Measles fears prompt MMR campaign
Extra vaccine supplies and funding are being made available. An epidemic of measles - which can be fatal - could potentially affect up to 100,000 young people in England alone. The MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps and rubella.Measles fears prompt MMR campaign
Experts say it is perfectly safe, but vaccination rates dipped following controversy about its safety.
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Around 95% of the population need to be vaccinated to protect against widespread outbreaks of measles.
The current vaccination rate across England and Wales is around 10 percentage points lower.
It was only a matter of time before the anti-vaccine hysteria resulted in an epidemic. The 95% figure made me think of something. Assuming you are anti-vaccine for some reason; you are making your child dependent on herd immunity. Ergo, the more successful you are in getting people to opt out of vaccinations, the less protected your child is. For the safety of your child, you should be promoting vaccines for everyone else, not trying to convince them to follow your lead.
Biden
I kind of like Joe Biden. I think Biden would make a perfectly good VP. I think he would be an amazing Secretary of State. His problem is that sometimes his mouth runs out of words so his ass has to finish his thought for him.
ranch undressing
Note to John McCain, W and everyone else. Unless your home is a place where you or people you employ raise cattle/sheep/goats/etc and/or a place where you have horses; then it isn't a real ranch. Please stop calling your home a ranch. It's a villa. Thank you.
Rice: Military power is not the way to deal in the 21st century
Just during the time Rice has served in the Bush administration, we bombed, invaded and occupied Afghanistan; did the same to Iraq; repeatedly bombed Somalia, killing all sorts of civilians; fed bombs to Israel as they invaded and bombed Lebanon; top political officials (led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman) have repeatedly threatened, and advocated, that the same be done to a whole host of other countries, including Iran and Syria.Rice: Military power is "not the way to deal in the 21st century" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
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The most enduring and predominant rule of American politics is that every national politician must demonstrate their willingness, even eagerness, to start wars.
I fear that one of the lasting legacies of the Bush administration will be the grudging acceptance that what world leaders say is largely irrelevant in judging true intent for a foreign policy position or military action. Besides the obvious and regrettable degrading of public trust; it leads to a national dialog where in the absence of honesty, you end up with debate by conspiracy theory and nazi analogy. Polemics to the left of me, cries of nazi appeaser to my right.
So when Secretary Rice says something so naive and clearly contradictory of recent history, I can't help but wonder why she said it. She isn't a fool. Why would he make a statement that almost begs a reply of *cough*Iraq*cough*? Maybe that statement meant to be ironic? A way of saying the opposite to the Kremlin while still being on the public record as opposing Russia's military action?
Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, a fresh indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California - NYTimes.com
The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.
I hope that doesn't result in 800 more Wal-Marts. Solar looks to be a more practical for places with the most sun, cheap land and need energy most when the sun shines. If this works in California then it will be duplicatable in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, where the costs for land, labor and permits will be less.
GM Teases Us With Sneak Peeks of the Volt
For all the hype surrounding the Chevrolet Volt and General Motors' willingness to share every detail of its development no matter how minute, we still don't know what the car will look like. We've caught glimpses of early prototypes and everyone's seen that wind tunnel shot, but photos of a production model have been as elusive as Thomas Pynchon.From GM Teases Us With Sneak Peeks of the Volt | Autopia from Wired.com
Right now most of the Hybrids I see are Toyota Priuses (Priui?) . In the next 18 months Honda, Toyota, Volkwagon and GM will all be shipping Hybrid vehicles with costs in the $20k to $35k range. 2010 may be the year the Hybrid goes from niche to mainstream. And the Prius becomes less snoby.
New evidence suggests Ron Suskind is right
That story begins during the final weeks of 2003, when everyone in the White House was suffering severe embarrassment over both the origins and the consequences of the invasion of Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. No evidence of significant connections between Saddam Hussein's regime and the al-Qaida terrorist organization had been discovered there either. Nothing in this costly misadventure was turning out as advertised by the Bush administration.From Salon.com | New evidence suggests Ron Suskind is right
According to Suskind, the administration's highest officials -- presumably meaning President Bush and Vice President Cheney -- solved this problem by ordering the CIA to manufacture a document "proving" that Saddam had indeed been trying to build nuclear weapons and that he was also working with al-Qaida. The reported product of that order was a fake memorandum from Tahir Jalil Habbush, then chief of Saddam's intelligence service, to the dictator himself, dated July 1, 2001. The memo not only explicitly confirmed that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had received training in Baghdad for "attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy" but also carefully noted the arrival of a "shipment" from Niger via Libya, presumably of uranium yellowcake, the sole export of that impoverished African country
What strikes me as really odd is the lumping together of two right-wing talking points in one memo. This is so unlikely that I wonder who came up with the bone headed idea. Why didn't just lump in some anti-Clinton talking points and a call for a flat tax while they are at it.
New king of Tonga sworn in
The new king of Tonga has been sworn in today, 24 hours after the death of 88-year-old King Taufa-ahau Tupou IV in a New Zealand hospital after a long but unspecified illness.New king of Tonga sworn in - Times Online
His successor is noted for his fondness for wearing a monocle and military uniform, and driving around in a London taxi.
As much as I might dislike W, at least he doesn't wear a monocle. Seriously, any leader wearing a f%&#ing monocle is just asking for a coop.