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You took the words RIGHT out of my mouth. MORE cocktail moments PLEASE!!

TRMS; something appears to be wrong with posting links, or certain links; tried to ammend post, but they still did not take. Why are you 'tired of the water' ?????

I got a workaround through a minute ago. Take the url and insert a space, like so: http: //just-john.com

Then mention that you did it, so people can copy the url, paste it into their browser and then delete the space.

(No, this is NOT all a clever plot by TRMS to get you to visit my site.)

Newt Gingrich is holding Rachel at an undisclosed location until the 2012 elections are over! This is the only possible way that he could actually win the presidency. Don't worry, my team of crack A-team operatives are waiting to bust her out at any minute. She was caught breaking into his suite at the watergate because she was humming the theme to 'school house rock.' The rumors of Rachel quitting to become a bartender at the rainbow room in New York are flat out bald face lies!

Posted last night... Chris Hayes tweeted Rachel's fine and will

be back tonight. Guess all our withdrawals will soon cease.

You're O.K. I'm O.K.

I hope she's not actually a blackbird.

I more seriously hope for her return on the air, tho the subs are pretty good.

It's been repeatedly stated on the twitter machine she's on vacation. Breathe. Relax. You'll get your fix tonight, so you can deal with the withdrawal symptoms a little while longer.

Whoo Hoo, everyone. Don't tweet - silly person - so I didn't know. *sigh* Usually whomever is the guest host says at the start of the show that yes, Rachel is still alive, Newt hasn't kidnapped her and she isn't held prisoner at Fox.

still having withdrawal - gotta have rachel!!!

must be bad for ratings for MSNBC to officially state the host is vacationing

I'm so glad she's gonna be back tonight! It just makes me so sad to see someone else sitting at her desk. No matter how good they are it just doesn't compare.

Maybe when RM returns she'll comment on

a.) WH C/S a Wall Street insider b.) Obama to talk to Chamber Commerce, those guys who spent $70 million to oppose him c.) pre Super Bowl interview with O"Reilly.

Is he ever going to learn?

I was singing along all the way too, Haddie. I loved it!

sorry, the link to above is

Eric Cantor takes the Metallica mind set; "Kill em' all!"

Not only will EZ Eric and sloop John B. not let anyone offer amendments (breaking their campaign promise, duh,) they also don't have a plan to substitute for the law. The 'Cantor for president' chants are breaking out right now, I can hear people down the street right now...... Wake up america, your life is at risk. We will all need 'death panels' when the republicants kill health care in america. My hospital's emergency room is full every night because of poor wellness care in america; how bout' yours???

I just love how Cantor is saying the CBO is lying about the healthcare bill saving money. He apparently is WAAAAAAAY smarter than all those folks who did the CBO analysis. Is this just more of the far right's anti-intellectual campaign, saying that a dimwit politician is so much smarter than a group of people who actually understand fiscal policy and budget issues?

I am already so sick of repub rule!

A guy from Long Island doesn't know what causes tides? Talk about a poster boy for ignorance!

Note the space after http in the links above. Hope the webmaster fixes this problem with posting links soon.

Can anyone more geeky than I, identify who is putting up AcornOnline.com? Sounds sorta TeaPartyee to me.

Still no answer on AcornOnline.com? Seriously - I am wondering because Acorn was disbanded - who who is putting this up? Is it a GOP trap? Spamalot? or some sort of wormy deal? It is on HuffPost page with the reading of the Constitution.

Issa must have been borrowing Beck's chalkboard for that line!

Huzzah! Always knew there were more to MN than Bachmann!!!

Course I knew that already, being from IA originally, but Bachmann winning in Nov, really shook me up. hang in there MN!!! Help is on the way!

It was probably Joe Barton yelling "You lie!"

Boehner cheering the 21st??

Whatever it was, it was birther related.

Thank you.

They (Republicans) are trying to fill in the gaps in their education without it being noticable ;)

Note that they had to have someone read it aloud to them, like story hour for toddlers. Either they realized that the reading skills of their party members weren't sufficient to handle reading the Constitution without help, or they didn't trust their members to do some assigned homework and read it themselves before the session the next day.

Even if you did assign them homework they'd just have their lackeys do it for for them ( that's what you pay them for isn't?) I would not count on 100% comprehension from that crowd unless you broke out the sock puppets to act it out for them. Besides everyone knows that the true mark of a Consititutional enthusiast is someone who wants to amend it until it is unrecognizable and then say that it is the word of God.

