Apparently Sara Palin is a horrible mother because her 17 year old daughter is preggers. I have an anecdote I'd like to share:

My mother was 19 when she had me. In her wedding pictures I am very visibly present. She sacrificed her college career and lots of parties to a young son and her husband. But then, instead of inconsolably bemoaning her wasted life, she received a nursing degree in Night School once I entered grade school. By the time I hit high school in the 80's she was able to get a Masters in Business Administration (in her 30's no less!). She now *runs* several hospital ER's in the Pacific Northwest.

According to Barak Obama and his ideological ilk, I'm a mistake and my mothers life was wasted because she didn't follow the advice of many of her friends and get an abortion.

FUCK. YOU.

A response posted to Megan McArdle's blog, in response to this post:

Children are no more of a 'resevoir for infection' than adults. Adults get sick, so do kids.

Please check recent research to validate the 98% figure.

An enormous 'public health detriment' has been autism. Hannah Poling will be the first concession in many more. Vaccines are the 'WMD' of the health industry.

Whatever your opinion of me and my comments, you have a right to them. Try, however, to keep an open mind as this issue unfolds. I think we are all in for unpleasant surprises.

Posted by palmrita | March 24, 2008 10:44 AM

Ok. I have to respond to this with what will amount to a basic primer in Immunology. Please bear with me.

At birth, our immune system operates on the principal of a random number generator. You see, it produces all of these defensive cell types without any real knowledge of what is needed. It is untrained. Unexposed to the real world of pathogens. So it uses its ‘random number generator’ to create antibodies to random protein structures that may or may not invade host.

This is a recipe to get us all killed, but luckily as infants, our immune system is bolstered by something called Transferred Immunity. Basically some of our mother’s antibodies carry over from pregnancy explicitly to bolster our untrained immune system. Even better, breastfeeding bolsters our immune system by transferring some of our mother’s antibodies allowing us to better identify and deal with foreign threats. (Insert long tirade about the benefits of breastfeeding here).

So how do we gain immunity? Or rather, what is the process that produces Acquired Immunity? Natural Selection (Danger! Forbidden concept alert!). Remember the random number generator I mentioned above? Well it doesn’t work alone. Our immune system works not only randomly, but also as a catalytically induced Positive Feedback Loop. Exposure causes an increased antibody production response, and this ‘trains’ the immune system to better handle antigenic threats.

To put it another way, our Immune system relies on Natural Selection to train it for Acquired Immunity (I know, I know. Natural Selection is only a theory. Never mind that it underpins all modern biology. Anyway…). The random nature of Immunity becomes ‘weighted’ toward those things it has been exposed to and has successfully repressed. Natural Selection trains our immune response to be better respond to those challenges to which it has been previously exposed.

With all of this in mind, how to vaccines work? They jump-start this process. A denatured or attenuated invasive microorganism artificially introduced into our system will trigger a response to that antigen. The reason we don’t die due to this exposure is due to the fact that those microorganisms have been artificially damaged or killed prior to their introduction. In other words we are artificially inducing a natural process in a way that increases the odds of the subjects survivability at initial and subsequent exposures.

As to linking thermisol to autism there have been repeated studies undertaken to explicitly confirm this hypothesis. No linkage has yet to be demonstrated.

In conclusion, I am all for open mindedness. But there can be a terribly short path between an open mind and GIGO. I’m all for people finding out the utility of each individual vaccine allowing them to make an informed decision. But to decide to forgo all vaccines due to ‘research’ is the height of irresponsibility. Your decisions impact far more than you. You are significantly increasing the odds of your children having an untrained response to a potentially high morbidity infection, and allowing them to act as a vector to a significant population of people who may not have the ability to effectively resist the infection for a variety of reasons. Children are no more a ‘reservoir of infection’ than adults are. However, they do not have the acquired immune response of an adult either.

Failing to vaccinate your children significantly skews the odds against them. Personally it strikes me as an extraordinarily foolish thing with which to gamble.

Filed under Some people try to parse language when they
shouldn’t

USCode TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART I > CHAPTER 13 > § 311

§ 311. Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all
 able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and,
 except as provided in section 313 of title 32,
 under 45 years of age who are, or who have made
 a declaration of intention to become, citizens
 of the United States and of female citizens of
 the United States who are members of the National
 Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are—

  (1) the organized militia, which consists of the
   National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of
  the members of the militia who are not members
  of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

The Counter Revolution begins.

The New York Times calls for anti-democratic counter-revolution in the Middle East in a current editorial .

