Of all the dumb and hateful things Michael Savage has ever said, it turns out the one that has gotten him in the most trouble is the one he made about autistic kids the other day. That's because he was, as usual, totally ignorant and mean-spirited in attacking people's children. Listen to it here:




As a result of this outburst, some stations, including a station group in Mississippi, have dropped his show. Some advertisers, including AFLAC, have pulled ads from his program. So, now Michael "Weiner" Savage is in full backpedal mode. All of a sudden he's not such a tough guy. And, of course, he blames Media Matters for quoting him. How dare they run audio of his radio show, don't they know he's crazy and you can't listen to a word he says?

Young Turks on You Tube

ABC reports that an autistic toddler (with his mother) was kicked off an American Airlines plane for pitching a fit while the plane taxied to the runway.

The boy's mother says the flight attendant exacerbated the situation: "She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight'. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him."

Of course, this is about the worst thing to do with a special-needs kid who's on the verge of a meltdown.

Well, looks like Port St. Lucie kindergarten teacher Wendy Portillo won't be named Teacher of the Year. According to the Treasure Coast Palm, she handled a difficult child, five-year-old Alex Barton (pictured at right), in what she probably thought was a creative manner:

She encouraged the other children in the class to tell him why they didn't like him (e.g.: he's "disgusting" and "annoying") and then to vote on whether or not he should stay in class (they voted to kick him out, 14-2). And so he was forced to leave!

Why in the world would a teacher hand over control to a classroom of five-year-olds? If she thought he needed to leave the room, why didn't she just take the authority upon herself to send him to the principal rather than handing the decision over to an army of PlayDoh-eaters?

A recent Babble article by Kerry Cohen, "What's Wrong With This Picture?" calls into question the need to "fix" kids on the autism spectrum.

For a long time, I struggled with the pain I felt at being told my son wasn't good enough. It is hard to describe how painful it is to read the evaluation reports: your son - your beautiful, chubby, funny little boy, the one with the Horshack laugh, the one who uses stuffed animals to act out scenes from his favorite video - is not doing x, y and z.

The myth that there is a connection between routine vaccination and autism has been soundly disproved. Here is one article that responsibly explores the facts. Here is the CDC's page on the subject.

And yet, the desire to find a cause for the rise in autism has led many to cling onto this dangerous conspiracy theory. Just the other night on Larry King Live, as in past shows on the subject, King nodded as celebrities explained to him how evil vaccinations are.

Now John McCain is hopping on the anti-science bandwagon.

Living in Canada is great, I love the hockey, the beavers, the beer etc... But I can't deny that among my peers there is a lot of anti-American sentiment. Like much of the rest of the world many believe American's are a bunch of cowboys looking for world domination, true or not, I always stick up for you guys. I do agree Bush is an idiot, but I tell my fellow foreigners you have to look beyond the President to find the heart of America. I think this video which made it to #1 on Reddit.com today is a great example of how wonderful Americans can be watch how the Boston crowd supports this autistic kid who has troubles singing the National Anthem.

/apologies to Dinesh if he's already used that title.

What's your obligation to other parents whose child may have the same disorder as yours? That's the dilemma posed by "Dear Stranger: Your child is autistic, just like mine," a personal essay by Amy Lutz that just ran on Babble. She encountered a family that reminded her a lot of her own: