conservatives are probably not insane it is just a coincidence that it follows them everywhere, juxtapositions
April 30, 2009 at 6:08 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentProbable Case of Swine Flu in Minnesota Occurs in District Represented by Michele Bachmann.
Representative Michele Bachmann only two days ago made the inflammatory and highly provocative statement suggesting that swine flu epidemics only happen under Democratic presidents.
Speaking to the conservative media outlet Pajamas TV on Monday, Michele Bachmann noted: “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”
I’m not saying that Michele Bachman is a drug dealer , I’m just saying it is an interesting coincidence that there are drug dealers and addicts in the general vicinity of Representative Bachmann. As Op-ed notes, a Republican named Gerald Ford was president during the last swine flu outbreak. The current champ for pandemic status in the U.S. is the HIV virus. It has been so for so long that other then using it as a cultural gudgeon in the occasional debate, AIDS is barely mentioned as a cause for imminent concern. There is some disagreement over where the swine flu of the 70s originated, but New Jersy is highly likely and the first to die from it were from the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersy. Legionnaires’ disease or “Legion Fever” also broke out during the Ford administration.
I’m not saying that Michelle Malkin is a bacterial infection carrier, only that statistically speaking she has been around other women with Candida or Chlamydia and I’ll just leave it up to others to do the math, Conservative media baselessly blame swine flu outbreak on immigrants
In an April 25 blog post titled “Hey, maybe we’ll finally get serious about borders now,” syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin suggested that the outbreak was due to the United States’ “uncontrolled immigration,” writing: “I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration. We’ve heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to insist there’s nothing to worry about.
So far as is known several of the people that have been infected were American citizens that had traveled to Mexico. Viruses and bacteria, as far as scientists know do not differentiate according to ethnicity or national origin. Unsanitary conditions can contribute to the spread of viruses, but that makes a good case for a well funded public health sector. Conservatives are on record as thinking that pandemics have nothing to do with the economy.
Atlanta Georgia is a wonderful city, but has had a higher then average per capita crime rate, that Neal Boortz lives there is most likely a coincidence,
“[W]hat better way to sneak a virus into this country than give it to Mexicans? Right? I mean, one out of every 10 people born in Mexico is already living up here, and the rest are trying to get here. So you give — you give — you let this virus just spread in Mexico, where they don’t have a CDC.” Boortz went on to say: “So if you want to get that epidemic into this country, get it going real good and hot south of the border.
Should one assume that Neal feels that the Canadians are also so anxious to get jobs in the U.S. they too are also maliciously spread the swine flu virus since there have been several cases reported in Canada. One problem with trying to point the finger at one country or one ethnic group for a virus is that almost every nation on earth has been the origin of some flu virus or bacterial infection, Pandemic study of 1918-1919 outbreak provides background and death rates for 14 European countries
* Overall deaths increased by 86 per cent in the 14 European countries studied during the 1918-1919 pandemic, with 1.98 million excess deaths recorded. When these figures were extrapolated to cover the 25 per cent of Europe not covered by the study, the figure reached 2.64 million.
* Excess mortality rates for the individual countries covered by the INSERM analysis were: Bulgaria (102%), England and Wales (55%), Finland (33%), Sweden (74%), France (66%), Germany (73%), Italy (172%), Norway (65%), Denmark (58%), Portugal (102%), Scotland (57%), Spain (87%), Switzerland (69%) and The Netherlands (84%).
* Figures for the worldwide death toll remain very imprecise. A first American report in 1927 suggested that the main 1918-1919 wave was responsible for 21 million deaths worldwide. A revised estimate in 1991 put the figure between 24.7 and 39.3 million and another in 2002 set the death toll at up to 100 million to take into account the lack of data in a large part of the world.
* The authors point out that the source of the 1918 pandemic remains unclear. A recent analysis of the 1918 H1N1 genome failed to single out a particular location. Theories put forward by various researchers include Asia, a British army post in France in 1916, the USA and Spain.
It seems unlikely the current swine flu will be as widespread as the outbreak of the 1918 pandemic and since the current swine flu responds to anti-virus, is also very unlikely to be as deadly. Swine Influenza and You
Are there medicines to treat swine flu?
Yes. CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with these swine influenza viruses. Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) that fight against the flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body. If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications. For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started soon after getting sick (within 2 days of symptoms).
The threat of a pandemic has enough medical, emotional and economic baggage with it, yet in addition to that we get to witness a raging case of xenophobia among the Right’s leading pundits.
