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Call to action on worker safety for future Labor Secretary

Labor Secretary nominee Alex Acosta is schedule to appear next week before a Senate Committee for his confirmation hearing. Senators should formulate their questions for him by reviewing a just released platform on worker safety. Protecting Workers' Lives & Limbs: An Agenda for Action makes dozens of recommendations to improve occupational health and safety policies and practices, including many for the future Labor Secretary. They include: Commit to protecting workers’ health and safety on the job with strong and fair enforcement, promulgation of common sense standards, and outreach and…

Swedish Cabinet Opens Door to New Metal Detector Legislation

In October, I wrote about a ruling of the European Commission against Sweden's restrictions on metal-detector use. The angle, kind of irrelevantly one may think, was that our rules counteract the free mobility of goods, which is of course a central concern of the EU. On 30 November Sweden's Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied to the European Commission. The gist of the reply is that "We think protection of the cultural heritage, which is also central concern of the EU, should trump the free mobility of goods in this case". Up until §27 there is little new here. But then we get this (and I…

Brewing the World's Hottest Guinness

The positive and sometimes unexpected impact of particle physics is well documented, from physicists inventing the World Wide Web to engineering the technology underlying life-saving magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices. But sometimes the raw power of huge experiments and scientific ambition draw the recognition of those seeking only the most extreme and impractical achievements on Earth. Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) smashes particles together to recreate the incredible conditions that only existed at the dawn of time. The 2.4-mile underground…

Thoughts on health care

This morning, I'd like to point out two interesting stories on how the health care debate has become more irrational than rational. First, a WaPo op-ed decrying the imbalanced media coverage of health care, which may be leading to a perception that opposition is larger than it really is: The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer for one of the television networks at a large town-hall meeting he held in Durham. The stringer said he was one of 10 people around the country assigned to watch such encounters. Price said he was told flatly…

What he said

Before the weekend, I had a half-composed post about Hillary Clinton's asinine invocations of RFK's assassination, but I wasn't done when weekend fun-n-games began, and now it's dated and irrelevant. I only mention it because I would've linked to Atrios's excellent and correct advice to the Clintonites: Stop Sticking Finger in Brain. The post had the same title as today's and quoted the observation that "the various historical comparisons the Clinton campaign is making are in the 'isn't it great that people are so stupid that they'll swallow this horseshit' category. It did not take her…

Hey, it worked for Hitler

NOTE (7/27/2016): People have been telling me, based on this post written over ten years ago, how Donald Trump sounds just like Vox Day. It's true. He does. It's also true that the thought of exporting 11-12 million people in 4-8 years is just as ridiculous now as it was ten years ago. I weep that so many in the Republican Party not only take this nonsense seriously but voted for Donald Trump based on a promise very much like what Vox Day described, so many that Donald Trump is now the Republican Party nominee for President. So I added this note. I also note that some of the links are dead…

Shame! Another front in the libertarian war on the FDA: Rational Vaccines' unethical offshore herpes vaccine clinical trial

I've caught a fair amount of flak over my opposition to so-called "right-to-try" laws. Right-to-try laws have proliferated throughout the US like so much kudzu over the last three and a half years, to the point where 37 states now have some version of these profoundly anti-patient laws on the books. At the federal level, three weeks ago the Senate passed a federal version of right-to-try, with the House scheduled to take up the bill when Congress returns from recess next week. Granted, it's watered down and therefore less horrible than the original version, which Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI_…

Comments of the Week #162: from singularity evaporation to the loss of Earth's helium

“The ability to listen and learn is key to mastering the art of communication. If you don't use your verbal skills and networking, it will disappear rapidly.” -Rick Pitino It’s been a week full of amazing and controversial stories about the Universe here at Starts With A Bang! Did you catch the fantastic live event on Wednesday at Peddler Brewing Company in Seattle: Astronomy on Tap, starring me and the incredible Sarah Tuttle? If not, you can catch it now! If you're in a multimedia mood, you're in luck, because the newest (and twentieth!) Starts With A Bang podcast is now live: on the Fate…

Rosie O'Donnell vs. David Kirby on the "causation" issue of autism: Guess who loses?

