Madelaine McMasters

Quickly pulls an umbrella from her root beer and another from her hair and puts them safely away.

Charolotte Caxton wrote: Innominatus Blackheart wrote: That's the only prerequisite for the change to a fat red bowling pin figure from a blue or other color, to post 3,000 times? No, there's also a ritual involved. I still have a snipped off bit of neck-tie, a champagne stained satin slipper (right), three li'l paper umbrellas and a valet parking stub with lipstick prints (Maybelline Mauve-ulous, I think) from your indoctrination.

Innula Zenovka wrote: Thanks, Madelaine. You've saved me a lot of time, it seems, watching that. Did he, at any point, actually come out and say, "and we know that such-and-such a vaccine causes (or is associated with) autism because of such-and-such a study, published in such-and-such a journal"? I want to check his references, you see, and in this context I'm not so much interested in the general, and non-contentious, proposition that, taken in sufficient amounts, mercury is bad for you as I am in the specific proposition that a particular vaccine is bad for children, be it because of the amounts of mercury it contains or for some other reason. It's all very well for people to dismiss studies they don't like as being rigged by "Big Pharma" (thus economically combining "ad hominem" with "The Texas Sharpshooter," I think) but I like to look up research myself. There was no point where Dr. Ayoub cited such research, Innula. I really wanted him to toss me a bone, but it never happened. Every example cited was via malformed or contradictory analogy. I have been through IRB reviews that would have shredded a presentation like Ayoub's. The sort of analogical errors he made would have gotten me shut down pretty quickly. But things really went wild when he moved from medicine to motivation.

Medhue Simoni wrote: The simple fact that you don't understand his analogy given your own knowledge with his example, shows that you don't want to understand it, you just want to find fault where there is none. I replied: You have no knowledge of what I do or do not "want to understand". To suggest you know otherwise is arrogance for all to see. He then said: For 1, I never suggested that I knew anything besides the fact that vaccine's connection to autism was not debunked. So, in one sentence you state my lack of understanding as a "fact", then state that this fact shows I "don't want to understand". You then completely contradicted yourself by claiming you don't know that fact. And now we get to the point in such arguments that seems unfortunatley unavoidable. I find myself face to face with someone who will not argue rationally. What am I to do besides wish you well?

Medhue Simoni wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: 6:55 “That’s like taking a six months supply (of a cardiac drug) today.” Cardiac drugs do not act on the human body at all like heavy metals do. Digoxin, a popular cardiac drug used to treat rhythm disorders, has a low therapeutic index (the margin of safety between efficacy and toxicity), warfarin does too, it’s a life saving blood thinner at low doses, an effective rat poison at high doses, causing lethal bleed out. The doctor (the video states he is an MD) was surely taught this in medical school. Which is probably why he used that example, because in the context of what he is talking, it suits very well. The simple fact that you don't understand his analogy given your own knowledge with his example, shows that you don't want to understand it, you just want to find fault where there is none. Madelaine McMasters wrote: 1:00:39 “Nigeria’s growth was leading Africa, so it doesn’t surprise me that GAVI was immunizing the heck out of Nigeria.” Dr. Ayoub is suggesting that governments were conspiring to reduce Nigeria’s population by vaccinating them (presumably to inflict the fertility reducing properties of mercury on the unsuspecting population). Oddly enough, if you believe Rosling’s suggestion that lowering infant mortality and increasing lifespan will lower the birth rate (because women don’t feel the need to have replacement children to counter the infant mortality rate), vaccinations will indeed lower population growth by improving quality and length of life. Did you quote your statement directly out of Bill Gate's handbook, cause it is the same exact arguement that he makes, hence why he believe injecting poison into people is good for them. Vaccine advocate always make the case that dispite some bad side effects, overall, it is good for the population. This is a completely socialist ideology. As an individual, I don't care if it's overall good for every1, if it hurts me or my child, I don't want it, and I have the inherit right to say no, irreguardless of the made up fears that form the whole reasoning around vaccines. If you get injured, you should just suck it up and take it for the team, right? What will you do if you are diagnosed with cardiac atrial fibrillation and prescibed digoxin, which has a that low theraputic index? Taking even sliightly more than you should could kill you. What if you are diagnosed with coronary artery disease or have a stroke and are prescribed warfarin (coumadin) to thin your blood? Will you refuse to take it because it's used as rat poison? The dose is the poison, Medhue. There are a great many materials which have therapeutic benefit in the correct amount and are lethal in the wrong amount. You have no knowledge of what I do or do not "want to understand". To suggest you know otherwise is arrogance for all to see.

Okay, I've watched the entire video and have some notes. I have quoted (sometimes paraphrasing slightly) at various points in the video and offer my comments thereafter. 6:40 "You know what, the EPA is right, but you have to interpret it a certain way." The doctor implies that the "certain way" is improper without offering any explanation for why that's so. In truth, one must almost always interpret things “in a certain way”. It’s already becoming clear that Dr. Ayoub is doing precisely that, interpreting data in a way that distorts it to his ends. The transient and chronic effects of heavy metal exposures are different, and treating them the same, as the doctor does, does not mean they are the same. 6:55 “That’s like taking a six months supply (of a cardiac drug) today.” Cardiac drugs do not act on the human body at all like heavy metals do. Digoxin, a popular cardiac drug used to treat rhythm disorders, has a low therapeutic index (the margin of safety between efficacy and toxicity), warfarin does too, it’s a life saving blood thinner at low doses, an effective rat poison at high doses, causing lethal bleed out. The doctor (the video states he is an MD) was surely taught this in medical school. 17:40 “They could have killed a horse with the doses they were giving.” This was offered as proof that mercury was unsafe. On careful analysis, this statement actually works against the claim and simply states the obvious that horses are bigger than people and if you give someone enough poison to kill a horse, you shouldn't be surprised if it kills a human. 34.56 “The number one cause of death in the US is not heart disease or cancer, it’s medicine.” Having read “To Err is Human” during a period in my career when I worked on methods to reduce medical errors, I am familiar with this particular misrepresentation of the facts. There are indeed hundreds of thousands of deaths each year in which adverse drug reactions, medical errors and the like are proximal causes. The suggestion that medicine is therefore the number one cause of death is fallacious as it ignores the deaths that would have occurred in the absence of our health care system. If I wished to make an analogous argument for heart disease, I would claim that, while heart disease killed 699,647 Americans last year, the complete absence of hearts in Americans would produce more than 300 million deaths. So, though hearts aren't perfect, I'm glad we have them. 44:40 Dr. Ayoub posits theory #3, that somebody (never mentioned) might be using mercury as a population control tool (or for genocide). 51:50 It is suggested that, during the Nixon administration, the government decided that population control might become necessary and there was no reason to tell the public if and when the government does something about it. 57:10 A female reporter writes about GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), provoking some unnamed nefarious entity to fly black helicopters over her house for three weeks. This makes me wonder if anyone has done a study of the efficacy of flying black helicopters over people’s houses. 1:00:00 “Doesn’t good health promote (population) growth? If you can’t feed yourself, why would you want ten kids?” Ayoub’s conjecture does not agree with the data, as you can see in Hans Rosling’s research. Population growth slows as infant mortality declines. Rosling's work is known to many people, including me, but apparently not to Dr. Ayoub, who claims to have worked hard to understand these things. 1:00:39 “Nigeria’s growth was leading Africa, so it doesn’t surprise me that GAVI was immunizing the heck out of Nigeria.” Dr. Ayoub is suggesting that governments were conspiring to reduce Nigeria’s population by vaccinating them (presumably to inflict the fertility reducing properties of mercury on the unsuspecting population). Oddly enough, if you believe Rosling’s suggestion that lowering infant mortality and increasing lifespan will lower the birth rate (because women don’t feel the need to have replacement children to counter the infant mortality rate), vaccinations will indeed lower population growth by improving quality and length of life. At this point, I stopped taking notes because because the mountain of logical fallacies was threatening to bow my desktop. If I wanted to curb world population growth, would I taint vaccines with mercury in small doses, causing an anecdotal death rate? Or would I simply find ways to make the vaccines less effective, killing millions of people in the process? Apparently Dr. Ayoub thinks governments are smart enough to carry out genocidal conspiracies of global proportion but too stupid to find effective ways to do it. Simply avoiding intervention in the Congo probably eliminated a few million people, didn’t cost a dime, and placed the blame right in the Congo. The toxic effects of heavy metals are somewhat known and research continues. There truly is a sort of grandfathering effect in medicine, where old methods and practices do not receive as much scrutiny as new ones, simply by virtue of their having been in place for so long, with no obvious deleterious effects. This is no secret. But this not mean that there is no scrutiny. But, to suggest that vaccinations are a tool to control the world’s population by increasing infertility, with the side effect of autism makes no sense, even ignoring intent. It takes very little research to show that any harmful effect of mercury is vastly outweighed by the benefits of vaccination. Dr. Ayoub’s ignorance of some very well understood relationships casts the veracity of his entire argument into doubt. CDC reports a 57% increase in reported Autism cases from 2002-2006. The removal of thiomersal from many vaccines should provide some epidemiological data points over the coming years which will reveal or dispute the mercury causation theory. So Medhue, I have watched your 90 minute video and found it unconvincing. I might have been swayed by Dr. Ayoub if he hadn’t exhibited a convincing lack of understanding of things that were actually not central to his argument (population control) but upon which he dedicated the bulk of his presentation. He also used misleading analogies in the areas where he should have known better. I do hope that the mountain of logical fallacies in Dr. Ayoub's presentation don't dissuade people from keeping track of the issues he attempted to address, and I don't think it will. I have just spent three hours bringing myself up-to-date on this issue, which would not have happened if not for your post.

