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Consider:
The incidence of Lupus approaches 100 per 100,000 (though it is actually higher in the group being vaccinated, ie: women) and can be expected to manifest sometime between the ages of 10 and 60 years old.

The article states that more than 26 million doses have been distributed in the US, with dosing done in three injections over six months. This comes to about 8.7 million people to be vaccinated in the US alone.

Of these 8.7 million we should expect 8700 to develop Lupus sometime in their life. Given our window of 50 years for Lupus to present and eight months being our window from first dose of vaccine to two months after the last we should expect over 100 women to present with Lupus within two months of their Gardasil course. The girl in the story is one of these.


Lupus is an awful disease and the subject's story is a sad one, but it is anecdotal. The vaccine reporting system is such that you report any illness that occurs around the time of a vaccination. That one person received the shot and then became sick does not prove anything. People become sick all of the time and when as many people receive a vaccination and have had Gardisil a substantial number will become ill within an approximate time of their vaccination. Correlation does not imply causality.

This article is not based in science and is nothing but kookish, anti-vaccine hysteria.

Do you think it is not possible to have sinful desires? More specifically, do you think that if action x is wrong, then desiring to do action x is not wrong?

I think a distinction needs to be made here between the desire and the temptation to do sin.

In my mind, the word desire translates into a want to do a thing and the willingness to do it if other obstacles/consequences didn't exist. By this meaning of the word desire to sin can definitely be sinful in itself.

This is different from temptation. Here, a person feels an inclination to sin in some way but retrains oneself not for fear of its consequences but because of an understanding of the wrongness of the act and for the sake of God. Temptation in itself is not sinful. In fact, fortitude in resisting very strong temptations is a great virtue. However, as the leaders of the Church are figuring out, powerful temptations of a sexual nature can render good people unable to properly approach and minister to folks without those feelings. Furthermore, because of the nature of the sin the gravitate towards, and the consequences of the sin, they cannot be trusted in certain roles.

I think you’re way off base regarding Susan B. Anthony. She was an abolitionist and a great Republican. Something of a rift developed between her and supporters of black rights in 1869 as many folks abandoned the combined black&woman’s suffrage movement to focus entirely on black suffrage and the 15th amendment. She had campaigned for both causes and I believe felt angry at the way efforts for women’s rights temporarily dried up as friends left it to focus on black issues. She was the very opposite of a racist.

“New speed limit, short sign, and the sign blocked by the ticketing officer’s car.”

Absolutely untrue.

Anyone can see from the video that as the Massey’s vehicle goes by the speed limit sign, it is clearly in their line of sight.

Mr. Massey also stated that he SAW the 40 mph sign, but hadn’t REACHED IT YET.

But, I guess it’s OK for you to LIE in order to bolster your case.


My case? Maybe you misunderstood my post, but I doubt that. More likely, you're deliberately misinterpreting and picking nits.

US posted a sort of time line of events for this incident. His post was based on his own interpretation of the video and other information we have at hand. I felt that his interpretation was overly generous to the police officer in question and so I gave my own time line with my own opinions. In my posting I was argumentative and accused US of being unfair in his interpretation.

I believe US's interpretation is biased but I do not in any way think he is dishonest. We have our own opinions on the police officer's actions which differ. I do not know untrained skeptic but I hope that we can end on good terms when this thread dies away.


You seem to have a problem with my post, and so you accuse me of lying.

Let's examine the substance of my 'lie.' Take the video posted in #11 and advancing to 12 seconds. At this time the front of the SUV is just about reaching the sign. The position of the camera makes judging distances imprecise, I would say the police car is 1.5 to 3 car lengths behind the SUV. I hope you don't consider it a 'LIE' for me to say that the distance between the police vehicle and the SUV is approximately 30 feet.

Fifty MPH is approximately 73 ft per second. I would guess that the SUV driver had no more than one to two seconds from the time the police car got out of the way to the time he passed the sign to look at it. In truth I think this time to be much shorter, but I don't want anyone to think I'm being unfair or telling a LIE.

Going back to the video, we see that the top of the numbers 40 on the speed limit sign are roughly equal to the very bottom of the passenger side window in their height. That is to say: the numbers 4 and 0 are below the level of the SUV windows on this particular sign. The SUV seems to be passing the sign at a distance of roughly one car width.

Now I don't drive an SUV, so I cannot cannot completely relate to what this driver could and could not see from his vehicle. I do know that in my baby Hyundai objects very near and very lateral to me are difficult to see. Road signs are best viewed from a distance of some seconds away. I do not think it would be a LIE to make a statement of belief based on my experience driving my own car if I assumed things were pretty similar from this driver's SUV. Actually, with his position being so very high up and this particular sign being placed so very low, I suspect it would be easier to see this sign from my own car.