Pity poor David Kirby. After all, he made his name by hitching his star to a losing hypothesis, namely that the mercury in thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. He wrote a book about it, Evidence of Harm, back in 2005 and has milked that sucker dry ever since. Most recently, his appearances culminated in a "debate" last month with Arthur Allen, whose book Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver just garnered a very favorable review in the New York Times, during which he did a most amusing dance around the issue by pointing to "other sources" of environmental mercury…

Warning: contains FDA approved drug

The tort system is the favorite whipping boy of the anti-regulation crowd. That's because once you remove regulation, something the Bush administration has championed and done effectively, the only recourse someone injured by the fraud or negligence of a product or drug manufacturer is through a lawsuit for damages. Since the anti-regulation crowd serves Big Pharma and their cronies, this is the perfect solution: no constraints. The propaganda machine, aided an abetter by a compliant congress and a business dominated media, has been extremely successful in promoting the idea that tort suits…

A Shitload of Birds

tags: birds, birding, word play, humor When I was working on my dissertation, my colleagues and I referred to any large or mixed flock of birds as "a shitload of birds" for obvious reasons. I hadn't thought about this for awhile until recently, when I noticed that one of the email lists I am on is discussing the made-up nouns that we use to describe flocks of particular bird species .. you know, like "a murder of crows" and that sort of thing. Below the fold are some of these names for you to enjoy and of course, feel free to add your own inventions to the list! A coronation of Emperor Geese…

After BuzzFeed investigation, Maryland changes rape law

In September 2016, Alex Campbell and Katie J.M. Baker reported on an in-depth BuzzFeed News investigation that found Baltimore County detectives often failed to investigate rape reports. They wrote: The Baltimore County Police Department is one of a number of law enforcement agencies nationwide with an alarming record of dismissing rape cases, according to a BuzzFeed News analysis of FBI statistics. These departments routinely mark an extraordinary percentage of rape allegations as false or baseless — "unfounded.” Baltimore County Police Department spokesperson Elise Armacost explained to…

Reset the Doomsday Clock?

by Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA Thirty years ago I worked with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) studying the health consequences of nuclear weapons. Even if they were never used, these weapons–their manufacture and testing–harmed populations. All over the world governments had mined uranium, and assembled and tested nuclear weapons. To create atomic arsenals, every nuclear power had dangerously polluted and contaminated environments where people live and work.  And governments usually kept secret from civilians the consequences –cancers, birth defects, and…

"CERN Invented the Web" Isn't an Argument for Anything

I mentioned in passing in the Forbes post about science funding that I'm thoroughly sick of hearing about how the World Wide Web was invented at CERN. I got into an argument about this a while back on Twitter, too, but had to go do something else and couldn't go into much detail. It's probably worth explaining at greater-than-Twitter length, though, and a little too inside-baseball for Forbes, so I'll write something about it here. At its core, the "CERN invented WWW" argument is a "Basic research pays off in unexpected ways" argument, and in that sense, it's fine. The problem is, it's not…

Democratic Primary Results: Predicted vs actual (Updated with Maine)

Yesterday, the Democrats held three contests, in Louisiana, Nebraska and Kansas. I had predicted a Sanders win in Nebraska and Kansas, and a Clinton win in Louisiana, using my ever-evolving ethnicity-based projection model. Those predictions came to fruition. Like this: Predicted on top, Actual on bottom. Clinton did a bit better than projected in Louisiana, and Sanders did a bit better in Nebraska, but much better in Kansas than predicted. I had projected the final delegate count to be 60:49 (Clinton:Sanders) for that day, and it turned out to be 55:49 (Clinton:Sanders). The difference…

The Alligators of Texas

The American alligator is found only in the US, and is widespread in Texas. It is found at several inland localities, and along the coast. And, it turns out that the preferred locations for many of the important activities in the day to day live of the American alligator overlap a great deal with humans. Louise Hayes, biologist, and photographer Philippe Henry have produced, with TAMU Press, Alligators of Texas, a highly accessible, well written, and richly illustrated monograph on these beasts. If you are into Alligators and their relatives, regardless of where you live, this book may…

Tuesday Election Results: Open Thread UPDATED

HOW TO REPORT VOTER INTIMIDATION Dump your comments and observations here. I'll be looking at several SOS web sites, and eventually I'll find the best on line tracker of results for the whole country. During the primaries, the Washington Post was the best. Let me know if you have any ideas. So far heavy turnout has been noted in Minnesota, where turnout is always high, and something close to 30% of the usual number of voters had already voted early. The biggest fear, a among those of us who have felt the pain of defeat at least as often as the thrill of victory, is this: Heavy turnout…