From my profile pick "Friendship"... “Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” -- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)

4-22-2013 The pinnacle of stealth technology is reached when the US military is unable to find it's prototype F-U2 spyplane, which was scheduled for its maiden flight later that day. 4-22-2162 The failure of laws to keep up with technology, and the perils of long term space travel collide head on when, two years into Earth's first interstellar space mission, ship's chef Mortimer "MmmMmmGood" McKinnen poisons his crewmate Lumbar "Ptooey" Swiggenton, who just never appreciated his cooking. McKinnen is sentenced to death by hanging, a process that lasts nearly 26 years, ending as the ship finally enters the atmosphere of Cygnus Centauri 3 and experiences gravity for the first time since launch.

Hippie Bowman wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Hippie, check your newspaper or on the internet to see when your local astronomy club has "Star Parties". Then find your spot in Florida here... http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/region.cgi?country=United_States&region=Florida And see if the ISS is visible during a star party. If it is, zoom over there and see if you can get one of the club members to try to follow the ISS with their finder scope while you look through the telescope eyepiece. If you are lucky, you will get a brief glimpse of something that looks a li'l like a dragonfly as the telescope driver tries to chase the ISS across the sky. If you have a friend with a telescope, see if they're interested in trying this. I've done it many times and it's wonderful. I have a telescope! I will check it out! Thanks! Peace! /me slaps her forehead. Of course you do!!!! We'll chat in world about how best to do it!

Hippie, check your newspaper or on the internet to see when your local astronomy club has "Star Parties". Then find your spot in Florida here... http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/region.cgi?country=United_States&region=Florida And see if the ISS is visible during a star party. If it is, zoom over there and see if you can get one of the club members to try to follow the ISS with their finder scope while you look through the telescope eyepiece. If you are lucky, you will get a brief glimpse of something that looks a li'l like a dragonfly as the telescope driver tries to chase the ISS across the sky. If you have a friend with a telescope, see if they're interested in trying this. I've done it many times and it's wonderful.

Dillon Levenque wrote: Wonderful. Isn't she? ;-)

Drongle McMahon wrote: (Where is the tearing-hair-out smiley?).

Electronic Mode wrote: I am still a Tilt Shift noob. so its not perfect in any way. but hey its fun to do it and to test different things Wonderful images, Electronic! It is fun to test different things. Do some more!!!!

Medhue Simoni wrote: I'll cover your 1st question/statement. Around 1991, many vaccines were combined into 1 vaccine. What was not taken into account was the total amount of mercury this added up to. So, with 1 doze, infants were getting more than 5 times the doze they would have gotten with 1 vaccine. As thiomersal is an anti-bacterial, anti-fungal preservative, the amount of it used is a function of the volume of continaminable liquid being preserved, not the vaccine compounds also in suspension. So, I imagine that combining five different vaccines into one dose actually reduces the mercury load by a factor of five as compared to delivering the five vaccines in five different doses, each containing enough thiomersal to preserve the dose. Do you have a link to some explanation that the mercury concentration is more than inversely proportional to total dose volume? I'll also add that mercury clears from the system over time and that, if its deleterious effects stem from chronic exposure (I don't know, but I've seen that suggested), that reducing the frequency of transient events at the expense of increasing their magnitude may well be beneficial overall. I asked people to keep an open mind and investigate for yourself. This will be my last post on the subject. I'm not the kind of person that feels the need to prove anything to any1. I only need to prove things to myself, which is an extremely high standard. I also don't try to prove things to others, as that's too difficult. It's easier to disprove. Being lazy, I take the path of least resistance. Curiously, proving things to myself is effortless, so the height of my standards may be immaterial. I've bookmarked the video and will try to watch more of it.