Some of the things said in the video are muffled, especially with cars going by and the driver of the car still in his vehicle. I could not make out all of the words as he was talking, but got the impression when watching the video that he disagreed with the citation because of the position and set up of the speed limit sign. Watching the video again, I determined that he may have a legitimate argument, the reasons for which I've already outlined. Furthermore, it has been stated by different sources that the bulk of Mr. Massey's complaint involved questioning the location and/or placement of the sign.

Apparently, not 'anyone' can see that the sign was 'clearly in their line of sight,' because that wasn't clear to me when I watched the video and still isn't clear to me now. Since you apparently overstated matters, does that make you a liar?

I don't think you're being entirely fair here.

The speed limit had dropped to 40 MPH, but that isn't the whole story. If you watch the video posted in #11, you see that the sign itself isn't a permanent one, but sort of a temporary thing on a platform with legs. It's impossible to say how long that had been there. Moreover, the bottom of the sign is mounted no more than half the height of the sign itself. That means, from ground to very top of the sign can't be any more than three or four feet. To top it off, the driver in the video is seen to pass the sign while the police car is pulled over right in front of the too-short sign.

New speed limit, short sign, and the sign blocked by the ticketing officer's car.

You call the officer polite. I didn't get that impression. The driver was [justifiably] angry about being pulled over. He wanted the argue the circumstances of the citation, but this wasn't the proper time or place for that. The citing officer went on to handle things very poorly. In his speech he was short, condescending, and barked at the driver more than once.

When it came time to give the driver his ticket, the officer didn't explain anything. It's easy to say that the ticket explains things, that signing is not an admission of guilt, but the driver could not read the ticket. The police officer still had the citation in his hands. First the officer ordered the driver to sign the citation, then he threatened, "you're going to sign."

When the driver refused to sign the officer ordered him out of the vehicle. Again he didn't explain anything. The driver was still stuck on the issue of the signs, still trying to argue his case. He thought the police officer ordered him out so that he could explain, and he approached the officer to point out his objection. The officer pulled his weapon and then told the driver to turn around, put his hand behind his back. The driver freaked, but he did turn around and he kept his hands visible. The started walked away from the officer, shouting at him like an idiot, but with his hands clearly visible and moving very slowly. The officer continue to shout the same instructions, turn around (the driver had), put your hands behind your back (the driver had not) then the officer fired his taser.

When everything was said and done, the police officer got on his radio, and plainly misrepresented the events.


What of the driver? Was he right? Obviously no. He was stubborn and acted like an asshole. As things ramped up he continued to antagonize the officer. In his defense, he was neither accustomed to nor trained for these situations.

If the driver was in the wrong, does that put the officer in the right? I say no. This situation combined two things people hate most about cops -- speed traps and police arrogance. The officer did absolutely nothing to defuse the situation and almost everything in his power to stir things up. If the driver was wrong to argue matters the officer was double so to argue back. The moment he started arguing with the driver about the placement of the signs he implied that the issue was open to debate. Ordering the driver out of the car when so agitated and plainly unready to listen was nothing short of stupid. Acknowledge the guy's complaint, tell him you're still citing him, and make it clear that things aren't open to discussion at the side of the road. Heck, show some courtesy. Let the man know you plan to arrest him before you take him out of his car and have to draw your taser weapon.

If things got out of control and went further than they had to, it is the fault of the officer trained to deal with these things who did a lousy job. The driver doesn't deserve to get rich in a civil suit, he did enough here to bring the tasering upon himself. Neither does the officer deserve to get off scot-free. He acted unprofessionally, caused things to get out of control, and just plain screwed up. Call in police malpractice. He probably shouldn't be fired, but his department should say more than, 'lawful tasering, appropriate use of force.' It clearly was not.

Compression of the spinal cord or cauda equina could first present as loss of rectal muscle tone. If not identified, something like that could later develop into different kinds of paralysis. The cause of such compression can be subtle and slow growing. A CT can rule out the obvious stuff but you cannot clear someone after head and back trauma without a neurological exam, and a test for rectal tone is part of that.

I think it’s not being used as an X-Ray source. The article states that it is used in the welds.

It's not despicable. She can say these things because we beat him and he's dead now. I don't see any problem with Rice talking him up a bit now.

What I take from this is a poke in the eye of whoever is running the show at the moment. Rice is saying, 'The bad guys we're facing now are amateurs compared the the one we already beat.'

Our side looks all the stronger when people hear that the enemy's best and brightest have already failed.

