Garth’s posterous

Bent in a kinda straight way 
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idiots

 

Oprah and the vaccine sceptic

What strange times we live in.
 
How else to explain the campaign currently being waged by the stupid, the ignorant and the irresponsible against one of the greatest achievements of medical science? One that has saved countless lives and which has changed parenthood completely?
 
It was only a hundred or so years ago when to be a parent was to face the fact that you almost certainly would have to go through the horror of watching one of your young children die of disease in front of you.
 
And watch helplessly.
 
Not any more. Now, thanks to modern medical science, what parents expect as normal is to watch all of their children grow up to adulthood. A death in childhood is now the exception, not the rule.
 
So much pain and suffering prevented.
 
And yet we actually have a sorry collection of irresponsible people who are putting children's lives at risk by not getting their own kids vaccinated and trying to persuade others to do likewise.
 
The result? Diseases some of us may never have heard of, like Scarlet Fever, are back. Measles is on the march again. False claims - and we now know they are false - about a link between the MMR vaccine and autism are still being spread.
 
The deaths of any children from these totally preventable diseases is on the heads of those who failed to get their own children vaccinated and those who urged them to do so.
 
In relation to the study published in The Lancet referred to below, it involved only 12 people and was conducted by a doctor who was already in the pay of lawyers representing an anti-vaccination group and who had already declared that he intended to find "proof" against the use of the MMR vaccine, and made sure he did.

May 6, 2009

 
Plus, a man whose daughter got sick because of anti-vaccine hysteria. (Via Aetiology.) Note this: “The sorry MMR saga began in 1998 with a tiny study (since partially retracted) in the Lancet.” Seems like there’s a lot of bad science in The Lancet. Some vaccine-related thoughts of mine here.
 
 

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Filed under  //   autism   health   idiots   irrationality   Oprah Winfrey   science   vaccines  

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Eco sailors rescued by oil tanker

[Sweet. The latest pointless green publicity seeking stunt to go badly wrong. God obviously does have a sense of humour!]
 
from:
BBC NEWS
 
An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.
 
Raoul Surcouf, Richard Spink and skipper Ben Stoddart sent a mayday because they feared for their safety amid winds of 68mph (109km/h).
 
All three are reportedly exhausted but safe on board the Overseas Yellowstone.
 
 

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Filed under  //   environmentalism   idiots   irony  

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2.3 million and counting

That's the number of news stories about swine flu on Google News.
 
As I understand it, the actual number of cases hasn't even reached 1,000 yet.
 
Confirmed deaths around 20 or so.
 
But despite the fact that this latest swine flu is in all likelihood not as virulent as ordinary seasonal flu, (which kills on average 36,000 people every year in the US alone), the US government is talking about diverting resources from the production of vaccines for seasonal flu to one for swine flu!
 
 

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Filed under  //   H1N1   health   idiots   irrationality   science   swine flu  

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Emissions trading scheme postponed

Though only by a year, but still, better than nothing.
 
But hey, what happened to K R Puff'n'Fluff's statement just a month ago about recognising the urgency of the environmental and the economic imperative for action…  ?
 
Or that the longer we wait the higher the cost?
 
Let's face it though, the only reason he chose 2010 in the first place was to gazump John Howard. It was always more about appearing to do something.
 
Andrew Bolt rightly observes that the Libs should always have opposed this stupid and ill-considered idea, but "the problem is that Turnbull and his environment spokesman Greg Hunt have dug in too far to ditch an ETS and all the warming hype now. The Liberals can only credibly change policy by changing leader."
 
But sweet Jesu, who?
 

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Filed under  //   climate change   emissions trading scheme   idiots   Kevin Rudd  

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Antony Loewenstein’s African animal awareness

This is priceless! From the very funny Tim Blair.
 
For those of you not familiar with Loewenstein, he's an anti-Israel Jew and all-round Lefty twit.
 
J.F. Beck observes universalist Antony Loewenstein’s African animal awareness:

image 

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Filed under  //   Antony Loewenstein   humour   idiots   Tim Blair  

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