A Sports Guy Prediction

Fall is my favorite time of the year. Part of it is the weather, part of it is the smell and the crispness of the air, and part of it is that basketball is starting again. Midnight madness, the official kickoff for the college basketball preseason, is this weekend, and the NBA is going through its preseason schedule as we speak. And while in the middle of football season, the Sports Guy is already making a prediction: I gave you Jonathan Papelbon, I gave you Laurence Maroney, and now, I'm giving you Rajon Rondo. And without giving away too much -- I want to write about him in detail at some…

The genetics of autism

I don't often venture into the fray whereby the misinformed continue to insist that thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autistic spectrum disorders when all evidence to date has led the scientific community to reject this hypothesis. However, recent stories on celebrities, namely Jenny McCarthy and Donald Trump, spouting forth about vaccines and autism led me to read with great interest a superb piece of science journalism by Ashley Pettus in the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of Harvard Magazine entitled, "A Spectrum of Disorders: The urgent search to understand the biological basis of autism." In…

There's never a shortage of smarm among evangelicals

There has been a recent rash of publicized suicides by young gay people who have been bullied and intimidated and shamed by their peers…and we're also getting a rash of Christian apologetics by the blind bigots of homophobia who simultaneously declaim their pious regrets that these poor children of God couldn't find their way to redemption, while continuing the slander of damning their sinning lives. It's hard to get more unctuously hypocritical than the odious Albert Mohler, who whimpers 'think of the children!' while protesting that as good Christians they must condemn the sin, and he sadly…

Jason Soon defends John Lott

Jason Soon is very angry that I dared to criticize John Lott in this post. I wrote about Freedomnomics (where Lott claims that women's suffrage caused a massive increase in the size of the government): Lott doesn't like women's suffrage Soon writes: His basic thesis is that the size of government expanded after women's suffrage. It's an interesting thesis. It may be right or wrong. But it does not follow from it that Lott is advocating that women be deprived of the vote since there are far more systemic and less illiberal views of checking the growth of government than arbitrarily limiting…

Restricting Access to Physicians - by Ranking Them?

It seems that health insurance companies in New York are trying to persuade their customers to go to doctors who have excelled at the little game entitled "Popularity Contest." Say, what makes a physician popular with insurers? Is it high intelligence? Untiring diligence? Compassion, empathy and a soothing bedside manner? A really great soap-opera-doc head of hair? "Some health insurers are abandoning the goal of providing patients with honest physician comparisons based on valid quality criteria," said AMA President Ronald M. Davis. "A growing number of health insurers have unwisely…

AFP author--Day 8

I want to thank all of those who have commented on this blog for their thoughtfulness and reason. In answer to some of your questions: Regarding the scope of the book: One commenter asked if I had considered including material in the book that was not directly related to the vaccine-autism debate. Yes. The one area that I didn't address was the history, scope, and impact of the anti-vaccine movement in the United States. There is probably no more powerful influence on how many parents make decisions about vaccines than that of the cynically named National Vaccine Information Center. This…

Can Michael Crichton Be Forgiven?

Until he became a global warming skeptic and an environmental advisor to the Bush White House, I'd always been a fan of Michael Crichton. His scientific dystopias always made for excellent pool-side reading and, when he was good, he could be very good. Say what you will about his didactic dialogues, or penchant for cinematic scenes, or cardboard characters, but the man can conjure up one hell of a premise. He has figured out a way to translate our anxieties about scientific discovery into plots fit for Hollywood. Just look at Jurassic Park: those rampaging dinosaurs taught more people about…

AIG and Inequality

I know, I know: everybody is sick of hearing about those AIG bonuses. But bear with me for one more blog post, because I think the swell of populist anger can actually illuminate something interesting about the human response to inequality. Consider the ultimatum game, that simple economic task where one person (the proposer) is given ten dollars and told to share it with another person (the responder). The proposer can divide the money however they like, but if the responder rejects the offer then both players end up with nothing. Classical economic theory makes two predictions about the…

Whom Should I Vote For: Clinton or Sanders?