I'd love to see a test given at the end of the reading to test their comprehension of what has just been spoon-fed to them. I'm betting their listening skills are even worse than their reading comprehension skills.

didn't these guys sign up for the Bachmann/Scalia Constitution classes? do they get college credit for the class? or CEUs? or just a star on their forehead?

The last people I would trust to hold a class on the Constitution are Bachmann and Scalia. Kind of like learning about how to grow a union from Reagan.

I agree, Uffdaguy, however, that is who has lined up the classes. Can't someone sneak in and video-phone the class? Considering that women aren't guaranteed any rights under the Constitution, I wonder how Bachmann is going to take that little gem?

When you are mentally ill, like Bachmann, (and I am not saying it as an insult; living in her district in MN, I feel her actions over the years show she is mentally ill), consistency and rationality never really come into the mix. This is a woman who was caught hiding behind bushes, spying on women who were going in and out of an abortion clinic. This is a woman who believes that Job Corps is some kind of government brainwashing operation. This is also a woman who is now on the House Intelligence subcommittee. Heaven help us all.

kelly, great point!

Boooo-yah!!

I wants so much to say something but I am just dumb-founded beyond words. Yeah, who better to watch the hen-house than the fox? How else is obama going to demonstrate his out-reach to big business than letting one of their members over-see their own best interests. Love all the great things Obama has done, but on economic and energy policy he is as bad as Bush.

SOTH is that any relation to SITH? as in Star Wars?

SITH - Characterized by a single-minded pursuit of power and disdain for sentient life.

Per above, I am sure of it!

Perhaps you should read up some more on Wakefield's history. It seems that he had a financial interest in a company that produced a vaccine that competed with MMR. His original goal was just to tie MMR to autism, not all vaccines, but things got away from him.

You appear to be holding "relating vaccines to autism" as a goal, rather than as a hypothesis.

As for "the relationship Thimerosal plays" it should be noted that discontinuing its use in a wide range of vaccines has not resulted in any change in the rate of autism diagnoses.

As for "the relationship Thimerosal plays" it should be noted that discontinuing its use in a wide range of vaccines has not resulted in any change in the rate of autism diagnoses.

I don't know that you can back that up with significant data given the shelf life (continued use by pediatricians) of the vaccines that had the preservative even though production stopped. They did not throw the stuff away because Merc discontinued using it. There were millions of bottles of it all over the states. The onset and dx of autism also takes a few years. We are just getting to a place now where the "change in rate" and diagnoses will become relevant.

As for Wakefield, I don't care what he did. As for a goal...are you kidding me? Read up on what RFK Jr. has discovered and exposed regarding this "hypothesis".

As for a goal...are you kidding me?

No. Accusing.

Accusing me of pointing out that I believe there is a connection between thimerosal and autism without any basis?

From Medical News Today

The Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A: Current Issues, an authoritative journal featuring original toxicological research, has published, "A Case Series of Children with Apparent Mercury Toxic Encephalopathies Manifesting with Clinical Symptoms of Regressive Autistic Disorders," by Geier and Geier (2007).

This new study leaves little doubt there is a direct causal link between mercury exposure from Thimerosal-preserved biological products (vaccines and Rho(D) products) and mercury poisoning diagnosed as an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

This clinical study also found a significant dose-response relationship between the severity of the ASD symptoms and the total mercury dose these children received from Thimerosal-preserved drugs.

From LegalNewsWatch

Autism and other brain dysfunctions in American children is linked to thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines, say doctors, activists and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the House Human Rights and Wellness Subcommittee.

Doctors and activists assembled in Chicago to discuss a new study that claims to show an association between thimerosal and brain dysfunctions. The study claims to show “strong epidemiological evidence for a link between increasing mercury from thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders and heart disease.”

The study shows that “the relative risk of those disorders correlated with increasing doses of mercury contained in childhood vaccines.”

A simple question might be, "If it doesn't cause all these problems...why did they remove it?"

Here's the deal...for every citation I have linking thimerosal to autism, you will have one that denies it. Look up your sources...I bet there will be some funding somewhere by the pharmaceutical companies.

In the wake of overhauling the FDA, lawmakers are also cracking down on conflicts of interest within the Centers for Disease Control.

