A doctor, a real expert even, told my parents I should have a surgery with like a 90% chance of either paralyzing me from the neck down or killing me because

It's not at all mystifying. You attack people they get defensive. They feel they have to justify themselves more.

I think it does make sense that if you don't understand something it can be scary to you. And I think often parents don't like to see their child in pain so from there they can sometimes want to justify the idea their kid doesn't actually need shots. (And many to most doctors thought I would either be dead by now or…

It's a bit of both, but the vast majority of Christians (like the vast majority of liberals) have no problem with vaccination. In Australia it sounds like the Christian Science Church said they no longer needed the exemption so they could remove that option. The Jehovah's Witnesses apparently say it's up to the…

"with some "religious freedom" thing"

"I was watching part of On the Beach today. Seeing the Australian
people await their inevitable demise from nuclear fallout reminded me of
the approaching implementation of Kinja to The AV Club."

I think we've at times been willing to allow speech that could kill. (For example a crime novel whose description of a poison may be accurate.) That said "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors" was apparently ruled as not protected speech. I'm not sure what the status is on "The Anarchist's Cookbook"…

I feel like when it was relatively small religious groups, who agreed that not vaccinating meant their kids couldn't go to public school, it wasn't really that big of a problem. I know herd immunity and all that, but my understanding was if a high enough percent do vaccinate a very small minority "free riding" might…

Curiously I think both vaccine conspiracies and opposition to them are "bipartisan." Many conspiracies are kind of one way or the other but I've heard of anti-vaxxer theories that come from a Schlaffy-ish Fundamentalist distrust of government or doctors and those more in a "big pharma can't be trusted" or "Western…

9:40: CHEERS, "Love Thy Neighbor" (S4E8)

It's high on the facing wall. In the dental chair I can see it though as it's high enough and I'm really never in a total "lying down" position. (That almost sounds like this is something that just happened rather than a week ago. I have a moderately good memory though and I've been there several times.)

"I'm more of a moderate really"

She is more likely.

As I recall the Koches didn't much like Trump, but they did like the Republican Congress so I'm not sure.

Yeah. And somehow I think something like Netflix might care about this more. I'd think shows with good "buzz", critical or popular, might be more useful in getting people to subscribe (or stay subscribed) than ones that don't. I'll sometimes switch to a more expensive cable package because it has a channel with a show…

I put Moana on my list. I saw a bit of it at the dentist so decided "why not."

I thought Krystal was relatively new. How long has she been in it?

That's true. He was defending his wife and killing the guy was completely an accident.

I once thought it would be interesting if Proletheans turned out to be a "control group." Like Westmoreland, or something, found (or created) an anti-genetic-experiment religious movement so they could compare Neolution health (etc) to someone clearly not using any of their methods.

It does get better after the pilot. I'm not sure I can think of a specific episode where I realized I liked it, and was going to stick with it, but maybe the one where Five wanders in their memories. That looks to be episode six. And the ones after that, mostly, sound better than what I recall of the first five. (I'm…