Encounters between European explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. Disease killed the entire native (Guanches) population of the Canary Islands in the 16th century. Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors.[54] Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 1600s. In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans.[55] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.[56] Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases.[57] Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous peoples had no such immunity.[58]
the allure of fairy tales, half tone pears, when the completely self sufficient ask for help
April 27, 2009 at 6:18 pm | In Philosophy & Religion, culture, history, photography, photoshop | Leave a Comment
According to Encarata on April 27, 1937 the first Social Security checks were distributed. Every Social Security check issued since then has been stashed under a mattress. Not one has ever paid for groceries from a local market or grocery super chain store. They have never been used to buy grandchildren toys from big corporate toy companies that live or die according to their quarterly profit statements. No Social Security money has ever paid a utility bill during a cold winter or steaming hot summer. Not one has ever paid the rent, bought a new pair of socks, a radio or a book with their Social Security. Social Security money is an anchor around America’s neck, that in no way is connected to anything else and has thus had zero benefit to our economy or culture. Nor has it been a hallmark of our humanity and foresight. * Stories passed verbally from generation to generation aside, not the first fairy tale, but some think the first modern published fairy tale(literature especially for children) was by Giovanni Francesco “Straparola” in 16th century Italy. Many adults also seem to enjoy fairy tales.
In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects was published. While many think of it as a feminists tome, it might be more important then that.A discovery. It raised the specter of something that had not been considered seriously since the ancient Greeks ( leaving out India’s eastern female centered beliefs) and more personal. In the way in science Joesph Priestly discovered that life thrives in some mysterious invisible substance called air, Wollstonecraft conceived of a place for women in the world that was not defined purely by male centric concepts of how life should be lived. She did not say out right that women were entitled to what at the time would have been considered a bizarre concept to anyone, but a few intellectuals like Thomas Jefferson, complete equality. She instead argued that women played an essential role in the world. That a dull uneducated wife was not as good for her husband, children or society as an educated one. She did feel that women were the moral equals of men. Dangerous ground to traditionalists that believed that rights, such as they were, were transferred simply by the keeping of tradition. One opponent argued that the domesticity of the home was the environment best suited to a woman’s temperament and disturbing those traditions would damage national domestic tranquility. Sound familiar. Woolstonecraft argued, as many philosophers and American revolutionaries did at the time, that rights were natural, given by God to everyone, thus to deny women’s rights was to deny God’s will.
If Texas Governor Perry secedes, if he has not mentally done so already, does that mean he’ll stop asking the federal gov’mint for money, In Attempt To Placate The Right Wing, Collins and Specter Endorsed Pandemic Flu Funding Cut
Now, in light of the current outbreak of swine flu, their attempts to placate the conservative wing of their party by standing up against extremely important funding priorities looks extremely shortsighted. Ironically, those ultra conservatives in office who led the fight against the stimulus, like Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), are seeking government assistance in addressing the swine flu outbreak.
shattered, men are no more promiscuous than women, they torture we act in good faith
April 26, 2009 at 6:05 pm | In culture, history, movies, photoshop, sociology | Leave a Comment
Men are no more promiscuous than women, survey finds
The study of more than 10,000 people in 18 countries seems to throw on its head the generally accepted expectations that men tend naturally towards promiscuity and women are more particular when it comes to choosing a mate.
[ ]…It also seemed to disprove the belief that some men are incredibly successful at mating while others fail altogether.
According to the research, apart from in some polygamous societies, the number of offspring is spread remarkably evenly across the population.
Dr Gillian Brown, of the University of St Andrews, said: “The study shows that women are just as likely to seek out just as many partners as men.
They cite a study by Angus Bateman in 1948 that propelled the popular myth that since men did not make much of an an investment in the raring of children – the sperm is cheap and plentiful why not spread it around hypothesis – they were in evolutionary terms programed to mate with as many partners as they could. Women on the other hand were more cautious and selective because having a child was a possible consequence. Raising one required such a huge investment in physical and economic terms. The male part of the equation always seemed off since for every male that desired multiple partners or wanted to cheat, it required a female to do so. Unless there has always been a pool of sorts of promiscuous females for every generation, females had to be seeking out mating opportunities nearly as often as men.
As a culture we seem to like the horn dog male myth. Comedians, sit-coms and movies use it ad nauseum as situational fodder. The roles are rarely reversed where the female as dog in heat cannot get past its mythical programming. Men seem to like the myth because it has a traditional, if stereotypical mystique. Women seem to enjoy it because it shows men as jerks and validates the feelings generated by their last bad relationship or marriage. As a culture we don’t seem to find female prowling as entertaining. The only modern popular female character that I can think of used to comic effect was Samantha from Sex in the City. In the series Felicity from the 90s ( the characters were once described as teens in college played by twenty somethings that had the wise reflections of a thirty-five year olds who had obviously read their Shakespeare) Felicity’s infidelities were protrayed as mistakes by a romantic and complex soul, while the males’ wanderings were portrayed as cold and calculating. There was a lot of subtle humor in the show, but the repercussions of cheating were always part of more serious scenes. Felicity did not break completely new ground, but was a huge leap from the Madame Bovary character created by Gustave Flaubert. Modern readers would probably call her a drama queen. Sex may have been important to Bovary, but its use as a path to a comfortable aristicratic life was her real goal. Where Samantha had fun with men, Emma had her fun at men’s expense.
paul newman, set of hud 1963. hud was a cynical user and a heel. newman once said in an interview it bothered him that some people that saw the character as someone to emulate.
