When we can't even count on PBS to be in any way unbiased, we're screwed. As far as I can tell, there is NO unbiased news to be had anywhere today. It's ALL opinion, one sided 'reporting', and pure commercial posing as 'news'. Anyone calling themselves a reporter these days should be ashamed of their profession.
I fear the people wont stand against this. We're too placated by 1/2 truths that fit our narrative, and all too willing to listen to our cheerleaders and ignore the other side's cheerleaders, and not even notice than neither of them are offering facts or specifics.
We're hosed. Incredibly sadly, that means the planet is hosed, as we control so much of the planet's resources.
Where's a black plague when we need one?

Wait... they do have adverse reactions or they don't? You just contradicted yourself. I'm sure when the child gets a high fever or has a seizure, the parents are just making that shit up. That's the real conspiracy! All these parents are lying about their children, they want to bring back the black plague!

So again I'll ask: It's possible to make vaccines without mercury, so why do you authoritarian toads want to mandate vaccines with a HIGHLY toxic substance that we don't even fully understand how it's toxicity mechanism works? You people are insane.

"Think Twice" sounds like a good idea to any rational minded person.

And perfect, you can't dispute the facts--so just ignore them.>> ^spoco2:

@marbles:

Let me get this straight... A young kid gets vaccinated, suffers an adverse reaction to it which leads to "autism like" symptoms. And the vaccine did NOT cause autism? The kid was going to get autism anyway? Bullshit. You have no evidence to back up that position.

Yup, that's what I'm saying because they don't suffer 'adverse reactions'. What tends to happen is that a kid gets their shots, sometime later they start showing signs of autism, and then the parents start trying to look for a reason and so latch on to the last thing that happened, no matter HOW UNRELATED it is.
Autism starts showing itself, generally, around the age that kids get these vaccines. They're just two things that happen around the same bloody time.
You have lost the ability (or never had it) to be able to see how things happening around the same time are not necessarily related. You have to show a CAUSAL link. And none have been shown.
YES, in a tiny segment of the population there are adverse affects to vaccines. YES these adverse affects are sad and horrible for those it occurs to, but also does occur due to pre-existing conditions/predispositions (so it'd be great if you could pre-screen for these, but can't as yet). These are tiny percentages, and, while bad, cannot really be avoided, NO treatment of ANY kind has zero potential side effects.
And all that which you quote there... I'll chose to not even read it considering the source... Neil Miller Director of the Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute. a bullshit anti vaccination group who peddle herbal clensers and fucking homeopathy. Sorry, anyone who gives homeopathy any credence whatsoever is a blathering idiot in any scientific way.
So, sorry, anything written by him can now be written off as 'horseshit'.

>> ^probie:

Ego will be the end of mankind unless we hit another Black Plague.


/hardcore lullaby engaged

That probably won't happen
No, it probably won't happen...
Tonight..

Ego will be the end of mankind unless we hit another Black Plague.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Animation, dark, death, black plague, music, Kostnice Ossuary, william shatner' to 'Animation, dark, death, black plague, music, Sedlec Ossuary, Kostnice, William Shatner' - edited by jonny

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Animation, dark, death, black plague, music' to 'Animation, dark, death, black plague, music, Kostnice Ossuary, william shatner' - edited by jonny

while i don't agree with everything he says, and i don't like him at all (he makes rush limbaugh look sane)...

you can't really zone in on comparing things to the holocaust.

speaker: i need a word that means my subject is going to be really really bad.
advisor: like a murder?
speaker: no, way worse than that.
advisor: rape. or rape and murder...
speaker: no seriously, really bad.
advisor: the end of the world.
speaker: okay, maybe not quite that bad. what's slightly less intense?
advisor: the black plague.
speaker: no, that could be seen as racist.
advisor: the holocaust?
speaker: nearly everyone was white, right? yeah, let's go with that.
Godwin: toldja...

no, but seriously. i fucking hate glenn beck.

