Our forefathers were responsible for global warming. I don't know if this article belongs in Joe's friend's blog, NCBI ROFL.
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Paul Krugman sums it up.
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The news outlets are full of reports about the impending global epidemic of swine flu. With cold weather on its way in the northern hemisphere and regular flu season beginning around September, we are being warned about a sharp uptick in the spread of the H1N1 (aka swine flu) virus. Drug companies are scrambling to produce a vaccine against the virus. Mass vaccination was earlier expected to be in full swing by the middle of October. Now US health officials are saying that the vaccine supply will fall short of their earlier estimate thereby delaying the vaccination campaign.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials Monday said they had slashed their estimate of how many swine flu vaccine doses will be available for the start of a mass vaccination campaign in the fall. Citing delays in manufacturing and packaging the vaccines, the Department of Health and Human Services said only 45 million doses of the new H1N1 vaccine would be on hand in mid-October, instead of the 120 million previously forecast.
The revised delivery guidelines would push back a government estimate that all those requiring vaccinations be immunized by the first week of December.
"Our latest information from the manufacturers tells us that we now expect to have about 45 million doses by October 15 with approximately 20 million doses being delivered each week Thereafter, up to the 195 million doses that we have purchased," Bill Hall, an HHS spokesman, said in an e-mail.
The Geneva-based World Health Organisation declared H1N1 a full pandemic in June, and the virus has spread to about 180 countries. World health officials have said people should receive the two-dose swine flu vaccination as well as the single-dose seasonal flu vaccination this year.
Now, I don't mean to come across as dismissive of the dangers of a swine flu outbreak. If I had young children of school age or family members with respiratory conditions like asthma, I would be concerned. However, having grown up in a country with rampant infectious agents in the environment, in an era when few vaccines were available, I am a bit more realistic about what can or cannot be done during the spread of a contagious disease. When I was a child in the 1950s, we lived amidst routine outbreaks of small pox (this scary disease would be controlled and eradicated only a couple of decades later), cholera, typhoid, whooping cough, malaria, measles, mumps, jaundice, dysentery and flu. Tuberculosis was widespread in the population. Leprosy victims sat at street corners and came to one's front door to beg for food and money (leprosy is not contagious in the short term). One never knew what one would be exposed to on stepping out of the home and being in crowded places. Almost every place in India is a crowded place.
My sister and I grew up in the care of an intelligent and hygienically cautious mother. From early childhood we were trained to acquire some common-sensical habits without becoming unduly paranoid. Our mother taught us to:
- Avoid touching surfaces (hand rails, eg.) in public places that many others are likely to have touched.
- To always carry a handkerchief to cover the mouth and nose when others coughed or sneezed around us and also when we did.
- Not share food or drinks with others when saliva too is likely to be shared.
- Above all, to wash hands with soap many times during the day, especially before eating.
- We were regularly vaccinated whenever a vaccine became available.
My sister and I were very healthy children and have remained mostly disease free well into our middle age. Perhaps we are blessed with good immune systems or it is pure dumb luck. Or it could be that our mother's training bore fruit.
To protect yourself and your kids against swine flu (or any other flu) during the high flu season, you should do all the things that my mother taught me and some more.
- Stay in touch with your doctor regarding the availability of the vaccine and sign your children up as candidates.
- Avoid unnecessary contact with other people. For example, tell your children that instead of high fiving with open palms, they should celebrate an exuberant moment with a fist bump.
- Refrain from practices such as drinking from a shared bottle.
- Minimize time spent in closed places (movie theaters, planes) as far as possible.
- Always pack a bottle of Purell or some other hand sanitizer for frequent use when soap and water are not accessible.
- Carry a clean napkin or handkerchief (sterile masks if you are really concerned) to cover the nose and mouth around people with persistent coughs.
- At the first sign of flu like symptoms, please visit the doctor. Early intervention is the best line of defense.
I am sure most of you are aware of these precautions and probably the steps are already in place for your family. I am reinforcing them as a mature person who knows from experience that simple cautionary steps help even in panicky times.
