I may add filters for the words Mosque, Muslim and Islam as well because like the voices in the madman's head, mad America sees Muslims everywhere and hates them: in any curved line -- even in NASA mission patches and most of all in buildings with Domes. You know those round arches found at St. Peters, on many Orthodox basilicas and even that cathedral of Democracy, the US Capitol building. If it curves like the new moon, like the orbit of an electron, the path of a rocket: if it has a dome, it's Muslim and it's evil.
Take The Light of the World multidenominational church outside Phoenix, Arizona. All truth, decency and sanity notwithstanding the mad morons of America want you to think it's a mosque and for no other reason that it's domed. Looks to the Demented Idiots of Arizona like a Mosque - must be a center of America-hating Islamic Jihad.
In response, there's a banner now waving at the construction site:
"If you think we are different you are wrong, we are building a Christian house of prayer."Isn't that part of the problem? Are Muslims "Different?" What about Jews, Mormons, Secular Humanists, Buddhists, Hindus, Unitarians, Freemasons? DIFFERENT! BE AFRAID!
And just the other day, the mad morons of American were pooping green bricks over a perceived "crescent" under the American flag in a header on Google on Veterans Day. Google had substituted a drawing of Old Glory for the "l" in its name, and the waving flag obliterated the final "e" of its name, leaving a red crescent-looking serif dangling for the morons to interpret as A MUSLIM CRESCENT AND ON VETERANS DAY OF ALL HORRORS!
ReplyDeleteYes, we live in a country with such rampant stupidity. But the real question is will we survive it?
It doesn't occur to people that a publicly traded company whose founders did not include Muslims would not likely do that and would likely avoid doing such a thing. Stupid people do not make such logical connections and people who are ready to believe such insanity without question are stupid, insane or both.
ReplyDeleteI'm still hearing about how the Moonies own Entenmann's bakery which they never did but not about how they own American newspapers. I'm still hearing about synthetic chicken in KFC food. I'm still hearing about autism and vaccinations although it stems from a deliberate act of libel. Bullshit never dies, democracies do.
It's not much different that the idiots who saw witches everywhere and it's hard to think that any country can long survive this -- at least not as a democracy.
Captain...
ReplyDeleteHold on there you were fine till you got to the autism part...
You see my nephew was 2 years old and he was a fine baby...then he went in for his vaccinations, of which he had a fever and the doctor was so instructed, and zoomba....
He started acting strangely about two weeks afterwords. As his uncle I saw him a week before he went in for his shots and I saw him again a month after the shots...
Two different kids. Now, maybe medical science has alleviated all doubts in your mind inregards to vaccinations but it hasn't mine.
Personally, I think the drug companies and the government are in cahoots on this one for obvious reasons and if you have tangled with the special court set up to deal with these vaccination issues then you would most likely agree...
Since my sister has spent years dealing with the courts, with school systems, with the medicial profession, and the federal and state governments you might want to talk to her before you get all comfortable with the idea that somehow everything you BELIEVE is right and everything that contradicts your beliefs is just plain STUPID...
"before you get all comfortable with the idea that somehow everything you BELIEVE is right and everything that contradicts your beliefs is just plain STUPID... "
ReplyDeleteI don't want to get into an argument about something so personal and painful to you, but don't be too comfortable with the idea there's any science behind the idea of causality here either -- or that I'm pulling this out of my uninformed and arrogant ass.
If I maintain it's a hoax, it's because of the near unanimity of the scientific community that it is. Yes, there are a tiny handful of doctors making a living touting it on the web, Nothing is infallible, but I trust the CDC and others more than I trust internet activists and their post hoc propter hoc certainties.
Here's the reason I say it's a hoax:
The original premise seems to have come from a now debunked 1998 small-sample 'study' published in The Lancet by one English doctor, Andrew Wakefield, that was paid for by a rival pharmaceutical company arguing that mercury in their competitors' vaccines caused problems. The perpetrator of that study was subsequently found guilty of conflict of interest, faking his data and other ethical violations.
"Following the initial claims in 1998, multiple large epidemiological studies were undertaken. Reviews of the evidence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the UK National Health Service, and the Cochrane Library all found no link between the vaccine and autism."
There is no mercury in the vaccines alleged still to be causing autism. the only vaccine now coming with the thimerosal preservative are the flu vaccines taken by hundreds of millions of people says the CDC. Dr. Wakefield has had his medical license revoked. The British medical Journal, Lancet reviewed the study they had published and found that the data had been faked.