4-21-1738 George "I cannot tell a lie" Washington nicks the bark on his father's prize young English cherry tree with his new hatchet, bringing about its eventual demise. When queried by his father, George humbly admits the deed, gaining his, and the world's, everlasting trust. Thrilled by his success, George runs two miles through the woods to tell his neighbor and friend Lucifer Williams that William's strategy of "gaining credence by admitting guilt" actually works. Washington grows up to become a master of military deception and first President of the United States. 4-21-1975 A young Madelaine McMasters proudly exclaims "Look Mom, no hands!" just moments before being rushed indoors to have asphalt stains scraped off her front teeth.

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: It is very hard to write a totally logical piece of text. Any illogical text can be misunderstood or attacked. Join us in scripting :-) Yep, I can't write totally logical text. It's difficult and not much fun. For better or worse, I tend to form opinions slowly. On subjects such as global warming or mercury in vaccines, I understand that the discussion is complex scientifically, economically and politically. So I apply various (flawed, I presume) filters to the myriad bits of information that come my way over time, in an attempt to get at the underlying truth of the thing. I have, for the last week, been writing absurd entries in Hippies "What happened in History on this date..." thread. I'd hoped for fawning adulation for my sense of humor, but it hasn't come. Upon prodding a few friends for some appreciation, I was told they thought I was serious and skimmed over me. So, while writing totally logical text is difficult, it's hardly necessary if you simply wish to be taken seriously. ;-)

PeterCanessa Oh wrote: Ahh, philosophy, time for me to stick my oar in then. Apologies Medhue, but I'm going to use your posts as examples of how easy it is to commit these errors. Please note that I'm not conducting an ad hominem attack on you or using the fallacy fallacy to discredit your arguments. STRAWMAN - OMG, your last example is soo very bad tho [Except that it isn't how it's used] FALSE CAUSE - a ccurately diagnosed as autistic before thimerisol was introduced [Or afterwards, so you say] APPEAL TO EMOTION - there are serious consequences to being injected [like not getting a fatal disease] THE FALLACY FALLACY - This is not science, it is blind men [but, but, but ...] AD HOMINEM - the drug companies would lose way too much money [As well as ...] PERSONAL INCREDULITY - I have yet to see [Have a look] SPECIAL PLEADING - I'm around autistics every single day [i know what you mean, but you've just been saying there's no definition of 'autistic'] BURDEN OF PROOF - For 1, vaccines causing autism has never, ever been debunked [Can't prove a negative] AMBIGUITY - hence why the shows are called programs [i laughed with you at that one] APPEAL TO AUTHORITY - There are many very good videos on Youtube [Without relevance or explanation] NO TRUE SCOTSMAN - all credible science [so any contrary science is not credible] GENETIC - Especially when you learn it from the TV [ Fas est et ab hoste doceri ( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ovid)] BEGGING THE QUESTION - the adverse side effects of that poison [Digitalis is a poison, it is legitimately used in medicine] APPEAL TO NATURE - Injecting things into your body is very unnatural [so is surgery] ANECDOTAL - Of course, this is only my observation [My observation differs] MIDDLE GROUND - there is some link, but not all other factors have been weeded out [Either the link is vaccines or it isn't] More to come Peter, I have been blessed (in the non supernatural sense of the word ;-) with a facility for remembering numbers, or at least the general scales of them. I actually do have some understanding of million, billion, etc (within varying contexts). I also have a crude, but serviceable understanding of the basic sciences and some handy numbers, such as world population, etc. As a result of this, I am unable to get through a day without feeling assaulted by the most glaring logical inconsistencies. Twenty years ago, my girlfriends went on a minor rampage dissing California's "valley girls" when it was reported in the local newspaper that Californians were the recipients of 10% of US breast implants. It was illuminating to see the reaction when, immediately upon hearing this, I replied that the number seemed extraordinary, as California was home to more than 10% of American women. Most of my friends dismissed my rebuttal and continued to accuse valley girls of vanity, even though the statistic there were citing as proof (which was likely wrong) proved the opposite. That remains one of my most memorable examples of how strongly we cling to our misconceptions. I am certain I am not immune. ETA: I am usually delighted when my misconceptions are revealed to me... usually.

