Infamous autobahn? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

If a) then there is a 4 month old who had no choice in suffering the consequence and is suffering through the stupidity of others. If they fully accepted that vaccines caused autism, should have looked at the pros and cons and quickly come to the rational answer that even if you assume every single bad thing about vaccines are true, they are still the better choice, she likely would not be facing all of the potential complications.

if b) no, it's alerted us that no vaccine is 100% effective. This isn't news. Vaccines work through herd immunity. Once there are an insufficient number of carriers available, the disease will no longer be able to spread. That is the true science behind disease eradication.

You don't need to even bother with any reputable source. The simple fact is this. If you want to beat an anti-vaxxer in an argument, simply give in to them. Admit every single thing they said is true.

Now, with that said. We are going to assume that measles causes 10 autism cases per 1000 kids. A 1% rate.

Measles alone, and JUST Measles, in a first world country, has a 0.3% mortality rate - http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S4.full

Now we have 3 dead kids, against 10 autistic ones. This doesn't factor in the kids maimed and permanently blinded by complications of just measles.

Now throw in rubella, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, pertussis, hep b, influenza, mumps and chicken pox.

How are those 10 autistic kids looking against the pile of dead, blind and scarred kids.

Exactly. I can concede every single point to an anti-vaxxer and still show the outcome is better with vaccines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo

201,0? What strange year is this. And is it really that hard to understand that Seton Hill != Seton Hall?

So now everyone who watches Doctor Who will set their passwords to "Crimson, Eleven, Delight, Petrichor".

At least it'll be easy to get into my wife's computer.....

I don't pay for GMail. If I'm not the customer, I'm the product being sold.

Come to grips with that statement and all of this outcry over "free" services doing other stuff goes away. It's a fact of life.

No, not it is not. There is a huge difference between Microsoft's (The Service) and Google (Our Services). If Google decided to come out with a new service where they allowed you to search anyones documents on their site, you've already agreed to it. With Microsoft, you have not. Is it a glaring omission in the biased summary? Yes. But does it mean that your stuff will only be used for operating,promoting and improving Google Drive? No. No it does not. When Google collects it and starts distributing your family photos as part of GIS, you've already agreed to it.

Mach 3.35 was the (declassified) speed achieved by the A12 in 1963 with the installation of the J58 engines.

Fine. The A12 broke Mach 3 in 1963. So 49 years ago. I concede your point, it doesn't change the fact that this country has continued to shy away from the industrial and scientific frontiers that used to be established on a near weekly basis here. It isn't waxing nostalgic, its a simple truth. Our frontiers no longer lie in a national interest in being better than our forefathers. They lie in getting news that someone's kid took a bike ride to my friends list on facebook faster.

No they don't. They haven't since 1999...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-030-DFRC.html

You're right. Nothing ever came out of the space program, aerospace industry or particle physics labs that equated back to our day to day life.

To quote JFK, "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too"

The U.S. learned from going to the moon. From building the tevatron and the A-12/SR-71. From the Manhattan project.

It doesn't matter if the goals are social equality and food for all, or freeing ourselves from the Oil economy. What matters is the single, common and focused goals to drive projects and technology further. The type of projects that lead to new and better lives for everyone in it. The list of discoveries and advancements made *JUST* off of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo projects would fill pages. It was not about putting a footprint on the moon. It was putting a footprint on the moon and learning everything we could about doing it. It was about the advancement in computers, radio, rocketry, electronics and a myriad of other fields. The A-12 project advanced our understanding of supersonic travel to a new level.

The point is, I really think as a society, we've fallen into the prediction that John Steinbeck made at the height of the progress of the 60's.

"We now face the danger, which in the past has been the most destructive to the humans: Success, plenty, comfort and ever-increasing leisure. No dynamic people has ever survived these dangers."

50 years ago the U.S. could put a man into space. Today it can't.
50 years ago the U.S. was at the forefront of particle physics. Today it isn't.
50 years ago the U.S. started development of 3 different spacecraft on 5 different man rated rockets over a 7 year span. Today it's 10 years just to develop one.
50 years ago the U.S. had a plane capable of traveling at Mach 3.35. Today it doesn't.

I seriously feel bad for the future country my kids will inherit. It doesn't seem like we're moving in the right direction on the science and technology front.

Seriously. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer. You're the product being sold.