welcome back to preschool children.

I also want to point out the defining characteristics, in my mind, of those Democratic candidates we've left behind:

8. Gravel -- angry about something (they never really let him talk about what)

7. Kucinich -- Fought against corporate corruption in Cleveland, Ohio. Promised to repeal NAFTA, to instigate a carbon tax, and bring our troops home as quickly as possible. According to several online political quizzes, closest match to my own views. (Oh, and a hot european wife, something I also strongly support)

6. Biden -- Passionate, and by far the most experienced with foreign policy. Not really terribly resistant to business influences, though.

5. Dodd -- Passionate, well spoken constitutionalist. Wants to kill FISA by any means. Wants to ensure Bush & co. are brought to justice for their crimes. Father was one of the prosecutors at the trials at Nuremberg. I'd love to see him as Senate Majority leader.

4. Richardson -- Good foreign policy experience. Hispanic. Didn't seem to have much in the way of policy differences between himself and the top three.

3. Edwards -- Son of a millworker. One-time senator of North Carolina. Spoke passionately about the economic division in America (the two Americas). Had a voting record that didn't back up hardly any of his rhetoric. The early favorite of the kossacks.

2. Clinton -- Wife of someone famous, not sure who. Apparently has already served two terms as President, not sure how she's not in violation of the 22nd amendment. Sat on the board of directors at Wal-Mart. Led a failed initiative for Health care reform in 1993. Has been planning Presidential run since before being elected to the US Senate in 2000 (since she was 12, some say). Currently proclaims to be a freedom fighter for the disenfranchised in Florida. Was oddly silent on the issue in 2000, and even as recently as February, 2008.

1. Obama -- Inspirational speaker. Limited experience, but has shown good judgement. Has passed legislation in favor of transparency in government in his short time in the Senate. Opposed the Iraq war from the start (like Kucinich and Gravel). Has run a fantastic campaign.

My preference in July, 2007 was "anyone but Hillary". Obama wasn't my first choice. Kucinich was, but I knew he'd never make it. I followed the kossacks in supporting Edwards, until it became clear in South Carolina that he was done for.

I praise Obama highly, but he's my 3rd choice. The media buried all the rest.

If the media could, they'd bury him too. They sure have done a good job of keeping Hillary propped up.

This is a dupe.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Zach-Galifianakis-takes-his-act-to-a-PreSchool

Excellent presentation indeed... and I wish I had more free time to devote to a game like Spore. Darn kids sap all my time

I do have to make a point about Montessori schools though. We looked into having our kids go to one instead of the usual preschool (this is a school for 2 and 4 year olds). While they had some nice activities etc. they were soooo regimented with the kids... X toy had to be played with ONLY on Y mat, and only in Z way. When you had finished with X toy, put it back EXACTLY as you found it before playing with ANY other toys. There were prescribed ways and places of playing with everything, times for playing with certain things... everything was SO very controlled, and seemed to us to be removing any of the childhood wonder from playing.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'toddler, preschool, graduation, kid' to 'toddler, preschool, graduation, hyperactive, kid, sings' - edited by oxdottir

here are some items that you may have overlooked in the article about thimerisol.(that have nothing to do with wakefields paper)

1.) In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American children still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines twenty years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

2.) Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed thimerosal, knew from the start that its product could cause damage -- and even death -- in both animals and humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it to twenty-two patients with terminal meningitis, all of whom died within weeks of being injected -- a fact Lilly didn't bother to report in its study declaring thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims about thimerosal's safety "did not check with ours."

3.) During the Second World War, when the Department of Defense used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to label it "poison."

4.) In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned that thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine. Even so, the company continued to promote thimerosal as "nontoxic" and also incorporated it into topical disinfectants.

5.) The same year that the CDC approved the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's vaccine programs, warned the company that six-month-olds who were administered the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to mercury. He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued, "especially when used on infants and children," noting that the industry knew of nontoxic alternatives. "The best way to go," he added, "is to switch to dispensing the actual vaccines without adding preservatives."

