Unsurprising

Unvaccinated children are 23 times more likely to get whooping cough.

75% of infants under the age of six months that get whooping cough have to be hospitalized.  The whooping cough vaccine is administered from two to eighteen months in five doses, but isn't considered fully into effect until the vaccination schedule has been completed.  Whooping cough is highly contagious.

So, idiots who choose to let your little germ factories run around spewing bacteria all over everyone they come in contact with, think about the infants you're hospitalizing.  Think about someone other than yourself and your family and your personal need to be oh-so-different and cutting-edge and rejecting of conventional wisdom. 

Posted by: Alice H at 01:42 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Well, At Least Somebody Is Willing Stand Up To Iran

And, guess who it is versus who isn't.

 

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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RNC needs to check their mailing lists more carefully

The Republican National Committee has accidentally released its talking points regarding the Sotomayor nomination.

(h/t)

Posted by: Alice H at 11:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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From The "What The ^&*&" Files

Seriously, lady, what in the hell is your problem?

So for her 18th birthday in May 2007 her mother bought her £160 Botox injections. Jodie said: 'Nothing else seemed to work.

'My friends' faces all looked much smoother. Although when I said "my forehead is wrinkly" they told me it was OK.'

The teenager admits her mother is her role model when it comes to looks.

Mrs King, who is separated from Jodie's father, has been under the knife for a nose job, two breast enlargements, a tummy tuck and a mini-facelift.

Jodie said: 'My mum's always looked so glamorous and she uses cosmetic surgery and Botox to keep her looking young. I plan to follow in her footsteps.

'So what if I'm a teenage Botox addict? I can't think of anything worse than looking old. I'll always find a way to pay for Botox. Now I've started I can't stop.'

Six months after the first session, her smooth frozen look started to wear off, and Jodie feared her natural lines would come back. So she made the next appointment herself, and she and her mother now regularly go for jabs together at the private Anti-Ageing Clinic in South Woodford, North-East London. Each time, the dose is higher.

Jodie said the doctors expressed no concerns about her age. One of the clinic's doctors said there is no legal age limit for Botox, adding: 'The decision is based on each individual patient.'

But another cosmetic surgeon sounded a note of caution. Alex Karidis said: 'It sounds like this young lady is on a dangerous spiral. She's obviously getting encouragement from her mother who sounds like she might be addicted to Botox as well.

'It is very very unusual to have Botox at that age and 18-year-olds should only have it if there is a real facial deformity, not just normal lines when they frown.

'There is a real psychological danger. This is setting a precedent for using anti-ageing procedures for many years to come. The mother needs to be taking responsibility if she is encouraging her daughter to have injections into her face.'

Yeah, I would say so.

This should end well.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:09 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Darth Cheney Definitely Is Inside The Deciders' OODA Loop

I mean, I know that once he steps into a room, the temperature may drop ten degrees, and he has a unique talent with cougars, but can he really be this awesome?

JEANNE CUMMINGS {generic Beltway MSM Hack}: I think that the country actually suffered a setback this week. This debate was supposed to be about edifying the reasons why the Bush White House had its policies and Obama has their own policy, but if the presumption is Guantanamo was going to be closed either Bush, McCain, or Obama, it just got much more difficult this week because the Vice President made it political. He went on shows saying basically “I don't want to be the member of the House who sees terrorists brought to a jail in my district.” And that changed this debate in a way that has made it much, much harder to close Guantanamo, which the President is already committed to doing.

....

CUMMINGS: Cheney really did damage to the effort to keep our country secure by turning this into a political issue. We were going to have to deal with this and to make it a political issue is not helpful. It's just not.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER {second in line in the Awesome Olympics behind the Dark Lord}: Cheney is the one who turned it into a political issue? I thought it was a 90-6 vote in the Senate. Just about every Democrat in the Senate-

CUMMINGS: No, Cheney started making political arguments a week ago. That is when you did start to see the tide turn up on Capitol Hill. It was after Cheney started to talk about “I don't want to be the member who says I brought a terrorist to a jail in my district.”

KRAUTHAMMER: Oh, so Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, says he that will not allow any terrorist out of Gitmo onto American streets or even in American jails -- it's because he had heard it from Cheney and was hypnotized into believing it?

CUMMINGS: Not hypnotized. Cheney hit a nerve. There's no doubt about it, it's a good political argument. It's a strong one.

Well, duh, sweetheart. After all of these years, do you not know with whom you are tangling when you invoke the Dark Lord's name? Let me refresh your memory.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So what does Hans Brix have to say about this?

The Ronery One fired two more short range missiles.  My guess is that they're running out of food, so they're launching missiles with the hopes of getting some food aid out of the US and whoever else in exchange for laying low until they need more.  I wonder if the UN will send a strongly or sternly worded letter this time?

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:05 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Initial thoughts + legal geekery

Following will be my initial thoughts on Judge Sotomayor's nomination for the Supreme Court. Please note, I am making no representations that I am wholly familiar with her judicial philosophy or rulings, as I stated, these are initial thoughts.

