Orac brings us a report from the front line of the anti-vaccination movement and shows how it's becoming even more hysterical. I'm very pleased to see that Time last week had a cover story about how the anti-vaccination movement is putting us all at risk.
How much do you think solving the world's worst problem would cost? Would you believe only $60 million a year? Eight hours of Iraq. That's how much it would cost to prevent the cognitive developmental diseases related to being malnourished in beta carotene and zinc to the 140 million children worldwide who lack them. Malnutrition, disease control, and access to education-- all relatively economically cheap (but sometimes politically expensive) problems that don't have quite the same cachet as worrying about carbon footprints. This is like exercise... we know how to stay healthy, we're just fatigued of hearing it.
Darwinism "serves the goals of global Jewery." And "When the Clinton White House made statements that they didn't like, what did Zionism do-- they sent him the Jewish Monica."
Because, you know, nothing is more important than bringing little Iraqi kids to Jesus. Yeah, that'll help our cause. I think any soldiers found doing this should be discharged immediately and dishonorably for failing to take their Soldier's Oath seriously.
A case from Tennessee of parents who created a proseltyzing parents group at public schools has been settled. Some of the quotes Ed Brayton collected are quite telling.
Brad DeLong brings us the greatest hits of the Republican spin machine explaining to us how McClellan was always a poor representative of the President's magnificent and eloquent leadership.
Wow. Apparently, there's a huge kerfluffle in the world of vertebrate paleontology, where a respected member of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History is accused of intellectual theft and publishing material without permission from the specimen holders-- and it looks like the professional review was stacked. It's a fascinating look at the ugly underbelly of the politics of science, the ferocious battle over grants and prestige.
Reagan's Director of the Budget brings us his tales of the Reagan White House, and how out of it Reagan really was. Cabinet members would regularly bring him a bamboozling array of facts and figures, and then point to one anecdote that would please him and point him in the direction of approving whatever it was that cabinet member wanted. The "magic asterisks" were footnotes that hid the actual costs of any operation from Reagan's eyes. (via Brad Delong)
I lived in the Netherlands for a few years in the early '90s. If I recall it correctly, gas was the equivalent of about four dollars a gallon in 1994. To contrast, I believe gas was just hovering around a dollar a gallon in the US at the same time. (I have exactly no citations to back any of that up - I'm just pulling these figures out of the murky recesses of memory.)
Folks I know who've never spent any time out of the US don't seem to understand how much cheaper gas is here than anywhere else.
Or everything else, for that matter. The brief time I spent in Europe showed me that *everything* was twice the price it is here. It's quite the eye-opener when you see a can of coke going for a pound stirling, then do the math in your head (it was easy for me - 1 pound was almost exactly $2 Cdn).
You can respond to most of the grousing of Americans about the price of gas with the maxim "you made your bed, now lie in it". They've built a world that can only exist if the price of gas is low. It's the reason that gas isn't taxed into the $2.50 a litre range, like it is in most of Europe.
Your information matches mine for that period, yeah.
I think that gas in the U.S. is extraordinarily expensive, though. What we get for the ***appearance*** of cheap gas is a third world economy, payment at the point of service health services (which is just about anti-preventative), and a transportation infrastructure which is, um... ...not at its peak? Would that be a fair characterization?
But the price at the pump looks low, yeah. (Just like the price at the hospital looks low in Europe). It's all a matter of what industries a particular country wants to subsidize...
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Date: 2008-06-03 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 07:40 pm (UTC)Folks I know who've never spent any time out of the US don't seem to understand how much cheaper gas is here than anywhere else.
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Date: 2008-06-03 07:55 pm (UTC)You can respond to most of the grousing of Americans about the price of gas with the maxim "you made your bed, now lie in it". They've built a world that can only exist if the price of gas is low. It's the reason that gas isn't taxed into the $2.50 a litre range, like it is in most of Europe.
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Date: 2008-06-03 08:46 pm (UTC)I think that gas in the U.S. is extraordinarily expensive, though. What we get for the ***appearance*** of cheap gas is a third world economy, payment at the point of service health services (which is just about anti-preventative), and a transportation infrastructure which is, um... ...not at its peak? Would that be a fair characterization?
But the price at the pump looks low, yeah. (Just like the price at the hospital looks low in Europe). It's all a matter of what industries a particular country wants to subsidize...