Hiya, Medhue: I won't have time to watch all of the first video you linked, but let me give my impression of the first few minutes of it. At 3:59 there is a chart showing the rise of Autism, which has skyrocketed since 1990 (I recall seeing 1990 mentioned as a pivot point in other discussions of this topic). If mercury is to blame, why did it wait until 1990 to start having a pronounced effect on the population? We've been injecting it since the 1930s. If one wishes to argue that mercury is responsible for the ramp from 1990 to 2000 (what's happened since?) the devil in me wants to suggest that's also an argument for mercury's sentience ;-). At 4:22 "And these are disorders which COULD be due to Mercury" and then the Dr. goes on to list a panoply of things which are biologically plausible effects of mercury exposure, not things which have been shown to result from mercury exposure. He then says "And the quoted numbers are an underestimation by perhaps as much as 2/3". All this is offered glibly, without proof, as if the sheer size of the numbers is proof that mercury is to blame. At 5:00 there is a list of "acceptible" mercury levels from other sources, such as water, fish and toxic waste. The safe level for water is listed as 2ppb. The average person drinks about 15,000 gallons of water over a lifetime and by age six, maybe 250 gallons or about 1000Kg. The "safe" mercury level for fish is around 1000 ppb and the average person eats 8kg/year. Kids probably eat much less, lets say 250g/yr (half a pound) for a kid who'll eat those icky fish sticks). The average thimersosal preserved vaccine dose is 0.5cc and the typical six year old gets 21 shots by that age. So the total mercury load for a six year old, consuming from the listed sources is... Water 1000Kg x 2ppb = 2mg Fish 250g x 6 yrs x 1000ppb) = 3mg Vaccines 0.5g x 21 x 50,000ppb = 1.05mg He then goes on to compare the transient mercury loads of vaccines to the EPA chronic exposure limits. Perhaps the doctor is suggesting that transient mercury loads are relatively more toxic than chronic loads, but the research says otherwise. Even ignoring that research, the total loads for various sources are MUCH closer in magnitude than the doctor suggests. By ignoring the magnitudes of the ingested quantities of various sources and listing only the PPB numbers (which are intended to elicit gasps from the audience), the doctor exposes his own innumeracy. By ignoring the differences between transient and chronic exposure, the doctor ignores a great deal of research that shows the effects are not the same. I don't suppose the first few minutes of that first video has given me any appreciation for the good doctor's motives, but his statistics and logic are flawed. It is so very easy for us to fool ourselves. Our brains are wired to find patterns and causes, whether they exist or not. When life was as simple as avoiding predators and outwitting prey, that wiring worked well enough. As we dig deeper into the complexities of nature, that wiring becomes an obstacle to understanding.

Right click on the image and open it in a new window to get the full size version... The stereo effect is easier to see if you fill your screen with the image.

4-20-1993 Doris "Dumpling" and Roscoe "Rolly" Cullen are blissfully unaware that their bouncing baby boy Emmett, who is just showing signs of colic that will persist into his teens, will, in exactly 19 years, write his 800th post in the SL forums. 4-20-2012 Sim borders across SL become clogged with frenises as LL releases Beta Pathfinding and it is quicky discovered that male attachments refuse to pull over and ask for directions.

Lia Abbot wrote: I should have realised you're an expert on ugly heads, Maddy. ... shows you hers for comparison

I'm glad you had a li'l time with Ajja, Val. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the doctors get a handle on this and bring improvement to him. I hope you can ease the frustration you feel over this by knowing that Ajja does indeed get strength from you. /me hugs you both all up.

Lia Abbot wrote: I'll be rearing my ugly head again Monday. They say it takes a village to rear a child. Fortunately it takes only one person to rear an ugly head. Thank you for doing this, Lia. They're so helpless when young.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Parhelion Palou wrote: I only looked at the TOS and Community Standards, but I didn't see anything that says you cannot ask for RL information. That said, back when SL was more of a community, it was at the very least considered rude to do so and commonly believed to be against the TOS. Either way, nobody is required to answer personal questions. My response to someone who's persistent about asking for RL information would be to block/mute and ban. To the OP: Sure, talk with adults. We're mostly harmless. :smileywink: Agree that it's considered rude at least by some to ask for RL info. However when I started the first two most common questions were: How old are you? Where are you from? Yep. Ages ago, when I dropped into my first text chat rooms, I was immediately bombarded with "asl?" (age, sex, location). I routinely answered "old, no, here"

4-19-2012 Second Life™ Resident Valerie Inshan posts her 8000th in the SL Forums, surpassing the collective output of all Lindens since the inception of SL. Inshan's accomplishment, like Irene Muni's before her, is all the more impressive considering that English is a second language for both. When queried about both Inshan and Muni, forumites offered high praise, including "Their answers actually make sense." and "They're hot!". Never one to leave a good idea go unexpoilted (sic), Linden Lab immediately places hiring advertisements in the classified sections of foreign newspapers. Poor wording and a lack of cultural awareness result in LL being widely perceived as an international marriage brokerage.