Personal Stakes

I can wear a number of hats concerning this issue. I'm diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, so I have a personal interest. I'm a science nerd, especially concerning neuroscience, so I wear the hat of somebody interested in the facts of the case. I'm also a political wonk, with a particular interest in how science translates to policy.

My opinion comes down to this: we're using the science to clear the B.S. explanations for why this happens out of the way. It's difficult, because taking a real world issue like this and plopping it down in a lab is impossible. You get likelihoods more than absolute laws and rules. It's not even clear here that Autistic conditions necessarily have to have just one cause or kind of cause, any more than heart conditions can be explained by just one etiology. There could be metabolic disorders, environmental exposures, genetics involved, and what for one person might be a good treatment could be useless or worse. For some, there may not fundamentally BE a treatment, other than learning to live with the pathology at hand.

Was it wise to investigate the Vaccine connection? By all means. But nobody has found any indication that Thimerosal or anything else in them is causing the epidemic increase. Even worse, the numbers have risen as vaccines with this mercury-based compound have been phased out. Simple inductive logic tells you that A cannot be the sole cause of B, if B continues to increase as exposure to A decreases.

If a negative relationship had been discovered, we would have been obligated in good conscience to change how we produce and use vaccines. But it has not, and until we've used the B.S. detector of science to clear away the misleading hypotheses, targeting vaccines as a cause is not only bad, but potentially counterproductive. Measles and other illnesses we vaccinate for are known to have potential neurological complications. From a speculative point of view, we could even pose infectious diseases as potential causes, but from a purely factual point of view, having a child dealing with the after-effects of such neurological complications is no picnic.

I understand the impulse people have to fight for their children. I understand that it can sometimes seem like corporations are just out to cover their asses. But at some point, we have to humble ourselves before the facts, and let the unsupportable explanations drop.

We need to know more about what can cause autistic disorders, not become fixated on explanations for personal and emotional reasons. With limited resources and the scientific uncertainties that come with investigating phenomena beyond the lab, we must sometimes make the difficult choice to look beyond our preferred explanations, and seek out the right ones, because the truth, preferred or not, is all that can set us free here.

And you thought your job was difficult!

Obama's featured on the cover of Mad Magazine, in what might be a realistic portrayal of how Obama's feeling on the inside.

He's sort of like Madonna, or Prince...

Somebody should tell this fellow that if Rembrandt had a brother named Murray, he'd be named Murray van Rijn.

As the great Austin Powers once asked...

Who throws their shoe?

Just like old New York, Was once New Amsterdam

"Why they changed it, I can't say, people just liked it better that way!"

With apologies to They Might Be Giants, of course.

Seems like you might be familiar with Mumbai's previous name: Good old fashioned Bombay. Can't say I blame them. I believe the former name was the product of the name given to it by Portuguese Traders. So remember, it's Mumbai, not Bombay, and it's Istanbul, not Constantinople.

So why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks.

Sorry, couldn't resist. :-)

This Political Cartoon Is Just Too Perfect For Words.

Just follow the link and you'll see why.

What a difference a month makes...

One of the hazards of being involved in three blogs at once is that you concentrate your efforts unequally most of the time. This blog was meant to be something of an overflow blog to deal with the items too minor to be dealt with on my once daily blogs. So, if you missed me here, in that unlikely event, I'm over at Watchblog, and Daily Kos on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, history passed me by on this blog, but fortunately enough, I was able to mark the occasion at Watchblog.

I certainly feel better, now that Obama won. And he didn't win by a slim margin, he won it walking away. You know, like those people in the movies who walks away from an explosion without flinching. That cool. And now we begin to see how his cabinet takes shape. Am I excited? Not yet. Too many years under Bush have darkened my perspective on government. Hopefully, Obama will make good on his promise and make me proud of how we govern in America again.

Don't be a stranger here, I won't be, if I can help it.

The Right Wing Biting It's Own Tail:

Bill Kristol: NYT iz teh stupid!|!1!!
Jon Stewart: NYT iz ur base.

Pwn3d.

In the interest of bipartisanship...

see Sarah Palin pictures

I know. Unfair, but I couldn't resist.

see Sarah Palin pictures

Another Good One

see Sarah Palin pictures

I liked this.

see Sarah Palin pictures

(h/t) to Pundit Kitchen

Oh, oh, no, no, no.

Relax, please. Take your time. You've done quite enough to help us, thank you very much.

A good article on Credit Default Swaps

AKA, the crap that got us into this whole mess in the first place.

Keating Economics

I think this is like the skinny kid with glasses cold-cocking the bully when he pokes his fingers into the nerd's chest one too many times.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is in full-on flail mode.

Apparently, nobody told him about this called "The Spirit of the Law"

There is more to law than mere letters on a page. Bush has some nerve making a statement like this, given his habit of making signing statements where he announces his intention to ignore what's written in the law.

The truth is, there are larger purposes to the law, its interpretation, and its enforcement. Judges should be allowed the flexibility to determine the best way of interpreting the law.

Judges ultimately can be held accountable by other judges, if they overstep their bounds, but tying their hands with narrow interpretions don't do people much good.

What is it that offends us about this?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not on this guy's side. But let's not delude ourselves: throwing a puppy over a cliff is probably neither the worst thing he's ever done, nor is it likely to be the worst abuse inflicted on an animal in this war or any other.

To be honest, I don't see what reason, besides negative publicity, this guy's getting kicked out. Under most circumstances, I would think this might be a minor or even ignored offense.

It was seen, though, and there are legitimate concerns for Armed Services who are likedly not to popular as it is at the moment. To put it plainly, the callous nature of the act is what's giving it the most condemnation.

Psychologists following sociopaths list this kind of callousness towards human and animal life as one of the major signs of the disorder, a hallmark of an evil attitude in general. As appealing as it might be to watch folks become heroic killing meachines in movies, the reality of that rightly scares us.

We think, when we see a guy calmly and callously chuck the dog off the cliff, we have to wonder, is he going to gravitate as callously towards people?

Now I know, logically speaking, that some will make the point that soldiers are supposed to be like that. That, though, is a problematic point if you depart from the notion that the ideal for a soldier is to be mindless killer.

Soldiers kill by the very nature of their profession, but they are supposed to know the sharks from the guppies and act accordingly. In a war like this, where such fish don't exactly swim separately, some suggest that a callous disregard for innocent life is a necessity. However, given the damage this attitude does and has done to our strategic aims in Iraq and elsewhere, we have to ask whether such cold-bloodedness is really what we want.

Undoubtedly for many soldiers, the killing of others will break down certain normal inhibitions, and certain actions that would be difficult for a civilian will become easier, less thought upon. Nonetheless, we hope and pray, and usually see our soldiers come back having resisted the temptations of needless infliction of pain and suffering, rather than given in to it.

Point is, when we see some guy throw a puppy off a cliff, we worry that this person has gone over the edge, or has already or maybe even always been over that edge. We don't want to entertain the notion that in fighting to defend ourselves or our principles, that we've turned ourselves into folks little better than the badguys.

That's why this guy's getting sent home: not political correctness, but distinctly scary, callous behaviors.

Define Irony...

Gas Prices are so bad that even the world's most profitable oil company doesnt' make enough money selling it to justify remaining in the gas station business.

From The Files Of "You Know You're In Deep S*@# When..."#2

You know you're in deep S@*! when you know the answer to the question "What if we gave a fundraiser and nobody came?"

Cast of Thousands: Obama Rally attended by 75,000

This could be going somewhere.