Last month, Representatives, Dr Dave Weldon (R-FL), and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), held a press conference to announce the introduction of a bill that would give responsibility for vaccine safety to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, and remove most vaccine safety research from the CDC.

From Lawyerandsettlements.com

"If it doesn't cause all these problems...why did they remove it?"

Mostly due to widespread, though baseless, public fear. They knew many people wouldn't accept the vaccines unless they removed it. So they found an alternative.

Study after study - some of them paid for by drug companies, some of them independent - has shown that it's harmless and that there's no evidence for a link to autism. The few studies which show otherwise have been repeatedly discredited. The original one has been denounced by the vast majority of people who ran it.

Meantime, there still isn't a reliable definition of what autism is. It's become the new ADD. The insurance companies and state bureaucracies need a diagnosis.

Back in the 90s, the catch-all was ADD. If there was something unusual in the kid's behavior that they couldn't quite put their fingers on, they called it ADD. Every third kid was put on ritalin. But ritalin is a stimulant. It helps people who actually have ADD, but for kids who are (or appear to be) hyperactive for other reasons, it makes things worse. Eventually, they found a test that showed the physical difference in ADD patients' brains, but it was expensive and involved a lot of radiation. So kids kept getting the ADD label slapped on them whether it was right or not, and people talked about a supposed ADD epidemic. It hurt the kids who were misdiagnosed, and it made it much harder for the kids who actually had the disorder to be taken seriously and get proper attention. It also hurt the research into the disorder because there were so many false positives clouding the issue.

Things only got better for ADD patients when autism became the new catch-all. Now it's "autism spectrum," which basically means "anything that looks sort of like autism that we can't otherwise explain." We don't know what autism is. We don't have a treatment for it. We don't have a real test for it. And doctors are giving kids the label for insurance purposes even when they know it isn't autism. So it looks like there's this huge epidemic. And we've got all these "autism awareness" campaigns talking about how widespread it is and making everyone think about autism and believe their kids have it... which just serves to further inflate the numbers.

The vaccine issue, autism in general, our understanding of childrens' behavior... it would all be much different if the general public believed in real science. And if we had a health care payment system that made sense for anyone other than insurance executives.

pgw...you said, regarding why they stopped putting thimerosal into vaccines, "Mostly due to widespread, though baseless, public fear." Do you think injecting newborns with mercury is probably an okay thing for them? Do you think there would be no issues with that? Did you know the onset of mercury poisoning looks exactly like the strange behaviors of kids with autism?

Study after study also show a positive link to thimerasol and autism. For every one of them you can show me that does not...I can show you one that does.

Please Google RFK Jr. and his efforts to expose what has happened regarding thimerasol.

A tiny portion of the vaccine material is a molecule which has mercury in it. That's different from taking in large quantities of elemental mercury. But I see it's not going to make a difference. You're simply not going to believe me. Or, more to the point, reliable medical science.

No, I don't think you know the exact amount of mercury or how it was that in 1989 the amount of vaccines given to children more than doubled than in previous years. Reliable medical science falls pretty short when it comes to this issue.

I am not sure what your expertise is in autism, you don't say.

Like someone said, you are entitled to your own opinions...you are not entitled to your own facts. What is fact is that I am the mother of a child diagnosed with autism. I remember the day it happened because I am his mother. I know what it is. I have studied this a great deal and spent three years with my son in the out patient care of the BJ. Freeman dept of Psychiatry in the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA. As far as the notion of higher reported incidences of autism because there is federal funding available is bull@!$%#. I was barely able to get my son treatment.

To address the decline in the rate of autism diagnoses since removing thimerosal.

From The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc.

Using the government’s own databases, independent researchers analyzed reports of childhood NDs, including autism, before and after removal of mercury-based preservatives. Authors David A. Geier, B.A. and Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D. analyze data from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) in “Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines.”

The numbers from California show that reported autism rates hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have skyrocketed to more than 1000 by the beginning of 2006. But in fact, the Geiers report that the number actually went down to only 620, a real decrease of 22%, and a decrease from the projections of 35%.

http://www.aapsonline.org/press/nr-03-02-2006.php

Robert Kennedy Jr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrIM2hwrLoc

Kennedy went into great detail about the autism rate of Pennsylvania’s large Amish community. He said Amish kids do not receive vaccinations. “UPI (United Press International) did a study of the Amish and found only three cases of autism in Lancaster, PA. All were in adopted children who had received their vaccinations prior to adoption,” Kennedy said.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289562#ixzz1APPVpU2J

You're not entitled to your own facts, either.