You may be asking yourself the same question, especially if, like me, you vote on Tuesday, March 1st. For some of us, a related question is which of the two is likely to win the nomination. If one of the two is highly likely to win the nomination, then it may be smart to vote for that candidate in order to add to the momentum effect and, frankly, to end the internecine fighting and eating of young within the party sooner. If, however, one of the two is only somewhat likely to win the nomination, and your preference is for the one slightly more likely to lose, then you better vote for the…

Playing politics with women's health

In the 18 days between House Republicans’ introduction of the American Health Care Act and its withdrawal, women’s health was in the spotlight. With House Speaker Paul Ryan now stating that he’s going to try again on legislation to “replace” the Affordable Care Act, it’s worth looking at some of the ways the ACA has benefited women – and how actions from Congress and the Trump administration could affect women’s insurance coverage and access to care. Women gained coverage under the ACA The ACA’s biggest achievement was reducing the percentage of the population without health insurance. It did…

#Occupy #Politics Visibly with #Indivisible

Indivisible is a lot like #Occupy but instead of being in tents, we are intense in other ways. I have been at a few Indivisible meetings over the last few weeks. One of the questions I have about the movement is this: How many people in Indivisible now had voted for Trump, or in my case, our local Republican house representative, Erik Paulsen, or the like, elsewhere? Also, how many people in Indivisible had not voted at all in the last election, or at least, were not reliable voters? And, how many people in Indivisible had voted, and generally voted Democratic/Progressive/Whatever but had…

I wonder if Donald Trump even knows who this guy is.

One mean spirited decision intended to end the effort to end slavery led to one million dead and the end of slavery anyway. I spent some time this weekend comparing prosecutors and other legal eagles, who were all hoping to get the job of Attorney General. They were Candidates General, I guess. Trump was mentioned, and somewhere along the line, Dred Scott was mentioned as well. I turned to a highly placed official sort of dude and said, "Did you know that Dred Scott lived in Minnesota?" He did not know that. So I asked a couple of other people if they knew, and they did not. Finally I…

Destroying the FDA to save it? No, more like just destroying it.

Yesterday, I noted the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, a Hobson’s choice of a bill for those of us who support increased biomedical research funding that basically said: You can have an increase in the NIH budget. You can have the Cancer Moonshot. You can have President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative and his brain mapping initiative. You can have additional funding to combat the opioid crisis. You can have all that, but only if you also accept a grab bag of longstanding pharmaceutical industry wishes, such as new pathways to approve drugs and devices with a lower standard of…

Latest data on working conditions in global supply chains, September 2017 edition

The whole world is one global supply chain. Brand name companies like Nike, Apple, Hasbro, and dozens of apparel companies do not actually make the consumer products they sell. Instead they hire contract manufacturers in the developing world to produce their goods, and these contractors have sub-contractors, and sub-sub-contractors, all the way down to industrial homework in workers’ homes. Global supply chains start with processing the products’ raw materials, manufacturing parts and the finished product, and then transportation to the consumer. How can a conscientious consumer or…

Study: Small drop in measles vaccination rate could cost public sector millions of dollars

Another day, another study that underscores the societal benefits of vaccines and the consequences we’d face without them. In a study published earlier this week in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers took on the issue of vaccine hesitancy by estimating the disease burden and economic costs associated with declines in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rate. They noted that while overall childhood vaccine rates remain high in the U.S., there are areas where nonmedical exemption policies are materializing into declining immunization coverage. For example, this 2016 article in PLOS Medicine…

Paris and profits

Like Celeste, I'm appalled and ashamed that President Trump is withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. Failing to take meaningful action to address global climate disruption has severe consequences for public health. In addition to supporting the US entities and many right-thinking countries that have emphasized their commitments to the Paris goals for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, it's important to consider the forces that got us to this point. An excellent New York Times article from Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton reminds us that in the face of scientific consensus about…

More research that defunding Planned Parenthood simply leaves women without needed health care

To the surprise of literally no one, President Trump’s 2018 budget proposed stripping all federal funds, including Medicaid dollars, from Planned Parenthood. Proponents of this argue that if Planned Parenthood clinics end up shuttered, women can simply access care elsewhere. But growing research shows that’s the opposite of what actually happens. We got even more evidence of this with a report on the capacity of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) to fill the gaps left when a Planned Parenthood clinic is forced to close its doors. In a policy paper from the Guttmacher Institute…