6.) Before 1989, American preschoolers received eleven vaccinations -- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.

At two months, when the infant brain is still at a critical stage of development, infants routinely received three inoculations that contained a total of 62.5 micrograms of ethylmercury -- a level 99 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.

The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who approved guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine "had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."

7.) Paul Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal regulators for failing to adequately scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby vaccines. "I'm not sure there will be an easy way out of the potential perception that the FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies may have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal until now," Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory officials and the pharmaceutical industry, he added, "will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use" of thimerosal in child vaccines.

But rather than conduct more studies to test the link to autism and other forms of brain damage, the CDC placed politics over science. The agency turned its database on childhood vaccines -- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense -- over to a private agency, America's Health Insurance Plans, ensuring that it could not be used for additional research. It also instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC "wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001. "We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect" of thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary goal in studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines. "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001. "In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety." Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks.

9.) In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final report. Its conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal in vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature describing the toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on four disastrously flawed epidemiological studies examining European countries, where children received much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids. It also cited a new version of the Verstraeten study, published in the journal Pediatrics, that had been reworked to reduce the link between thimerosal and autism. The new study included children too young to have been diagnosed with autism and overlooked others who showed signs of the disease. The IOM declared the case closed and -- in a startling position for a scientific body -- recommended that no further research be conducted.

The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep. David Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida who serves on the House Government Reform Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine, saying it relied on a handful of studies that were "fatally flawed" by "poor design" and failed to represent "all the available scientific and medical research." CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth, Weldon told me, because "an association between vaccines and autism would force them to admit that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of children. Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves?"

10.) the government continues to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates. In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate that there are now more than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using thimerosal-laced vaccines.

I contend that the main arguement of the article is that because of the collusion between government and the vaccine industry we do not know the true (fully disclosed) effects of thimerisol on our population.

I thank you for finally explaining your comment. But I find it hard to see how you could say 'I believe' or 'I think' his paper was based on wakefields when the article explicitly states that the sevretive meetings were a result of a study done by a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten.

"The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism.

Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children"

"The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data had been "lost" and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003, he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data to bury the link between thimerosal and autism.?

Does the information above bother you ? In addition, while this hasn't been explicitly asked of you yet. What are your thoughts on the cumulative level of thimerisol in the previous vaccine schedule as highlighted below?

Before 1989, American preschoolers received eleven vaccinations -- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.

At two months, when the infant brain is still at a critical stage of development, infants routinely received three inoculations that contained a total of 62.5 micrograms of ethylmercury -- a level 99 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.

The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who approved guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine "had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."

And of course you are correct, "most" vaccines can now be found without thimerisol. Here is the current rundown of which vaccines actually still contaiin thimerisol (DTwP & Tetanus do not have a non-thimerisol choice)
http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm (as of December 14, 2007)
I'm glad that we all seem to generally agree here that people have every right to deny being vaccinated (although the devil is in the details). As I posted above there are lots of scientific studies that when looked at as a whole, show that vaccines are neither 100% safe nor 100% efffective as "pro-vaccination" advocates would like people to believe.(which i think jsutifies a persons right to choose).

For those who believe they or their chidren have been injured by vaccines they can use this government resource

National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/

The VICP is located in the HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation.

Vaccine Injury Table
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/table.htm

nincumpoop? wow...kindergarten language from a preschooler's mind.

...oh but he does believe god will punish Bill O'Reilly...even a blind squirrel is bound to find a nut every now and then.

I have to disagree with you there, legacy. I bet you if you stepped in her living room, the walls would be FILLED with trophies spanning her years in these contests since preschool. The type of commitment it takes to get to the top in pageantry leaves little time for an education.

Her parents I'm sure have had to dish out thousands of dollars on voice, dance, music, and acting lessons. Oh boy I can't even imagine what they've spent on wardrobe, makeup, dental work, gowns and travel expenses!

This isn't soccer camp or cheerleading tryouts where they can tell her "Its ok as long as you have fun". This lifestyle is an investment and don't think for one minute it's anything less. These parents are looking for a return too.

