Monday, June 14, 2010

Sara Winge really is awesome

Quinn Norton writes about O'Reilly's Sara Winge.

There are a lot of people at O'Reilly who do incredible things, but Sara is very high on the short list of coolest people at O'Reilly.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Censorship and control is annoying.

I sent the following item to 'class list' for my son's class. The 'class list' is a cc of everyone's emails.

--
"California and the Bay Area is currently experiencing an outbreak of Whooping Cough. So far five babies in California, all under four months, have died from it.

Immunity, even for vaccinated kids, and those who have had Whooping Cough before, wears off with time. For vaccinated kids immunity is pretty much worn off by high school, perhaps before, and we have a large reservoir of unvaccinated and under vaccinated people in our school community.

The tDap/dTap vaccine against Diptheria, Pertussis (Whooping Couch), and Tetanus
and is licensed for use in adolescents ages 10 to 19."
--

It seemed pretty benign to me. But the teacher promptly admonished me. "Please don't use the class email list unless clearing it with me first. "

Sorry, but you don't get to control speech. You especially don't get to control speech involving actual threats to our children created by the nutcase anti-vaccination crazies in the community.

This is the teacher who told me on another instance, 'what did you expect sending your child to an anti-technology school.'

I talked with the principal today, who refused to answer the question if the school was 'anti-technology.' But did say that the school has no policy on vaccinations.

70% of the kindergarten has 'vaccination waivers' - which is a pretty clear statement that the school certainly does have a 'policy' on vaccinations, that the policy is to accept the creation of a dangerous cesspit of infection and put our children in the middle of it.