— the F-35 Fugue —THIS JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER: according to DEFENCETECH "Did Chinese Espionage Lead to F-35 Delays?", that's what happened.Chinese spies apparently hacked into secure conference calls and listened to meetings discussing the classified technologies aboard the jets. In particular, China may have stolen info about the F-35’s secure communications and antenna systems; leading to costly software rewrites and other redesigns to compromised parts of the plane.The worst part, this problem isn’t just limited to the F-35, though the program’s size and the fact that it’s …
[Read more...]

Sorry for the delay in getting this up! Here's what I've been reading this week:Joyce Arthur on why we don't need to reopen the debateCanada's role in the sex-selective abortion debate; and a couple more pieces on sex selectionThe Tories are still mad about funding IPPFThe NDP accuses Harper of allowing them to reopen the abortion debateAnd my latest post at Abortion Gang regarding the menstrual cupWhat have you been reading about? …
[Read more...]

Dr. Beatrice Golomb's presentation This Is Your Brain On Politics pulls no punches in its critique of conflicts of interest, bias, censorship and intimidation involving pharmaceutical companies, health authorities and academic institutions and publications.  Professor Golomb's presentation includes commentary on pressure tactics, including intimidation, used by some pharmaceutical industry representatives to silence criticism of their products and the research that accompanies them. Professor Golomb's presentation provides an interesting framework with which to consider the continued …
[Read more...]

Fetus fetishists whining and crying victim because they didn’t get their way with Komen/Planned Parenthood?  Now whoever coulda seen that coming!?  K-Lo breaks out the violins on Twitter: But not before the deranged SUZANNE had added her dulcet tones to the rising tide of whine: Oh well, I suppose it changes things up from regular [...] …
[Read more...]

…but was secretly nurtured and guided by former Bush Press Secretary and Planned Parenthood critic Ari Fleisher: Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, secretly helped guide Komen Foundation’s disastrous strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External [...] …
[Read more...]

Well, maybe. At least consider the Komen controversy well and truly #occupied: The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation backed down from its decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and birth control services, a move that had thrust the world’s largest breast cancer charity into a deeply politicized controversy. Komen [...] …
[Read more...]

Nearly two dozen US Senators have signed onto a letter urging the Susan G Komen Foundation to reverse its despicable and sleazy Planned Parenthood decision: The pressure on the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation to reverse its decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings for poor people — a [...] …
[Read more...]

The attached letter was written by ASAT Board member Sabrina Freeman Ph. D., and Secretary Florence DiGennaro Reed, Ph. D., BCBA-D to the LA Times Alan Zarembo who did such a poor job (in my humble opinion) reporting on autism issues in a recent LA Times series.  In the letter Freeman and Reed attempt to educate Zarembo about the scientific, evidence based benefits that ABA has been demonstrated to bring to autistic children.   I don't know if a superficial mainstream media reporter is capable of  understanding the information presented in the letter or if he would make the …
[Read more...]

The movie “Pink Ribbons“, which explores breast cancer fundraising by groups like Susan G Komen, is being released tomorrow.  Komen’s decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood has been in the works for some time now; one top Komen official quit over it in December. As Dave suggests, the Komen Foundation had to know “Pink [...] …
[Read more...]

I’ve either got the flu or I’m nauseated by the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood fiasco. I’ll take Door #2, SGK/PP, for $200 — the donation that will now go fucking directly to Planned Parenthood since Komen made the ill-advisedly cruel decision to acquiesce to the ideological pressure of fetus fetishists on its board and cut funding [...] …
[Read more...]

I have great respect for Kim Oakley  a California mother who has been honestly and courageously documenting her severely autistic son's self-injurious behavior on Youtube, Classic Autism kgaccount's channel,  for several years.  Within the past year she has also begun  a blog, Autism, Epilepsy and Self-Injurious Behavior, on which she presents her views on autism with  the same honesty and courage.  Ms. Oakley's most recent blog comment DSM-5 Autistic Spectrum Disorder Disaster is as direct and to the point as the title itself.  She pulls no …
[Read more...]

DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder Will Exclude Autism's Vast Majority  Of Intellectually Disabled While the New York Times, the CBC and other mainstream media giants debate the DSM5's potential exclusion of high functioning autistic persons from autism diagnosis barely a whisper is heard about the express exclusion of autism's vast majority of intellectually disabled. The exclusion of the intellectually disabled from the DSM5's New Autism Spectrum Disorder is not a potential effect, it is the express and intended effect of the language of mandatory criterion "A" as …
[Read more...]