I don't have research study links handy, but you wouldn't believe them, anyway. You're determined to believe your own version. I trust my sources, including a prominent and well-versed local pediatrician.

As for RFK's kids, that's a very small sample size. With absolutely no check on other factors. Who knows what else Amish kids are or are not exposed to? Or what genetic factors might be present or absent within their specific communities? That is not scientific evidence.

And I never said there was federal funding for autism. You seem to have entirely missed my point there. But I do know people who had to get their child stamped with the autism label even though the doctor didn't think it was an accurate diagnosis because the state wouldn't qualify them for certain needed disability benefits otherwise. (Not that it's an easy fight even then.) And I know they're not alone.

I'm disabled, myself. I have a number of disorders, some of which are not well understood. I've been through the wringer, and so have my parents. Fighting to be taken seriously, not to be dismissed as a head case. Trying to get answers, find treatments, and find a way to live a normal life has been the defining quest of my adult life.

But no one is well-served when you cling to the wrong answer in the face of all reliable evidence. I know how much it means just to get an answer. Even if there's no associated treatment, just knowing the reason for what's gone wrong is a huge deal. Having something to point to, some explanation.

But, tempting as it is, clinging to a discredited solution isn't helping. It gives you some peace of mind, but at the cost of efforts to find the real answer. And, in this case, at the cost of giving children vaccines that could prevent serious illness or even death. The fewer people who get vaccinated, the less effective vaccines are for the population as a whole.

But you're not going to believe me. So why should I bother to keep trying to convince you?

I was not even posting to you, but rather continuing a thought on this thread I started. The "facts" I have represented here are from reliable sources.

But no one is well-served when you cling to the wrong answer in the face of all reliable evidence.

You offer no evidence, but rather just your own opinion. My personal evidence comes from my journey with my son and his early intervention treatment that served him very well. I am not sure how well you have represented what you have called a "wrong answer". My younger son was vaccinated, just at a later age. He has no issues. I am not sure from what you base any of your opinions here, but you are correct in that you could never convince me...all you offer here are your words of what, experience, wisdom?

RFK discussing the Amish kids is merely an example of the study.

The fewer people who get vaccinated, the less effective vaccines are for the population as a whole.

I have no idea what you are trying to say there.

I don't think you have any interest in autism or what it is about on any level. I think you just want to go on about your opinion that vaccines and thimerasol have nothing to do with the disorder. That's cool and your choice, however you do not extend any factual evidence that repudiate my posts. It's like you want to just say that I am wrong...with nothing else to offer.

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., and Assistant Professor at Colorado State University has lived with autism all of her life and offers an insightful article about being on the inside of this disorder. None of her writings are related to the controversy of vaccines. Her life and how eloquently she is able to express some mysteries of autism are a gift. Not that I believe you are interested pgw78, I'll paste it here anyway.

http://www.amaryada.com/2010/10/temple-grandin-inside-view-of-autism.html

I have done the research. And I've talked to someone very competent whose job it is to do the research. The problem here is that I keep responding to you against my better judgment, and I've been too lazy to go look up the mountains of readily available evidence. In part because I know you'll already have seen it and found some reason to dismiss it.

But, fine. You want links?

AMA: Vaccine-autism link unsupported by science, but theory lives on

Analysis of the studies purporting to link MMR vaccine to autism

Quote from the above article:

Studies... all support the fact that autism occurs during development of teh central nervous system early in utero.

Unfortunately, for parents who will someday bear children diagnosed with autism, the controversy surrounding vaccines has diverted attention and resources away from a number of promising leads.

CDC page on vaccine safety

CDC page on vaccines and autism

Some people believe increased exposure to thimerosal (from the addition of important new vaccines recommended for children) explains the higher prevalence in recent years. However, evidence from several studies examining trends in vaccine use and changes in autism frequency does not support such an association. Furthermore, a scientific review by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that "the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines an autism." CDC supports the IOM conclusion.

