Anit-Vaxers Cause Deadly Whooping Cough Epidemic

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Let's Cure Whooping Cough with Sexy baths!

The Internet makes people stupid. I know it sounds strange coming from someone who works primarily on the web but facts are facts. The Internet amplifies everyones voice and extends the reach of their ideas while creating a culture in which people think that simply reading a few online articles (or worse Wikipedia entries) makes them an expert. This is why there are 9/11 “truthers” who still claim fire can’t melt steel girders even though fire was used to melt the steel to form the girders in the first place. It’s why people think jet contrails are “chemtrails” sprayed on them by “the Illuminati” who, if the Internet is to be believed, are a secret organization who murders everyone who learns of their existence except bloggers and Alex Jones – who are just too damn tough to be killed by the invisible empire that controls the entire Earth.

And it’s why people get their medical advice from drug addled celebrities like Jenny McCarthy.

I do believe that we are over vaccinated as a society and that there are dangers in vaccination. However I also know that not vaccinating against things like polio and whooping cough leads to resurgences of those diseases. Anti-vaxers on the web believe that the recent outbreak of whooping cough is a conspiracy against them by drug companies. They also explain away the effectiveness of vaccination programs for these diseases by claiming the diseases aren’t real. So what are these evil drug companies infecting babies with? Any answers?

No, because people who believe this are stupid. Unfortunately their stupidity is fatal:

(Reuters) – Whooping cough took the life of a 9-week-old girl from Idaho this week, the first death from an outbreak of the highly contagious respiratory disease that has hit Idaho, Washington state and Montana, health officials said on Friday.

Few details were available about the infant, who was treated for whooping cough at a hospital in Pocatello, Idaho, before being flown on Wednesday to a medical center in Salt Lake City, where she later died, hospital and state health officials said.

Washington state has seen 1,132 confirmed cases so far this year, up from 961 for all of 2011. Montana has also seen an alarming rise, with 99 cases so far this year, or about double the number recorded during the same period last year.

In Idaho, 31 cases have been reported since January. The state, where the per-capita occurrence has usually risen higher than the national average since 1987, recorded its last infant death from whooping cough in 2009.

The disease, also known as pertussis, causes severe coughing attacks and is especially dangerous for infants who are younger than a year old and have yet to complete the full cycle of vaccinations against the ailment.

Worldwide, it infects 30 million to 50 million people a year and kills about 300,000 – mostly children in the developing world.

[…[

Idaho and Washington are among 20 states that grant so-called philosophical exemptions to vaccination.

In Ravalli County in western Montana, the number of school-age children who have gained exemptions on religious or medical grounds from vaccinations caused health officials there to request 115 students stay home for three weeks – a period slated to end May 13 – to avoid contracting whooping cough.

From Mother Earth News:

Washington state is gearing up for one of the worst epidemics of pertussis in nearly 70 years. Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is a highly contagious bacterial infection that causes a nasty cough. It is particularly dangerous for young infants.

Public health officials have confirmed more than 1,100 cases of whooping cough so far this year in the state. Thankfully, no deaths have been reported this year, but 20 infants have been hospitalized with the illness.

Washington’s Gov. Christine Gregoire announced May 3 that state emergency funds would be available to provide free vaccinations and help spread awareness about the disease and the importance of getting vaccinated.

Both stories via The Extinction Protocol, which is one of my favorite blogs but please check out the comments on these two stories to see the kind of circular logic and conspiratorial thinking I’m complaining about.

Look, you and noted genius Jenny McCarthy think vaccines cause autism? OK. But don’t avoid vaccines and then complain when we see resurgences of diseases people vaccinate against. That’s just stupid. You’re rolling the dice and when you do that someone’s coming up snake eyes. Like a 9-week-old infant.

No Liberals, the Economy Isn’t Getting Better – It’s Far Worse Than You Think

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Some liberal troll used the contact form to tell me, using childishly vulgar terms, my “ilk” will be sorry for trying to undermine the great job Obama has done “saving” our economy from evil capitalism. I won’t bother to publish or respond to his numerous, conspiratorial points but I will say for the record there is no economic recovery and America has slipped into second world status so smoothly most people haven’t realized it yet. Here’s the real deal:

Via Mish we have some staggering numbers about unemployment:

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,638,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 945,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,693,000.

