inkbluesky

electra glide horizons

Bush loses ground with military families

Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war’s fifth year.

Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush’s job performance and the way he has run the war, rating him only slightly better than the general population does.

And among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same result as all adults surveyed.

While it may seem that we’re a nation of cynics and smart asses, and maybe we are to some degree many ordinary working class Americans just aren’t cynical enough to believe that a fellow American regardless of wealth and power would lie their sons and daughters into an unnecessary and counterproductive war. Now many of them realize that their trust has been betrayed. That even as violence has dipped a bit in the last month soldiers are still dying and not to prevent another 9-11, but to try and keep people with centuries old religious and tribal differences from killing each other.

This a good blog run by a few vets, Main and Central.

western rainbow

YouTube Breeding Ground For Anti-vaccination Views

“YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination,” says first author Keelan, an assistant professor in U of T’s Department of Public Health Sciences. “Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.”

The research team also found that videos skeptical of vaccinations — many of them highly provocative and powerful — received more views and better ratings by YouTube users than those videos that portray immunizations in a positive light.

I have to admit my first reaction and its lingering, is WTF. People have net access, they navigate to YouTube, watch a video and are basically self diagnosing based on that viewing. They say that even sick doctors shouldn’t decide their own course of treatment, that should go double for non-doctors.