The Mayo Clinic page on the subject

Vaccines do not cause autism. Despite much controversy on the topic, researchers haven't found a connection between autism and childhood vaccines. In fact, the original study that ignited the debate years ago has been retracted. Although signs of autism may appear at about the same time children receive certain vaccines — such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine — this is simply a coincidence.

That's not just one study. That's an analysis of all studies, done by several key organizations whose job it is to take very careful looks at these things, in the interest of patient health and public safety, not drug companies.

As for my statement about the population as a whole: vaccines don't just work on an individual. They also work at a group level. If you have a population that is widely vaccinated against something, it makes it much harder for that disease to take hold and spread. So even the unvaccinated get protection. And the disease itself has a much harder time propagating to future generations. But that national level of protection breaks down if too many people opt out.

As for the Amish study, let me put it this way: There are many many things which most of us are exposed to which Amish babies are not (or are to a much lesser degree). Off the top of my head, these include: pesticides, synthetic fabric (and the sterilization, waterproofing, etc. chemicals used on them), industrial food additives, cell phones, car exhaust, plastics, microwaves, overstimulation from fast-paced multimedia, baby formula, formaldehyde, and power lines. Vaccines are also on that list, but does the study even consider any of the other possibilities? Or did someone go looking for evidence that it was vaccines and forget everything else? Furthermore, as mentioned, there's the genetic factor. The Amish gene pool is relatively isolated. As I understand it, any Amish child has the choice of staying in the community and living as they do or leaving it all behind. So if someone marries outside the community, odds are very high that they won't stay there. They may have a genetic factor which protects them or lack a gene which makes them vulnerable. This would not be true of any children adopted into the community.

I believe in autism itself. I believe that there are people who are severely affected and need real help. I'm not heartless. I want to see everyone get the medical help they need.

The question is what that really means. For each individual patient.

We need real science, not easy answers.

And, to clarify, the child I was talking about who was misdiagnosed... He does have some kind of behavioral disorder. But the doctor doesn't have a name for it. Doesn't know exactly what's wrong. But he does know that the child needs special help and consideration. But the system is set up so that everyone needs a label. The bureaucrats at the insurance companies and government programs won't authorize that help unless they have a neat little diagnosis code to put on the forms. So, lacking a better one, the doctor put "autism spectrum" even though he doesn't think autism is an accurate description. But it's something the insurance companies and state agencies understand.

That's not an isolated case. And it's part of a larger problem with our broken health care system.

But it hurts everyone involved. The child gets slapped with a label that's not right. Other children like him don't get the answers they need because they're treated as autistic rather than as having what they actually have. Which we won't understand because all the research is going into autism. But we don't understand what autism really is because the patient population is diluted with people who were improperly labeled. Which also hurts the people who are genuinely autistic. It also makes it harder for those who are genuinely autistic to be taken seriously.

I'm for helping people. I'm for proper research. I'm against bad science and superficial "awareness" campaigns that do more to misinform than to actually help.

I appreciate your effort here. The first link didn't work...and to be clear...it is the preservative thimerasol that I am talking about not MMR or vaccines in general.

It is well known that the CDC (has now been restricted from doing vaccine studies due to conflict of interest) and the AMA both receive research funds from big pharmaceutical companies and will not bite the hand that feeds them. As for the Mayo Clinic I can look up which big Pharm company funds research for them, but I'm finished here. This is enough for this arena.

With the Freedom of Information Act Robert Kennedy Jr. was able to expose unthinkable information regarding thimerasol. It is true for every study that supports the evil of the preservative...there is one that shows something there is one that shows there is nothing wrong with it.

ran out of time editing the end of it

scary ain't it??

OMG!

It's being seen as a way to give her some foreign policy experience for her rumored 2012 presidential bid.

All of which leaves me very confused. The right criticized Obama for being "inexperienced" in government, yet they then make inexperience a virtue in the last election, with the result that one new repub House member has never held office until now, working in his family's pizza parlor. So, what is it they actually want? Should Bachmann take the spot to get experience, or should she refuse it so she can claim the mantra of inexperience?

At least maybe now she will be able to get to the source of the information she gave in 2007 about the secret plan to break up Iraq and make a portion of it an official terrorist stronghold.

A Bachman conundrum - how did we get here from there????

oh, and just because they criticized Obama for lack of experience, does NOT mean that the same rules apply to them -- remember? these are do as I say gang, not the Facts Matter Gang