More "severe violators" designated by OSHA

OSHA’s list of bad actors has two new members. I just happened upon an updated list on the agency’s website of the employers OSHA designates as "severe violators." It indicates the two companies were added in the four weeks following President Trump’s inauguration. The list is dated April 7, 2017. Mosier Industrial Services was involved in the gutting of a hundred year-old power plant in Columbus, Ohio. The project developers, Connect Realty and Schiff Capital Group, plan to convert the site into  offices and event space. OSHA inspectors issued citations on February 2 against Mosier…

A response to a response to a proportionate response

In A proportionate response to Trump’s climate plans?" I reported RT's opinion that WTO rules only permit border taxes if there is an equivalent domestic tax. VV, no great fan of Tol, replied William, a scientific article published this May came by on Twitter. It states: "The implementation of such measures is likely to be technically possible under WTO rules (Veel, 2009 Veel, P.-E. (2009). Carbon tariffs and the WTO: An evaluation of feasible policies. Journal of International Economic Law, 12(3), 749–800. doi: 10.1093/jiel/jgp031; Zhang, 2009 Zhang, Z. (2009). Multilateral trade measures…

The Democratic Debate

I've gotten very cynical about political debates. They've become asinine reality TV shows, with preening moderators asking silly gotcha questions to people who just pivot to their talking points at every opportunity. But I did have a big pile of grading to get through last night and having the debate on in the background seemed like a reasonable idea. I'm glad I did. I found it riveting. Click here for the transcript. There are two big contrasts between the Democrats and the Republicans. The first thing that struck me is that all five Democratic candidates are extraordinarily competent…

Does the name Dr. Krisana Kraisintu ring a bell? (If it doesn't, then it's a shame it doesn't)

A review of Cocktail: A Play about the Life and HIV Drug Development Work of Dr. Krisana Kraisintu by Vince LiCata and Ping Chong Truth be told, I don't read plays very often, if at all. In fact, I'm ashamed to admit that I think the last one I read was back in high school long ago, and if I remember correctly had something to do with vampires - ironic in that vampires at the time were not so popular. But this play was about something I am interested in - medicine and social responsibility - and it was referred to by a friend, who also happened to be one of the authors. Coincidentally,…

Ng's Clip List

Here is a selection of some of the writing I've done - Dave. "True Encounters in my Research Career", The Walrus, September 2007 (with Chris Hutsul). (commented upon at The World's Fair) "The Reason Is Math Bush Edit", Science Creative Quarterly, September 5, 2007 "Analyses of the Six Degrees of Separation of Bacons Other Than Kevin Bacon", Science Creative Quarterly, April 26, 2007 "Words I See When I Read the Phrase "Intelligent Design" While Squinting", McSweeney's, April 11th, 2007 "An Intelligent Designer on the Cow", Inkling Magazine, March 21, 2007 "Anytime", Science Creative Quarterly…

Science policy is more than science

Yuval Levin has an editorial in today's WaPo that makes a very good point: Science policy is not just a matter of science. Like all policy, it calls for a balancing of priorities and concerns, and it requires a judgment of needs and values that in a democracy we trust to our elected officials. In science policy, science informs, but politics governs, and rightly so. There are, of course, different ways for politics to exert authority over science. To distort or hide unwelcome facts is surely illegitimate. But to weigh facts against societal priorities -- economic, political and ethical -- in…

Too much sciency-ness for the vitamin industry?

Damn if PZ didn't beat me to this one: A federal panel concluded yesterday that there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against use of multivitamins and minerals -- the popular dietary supplements taken by more than half of American adults in the hope of preventing heart disease, cancer and other chronic illnesses. Americans spend an estimated $23 billion annually on various multivitamins and multi-mineral supplements, the 13-member panel found. One of the latest federally funded national surveys showed that 52 percent of adults reported taking multivitamins. Slightly more than a…

Science, the Science Advisor, and Ethics

Dr. John Marburger, the current Presidential Science Advisor, has a little question-and-answer piece over at Newsweek. Nick Anthis has some comments on the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of the article over at The Scientific Activist. On the whole, I agree with Nick, but there is one point that Marburger made that I think deserves a bit more attention. In the article, when asked about stem cell research, Marburger says: Objections to embryonic stem-cell research are rooted in ethical principles and the idea of compromising these is repugnant to many U.S. citizens. Science alone cannot…

