What's in the news?

[Regina Minx]

So: Television, Automobile, bioluminescence, hyperactive.

And other words you can read about on Wikipedia.

[Serephino]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/baby-born-mother-died-refusing-201900911.html

This is just really sad.

[Beorning]

Today, I was shaken by (unsurprisingly) what our Prime Minister said in her yesterday's interview at one radio / TV station.

Basically, she was asked about the recent case of a pair who refused to have their newly-born baby vaccinated (among other things: some news sources claimed that the pair refused to subject the baby to many of the typical after-birth medical procedures). In response, the PM said that "she cannot give an evaluation as to whether vaccines are good or bad, as she's not a doctor". Later she said that she personally thinks that vaccines are an important medical treatment, even though they are "a hard choice". Finally, she said that "she won't be disregarding the opinions of those people who expect the right not to have their children vaccinated" and that her government will be trying to "reach a compromise" between people who are for and against vaccines.

Seriously??  This government is going to stop the vaccines being mandatory??? 

What's next, they will try to "reach a compromise" regarding the theory of evolution, or something..?

[Missy]

There are some tribes where a girl marries all the brothers of a family, but I think it is a tiny minority.

Last I heard of that was India I think?

[Missy]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/baby-born-mother-died-refusing-201900911.html

This is just really sad.

I'm no antitheist, but every now and then I totally get their point.

[Oniya]

Even in the States, there are 'religious exceptions' allowed for vaccinations.  However, I think that may also come with other restrictions.  There are people who literally cannot receive vaccinations - usually egg allergies, although a serious reaction to a particular family of vaccines (not the vehicle fluid) can be the cause.

[TheGlyphstone]

I'm no antitheist, but every now and then I totally get their point.

I don't at all see, re-reading the article, why. The mother's religion is why she refused cancer treatment, essentially letting herself die to give her unborn baby a chance at survival (I'm assuming, from the context, that the clinical treatments would kill the fetus). It's not like she refused to give the baby treatment because of her religion - the baby just had an unexplained/undetected birth defect that killed her. A baby dying is always said, but it doesn't appear to have any interaction with her mother's religion here.

[Missy]

Fair points to be sure, some people really can't. I would find an argument based on overmedication to be more respectable (if incorrect as vaccines operate completely differently from most medications). Vaccination eradicated an entire disease that we don't have to deal with now because of it. If you take that away those diseases could resurface.

[Oniya]

I have some disagreements about the spacing of vaccines, and we dealt with a grumbly pediatrician to limit little Oni to '2 sticks per visit' (so if something did go wrong, like an allergy, we'd have fewer culprits.)  We still got her all the required ones before she started school.

[Missy]

I don't at all see, re-reading the article, why. The mother's religion is why she refused cancer treatment, essentially letting herself die to give her unborn baby a chance at survival (I'm assuming, from the context, that the clinical treatments would kill the fetus). It's not like she refused to give the baby treatment because of her religion - the baby just had an unexplained/undetected birth defect that killed her. A baby dying is always said, but it doesn't appear to have any interaction with her mother's religion here.

Pro-life hardliner.

I mean I get it to an extent and no one knows to be sure if that birth defect could have been related to her tumor (it's not impossible), but even if she lost that fetus nothing in the article suggested she wouldn't be able to get pregnant again if it worked. Then we could have saved lot's of people's babies.

Anyway, as I said I'm not an antithiest and I'm absolutely disgusted with the likes of Bill Maher, but there are things a religion shouldn't demand.

[Beorning]

I have some disagreements about the spacing of vaccines, and we dealt with a grumbly pediatrician to limit little Oni to '2 sticks per visit' (so if something did go wrong, like an allergy, we'd have fewer culprits.)  We still got her all the required ones before she started school.

Yeah, but our PM seems to be courting those who would like the right not to have their children vaccinated at all...

[Lustful Bride]

Apparently some people think the world will end on Saturday?  Of course it had to end on a weekend

[Sara Nilsson]

Apparently some people think the world will end on Saturday?  Of course it had to end on a weekend

people always think the world will end, and so far their track record is unimpressive.