It was a little like finding out your spouse is running around on you from someone in the cashout lineup at the grocery store. Indeed, it was absolutely doubleplus-awesome of Harpie to save for a hectoring speech he delivered in luxo-lux Davos last week the fact that Canadian Seniors are the next target in his [...] …
[Read more...]

It's a little bit lighter this week:Margaret Somerville is still the least effective ethicist everThe Montreal Gazette weighs in on sex-selective abortion, and how Harper's government is ignoring realityJoyce Arthur warns us to beware of Crisis Pregnancy CentresAnd the National Post continues to harp on about this new poll dataWhat have you been reading about? …
[Read more...]

to 4 days of Obama .gif at top of her pet human’s blog: …
[Read more...]

So, I guess there's been an Angus Reid poll that found that 51% of Canadians favour some restrictions on abortion - and 60% favour restricting sex-selective abortion. I have some thoughts.First of all, who are these people who don't think there should be any restrictions, but then do think that, oh yeah, if it's for sex selection then we should really clamp down. What? I have so many questions for them. Like: how do we determine someone's reason for aborting? How hard do you think it would be to get around such a restriction? What do you think it says about our society that sex selective …
[Read more...]

Immortalized in GIF. …
[Read more...]

Second from Left, NB Premier and Woodstock MLA David Alward  PHOTO BY MICHAEL MACDONALD/NBCC WOODSTOCK On January 4 2012 I emailed New Brunswick Premier David Alward and relevant cabinet ministers the following inquiry which asked simply whether his government was considering helping autistic adults and is working on a modern, reality based model. I also asked if such an undertaking was not being considered to please say so straight up. Health Minister Madeleine Dubé's office was the only one to acknowledge receipt of my email.  I have received no substantive response to …
[Read more...]

Because sometimes there’s just no comment I could possibly *come* up with that would provide adequate snarkification.  From Rick Santorum’s website, what is presumably a money raising promotion with the world’s greatest acronym: It’s still there as of 2:45 Pacific, so the Santorum campaign must be delirious with joy, imagining that the surge of incumming [...] …
[Read more...]

Speaking of right-wing terrorism, here’s a little item that will reaffirm your faith in the inherent goodness of the human race… NOT. Yesterday the campaign manager for Arkansas Democrat Ken Aden arrived home with his kids to find the family cat dead on the porch, with the word “LIBERAL” scrawled on its side in felt [...] …
[Read more...]

Frankly, it didn’t surprise me a bit that SUZANNE would be All In with the idea of publishing a database of personal information and photos of gynecologists and other reproductive health professionals whose services include — but are not limited to — abortion. How awesome she must imagine it would feel to stand before the [...] …
[Read more...]

I usually find it’s helpful to try and see things from both sides, from left and right, from up and down, from win and lose… and still somehow… … I am utterly baffled and astonished by this: Newt Gingrich pulled off a dramatic upset over Mitt Romney in the South Carolina Republican primary Saturday, reviving [...] …
[Read more...]

Let the shrieeeeeeekfest begin. Yeah yeah yeah. Today America celebrates 39 years of the right to reproductive choice, a hard-fought battle that continues to this very day in spite of choice being the law of the land.  But in a press release today Pres. Obama vowed to protect abortion rights: As we mark the 39th [...] …
[Read more...]

There was A LOT of stuff going on this week! Super size reader! Watch out!Abortion rights are queer rightsThe Liberal Party has decided it will penalize provinces for restricting abortion access; which obviously has implications for PEI.And speaking of abortion on PEI, the premier is co-chairing a working group on healthcare innovation, which seems a little hypocritical.The CTV did a sting "hidden camera" operation on a CPC in Surrey - here's my takeBarbara Kay is an idiotAnd.....sex selective abortion!! Here are a whole bunch of articles on possibly not telling women their medical information …
[Read more...]

I certainly hope this doesn’t mean anything other than technical issues… EDIT:  Ack!  I use that “Brain Damage” tag so often that it comes up automatically now.  (Rather sad commentary on the state of things, IMO.)  Sorry stageleft… wherever you are! …
[Read more...]

On what deranged planet would this be considered “counselling”?: Newsflash, fetus fetishists:  the fence is there for a reason, and it’s not so your fat asses can get some exercise running up and down ladders. (via RealtinConnor on Twit) …
[Read more...]