Peanut - I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I DON'T WANT TO LIVE! PLEEEEEEEASE EAT ME!
Ranj - no
Peanut - Here, I'll put my head in your mouth. All you have to do is bite!
Ranj - not hungry
Peanut - Can't you just taste me?! Lick me! I taste good!
Ranj [licks Peanut] - is that a hint of Black Plague? meh. licking myself is better. good night.

O shit, they had climatologists in the 300,000BC! Hell, they even measured CO2 and ice levels in the dark ages, black plague don't slow those folks down for science! The chart don't lie, we are all screwed! Let us consume our way out of this problem quickly!

I hope your sarcasm detectors are ringing, I was being quite hyperbolic. Measurements from prehistorical record are always intriguing to me, people can be very smart at finding the marks of the distant past in rocks or ice. However, you have to take that evidence for what it is it is, unverifiable. You can make neat models and predictions off it and try and get a sense of scale and scope for current models; trying to balance the equations that aren't working now with a window into the past. But you are peaking into what is essentially unscientific (I mean unverifiable). There is simply no way to be certain that evidence left behind in ice or certain geological formations hasn't undergone massive change over the hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of years that the evidence sample is supposed to represent empirically (or the extrapolations gained from this are accurate).

The bits of wisdom uncovered from the vast long history of this world are vital, but you always have to weight that with your rational skepticism which I feel is lacking in most summations of doomsday scenarios. To believe that no such levels of CO2 or ice melt values have EVER existed places far to much credibility on something that is essentially unverifiable (that isn't just for 100k years ago, but 500).

I think concern is wise, I think prudence is advised, I think writing a paper saying we are all fuxed and run for the hills is irresponsible. Empiricism is dead, long live manipulated staticism. (assuming a spherical cow, let us calculate its volume)

I've been to this place.

The Sedlec Ossuary. It's so hauntingly beautiful, packed with the bones of 10,000 victims of the black plague.

Taking the Hungarian Express from Berlin to Sedlec is one amazing ride. Castles and hills in the distance, ancient rivers and small villages dotting the landscape.

I rec this place to everyone.

upvote for awesomeinity

Saddam was not a terrorist, to say he is a terrorist is a logically fallacy, that would make Bush a terrorist as well for invading two sovergien nations. Also does that make the US a terrorist nation to be the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons offensively? Imagine that! Any day those guys could nuke someone! The horror! We must invade now!

The case for WMDs in Iraq was built because of the Bush Administration desire to go to war in Iraq riding off the 9/11 attacks, since it was not possible to rationally argue for it in anyway the WMD case was built relying mostly on the information of a single informant code named 'Curveball':

Curveball was the pseudonym given by the Central Intelligence Agency to Rafid Ahmed Alwan an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program. Alwan's allegations were subsequently shown to be false by the Iraq Survey Group's final report published in 2004. Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service regarding the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory. On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity. Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

This all lead up to Colin Powell's presentation at the UN, utterly destroying any shred of credibility of both Powell and the CIA. The case for war was cherry picked. After the war various study groups were formed to solidify the case for WMDs, the admission that no WMDs were found or any found were from depleted 1990 Gulf War stocks was much to damaging for the Administration which argued that Iraq had nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, so various counter study groups were formed since there was political motivation to build a legitimated case for war in Iraq:

On January 23, 2004, the head of the ISG, David Kay, resigned his position, stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq. "I don't think they existed," commented Kay. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties."

In a briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kay criticized the pre-war WMD intelligence and the agencies that produced it, saying "It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group

This of course all makes sense, the administration couldn't come from the invasion say it was catastrophically mistaken in gathering intelligence pre-invasion, so various counter arguments were created everything ranging from Iraq had to be invaded because it had skilled labor in the WMD industry, to that knowledge could seep into Syria and Iran (which it of course did due to the Iraqi dispora).

However all this was damage control, and the administration skillfully changed the narrative now to freedom and democracy in Iraq as well as "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here".

