The Taliban has long personified the ignorance and intolerance found among religious extremists. Indeed, they first attracted international attention with their destruction of the famous giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. However, it is always impressive to see the degree to which its Islamic beliefs seem to produce uniformly harmful impacts on the populations under its cruel control. A report last week documented how there is a serious polio outbreak that is threatening global progress against the disease. The Taliban has denounced vaccinations as a Western plot and threatened anyone who receives one. It is a tragic irony since the disease has long been the scourge of the Middle East going back to ancient times, as this Egyptian tablet from the 18th Dynasty (1403–1365 BC) reflects. The ancient populations could only dream of a cure but, now that one is available, the Taliban again seeks to force its areas back into the dark ages.
Health officials have reported scores of crippled children as a result of the Taliban’s policy. The United States fueled the opposition to the program among extremists when it was disclosed that the CIA used a Pakistani vaccination team to gather intelligence about al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden — who was then killed by U.S. Special Forces. That success may prove to be a disaster for polio operations in reinforcing the medieval fears of groups like the Taliban. It is treated as just another part of God’s plan for an ever-suffering humanity.
Pakistan has the highest rate of polio in the world following by Nigerian and Afghanistan. THere is also an outbreak in Syria to add to the misery of that population.
That’s quite a lot of projecting from my one small post, Nick. Do you often put arguments in people’s mouths to justify your indignation?
Juliet, As I hope you have come to see, I have different views on different topics. You seem to have a real problem w/ libertarians. There is a spectrum of libertarians. Mr. Turley is a libertarian whose ideas and philosophy drew me here. We are not a monolith, unlike the duopoly parties have, for the most part, become. Obviously, you have a problem w/ libertarians you know. Here’s what I can tell you under oath. My relating the story of our friend doc in the Bay area was not a slam on the left. It was a recent anecdote from a person who was quite upset. A person I know and respect greatly. And, when I saw and heard Karen rant about “left idiots not vaccinating their kid.” it left an impression. Karen was speaking both as a pediatrician and a mom who will have a kid going to school in a year. Karen also ranted about the “all natural” moms giving their kids honey and having to treat them for botulism. As you probably know, kids under 2 should not eat honey. As I said, Karen is pretty liberal. She is gay and has 2 kids via artificial insemination. I bust her balls about turkey basters. We are not as different on topics as you might think. My style grates on you. To each their own. Give me shit as you wish. You don’t have to apologize to me for calling me a prick. Say your piece and then let it go. “Better out than in” was what my mom would always say.
Gene & Elaine,
I fished two of Dredd’s comments out of the spam filter this AM. Made no sense, because both of them were only two or three short sentences with no links and the only formatting was a blockquote. I noticed the other day there were about 400 spams collected in the filter in a five hour period. When it is that many, it is easy to overlook comments even by the regulars, much less new users whose names are not familiar. I wonder if the massive increase in spam has anything to do with the fact Askimet is more easily triggered recently? FWIW, in communications with elfling, who manages the Daily Kos help desk, she reports a similar spam overload.
On the other hand, I am now familiar with boots, sunglasses and handbag brands I never heard of before. Plus information I don’t think I am old enough to be allowed to read. 😯
Sometimes this is what it’s like trying to pin OS’s opinion down on an issue:
🙂
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/10/20131015_obamacaremars.png
The word of the day is:
** Transparence – The Free Dictionary
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Transparence
trans·par·en·cy (tr ns-pâr n-s , -p r -). n. pl. trans·par·en·cies. 1. A transparent object, especially a photographic slide that is viewed by light shining through it from …
**
Like always I can see some pro vaz scam people will continue to argue no matter the facts/evidence presented to you, just pounding the table is all you have to support a faulty believe system.
I haven’t the time to research everything so maybe you can?
Maybe you can tell me how work is progressing with the US govt’s efforts to build a bio-hazard level 2 lab in Kansas to house a bio-hazard level 4 lab.
Can you start to sense the problem?
Maybe people wouldn’t be getting things like polio if certain govt type aholes weren’t spreading it?
Those of us who are old enough to remember iron lungs and Jonas Salk remain grateful. Those who refuse to have their children vaccinated against polio and other diseases share the ignorance of the Taliban.
Back to where I was at:
“a date which will live in infamy.”
Now we all know most Americans would not hesitate to say those Japs attacked the US without any provocation by the US at all.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying I liked the WW2 type fascist Japs/Germans.
But what I am saying is just as when I was a lil kid reading history books & other accounts it’s clear, just as Gene H has pointed out often, that both sides are often mixing in truthful statements among their lies & propaganda.