I'm SURE that she's been well trained to speak in public, and she would have been fine up there if the question was on a topic she had been coached on before.

I can't believe these f**ckers are getting away with preschool level excuses and dodges.

jesus fucking christ, i want the simpsons banned from here but it doesn't stop me coming back every day!

get a THICKER SKIN people. it's the only way.

you don't have to read the comments. if you DO read them, and you find something you don't like, well, that's your problem. This is the internet, you can't complain if you open a file called xxxrussianteen.gif.scr and get a virus!

the comments here are soooooooooooo much better than youtube and much better than most other forums where religion is discussed.

if you implement digg upvote/downvote for every comment, THEN i will leave. That is petty in the extreme. Why do "liberals" always discuss censorship so much? should be a nobrainer.... this is a discussion forum, not a preschool class.

Anyway will carry on believing in god (small g) and when i see atheists making stupid comments i will treat them like i would treat anyone else who makes a stupid comment.... i.e. laugh, feel pity, move on.

we have had this debate on another forum where i am admin... there are many under 18 visitors, and in the end we just said NO PORN, NO SNUFF, NO AD HOMINEM. and that's it.

Heheh. So who was better? Darwin or Flipper? http://aqfl.net/?q=node/3873

In reply to your comment:
“talking dolphins don't end up as tuna, Darwin's probably teaching preschool somewhere
In reply to your comment:
“Yeah. I was sad when I found out back then. Oh well. I guess Darwin ended up as someone's tuna too.


In reply to your comment:
“whaaa? no, I did not... I guess he didn't want to end up on Celebrity Fit Club, Surreal Life, or any of the VH1 programming that survives on washed-up child stars.

In reply to your comment:
“Oh and did you know Jonathan Brandis suicided about four years ago? http://imdb.com/name/nm0000970/ ””””

talking dolphins don't end up as tuna, Darwin's probably teaching preschool somewhere
In reply to your comment:
“Yeah. I was sad when I found out back then. Oh well. I guess Darwin ended up as someone's tuna too.


In reply to your comment:
“whaaa? no, I did not... I guess he didn't want to end up on Celebrity Fit Club, Surreal Life, or any of the VH1 programming that survives on washed-up child stars.

In reply to your comment:
“Oh and did you know Jonathan Brandis suicided about four years ago? http://imdb.com/name/nm0000970/ ”””

"Whatever floats yer sinkin' boat, to each his/her/its own....but make your sexual choices, tendencies, or preferences politics or civil rights issues, and you need to be bitch-slapped all the way to therapy.... "

You are making the assumptions that there is any kind of choice involved and that transgenderism is necessarily sexual. Both of which are very flawed in my opinion.

Speaking as a male to female transsexual currently in transition I can assure you that this was not a "sexual choice". A deep inadequacy as a boy and a huge need to be a girl, have been feelings that I have experienced since my earliest memories. I can remember attending the birthday of a little girl who went to my preschool when I was 4 or so, and feeling so incredibly jealous that she got to wear a party dress and get presents like Barbie dolls and I did not. Then, of course I would feel ashamed at having felt such things because boys are not supposed to feel that way, and yet I still did. Transsexualism is not a matter of choosing to live out some sexual fantasy, its something that affects you from day one and makes every day a struggle. Had I had any "choice" in this matter I would have chosen to make all of this magically go away, been born a girl and have that thing that every other person in the world takes for granted: a sense of self that matches your body. Failing that magical solution, I would have been equally willing to settle for simply being a "normal" boy, finding comfort rather than anguish in masculinity, and never having to deal with anything transsexual. Of course I had no choice, and instead I have to struggle to find some way to live with being genetically male but only truly able to be myself as a woman. I suppose the only real choice I have in this is between a life of utter despair and unhappiness, and a life where I might be a little less sad all the time. Not much of a choice is it?

Mental arithmetic? I thought they were handing out calculators in preschool now? How else are kids going to learn how to spell "Boobies"?