The worsening of the war also diverted public attention, but it is telling that most of the media avoided exploring this topic like it was the black plague, the usual patriotic attacks along the line of "Our troops are dying and questioning their sacrifice even if no WMDs are found, is unpatriotic." Never mind that they wouldn't need to die considering international pressure during UN discussions around January 2003 would lead to eventual opening up of Iraq to serious inspections, but war was on the agenda months before, when US was preparing to go to war with Afghanistan, it was already preparing for war in Iraq.

I can attest to this personally since I was in Kuwait at the time, the build up of man power and arms was well underway even before December/January. The administration decided to act unilaterally, the UN and coalition thing were just smoke and mirrors to create some sort of legitimacy to what was basically an unprovoked invasion.

But the facts are clear The Iraq Survey group under Charles Duelfer said Iraq's nuclear capability had decayed and not grown since the 1991 war. This was reported in October 2004, "Report concludes no WMD in Iraq", of course as I said the narrative was being actively changed by then the Administration said that the report showed "intent" so it was good we attacked then when we did. Which is about as logically as saying the US has intent to nuke someone else because it happens to possess nuclear weapons and has done it before thus we should invade and disarm it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Currently reading Brasyl by Ian McDonald. Though I'm not sure if I like it yet.

Just finished and highly recommend Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. Especially if you like medieval Germany, the black plague and trans-dimensional space aliens.

Also, National Geographic Channel has just revealed from their programming: the first gunshot in Americas, that Spanish vs Native American battles weren't always what Spanish chronicles claimed.

They were ALWAYS accompanied by Inca's former enemy states. And the siege of Lima (Puruchuco) in particular reveals that most of the fighting was done between Native Americans and the battle won by Native Americans, not by some sheer overwhelming power of horses and muskets.

So politics plays a very critical role in human history than just purely on physical geographic location, critical though it may be.

I'm also bit miffed at what Diamond said when he gave ancient Greeks as evidence of 'cultivation civilization'.

From what I know, Greek cities (Peloponnese) did have large population with heavy population density, but they weren't too big on farming, mainly because the Greek land is not the most ideal place for farming because it's full of jagged rocks and salty coastlines. They had a big animal herding tradition with goats and sheeps, and probably had a big fishing tradition going on, but not to the extent to feed big cities. Plus, that's not really a diverse diet.

There survived mainly as active traders, who got lot of their material needs from other parts of the world by setting up colonies and establishing trade relations (Mycenae, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Dorians later on). They especially had a very close relation with Egyptians, perhaps because they were the largest providers of wheat at the time. They give them fish and sheep skin, Egyptians give them surplus of wheat.

Anyways overall, Diamond comes up with definitely interesting fresh theories, but also comments on some things that are directly against historic evidence. Like how conquistador's guns and swords were such a large factor, enough to compensate their lack of numbers (which he later corrects as germs), how Greeks flourished because of cultivation or that Sumerian writings had influenced Chinese characters... etc etc.

Like, Huh?

And I also couldn't find anything about smallpox and black plague originating from farm animals. As far as evidence goes, some say bubonic plague started from Ethiopia, where Diamond claim domestication of animals didn't take place... that 13 of 14 farm animals all originated from Middle East, which is another point of doubt (he also contradicts himself from 1st part to 3rd part.. what's going on here).

Oh! and why Europeans happened to be the ones to keep colonizing the world, when Ming and Qing China had plenty of capability to do the same, but never did so?

Oh! and how was conquistadors survive in the tropics? or early American pioneers who were dying by hundreds?

This is why this guy is a biologist, and not a Historian. Stay in your own profession old man!

Stick with the original theory of geographic effect in human history. Discard the rest.

Might that be just a bit on the harsh side Marc2006? Maybe you'd like to reduce that to just say ... a decimating black plague that wipes out a 2/3 of the population.

And I think it might be just a wee-bit of an overstatement to say that most Canadians would like the US nuked off the planet. (for fallout reasons alone)