Homer Bannon(Hud’s father): That’s your solution for getting out of a tight? To pass bad beef on to my neighbors who wouldn’t know what they was getting? Or maybe risk starting an epidemic in the entire country?
Hud Bannon: This country is run on epidemics, where you been? Price fixing, crooked TV shows, inflated expense accounts. How many honest men you know? Why you separate the saints from the sinners, you’re lucky to wind up with Abraham Lincoln. Now I want out of this spread what I put into it, and I say let us dip our bread into some of that gravy while it is still hot.
Homer Bannon: You’re an unprincipled young man Hud.
Hud Bannon: Don’t let that worry you none. You got enough for both of us.
What Hud says about the rarity of genuine integrity is probably more correct then is comfortable to think about. Its his conclusion that was the problem. Rather then deciding to be his own man in the sea of corruption he holds in contempt, he just wants his share even if it means cheating his neighbors or making some stranger sick.
When we do it, it is in good faith, just keep walking. When others do it, its degarding, humiliating, awful – In Chechen’s Humiliation, Questions on Rule of Law
What followed was no investigation. In a law enforcement compound in this town in east-central Chechnya, the men who served as Argun’s police sheared away her hair and her eyebrows and painted her scalp green, the color associated with Islam. A thumb-thick cross was smeared on her brow.
Ms. Soltayeva, a Muslim, had slept with a Christian Russian serviceman, they said. Her scarlet letter would be an emerald cross. She was forced to confess, ordered to strip, and beaten with wooden rods and hoses on her buttocks, arms, legs, hands, stomach and back.
[ ]…When she staggered away, several of them kicked her with their heavy black boots. Two days later she miscarried, and has been largely out of public view since.
The episode, which took place five months ago, was not investigated, even though videos showing the torture were passed along on cellphones throughout Argun and other Chechen towns. The videos circulated widely enough that accurate details of her abuse were known by roughly half of the Chechens interviewed by The New York Times.
Video commentary by Keith Olbermann who ” does an outstanding job of tackling and exposing the pile of lies on which this “honest policy debate”
sound news, old west town, for the powerful there are no consequences
April 24, 2009 at 6:47 pm | In constitution, news, photoshop, science | Leave a CommentThe hyena’s laugh as a multi-informative signal
The hyena does not laugh when it is having a good time. Rather, field biologists have noticed that hyenas make the sound when competing for food. The giggle is a sign of frustration, a call made by a subordinate animal when dominated by one of its peers.
Probably just coincidence , “Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Catherine Herridge joined other Fox News figures in advancing Marc Thiessen’s claim that the use of harsh interrogations techniques on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed “stopped an attack on the Library Tower.” Marc just hasn’t told his friends about his time machine yet or the pack has once again converged on a pile of old bones thinking there was some meat left.
Not that we get to pick our jiggly bits anyway, but either way there are always maintenance problems, Exploding bubbles in the prostate
In the traditional treatment for prostate growths, a rigid instrument is inserted through the penis and used to scrape away cells lining the walnut-sized gland.
[ ]…Unlike other therapeutic ultrasound technologies in development, which create heat to boil pathogenic tissue, histotripsy mechanically breaks apart tissue with shorter, strong pulses of ultrasound. These pulses create tiny bubbles out of dissolved gas in prostate tissue. As the bubbles violently collapse, they release tiny shock waves, a phenomena called acoustic cavitation. Over tens of thousands of pulses, the combined force of these cavitations liquefies nearby tissue into slurry that is eliminated through the urine.
Maybe a rush to judgement, but the new ultra-sound method sounds much nicer. Male readers can stop wincing now.
Not taking into account unitended consequences is a pretty common human flaw. Still some people are so blinded by arrogance that their insights, combined with power are dangerous. If you’re an average American you’ll end up paying one way or the other. If you’re powerful other people pay for your mistakes,
Boren, who chaired the Senate intelligence committee from 1987 to 1993 and is now president of the University of Oklahoma, said that attending the briefings was “one of the most deeply disturbing experiences I have had” and that “I wanted to take a bath when I heard it. I was ashamed of it.” He said he concluded that “fear was used to justify the use of techniques that violate our values and weaken our intelligence” and that the agency did not prove those methods “are particularly effective at getting the truth.”
One of those present said that when asked, the CIA officers acknowledged that some foreign intelligence agencies had refused, for example, to share information about the location of terrorism suspects for fear of becoming implicated in any eventual torture of those suspects. Sources said that Jones shared these concerns and that, as a former military officer, he worried that any use of harsh interrogations by the United States could make it more likely that American soldiers in captivity would be subjected to similar tactics.
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