The danger posed by anti-vaxxers

There has been a disturbing rise in the number of people who refuse to give their children the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine because of the bogus fears, stoked by some celebrities, that the vaccines can cause autism. Those claims, revealed to be not only without any basis but based on initial fraudulent studies that resulted in its chief proponent Andrew Wakefield losing his medical license, have taken on a life of their own and efforts to counter them seem to have no effect.
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Reactions to Obama being Between Two Ferns

Stephen Colbert looks at the concerns expressed by Fox News that president Obama appearing with Zach Galifianakis on a web comedy show demeans the presidency. In their weird little minds, starting illegal wars, torturing people, engaging in a vast global spying program, waging cyberwars and the like do not harm the presidency but appearing on a show widely watched by young people (over 13 million people have so far seen the 6:30-minute clip) to promote his health care plan is somehow hugely damaging.
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US gives up direct control of the internet

The US government announced yesterday that it is transitioning to relinquish direct control over the administration of the internet by ending its contract with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) which is the organization that exerts stewardship over the internet by establishing protocols, assigning domain names, and bringing some order behind the scenes to the seemingly anarchic nature of the internet. The move by the US government has been welcomed by ICANN.
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Fathers do not have the right to be present at the birth of their child

My older daughter was born in Sri Lanka. It was not the practice at that time there for fathers to be present in the delivery room and so I was not there when she was born but saw her soon after when she and her mother were back in their room. My younger daughter was born four years later in the US and this time I was present at the delivery.
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The Daily Show on the torture report

The CIA is shocked, just shocked, and even saddened that anyone would suspect them of doing something wrong and say that some low-techies may be responsible for whatever spying may have been done on the staffers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, though they are not acknowledging that such things happened. Maybe the CIA does not hire interns, the usual underlings who are blamed for anything that goes wrong.
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Fun interview

There are some interviews which are just fun even though they involve nothing at all, no point is being made, and there is no agenda. This one between Jon Stewart and Jason Bateman is such an example where the conversation is fun for its own sake.. Batemen and Stewart seem to be enjoying themselves so much that they did not even get around to plugging the new film that Bateman has directed.
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Medea Benjamin’s terrible experience with airport authorities

Long-time peace activist Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK describes the terrible experience she had in Cairo while trying to get to Gaza to attend the International Women’s Day celebrations there as part of a 100-member international delegation that included “representatives from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Canada and the United States” and “who ranged in age from 18 to 84, included Nobel Peace Prize winners, doctors, writers and students.”
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Why the torture report is such a hot potato

CIA director John Brennan may have seriously miscalculated when he publicly derided senator Dianne Feinstein for accusing the CIA of spying on her staff and clandestinely removing some of the documents that she says her staff had been given access to in their investigations of torture by the US government. Unnamed administration sources went even further and accused committee staffers of actually stealing documents from the CIA and triggering an investigation. If senate staffers, not previously known to be masters of internet espionage, could pull off such a feat against the CIA, that would be truly impressive.
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