Political and politically incorrect humor

The Texas Board of Education is the guilty party, not Perry, Ubereil. He hasno direct authority in that situation. My opinion is that Perry has done nothing to fight the idiots on the board and most likely tacitly encouraged it.

Bachmann isn't opposed to vaccines, either. She's opposed to them being mandatory. That said, I expect that entire gambit was Bachmann manufacturing an issue to attack Perry (he nearly made the new cervical cancer vaccine mandatory in Texas) that completely blew up in her face. Bachmann's a borderline nutjob, but the media has taken her screwup and twisted it into a complete disaster of misrepresentation.

Well, fairly close for someone without any real insight into the matter.

If the vaccine thing is the one from the first (I think it was the first) debate, where she talked about how vaccines might cause autism, that's not her fabrication though. That's just spreading an already existing myth that doesn't really have any basis in reality (IIRC the study showing it was even shown to be a downright hoax).

Übereil

In the debate Bachmann called Perry out on the making it mandatory thing which was fine (though personally I do think it is ok to make it mandatory especially since parents could opt out). It was AFTER the debate when she told the story about…

"A woman came up to me after the debate … She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine"

That was the real problem. She was calling the safety of the vaccine, really ALL vaccines, into question which is factually incorrect and also relating the story of some random person as fact. Why would she do that? I don't really believe there ever was such a woman who told this to Bachmann; Bachmann has a history of, to put it bluntly, making shit up. But then she wouldn't let it go and kept digging herself a deeper and deeper hole as is often the case of someone caught lying.

And now her polling figures have fallen through the floor as they should have. The above is no slip of the tongue but fabricating or perpetuating a terrible lie which will have real world consequences.

Back to humor:

If you can't afford a doctor just go to an airport. You'll get a free XRay and breast exam and, if you mention Al Qaeda, you'll get a free colonoscopy, too.

Speaking of Bachman, have you seen this video of her husband?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqSlPQkz9Sw

warning: there is NSFW content here!

Originally Posted by Ubereil
Well, fairly close for someone without any real insight into the matter.

If the vaccine thing is the one from the first (I think it was the first) debate, where she talked about how vaccines might cause autism, that's not her fabrication though. That's just spreading an already existing myth that doesn't really have any basis in reality (IIRC the study showing it was even shown to be a downright hoax).

Übereil

That's not completely correct. There's at least one study from Caltech that shows vaccines can cause autism, BUT so can anything that causes an immune system response during critical times of a pregnancy.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
That's not completely correct. There's at least one study from Caltech that shows vaccines can cause autism, BUT so can anything that causes an immune system response during critical times of a pregnancy.

Unless there are a lot of pregnant 12 year olds this isn't a concern for the HPV vaccine, then.

The "vaccines cause autism!" thing is supposed to be when toddlers get their early childhood vaccines they become autistic. Though Bachmann extending it to 12 year olds has really opened up the field.

Yeah, the scare/hoax is a perversion of a truth though, that vaccines have been shown to cause autism, just not in the way described in the hoax.

Übereil

Truth is what politics define it to be at each moment.

Not taliban but haqqani, a warlord clan, a CIA ally during the soviet invasion in the eighties…and taliban didn't exist in 1985.

Originally Posted by Ubereil


Übereil

That figure seems kinda low. Out of 7.7 million animal species(including insects).

We've been there, discussed that. We're not doing that again.

For engineers…
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot…_8214906_n.jpg

Originally Posted by Damian Mahadevan
That figure seems kinda low. Out of 7.7 million animal species(including insects).

I've never seen homosexual jellyfish, I must admit …

Originally Posted by Pladio
For engineers…
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot…_8214906_n.jpg

Priceless !

Lousy week for Time.


Hadn't checked on Varvel for a while.

That last one is pretty good..

THe last one is bitter reality. Already. There are in fact a few schools here in Germany I've heard from they are already teaching pupils how to fill out the needed forms … And apply for Hartz IV. These schools I speak from are of the lowest grades. We have here a (constantly defended by the conservatives) school form that consists of 3 schools :

Hauptschule - lowest grades
Realschule - middle
Gymnasium - only those who pass through these exams have the so-called "Abitur" and can go to university

The result of this "system" is that those who are the smallest IQ usually go to the Hauptschule - and even the smallest company is requiring the Abitur today ! The Realschule pupils are the middle ground - good IQ, practical, they used to end up in the crafts business. The Hauptschule pupils can get there, too, but as soon as a "human resources" rep reads "Abschluß : Hauptschule", they are doomed.
Everyone wants the ones with the highest IQ nowadays, I'd guess that a carpenter would prefer Einstein before everyone else, if he had applied.

So, the Hauptschule pupils have not much of a chance - especially in areas with more Gymnasiums. As a result, some teachers have begun to teach them how to fill out the forms and get Hart IV.

The really, really bad side - and this is one of Germany's fr greatest problems in education ! - is that the Hauptschule pupils are mostly immigrants. In Berlin it has evolved even so that some schools consist to 99 % of immigrants - and Germans get bullied.

That's the point where it dawned upon me tht there is something going wrong with Germany's education system. *Very* wrong.

And the PISA studies ALWAYS locate German at the end of the list, regarding education. And the conservatives … well, they downplay that list. They still praise the German system wherein three more or less "classes" are being produced. It' almost as if they want it that way.

Nowadays, the so-called "Fachkräftemangel" - lack of well trained professionals - kicks in. Of course, it's the industry's fault, because when the times were hard, they did not think of the future and thus did not train newlings. But rather than seeing that it is their fault, they begin to whine and cry out like … whiners and DEMAND the government to let immigrants easier into the country. Highly-qualified immigrants, of course, not those who aren't trained at all.

They also did so with the IT sector in 2002. The gov't gave them the so-called "green cards". Result : The employment market broke totally down. It needed almost 10 years to get to the former rate again.
And I was one of its victims, because right at that time I finished my IT training.
That's why I'm still bitter about what the government did, then, although it was a different government.
And that's why I'm so much frightened of the industry getting their "green cards" or an equivalent again.

That's shocking, really. To think one could get stuck as an unskilled worker for the rest of your life just because you had a bad test day. Terrible.

And I thought the US system was bad.

The scary part is Germany is the country doing best by far among the big economies in the EU.