And just because many of us still hate the Hitler Nazi types does not mean we like the Commie Roosevelt types.
And here we are today again, Commies to my left & Nazis to my right and both are just as evil as those types were back in the 30’s-40’s yet they’ve better tools to work their evil with.
ie: Vaz programs, etc….
**
Here’s an English version of a speech from Hitler.
Would the American people still pass that history test after researching the topic?
I’ll leave to you to separate the wheat from the chaff:
http://www.tomatobubble.com/id362.html
Wow. The crazy Taliban did something right. Maybe they heard the live/deactivated polio shot is made from kidney cell cultures from green monkey’s that contain the sv-40 cancer virus. Or maybe they heard the shots contain aluminum, mercury thimeral,formaldehyde,hydrochoric acid, sodium hydroxide. Maybe they figured Big pharma and NWO would like a couple billion of us to expire. I wonder which one it could be? Don’t forget your flu shot boys!
JT. Thanks for posting that.
OS my mother lost the use of her left hand and arm (exceot for the thumb ) from Polio. She also had post polio syndrome. I know someone at church as well with post polio who also spent a year in the hospital with polio as a young man. Unfortunately people forget what a scourge this disease is and was, and are unaware for the most part of its long term effects.
People like Jenny McCarthy who spout this anti vaccine junk really don’t know what they’re talking about but because of “celebrity” people listen.
I hope Elaine’s article is a definite and they won’t go back again and say no.
(And as a result of less people vaccinating there is a whooping cough epidemic. Say no to the vaccine and sit by while you see a child or person hack away (as I have done with a very physically and intellectually disabled friend’s grandson. He is not allowed to have the vaccine because of other medical conditions. Listening to that whoop and the inability to do anything for it as it happens should bring anyone, even Jenny McCarthy and her ilk, to their senses. (For the nonbelievers that there is an epidemic http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/30/parents-not-vaccinating-kids-contributed-to-whooping-cough-outbreaks/ )
Let me interrupt myself for some breaking news.
Before I continue let me just say that our leaders haven’t completely locked us down in a hellhole, but I believe they are working on it.
**
(AP:FREETOWN, Sierra Leone) A Sierra Leone police official says two journalists have been arrested after publishing an article stating that the president “behaves like a rat.”
Ibrahim Koroma, head of the Criminal Investigations Department, said Monday that Jonathan Leigh and Bai Bai Sesay, both editors at the Independent Observer newspaper, had been detained over the weekend for an article criticizing the president’s treatment of the vice president.
It was not clear what the men might be charged with or when they would appear in court.
Various outlets have reported on an alleged feud between President Ernest Bai Koroma and Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana. No other arrests have been made.
The offending article, published Thursday, said Koroma “is regarded as an elephant, but he behaves like a rat and should be treated like one.” **
“a date which will live in infamy.”
If you were to give a history test to most Americans I bet you’ve a pretty good idea how most would answer a few certain questions.
You know this because in your mind you know how you would answer those questions.
Someone posted a piece on a msg bb yesterday that reminded me of how I became interested in history when I was a lil kid.
So let’s get to the point and start here:
“a date which will live in infamy.”
We’d think everyone knows where that statement came from and we know for certain the important details surrounding that statement, don’t we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamy_Speech
Elaine/OS,
I too have noticed that over the last two weeks especially that the spam filter is being particularly temperamental and like Elaine have had to fish way more that one of my own comments out of it that didn’t seem to meet any criteria the filter would look for (odd formats, length, URLs, etc.). Hopefully that issue will be addressed by WP/Askimet. Speaking for myself, if I empty the filter, I always look through it first to make sure no comments have been flagged that shouldn’t have been and clear them if they have.
Nick: Actually, I did no such thing. I simply responded to your anecdotal evidence with anecdotal evidence of my own. People of all stripes can hold similar opinions on isolated topics, but that wasn’t your original point, was it?
And Juliet, you were implying it was just the right who were anti vaccination.
Juliet, Come on, I blast both sides. This is a left blog, so I am blasting left stupidity here. If it were a right blog, I would be blasting right wackos, as I just did w/ the Phil Kline post just this morning. Believe it or not, it’s close to a push left/right on wackiness..depends on the topic. When you’re neither, there is a certain clarity.
I think maybe WordPress is gaining AI. It’s a joke, honest to God, just a joke.
Actually, The best scatological terms, horseshit, bullshit, just plain ol’ shit are allowed. And, you can be creative, say asshat instead of the banned word. There’s nothing wrong w/ being scatological. If you don’t like it, then don’t do it. WordPress is quite Victorian. Blogger is much more First Amendment.