You may wish to read the personal appeal from the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, to stop believing this dangerous hoax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy
that has cost the lives of many thousands of children. At least, even if you don't agree with verifiable, peer reviewed and published studies,in favor of believing in a worldwide conspiracy of doctors, statisticians and epidemiologists and geneticists to kill our children, it may weaken the idea that I'm some smug, condescending Denialist crackpot with "beliefs" to defend.
Yes, yes...science in infalliable isn't it?
ReplyDeleteScience never heads in one direction only to end up changing its mind.
For your information the mercury in the shots was not removed until 1999 or so. My nephew got his shots in 1992. Thus to claim that autism is not caused by vaccinations can only conclusively accertained for those shots given after 1999..
Note also that I did not specifically state "mercury" and I also acknowledged that at the time he was given his shots he also had a fever...of which the doctor was informed and decided to give the shots anyway...now of course they would not.
I don't need to read wikipedia because I spent 16 years living and reviewing autism...and as my sister is chairwomen of the autism society in Wisconsin...
Considering what little the medical profession knows about autism I think it is way too early to rule out anything...
At one time eggs were bad now they are good. Alcohol and chocolate bad now in moderation they are good.
Scientific knowledge evolves and grows..
Now, get off your soapbox...I never once said that one should not be vaccinated out of fear of autism...thus to claim that I am somehow spreading the myth is a little extreme...
But it is nice to see that you have as much respect for my intelligence as those who you were writing about...
I don't think you're reading me accurately - really - and if you are, I don't think you're being fair. You seem to think I'm a blowhard who equates all disagreement with idiocy - yet you equate my (well founded, I think) disagreement with a good measure of personal criticism too.
ReplyDeleteIf you're insulted by my calling this a crackpot theory, I apologize to you, not to the theory. You're not a crackpot, but I think you're possibly wrong about this and I don't think I'm being smug about it. At least I'm offering evidence and not indulging in special pleading.
"Yes, yes...science in infalliable isn't it?"
It's certainly less fallible than the alternatives. What method would you use to deny or confirm evidence if science is too flaky? The gathering of similar anecdotes; the marshaling of supporting evidence by a group gathered for the purpose of supporting an opinion and seeking reparations? Forgive my doubt, but it's a fair and balanced one and if we have to suspect bias on one side, we have to suspect it on the other.
And, why do I say special pleading? what else if you believe the demonstrably false study to be true while asserting that subsequent studies are totally false despite evidence? There are no alternatives I can see than to beg that question. Sorry if that sounds smug. It merely sounds like a necessary question to me.
ReplyDeletePerhaps what you mean is that scientists are fallible and yes they are but that does not increase the strength of your argument. I haven't noticed you using it against the Global Warming deniers, for instance and we're not talking about one scientist or even a small group working for drug companies. Again, that's a logical inconsistency that puzzles me.
I have no doubt that you spent a lot of time with this, or that you do believe what you do, but I still feel compelled to suggesting the CDC just might be more reliable than an ad hoc internet effort by angry and anguished people with at least an equal and understandable motivation to protect the premise, 'tune up' the evidence and turn a blind eye toward antagonistic evidence.
So, OK -- what better way to evaluate evidence is there than scientific method? Others equally passionate are arguing that AIDS isn't caused by a virus, and that the polio and smallpox vaccines were a hoax having nothing to do with the disappearance of the diseases, amd musch more "out there" ideas. They're just as passionately pugnacious about it, have just as many experts and just as insistent that "we can't rule it out" supports ruling it in.
Sure, I could be wrong about this, Of course I could be wrong. the CDC could be flawlessly corrupt. Einstein could be wrong, you could be wrong, but I'm siding with what I see as the overwhelming preponderance of evidence and sound principles of evidence evaluation. Do you have any large scale, double blind, scrupulously supervised studies to support causality? Just asking. Perhaps you do.
If I seem to be on a soapbox, it's because it seemed you suggested that my opinion is without basis, which it isn't, and that I see all disagreement as idiocy, which I don't. I said the idea was based on an act of libel. I think it was. I find it hard to overlook it.
If you could admit fallibility yourself, it would go a long way, you know.
Your right....
ReplyDeleteFear and Ignorance are the parents, Bigotry is the progeny.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I was referring to the Capt.'s post, not any of the comments following that post.
ReplyDeleteI would submit that most of Moron America is more frightened of Secular Humanists than Muslims.
ReplyDelete