer research, fewer civil servants such as police and firefighters, fewer public schools, far fewer teachers, no reliable sex education or contraception, and fewer federal meat inspections! Externally, we would be aggravating already tense relations with other nations and possibly completely dismantling the political balance by impulsively cutting off countries as if we are their affluent parents. This isn't that episode of Friends, it's international politics.
The worst part is, none of this will pass in the Senate, let alone get ratified by the President. In short, all these Republican tantrums have been an exercise in futility. And a demonstration of political and intellectual immaturity.
They should post a sign:
Babysitter Wanted - Must Be Able to Handle Unruly
Global Warming exists.
It does.
It does.
I'm sure nobody had any idea that the Iraq War was unfounded before this, but it's official: Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (codenamed Curveball, because them foreigners got those dang hard-ta-pronounce names) completely fabricated evidence of WMD's in Iraq.
Shocker!
As the New York Times article points out, even before the 2003 Invasion, Janabi's claims were considered untrustworthy, but suspicions were ignored by the Bush Administration and top C.I.A. officials.
SO. No more beating around the bush. Or his excuses. (See what I did there?) It's all very obvious. The United States invaded Iraq because we are oil-hungry, self-righteous, democratic peace theory-mongers.
It's not to say that Hussein wasn't a horrible dictator, and that the Iraqi people were better off under his tyrannic rule, but it's very clear that security threats and "liberation" weren't the true causes of our interference. Just look at Rwanda, or Darfur, or Egypt, or any other country ruled by harsh dictatorial law.
Why didn't the United States intervene during the Rwandan genocide? Because Rwanda has nothing of interest to us. Darfur? War, slavery, exploitation, and mass murder for years. Has the US sent in troops to erect democracy? No. 30 year rule in Egypt, dictators in Yemen and Bahrain, crazies running Iran, trying to build nukes, and America hasn't done anything.
Iraq must feel so special.
Shocker!
As the New York Times article points out, even before the 2003 Invasion, Janabi's claims were considered untrustworthy, but suspicions were ignored by the Bush Administration and top C.I.A. officials.
SO. No more beating around the bush. Or his excuses. (See what I did there?) It's all very obvious. The United States invaded Iraq because we are oil-hungry, self-righteous, democratic peace theory-mongers.
It's not to say that Hussein wasn't a horrible dictator, and that the Iraqi people were better off under his tyrannic rule, but it's very clear that security threats and "liberation" weren't the true causes of our interference. Just look at Rwanda, or Darfur, or Egypt, or any other country ruled by harsh dictatorial law.
Why didn't the United States intervene during the Rwandan genocide? Because Rwanda has nothing of interest to us. Darfur? War, slavery, exploitation, and mass murder for years. Has the US sent in troops to erect democracy? No. 30 year rule in Egypt, dictators in Yemen and Bahrain, crazies running Iran, trying to build nukes, and America hasn't done anything.
Iraq must feel so special.
Sometimes, I love being wrong. Mubarak is gone, his VP is no longer the President, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is running the country until elections can be set up.
This is so exciting! History in the making, and we are all witnesses.
CNN has a live feed. Watch it!
http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream3&hpt=T1
This is so exciting! History in the making, and we are all witnesses.
CNN has a live feed. Watch it!
http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream3&hpt=T1
I guess Mubarak is dumber than I thought. Earlier today, Mubarak stated that he would not bow down to foreign powers, and he is transferring the Presidency to the Vice-President in order to keep chaos from erupting.
Ok. When your presence in power causes revolt and general chaos, and you go on the air saying that you won't leave because you don't want chaos, you're just a douche.
It hardly needs to be said that people in Egypt are even more irate than before. The Vice President and the President are nearly one and the same. If this isn't resolved soon, violence will almost certainly come into play. The Military might even stage a Guardian coup (in which the military takes over, then transitions power to a civilian-elected official). That's all dangerous, though, especially when the opposition is saying that only the Military can save the country. Grow up and get out already!