The editorial begins strong:

It is too early to know who ordered this week’s assassination of the Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, but there are many reasons to suspect Syria. Mr. Gemayel opposed Syria’s unrelenting campaign to dominate Lebanon’s fragile democracy. If the cabinet now loses even one more minister, through intimidation or worse, Lebanon’s pro-Western government will collapse — a collapse that Hezbollah, Syria’s ally and henchman, has been publicly seeking.

But it then, sadly veers toward the Baker ‘Realist’ view of the Middle East:

This page believes that the United States needs to begin a dialogue with Syria, about Iraq and regional peace. But President Bashar al-Assad needs to understand that neither the tribunal nor Lebanon’s independence will ever be on the bargaining table. Europe, Russia and all of Syria’s neighbors need to join Washington in delivering that message.

What is the ‘Realist’ view? Stability. Stability at any cost. Unfortunately this is what got us in this mess in the first place. What started the brouhaha in Iraq 15 years ago? A fear of carrying the ‘Kuwait Liberation’ top its logical conclusion: the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Why? Because it was cause ‘instability’ in the Middle East, just like we are seeing now.

How will Iraq turn out? I have no idea. It may go the route of Yugoslavia and break up into its component tribal / ethnic boundaries. And while the process is horrific for the population (and still ongoing in the area, look at Kosovo and Macedonia), at least the issue can be RESOLVED (see Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, etc). So while the Realist, counter-revolutionary policy can bring ‘peace’ and stability in the short term, it inevitably leads to something worse down the road. Every time. Just like it did in 1848 when Metternich tried to suppress nationalistic movements in Europe. Just like in 1914 when the Gerrymandered Empires collapsed. Just like the current Kurdish insurrection in Turkey. Just like the secretarian conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq.

Dictatorial Oppression to achieve ‘Peace’ may work in the short run. And in fact, this is what Syria requires from its dialogue, and Baker proposes in his ‘realistic’ plan. But the end state will be worse. It will give more power to the Muslim Brotherhood (again). It will reduce our influence in the region as we sell out the Liberal Muslims in the Middle East (again). And It will prove us the ‘paper tiger’ everyone has been talking about (again).

The brilliance of the Democracy First policy in the Middle East is that it had the chance of maybe solving the problems of the region in the long term. It NEVER implied things would be ‘easy’, or ‘stable’. To have held such an expectation was foolish, and to give up on it now would be even worse in the long run.

At the end, labels don’t matter. What people want to do does. As we see the ‘Left’ embrace ‘Realism we realize that they are not Liberal in any meaningful sense of the word. Modern Progressive Socialists are Reactionary, Opressive and aliberal. Case in point: Jonathan Chase from the LA Times thinks we should bring back Saddam in order to restore stability. Why not simply suggest we perform a Roman Decimation in Iraq (kill every one person in ten). It’s what Saddam would do.

‘Peace in our time’ for all.

Orson Scott Card on the Middle East

You know, I’ve been trying to explain my feelings on our current relations with the middle east for some time now. Leave it to a professional author to present the eloquence for me.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-10-29-1.html

What's Next?

In response to the Lancet study. Originally posted in response to a thread on Iraq the Model

What I find amazing about the firestorm this study has caused is the complete inability of people who are now calling for the Coalition to ‘pull out’ to think through the consequences of such an act.

The argument is not, nor can it be about wither we should have deposed Hussein or not. That entire line of entire argument is absurd. One does not support Ted Bundy simply because he is the Head of State. The world is down one more Thugocratic Tyrant. Go team Humanity! More importantly, this change has broken the stasis that was Iraq. Instead of the Terror of Murder to impose control, we have the Terror of differing opinions over how Iraq is to be. This, in of itself is a vast improvement in spite of the horrific cost – whatever the actual number may be.

So what we have now in Iraq is an extreme form of debate over how the future of Iraq will be shaped and by whom. We must therefore ask ourselves a simple question: Does the presence of the Coalition alter the form of this debate in a positive or negative manner?

All things being equal, and if there were no other external influences to this debate, then quite clearly our best course of action would be to withdraw and let the Iraqis sort this out.

Unfortunately the astute among us can see the problem with the above: all things are NOT equal. There ARE external parties influencing this debate to the cost of the individual Iraqi (and yes, that obviously includes the US – for we don’t want to see another Hussein).

Therefore the only reasonable answer is that we must stay until Iraq can defend herself from the external influences that are trying to impose their will on Iraqi society. And the idea that such a state was achievable in a mere 3 years – no matter what level of competence (or lack thereof) the current US administration exhibits is laughable. After all, one can argue that it took the United States nearly 100 years to sort out her internal ideas of what exactly the US was about anyway.