Neither is there anything unique about the safety issue with drugs either. A large percentage of the products we import are potentially dangerous. When we import a shank of New Zealand lamb or a Mercedes, we need to be concerned about product safety. Many products need to be tariffed and inspected, but we still routinely import them. The one exception is medications.

A manufactured good has a place of origin which can be traced. The safety of an entire product line can be appraised from a fraction of the whole lot. If a portion of the line is defective in some way, other units can be identified as potentially defective and recalled.

Food items lie somewhere between pharmaceuticals and manufactured goods. Appropriately, importation of food is restricted somewhat less than drugs, but more than most other products. Beef, for instance, has posed a particularly significant health risk in recent years and its import has been limited by point of origin.

Your comparison is misleading because drugs are unique among products. It is not the case that all drugs used in this country must be manufactured here. If a pharmaceutical company makes their product somewhere else it can usually be brought here, subject to quality control similar to domestic drugs. What is currently banned is reimportation -- import of drugs which are not factory-direct, that have exchanged hands several times and have not been monitored for tampering in that in-between time. It is simple to turn a profit by adulterating them in some way, actual concentration and date of expiration is easily disguised, and it is difficult distinguish the origin of one lot of a drug when compared to another.

Now it might be fair to reimport drugs with inspection. However, in my own opinion, anything less than an assay of every single reimported unit would be inadequate.

It costs the same in R&D, testing, and liability exposure to develop a new microprocessor. But because Intel and AMD did not make that Faustian decision to buy government "protection" from competition in return for massive regulation, their products sell in an openly competitive world market while still returning large profits.

When you get a bad chip from AMD you can return it for a working one, and no harm is done. Some time and money are lost at the very worst. When drugs are made poorly, folks tend to end up dead or disabled. These are hardly comparable cases, and to treat them so is disingenuous.

"It's like a new pair of underwear. At first it's tight and constricting, but after awhile it becomes a part of you."

I cannot speak for where you are but where I live Catholic hospitals are among the very best in the area.

The one nearest to me writes off more dollars in indigent care (for which they are not reimbursed) than any other hospital in the region. It receives few, if any, government subsidies (less than any public hospital in the area, in any case) while providing some of the best care around. They do receive taxpayer dollars in the form of Medicare & Medicaid patients, but do not get bond money as nearby public facilities do. Much of this is because they are the only hospital in the area to consistently turn a profit, and this is because of good management and the support of Catholic volunteers and religious.

It is wrong to suggest that such places are getting to push their faith at your taxpayer expense because, in my experience, Catholic health facilities are overwhelmingly beneficial the the communities they serve. For every Medicaid patient Catholic nursing homes keep alive 'against their will', there are innumerable indigent patients treated and written off as a loss by Catholic hospitals. These are patients who would have to be treated elsewhere at public expense were all of the Catholic facilities to shut down.

Just read the site. I'm not going to argue with you.

Ok, let's just see what the American Cancer Society page has to say:

Cancer of the cervix (also known as cervical cancer) begins in the lining of the cervix. Cervical cancers do not form suddenly. Normal cervical cells gradually develop pre-cancerous changes that turn into cancer.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_is_cervical_cancer_8.asp

You can prevent most precancers of the cervix by avoiding exposure to HPV. Delaying having sexual intercourse if you are young can help you avoid HPV.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_Can_cervical_cancer_be_prevented_8.asp

The most important risk factor for cervical cancer is infection by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Doctors believe that women must have been infected by this virus before they will develop cervical cancer.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_are_the_key_statistics_for_cervical_cancer_8.asp?rnav=cri


Nothing on the ACS page contradicts anything I have had to say about Cerivcal Cancer and HPV. It does, however, disagree with many of your increasingly-hyperbolic statements on the issue.

Do you even know what a pap test is, how it is done, and how a 'positive' result is determined? The original poster said that a majority of women who develop cervical cancer had acquired HPV earlier in life and he was 100% correct.

Cellular abnormalities (dysplasias which are not cancer) develop from HPV. These dysplasias may then become cervical cancer after many years. Hence, if the cervical cancer came from HPV (as over 90% of cervical cancers are), then you got the HPV much earlier in life.

Chistopher P. Crum, MD "The Female Genital Tract". Chapter 22 of Kumar, Abbas, Fausto; Robbins and Cotran: Pathologic Basis of Disease 7th ed.. Philadelphia, PA: The Curtis Center, 2005.
Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia

The reason that papanicolaou smear screening is so effective in preventing cervical cancer is that the majority of cancers are preceded by a precancerous lesion. This lesion may exist in the noninvasive stage for as long as 20 years and shed abnormal cells that can be detected on cytologic examination. These precancerous changes should be viewed with the following in mind: (1) they represent a continuum of morphologic change with indistinct boundaries; (2) they do not invariably progress to cancer and may spontaneously regress, with the risk of persistence of progression to cancer increasing with the severity of the precancerous change; (3) they are associated with papillomaviruses, and high-risk HPV types are found in increasing frequency in the higher-grade precursors.