It's just getting ridiculous.
Ok. When your presence in power causes revolt and general chaos, and you go on the air saying that you won't leave because you don't want chaos, you're just a douche.
It hardly needs to be said that people in Egypt are even more irate than before. The Vice President and the President are nearly one and the same. If this isn't resolved soon, violence will almost certainly come into play. The Military might even stage a Guardian coup (in which the military takes over, then transitions power to a civilian-elected official). That's all dangerous, though, especially when the opposition is saying that only the Military can save the country. Grow up and get out already!
It's just getting ridiculous.
Hey again! So, in my next post I was going to mention how little I had to say about Egypt, but after going to my International Relations class today I have an announcement:
The CIA believes Hosni Mubarak will step down tonight.
Hooray! I'm so proud of all the people working their tails off in Egypt to ensure that true democracy has its day. For those people who are still nervous about the role of the military and the possibility of violent suppression of the revolution, fear not. My professor (in his own words a student of history) Allen Lynch reassured our class that the Egyptian soldiers were already far too integrated with the civilians to be able to fire upon them. There would be no control over the ordinary soldiers.
The kind of situation in which the crush of a revolt can occur requires sufficient separation between the army and the people. Just look at this picture from 1905 in which the Czarist Russian military puts down a factory strike:
See the separation? Egypt has none of that. Nor do they have extremely fashionable fur coats. So fear not, world. Mubarak goes tonight, and he goes peacefully.
The CIA believes Hosni Mubarak will step down tonight.
Hooray! I'm so proud of all the people working their tails off in Egypt to ensure that true democracy has its day. For those people who are still nervous about the role of the military and the possibility of violent suppression of the revolution, fear not. My professor (in his own words a student of history) Allen Lynch reassured our class that the Egyptian soldiers were already far too integrated with the civilians to be able to fire upon them. There would be no control over the ordinary soldiers.
The kind of situation in which the crush of a revolt can occur requires sufficient separation between the army and the people. Just look at this picture from 1905 in which the Czarist Russian military puts down a factory strike:
See the separation? Egypt has none of that. Nor do they have extremely fashionable fur coats. So fear not, world. Mubarak goes tonight, and he goes peacefully.
Yeah....I'm working on it. Seriously! I have some written! You'll probably see it tomorrow night, and then I'm going to get pretty posty because I just remembered I have a lot of things to say.
In the meantime, because I know you're all frothing at the mouth to read my posts, calm yourselves with beautiful music by Yiruma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhN7SG-H-3k
It's called River Flows In You, and I love it. I miss classical piano in today's Ke$ha-type world. This isn't overly simple, just complex enough to remain interesting and coherent.
He has many more songs, like It's Your Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfUV0y9RHA&feature=related
They're all sort of uplifting; he's like the classical piano version of Enya (who I also adore).
Anyway, post coming soon!
In the meantime, because I know you're all frothing at the mouth to read my posts, calm yourselves with beautiful music by Yiruma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhN7SG-H-3k
It's called River Flows In You, and I love it. I miss classical piano in today's Ke$ha-type world. This isn't overly simple, just complex enough to remain interesting and coherent.
He has many more songs, like It's Your Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfUV0y9RHA&feature=related
They're all sort of uplifting; he's like the classical piano version of Enya (who I also adore).
Anyway, post coming soon!
I had thought this argument defunct and buried, but talking to my friend Cameron, and watching the Colbert Report on Monday brought it back to light. Do people really still believe that giving children the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps, and rubella) is linked to diseases like autism? Is Jenny McCarthy really more convincing than millions of doctors? I know her son has autism, but since when does that make her an expert? Just because you have a dog doesn't make you a veterinarian! Would you presume to tell millions of dog owners everywhere how to take care of their pet? And if a dog owner shouted at you about what to do for your pet, would you take their self-righteous shrieks seriously? I doubt it.