Congress is back in session, and sneaking the cruel sham that is right-to-try in a must-pass bill Is on the agenda

Anyone who has been reading this blog for the last three years or so knows that I'm not a fan of "right-to-try" laws. Basically such laws, which have sprung up like kudzu since 2014 and now exist in 33 states, purport to allow terminally ill patients the "right to try" experimental therapeutics. Thus far, they have been sold to the public as giving terminally ill patients "one last shot" and touting how such laws could save lives. As a result, as I've grimly quipped on multiple occasions, to politicians opposing right-to-try laws is akin to opposing motherhood, apple pie, and the American…

Foster Care, Immigration and Where We are Headed

Four years ago we were foster parents to two wonderful children whose family was broken up by deportation. The parents had overstayed their visas (ie, they entered the US legally), in part because their children were both born (while in the US, ie the children were citizens) with kidney disease and their homes in rural Central America had no hospitals to treat them nor adequate medical care. They left their country because they were part of a disenfranchised indigenous minority that was historically denied access to things like education - they could do better in the US. They also were a…

Who Won The Democratic Debate of 17 January 2016?

I have studiously avoided picking a Democratic candidate to support. I will not have to decide until Super Tuesday, when Minnesotans caucus to support one or another candidate. I like Hillary Clinton for a number of reasons, including the simple fact that she has considerable experience in the Executive branch, and is a person who can get things done. If I got to pick the president (skipping the election process entirely), I'd probably pick Sanders because I'm all in on the revolution in American policy. Both candidates are actually in close agreement on most of the key issues. Neither…

Why fossil fuel corporations killed us

Sometimes, when I look at the things the Republicans and their leader, Donald Trump, are doing, I think of that poignant line in so many actual and fictional moments: "You have killed me." Someone says that because the killing is done, but they are not yet dead. The knife is driven deep, the car is heading for the cliff, the contract killer is closing in. Then the person dies, but not before they get to say, "You killed me." Today, I look at Donald Trump, the Koch Brothers, Rex Tillerson, the petroleum industry, the Heartland institute. They didn't kill me, but they have killed my daughter,…

ACSH is astroturf, here's why

The American Council on Science and Health recently got some exposure on twitter, then a little too much exposure, after publishing this highly problematic (and hysterically bad) op-ed/infographic on twitter and on their site. This opinion piece, presented as if there is some method or objective analysis, purports to show which are the best and worst science news sites. But this immediately started to fall apart on the most cursory inspection. First of all, notice the x-axis, it's clearly some kind of subjective assessment, and it immediately fails to be credible as the New York Times is…

Comments of the Week #135: from an infinite Universe to Supermoons

"For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity." -Jean Dubuffet It's been a week unlike any other I've seen since I started Starts With A Bang! all those years ago. There are a lot of people looking for a lot of explanations -- some are excited, many are terrified, most are disappointed -- about the direction the USA and the world are headed. I might not have the answers, but perhaps taking a look at the Universe will help put some things in perspective. Have a look back at what we've discussed and thought about this past week…

Comparing Sanders and Clinton: Primary and general election prospects

It is far too early to predict the outcome of the Democratic Party primary. Personally, I like both of the candidates and will support whichever one is selected to run in the general election. Both candidates have strong reasons to vote for them, and each candidate has their own “electability” issues. I vote on March 1st, and have not yet decided whom to vote for. Why would I start out an essay, an essay that is meant to be an objective analysis, with that statement? Because the validity of a statement, opinion, or analysis of the current primary process is inevitably evaluated in terms of…

An antivaxer starts a WhiteHouse.gov petition for a five year moratorium on childhood vaccines. Hilarity ensues.

I've been writing about antivaccine loons for a long time, and during that time I've seen them propose some crazy ideas. The other day, I came across one proposing what might well be the craziest, most irresponsible idea I've ever seen from an antivaccine activist. It comes from our old friend Kent Heckenlively. Heckenlively, as you might recall, started out over at the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism but, for whatever reason, left the blog to write somewhere else. Amazingly, that "somewhere else" turned out to be the website of one Patrick "Tim" Bolen, whom I just mentioned yesterday…