The Civilian Labor Force fell by 342,000.

Those “Not in Labor Force” increased by 522,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.

Those “Not in Labor Force” is at a new record high of 87,419,000.

By the Household Survey, the number of people employed fell by 169,000.

All this adds up to an actual unemployment rate of around 11% at least if the government wasn’t cooking the books.

The Daily Economist points out that the Fed can’t even accurately measure this data because the numbers have surpassed the parameters the Feds use to create their charts.

Over five million people, that’s 5,000,000, have gotten on disability since Obama took office. As David Rosenberg notes “…either safety standards at work have eroded dramatically or the “99%” have found a creative way to milk the system and turn the economy into a quasi welfare state”

The Asian Development Bank just announced it see the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency happening soon. This is because they see the dollar as becoming essentially worthless.

Small businesses, those little mom and pop shops the “99%” claim to support, aren’t hiring because of the bad economy.

Americans are too broke to file for bankruptcy.

Americans are storing their cash in home safes rather than banks because the risk of a bank implosion far outweighs the pittance of interest savers can earn.

California bankruptcies increased 557% from 2006-2011 and there’s no sign of improvement. In fact demographic data for the state suggests things will get much worse.

Every week 330 farmers leave their land for good. This is a famine in the making as industrial agriculture requires too much energy to maintain a centralized food production business that can feed the entire country.

The Obama administration is systematically destroying the remaining family farms through environmental regulations.

The standard of living urban liberals enjoy – and think the government can provide for all – is actually completely unsustainable.

But hey, Obama said he fixed things so they’re fixed. Time to celebrate!

Good News! Golden Dawn Threatens Greek “Traitors” While Praising Their “Black Shirts”

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Anti-bailout sentiment caused a backlash in Greek elections where communists and the Greek party Golden Dawn were the main beneficiaries. To call Golden Dawn neo-Nazis is a good short hand for their authoritarian stlye but the group are nationalists without the same loyalty to socialist principles Nazis have. They are a Nationalist, authoritarian revivalist movement.At one point in the 80s they were an expressly anti-Christian, neo-Pagan movement but have since embraced the Orthodox church. There are claims that the hierarchy are still Hellenistic Pagans.

Here’s video of their victory speech. Though they aren’t technically Nazis their rhetoric makes it clear that they intend to act in similar ways, unleashing “Black shirts” on the public and pursuing racialist policies. With communists and groups like the Golden Dawn taking over Europe what could go wrong? I mean, did anything bad happen last time that happened? Via The Blaze:

Golden Dawn members fought in volunteer units in the Bosnian War and are being attacked in the media. Since the international and Greek media support the communists but the Golden Dawn has 10% of the voters support (and more among non-voters) the rising tensions there will cause more civil unrest.

Robert Spencer on His New Book Did Muhammad Exist?

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I have to admit that even with a degree in Comparative Religion and a Masters from a prestigious university I have always taken for granted the existence of a guy named Mohammad who started a death cult called Islam. Robert Spencer has taken the research of various scholars to show that there is no evidence there was a Mohammad. In this video interview with Micheal Coren my mind was actually blown by some of the research he mentions:

I’ve already ordered a copy of Did Mohammad Exist? from Amazon (for my Kindle) and I urge everyone to do the same. The Blaze has more.

Hannity Interview with Occupier Exposes How Vapid Occupy Wall Street is

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Interesting interview via The Blaze. Sean Haniity has a interview/argument with some rich, hipster slacker who makes a number of asinine claims. Among them is the bizarre claim that all crimes committed by Occupiers were the work of a NYPD conspiracy. He also admits toward the end that he basically wants the government to give him “free” schooling, housing, transportation, medical and all his other “needs” which wouldn’t cost me or anyone else anything – because it’s free. No really:

It sounds like for all his hatred of capitalism he wants capitalists to keep making money – so they can give it to him. As people have started to figure out, OWS has no actual goal aside from bullying the rest of us into giving them lifetime allowances. In other words it’s a giant extortion racket run by the self-entitled, drug addled hipster douchebags permissive parenting has filled our country with.