"Catherine Lord, the director of the Institute for Brain Development at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and a member of the committee overseeing the [DSM-5 autism] revisions, said that the goal was to ensure that autism was not used as a “fallback diagnosis” for children whose primary trait might be, for instance, an intellectual disability or aggression." [Bracketed terms added for context - HLD] - Dr. Catherine Lord, as reported by NYT High Functioning Autism/Asperger's reporter, Amy Harmon, A Specialists’ Debate on Autism Has Many Worried Observers, New York Times, January …
[Read more...]

So the old sex selective abortion topic is coming up again in Canada; you might have seen it in the news (I have lots more links for Sunday's round up, don't worry). Can I just say, I can't believe this is being dragged out again as if there is a legislative solution. I mean really.It seems fairly obvious from where I'm sitting that sex selective abortion, and infanticide, is a symptom of a much larger problem: the value we place on gender in our society. Obviously it varies in form and degree between cultures (and don't think I haven't noticed the racist undertones of some of these …
[Read more...]

Or to put it another way, 83.4% Batshit (and the jury’s still out on Ron Paul). Jon Huntsman, the only thing between the GOP Presidential Primary Field and its own category in the DSM-IV, has left run screaming from the building: Jon M. Huntsman Jr. informed his advisers on Sunday that he intends to drop [...] …
[Read more...]

The last word on this week’s Seinfeldian freakout goes to Red Tory: I wonder if all the indignant liberal folks appearing on TV and fulminating in blogs that have been asserting Harper and the Conservatives were nefariously plotting to undermine gay marriage by stealth utilizing the legal system will now admit they were being completely [...] …
[Read more...]

The Bricks and Mortar Office of the Ombudsman 548 York Street,Fredericton,New Brunswick, at the Staying Connected consultations,in which I participated, Ombudsman Bernard Richard and NBACLPresident Clarence Box both dismissed Long Term ResidentialCare and Treatment Facilities for Autistic Youth and Adults as "Bricks andMortar Solutions" The Centre of Excellence which the Ombudsman'soffice has promoted so heavily is not an actual center, it is abureaucratic fantasy which will not provide a place to live and receive treatment for severely autistic youth and adults. As a former Autism …
[Read more...]

Here's what I've been reading about this week:Lots of coverage of Stephen Woodworth's attempts to re-open the abortion debate, although no one seems to be too interested in taking the bait.Canadian abortion law Q+ARevisiting the "schoolchildren at abortion rallies for school credit" scandalNew Brunswick wants the Human Rights case against it tossed out.What have you been reading about? …
[Read more...]

Was there any progress in addressing autism disorder issues in 2011?  In the humble opinion of this father of a severely autistic 16 year old there was very slight progress on the research front, very slight, and that progress was more than offset by the regression on other fronts particularly in the area of autism awareness.   The hard core reality is that in the six years since I began this blog and in the nearly 14 years since my son was diagnosed with autistic disorder no substantial progress has been made towards curing, treating or even understanding autism disorders.  The …
[Read more...]

With all due respect, please… get a grip.  Does anyone seriously believe this is part of Harper’s legendary Hidden Agenda®©™ to Destroy Gay Marriage? As opposed to maybe, err um you know, a goofy screwup of lawyerly semantics over some uncrossed “T”s and undotted “I”s in our relatively-new equal marriage laws? The Harper government is [...] …
[Read more...]

So, after my post last week on how to get an abortion in New Brunswick, I was contacted by a reader who went ahead and made a flow chart version! So here it is in all its glory, with much thanks and total credit to Ash Furrow: …
[Read more...]

Run, Jump, Fly Boy 2007 Run, Jump, Fly Boy 2011 There are many news reports concerning possible connections between obesity and medications prescribed for children and adults with autism and other developmental disorder.  Those reports help stiffen our resolve to avoid medications for our autistic son Conor, our Run, Jump, Fly Boy. In the article In Treating Disabled, Potent Drugs and Few Rules  the NYT examined the psychotropic medications given with few guidelines to children with developmental disorders and the possible harmful effects, including obesity, anxiety and in some …
[Read more...]

Make no mistake: the frothy Rick Santorum is weird in ways that go light-years beyond grotesque.  But when he obligingly provides so much material for his opponents to work with, I wonder if this aspect of his weirdness is appropriate fodder for televised political debate: During a segment on Fox News Monday, Alan Colmes told [...] …
[Read more...]

This story reminded me of the joke about the highway patrol officer who pulled over a little old lady and while checking her ‘papers’, was surprised to see she had a concealed carry permit.  Amused, he asked her if she actually owned a gun, and was shocked when she told him she owned a .45, [...] …
[Read more...]