[Lustful Bride]

I don't at all see, re-reading the article, why. The mother's religion is why she refused cancer treatment, essentially letting herself die to give her unborn baby a chance at survival (I'm assuming, from the context, that the clinical treatments would kill the fetus). It's not like she refused to give the baby treatment because of her religion - the baby just had an unexplained/undetected birth defect that killed her. A baby dying is always said, but it doesn't appear to have any interaction with her mother's religion here.

Confused. I don't see the connection either.

people always think the world will end, and so far their track record is unimpressive.

If it does end I am so gonna LARP fallout.

[Sara Nilsson]

chuckles.

Can see it, as the world crumbles one person stands tall. Reciting words of old, words of prophetic power.

"War.. war never changes"

[RedRose]

I know an old lady whose (not religious) daughter refused treatment because she was pregnant. Baby lived, mother didn't. But this was the mother's choice.

As for vaccines, my country doesn't do exceptions. I now wonder if there is one for allergies etc. But certainly no religious exception. If you don't get the vaccines, your kid can't go to school. Maybe a small private school wouldn't care, or wouldn't find out you lied though. Basically your child couldn't go to public daycare, school, camp. Even 5 years ago no one here was "anti vaccine". Nowadays, we can thank the internet for it.

[Beorning]

chuckles.

Can see it, as the world crumbles one person stands tall. Reciting words of old, words of prophetic power.

"War.. war never changes"

Ah, but why do you think it will end with nukes?

Maybe it will end with giant eyeballs appearing on the sky... and a giant poster sliding down from above, saying "The world ended on Saturday, September 23rd 2017"...

... what? I once had a dream like that

[TheGlyphstone]

Meh. At this point, nukes are not the scariest way humanity has to off itself. I find some sort of hyper-plague, either engineered or just spontaneously mutated, to be the most plausible beginning of a true global apocalypse.

[Oniya]

Apparently some people think the world will end on Saturday?  Of course it had to end on a weekend

Considering that the current 'culprit' is supposed to be a freaking planet crashing into the Earth - I think we can write this one off.  It would have crossed into unassisted visual range before now.

And once again, FOX News has a tabloid-worthy headline:

[TheGlyphstone]

I see the Telegraph has FAKE NEWS.

[RedRose]

Oh my. People really need to have some adrenaline rush! I've been hearing those theories since I'm a kid...

[Oniya]

I see the Telegraph has FAKE NEWS.

I think (I didn't bother going through the clickbaits) that the Telegraph is referring to the conspiracy-theorists' claim that NASA is putting out 'Fake News' to keep the public from panicking.  As if something approaching and exceeding the visual size of the moon showing up in the sky wouldn't cause panic regardless of what any agency was putting out.

It's like an inverse of the old joke: 

In 1938, when Orson Welles did his famous broadcast of War of the Worlds, two states didn't panic.  New Jersey, because they could look out their windows and see nothing was happening, and New York.  'Because da Mahtians got da whole woild to land on, and dey picked New Joisey?!  Fuggeddaboudit!'

I can look out my window and see a distinct absence of a planetary mass in the sky that shouldn't be there. There is no report from anyone that they have seen a planetary mass in the sky that shouldn't be there.  In this age of connectedness, someone should be able to see something that freaking big.

[CaptainNexus616]

Maybe it's Unicron! If anyone watched the 80's Transformers movie, the opening scene of him suddenly sneaking up on a planet comes to mind.

[gaggedLouise]

Well, if there are any intelligent aliens on that planet and we need to speak to them, I understand that might take some time...Just caught some scenes from Arrival on the telly, with the linguist Louise going head to head with an unknown alien language. :)

[Beorning]

Maybe it's Unicron! If anyone watched the 80's Transformers movie, the opening scene of him suddenly sneaking up on a planet comes to mind.

In the original Transformers comic series by Marvel, he did sneak up on Cybertron, too! :)

Well, if there are any intelligent aliens on that planet and we need to speak to them, I understand that might take some time...Just caught some scenes from Arrival on the telly, with the linguist Louise going head to head with an unknown alien language. :)

Arrival, good movie.