The earliest mention of the autism-vaccine link appeared in 1998, via a "study" done by the British Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He studied twelve children who, one month after receiving the MMR vaccine, developed autism. To someone who has never taken statistics, or perhaps someone without common sense, this may appear to be a convincing argument that the MMR vaccine has a causal relationship with autism. However, there are clearly issues. Twelve children? Does that sound remotely statistically significant? All of them had received the MMR vaccine (about 90% of children in Britain did, at the time). Did Dr. Wakefield find children in the other 10% to balance his study? No.
To continue his track record, in 2002 Dr. Wakefield linked the measles vaccine to autism. He looked for the virus genome in patients both with and without autism this time. Good for him. However, he made no effort to distinguish between the natural measles genome and the vaccine type measles genome, even though the capacity to do so existed. In addition, the sample wasn't done blindly (in which the researcher doesn't know if the sample comes from the control group or the test group), which probably led to false positives. One step forward, two steps back. Either way, he's still a horrible scientist.
But Jenny McCarthy didn't care. She latched onto his findings and began preaching the dangers of vaccination, starting in about 2007. She even wrote a book about it. It made no difference that multiple other scientists had done studies and written papers both denouncing Wakefield's findings and proving that no such link existed. And now hundreds of children each year aren't being vaccinated. Since then, over 600 children have died completely preventable deaths.
It was so bad that they investigated Wakefield and struck him from the medical record. In addition, Dr. Paul Offit wrote a book called "Autism's False Prophets". It's pretty good. And also accurate, which is more than can be said for most of the crap Jenny McCarthy had someone pen for her.
To sum it up; vaccinate your children, people. Children are dying of whooping cough. Whooping cough! What year is it, 1945? Vaccines have been proven effective for decades, and false advertising from Hollywoodblondes moms shouldn't be setting us back 60 years.
I used some sources for this post, even though I have infinite knowledge. If you want to educate yourself and become one iota closer to reaching my level of omni-intelligence, check out these sites! http://www.aap.org/immunization/families/autismwakefield.html
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7134893.ece
The earliest mention of the autism-vaccine link appeared in 1998, via a "study" done by the British Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He studied twelve children who, one month after receiving the MMR vaccine, developed autism. To someone who has never taken statistics, or perhaps someone without common sense, this may appear to be a convincing argument that the MMR vaccine has a causal relationship with autism. However, there are clearly issues. Twelve children? Does that sound remotely statistically significant? All of them had received the MMR vaccine (about 90% of children in Britain did, at the time). Did Dr. Wakefield find children in the other 10% to balance his study? No.
To continue his track record, in 2002 Dr. Wakefield linked the measles vaccine to autism. He looked for the virus genome in patients both with and without autism this time. Good for him. However, he made no effort to distinguish between the natural measles genome and the vaccine type measles genome, even though the capacity to do so existed. In addition, the sample wasn't done blindly (in which the researcher doesn't know if the sample comes from the control group or the test group), which probably led to false positives. One step forward, two steps back. Either way, he's still a horrible scientist.
But Jenny McCarthy didn't care. She latched onto his findings and began preaching the dangers of vaccination, starting in about 2007. She even wrote a book about it. It made no difference that multiple other scientists had done studies and written papers both denouncing Wakefield's findings and proving that no such link existed. And now hundreds of children each year aren't being vaccinated. Since then, over 600 children have died completely preventable deaths.
It was so bad that they investigated Wakefield and struck him from the medical record. In addition, Dr. Paul Offit wrote a book called "Autism's False Prophets". It's pretty good. And also accurate, which is more than can be said for most of the crap Jenny McCarthy had someone pen for her.
To sum it up; vaccinate your children, people. Children are dying of whooping cough. Whooping cough! What year is it, 1945? Vaccines have been proven effective for decades, and false advertising from Hollywood
I used some sources for this post, even though I have infinite knowledge. If you want to educate yourself and become one iota closer to reaching my level of omni-intelligence, check out these sites! http://www.aap.org/immunization/families/autismwakefield.html
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7134893.ece
