Category Archives: wingnuttia

Balloon Juice » A Brief History of Fail

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John Cole caught this little gem in Investors Business Daily

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

The wingnut attack on universal health care always always relies on lurid, false, horror stories about health care in Canada, UK, and other western nations.  So bloody dim and sloppy they don't even bother with anything resembling a fact check.

Update:  Stephen Hawking responds:

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told us. "I
have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I
would not have survived." Something here is worthless. And it's not him.

US teen pregnancy and syphilis rates rose sharply during George Bush’s presidency, Centres for Disease Control finds

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well i certainly didn't see this one coming (via John Cole):

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush's evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US's major public health body.


Pregnant teen In a report that will surprise few of Bush's critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.


The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.