I'm going to get this out of the way right now - the concept that I should be thrilled with her nomination simply because she has girly bits and hey, I do too is inherently sexist and insulting. This presumption that gender identity should trump any other philosophical differences presumes that I, as a woman, am incapable of placing thought above identity. That's deeply, deeply insulting. My agreements and differences are with her ideas, not her sex. To claim that I must set aside all that I think and believe simply because she is female as well places the realm of theory underneath that of tribal identity. What utter bosh.

IMMEDIATE UPDATE: I'm trying to get my hands on the speech referenced in this post for my own analysis. But based on the excerpts and what Gabe says over at Moron Central, well, I retract my attempts at being fair minded and not assuming the worst. The idea of "special knowledge" and different ways of thinking based on ethnic and gender differences is appalling, particularly in a judge. So, while I stand by the statements contained below, I am less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to her at this point.

More geekery to follow:
more...

Posted by: alexthechick at 09:58 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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More change that's not change

President Obama will be announcing Sonia Sotomayor as his nomination to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor was a Clinton nominee to the Court of Appeals in 1997.

The Judicial Confirmation Network had some choice words about Obama's selection.

Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:

“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

“She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety. On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America’s firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas. The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.
“She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.”

Keep in mind, the JCN is a Republican-based organization.

Sotomayor was originally nominated to the US District Court by Bush 41 as part of a deal to allow the confirmation of conservative judges. Race and gender cards were heavily played, with Patrick Leahy calling the delay of the nomination of a Hispanic woman disturbing, petty, and shameful. The live announcement should be happening any minute - I'm sure we'll hear talk of how proud we should be that she comes from immigrant parents and that we've once again broken racial barriers by nominating a Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court.

EDIT: Gabe reminds us that Sotomayor holds some beliefs about judicial activism that we might not share.  Yeah, she's that one.


Scotusblog has a list of some of her decisions, some not so bad, some disgusting, including an opinion that "the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position” with public funds".

Gabe also dug up this damning analysis of one of her speeches, sponsored by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal (no, I'm not kidding).  Is it racist to scream "RACIST!!!!!1!!eleventyone!"?  Go read it, it's scary.

Posted by: Alice H at 08:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Gee, isn't it nice...

...that there's finally a "dating" website where gelled-up douchebags and skeezy hoes can arrange to meet and trade STDs?

(Warning: You may end up getting herpes just from watching the following commercial.)

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Levin vs. Dreher and Frum: Who Ya Got?

The Great One responds to attacks from the pitiful tag team of Crunchy and the Douche (and some other squish I've never heard of).  Care to guess who wins?

(h/t)

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:22 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Something to ponder on Memorial Day

There is some controversy over who penned these words, but they're commonly attributed to a Chaplain named Dennis (or Denis) Edward O'Brien:

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag,
who serves under the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag.

It actually may have been written by one Charles M. Province. Whoever is the actual author, it's true.

Posted by: Sean M. at 10:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Nothing good can come of this

Holding a metal pipe in a thunderstorm, even with a piece of wood insulation, is probably a bad idea.

Posted by: Alice H at 09:03 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Uh, I think this is wrong

But I can't explain why.  It makes me cringe, but it's actually a worthwhile thing to know.

(h/t)

Posted by: Alice H at 08:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Something to keep in mind this Memorial Day

We still have to fight to defend the Memorials to the fallen, and we need to do a better job of it.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 03:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Why I'm not a libertarian, in one easy post

Because I celebrate Memorial Day, not Revisionist History Day.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 10:46 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Bomb destroys windows at a NYC Starbucks

I wonder if this is the same dirtbag that set a bomb off in front of the NYC Recruitment Center, and apparently the NYPD is thinking the same thing.  Let's hope that the NYPD finds the bastard.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 08:55 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Talk, talk

I don't know shit about Lawrence Wilkerson, but, um, don't credible sources opt to first talk to someone other than some YouTube channel? There are a few cable news channels out there where people can offer their thoughts, or so I've heard.

Oh, and I might take you a little more seriously if you'd spoken to the same  YouTube channel if it wasn't bent on destroying a woman based on her opinion about gay marriage during a beauty pageant.

Posted by: Sean M. at 05:13 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The world's stupidest zoo exhibit

It's just so very ironic, you see? I mean, Rod Serling must have been involved in planning it. Oh, wait, he's been dead for decades? Well, then maybe it was Alanis Morrissette.

(h/t)

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:11 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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You can just see it coming

So, some Limey study says that you should eat less beef and lamb if you want to save the planet from grobell wermering because of those animals'...er...emissions. That's not the part that piqued my interest, though:

The study also found that alcoholic drinks contribute significantly to emissions, with the growing and processing of hops and malt into beer and whisky producing 1.5 per cent of Britain's greenhouse gases.

"Changing our lifestyles, including our diets, is going to be one of the crucial elements in cutting carbon emissions," said David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change.

Aaaaaaaand there's a "carbon tax" on alcoholic beverages (not to mention beef and lamb) in...3...2...1...

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:05 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Can I be the first to say...

Oh shit...



Update: Double oh shit...

Posted by: Alice H at 09:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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