And Iraq hasn’t seen the equivalent of a million or so Tories taking ship and heading for points elsewhere because they lost.

Let’s give the Iraqis a chance, as we have seen what ‘pulling out’ does. No more boat people. No more Pol Pot simply because the alternative was ‘hard’. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. The people of Iraq are most definitely worth our best effort.

Irony I dub thee Islam

So. Let’s see if I get this straight. The Pontiff gives a sermon in Germany in which he quotes an Emperor of Byzantium – which was conquered by Muslims (Been to the Christian Church known as the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople lately? Hmmm) – and basically states that conversion by the sword, or Jihad, is not exactly a rational way of convincing someone of your viewpoint.

The response of the Muslim World?

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An al Qaeda-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters raged across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al Qaeda in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified.

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

Islam forbids drinking alcohol and requires non-Muslims to pay a head tax to safeguard their lives if conquered by Muslims. They are exempt if they convert to Islam.
In Indian-controlled Kashmir, meanwhile, shops, businesses and schools shut down in response to a strike call by the head of a hard-line Muslim separatist leader to denounce Benedict. For the third day running, people burned tires and shouted "Down with the pope."

Protests also broke out in Iraq, where angry demonstrators burned an effigy of the pope in Basra, and in Indonesia, where more than 100 people rallied in front of the heavily guarded Vatican Embassy in Jakarta, waving banners that said the "Pope is building religion on hatred."

The pope on Sunday said he was "deeply sorry" about the angry reaction to his speech last week in which he cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman" and referred to spreading Islam "by the sword."

Benedict said the remarks came from a text that didn't reflect his own opinion.

"I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect," he said during his weekly appearance before pilgrims in Italy.

The statement of regret -- the pope's second in two days -- helped ease some tensions.

In Turkey, where outrage against Benedict's remarks had been swift, Catholic bishops decided Monday that no changes were necessary in his upcoming visit in November -- his first to a Muslim country, Vatican spokesman George Marovic said.

Marovic said the trip was expected to go on as planned, and the bishops had discussed the details of a religious ceremony the pontiff is to lead in Istanbul.

However, State Minister Mehmet Aydin, who oversees the religious affairs in Turkey, said he expected Turkish authorities to cancel the visit if Benedict does not offer a full apology.

"We are expecting the authorities to unilaterally cancel this visit. The pope's coming to Turkey isn't going to foment the uniting of civilizations, but a clash of civilizations," he said.

The secretary-general of the Turkish HUKUK-DER law association submitted a request to the Justice Ministry asking that the pope be arrested upon entering Turkey.
The appeal by Fikret Karabekmez, a former legislator for the banned pro-Islamic Welfare Party, called for Benedict to be tried under several Turkish laws, among them obstruction of freedom of belief, encouraging discrimination based on religion, and inciting religious hatred.

A prosecutor in the ministry will evaluate the request and decide whether to open a case.

Angry reactions also persisted in other corners of the Muslim world, where many demanded more of an apology by the pope than Sunday's statement of regret.

"Muslims have all this while felt oppressed, and the statement by the pope saying he is sorry about the angry reaction is inadequate to calm the anger -- more so because he is the highest leader of the Vatican," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said.

Sit-ins at Damascus shrine

More than 200 Muslims staged a sit-in at a shrine in Damascus, Syria, heeding a call by the Damascus office of Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A statement issued by the office urged the pope to "openly and plainly apologize for his remarks."

Protesters also rallied in the city of Muzaffarabad, in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. "His apology is not sufficient because he did not say that what he said was wrong," said Uzair Ahmed of Pasban-e-Hurriyat, a Pakistani political group.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI sent a letter to the Vatican in which he implored Benedict to show "the same respect for Islam that you have for the other religions," Moroccan media reported. Morocco withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican over the weekend.

Even in China, where the government exerts tight controls over religious activities, a top religious official said Benedict had insulted the nation's Muslims.

"This has gravely hurt the feelings of the Muslims across the world, including those from China," Chen Guangyuan, president of Islamic Association of China, was quoted as saying in an interview with the Xinhua news agency.

In the Middle East, where Muslims threw firebombs at seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend, Christian leaders posted guards outside some churches.

"We are afraid," said Sonia Kobatazi, a Christian Lebanese, after Mass at the Maronite Christian St. George Cathedral in Beirut, Lebanon, where about a dozen policemen carrying automatic weapons stood guard.

Anyone else care to play ‘spot the irony inherent in the system’?