Yep, although most of those contracted HPV at a younger age.
That's where you are wrong.

No, he's right, actually. Ninety percent of cervical cancers come from dysplasias caused by HPV. It takes years (or even decades) for these dysplasias the develop into cancer. It is these abnormal cells that the pathologist looks for when doing a pap smear. Therefore, most cases of cervical cancer involve an HPV infection at a younger age (it's the only way HPV can cause cervical cancer).

It is also worth noting that girls under the age of 18 are at an elevated risk of acquiring a cervical cancer-causing HPV infection than older women. Although it will take years to develop cervical cancer from an infection, a teenager is more likely to get HPV from sexual activity because the cells of her cervix are of a less-mature type.

Except of course if your livelihood depends upon the domestic poultry industry.

Are you suggesting that, to a chicken farmer, the a threat to his birds is just as dire as the threat of a bug infecting everybody and killing every other person it meets? That's just silly.

Avian flu is bad. It could become very bad with certain mutations. It is also especially bad for certain industries, sure. But the threat of this disease is overstated, regardless.

However, H5N1 will mutate into a strain that transmits from human to human. Then we're in trouble because 50% of those who catch bird flu die. Small numbers now, big numbers some day.

Fortunately the properties of the virus that make it so deadly are the ones that make human-to-human transmission so difficult. Avian flu is nasty because our immune systems aren't prepared for H5N1, and also because the infection happens very deep in the respiratory tract. This deep-seated infection kills more effectively than your typical influenza virus, but it also keeps virus particles relatively contained.

This isn't to suggest that the bird flu isn't a danger, but it does mean that the situation isn't quite so dire as we're all led to believe.

The two types...Aren't there more?

There are several types, but in the US there are only about two strains responsible for cervical cancer. In other parts of the world there are different strains which can also cause cancer but these forms are not often seen here.

This vaccine is looking to be pretty complete protection against the most common type of cervical cancer in the US. There are other types of cancer that haven't been linked to HPV, but this is the big one, and it's the one they're aiming to stop.

So, you are admitting the Church's mission to be ENCOURAGING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

Come on now, I know you're better than that. That's not what I was getting at at all. Sinkspur says it best a few posts after your own: 'Giving water or a sandwich to an illegal could be interpreted as aiding in "remaining in the United States."'

Now you and I both know that it is not the stated purpose of the law to criminalize such things. But what a law is meant to do can be very different from what it actually allows if some prosecutor or judge decides another interpretation better fits his politics.

Some folks may find it hard to believe that such could ever come to be, think that we're scare mongering because we really support illegal immigration and not the things we actually say. But I would offer as just one example the use of RICO laws against abortion protesters. That was utterly silly and well beyond the realm of the laws' purposes, yet this didn't stop officials with a purpose from using them in this way. So now certain religious see provisions of this bill, before it is even passed, which could give anti-Catholic or anti-religious prosecutors tools to criminalize even the simplest of good works. Is it wrong for them to point these out, insist on rewording or amendment, and declare that they won't be swayed by any law that could criminalize our mission to the sick?

Without a doubt there's blame enough for everyone on the topic on immigration, certain members of the church not excluded. Yes, our immigration laws are awful, and their enforcement even worse. It is true that so many illegal aliens are doing harm to the American public and much of what goes on is morally equivalent to stealing. The current situation continues because certain people believe that they can profit from it and the Church and its members have no place encouraging people to enter our country illegally. But that's not the point of this thread and nobody needs me to repeat these things which we all believe to be true.

The point of this article is that a piece of legislation, as currently written, may make it a punishable offense for the Church to carry out its mission. Now the government has no place telling anyone how they may give charity. I don't believe that this is the intention of our legislatures, but we should not give any wrong-headed prosecutor the tools to do this, and so the wording of the law should be adjusted. So many people on this thread seem to be arguing that if this law is passed, and then some judge decides that humanitarian aid falls into the terms spelled out here, that the Church is morally obligated to comply.

I say that this is absolute baloney. Our churches should not be made into instruments for enforcing state policy. If the Church chooses to help a poor person who comes to them they should be free to do so regardless of their legal status. This is not the same as aiding and promoting violation of immigration law and should not be construed as such.