There is another preventive measure that my mother taught us which you may not know and I have never seen it mentioned anywhere in public health guidelines. Gargling and irrigating the nasal passages with warm saline water is a stunningly effective way to destroy pathogens in our respiratory tract. During cold season when respiratory diseases are common, this practice (once or twice a day) can ward off many infections as well as any medication available at the pharmacy. I am not sure if this method will work against the H1N1 virus. But there’s no harm trying. See if you can inculcate this habit in your kids and yourself. Good luck and stay well.
(For more swine flu related cartoons from all over the world, see here)
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The distasteful, disgraced and now mercifully resigned, Tom DeLay, the former US Congressman from my voting district has a new gimmick up his sleeve to get back into the public eye. The Hammer will be dancing with the stars.
Update: From the Houston Chronicle :
WASHINGTON —Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, better known for his hard sell than his soft sole, is making an improbable comeback in a different kind of competition.
ABC TV announced Monday that the longtime Houston Republican will join former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin, one-time child pop star Donny Osmond, model Kathy Ireland and a dozen other celebrities from the worlds of fashion, entertainment and sports on the ninth season of the popular television series Dancing with the Stars.
DeLay, whose own political star dimmed after his 2005 indictment by an Austin grand jury, already is revving up his legendary political machine to get viewers' votes.
“This is going to be so much fun,” he declared Monday in the inaugural post on his new Twitter account. “I will need your support.” …
Looking for a comeback?
Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York, agreed that Dancing can help relaunch a stalled career — for an entertainer.
“But if you were once a major force in national politics and you're on Dancing With The Stars, I think one has to be aware the reason you're being cast is because you're one of the ‘funny' contestants,” he said, “one of the ones that we're supposed to be mocking. Political redemption, even coming back from the brink, is not impossible, but I don't think dancing is the way you'd start doing it. It's a different thing for Marie Osmond than for Tom DeLay.”
To prepare for the Sept. 21 season premiere, DeLay, 62, is working out regularly and has dropped 12 pounds.
While DeLay may enter the competition with low expectations, he has one strategic advantage: ABC is adding the “two-step,” a Texas favorite and a DeLay specialty, to the roster of possible dances.
Longtime DeLay loyalists warn the liberal media not to underestimate the wicked waltzer (and disco king) from Sugar Land.
“Don't be fooled,” says former DeLay spokesman Stuart Roy. “He's actually a pretty good dancer.”
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I think it might properly raise moral consciousness if someone opened a dalmatian farm, where free-range dogs were raised in pleasant environs, on natural, antibody-free meat, killed painlessly and humanely and sold as steak.
Why this particular rant? Well, here’s a nice article encouraging people to forgive transgressors:
A central message is that harboring a grudge appears to be detrimental to both psychological and physical well-being. “People who have been able to forgive show clear health benefits,” says Kathleen Lawler-Row, who chairs the psychology department at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., and has published her findings in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine and the Journal of Psychophysiological Research. “Whether we’re looking at heart rate and blood pressure or whether we’re looking at the number of medicines someone is on, their quality of sleep or the number of physical symptoms they report. Almost every way I’ve thought to measure it, people who have been able to think forgivingly show health benefits.”
The article goes on in this vein for a while. Now, I’ve often thought there’s some considerable credulous wish-thinking about the forgiveness industry, and maybe I’ll write about that some day. Still, obviously forgiveness is a good thing to do at least some of the time, and as the author notes, it can confer health benefits upon the forgiver, test his character, aid offender rehabilitation and the like.
But who is to be the target of our great, ennobling, healthful forgiveness? Who might we be in a rage over? George Bush? Osama bin Laden? Narendra Modi? The Burmese junta? Pol Pot? Bernie Madoff? No, it’s Michael Vick, assailer of dog. Because that is the great moral dilemma, straining our moral fiber, corroding our innards as we smolder. Seriously. I understand people have pets, and indeed I care about animal welfare. The arguments of someone like Peter Singer gain some purchase upon me (they made me go vegetarian), but this Vick hysteria strikes me as madness.
I really do wish there were such a farm, perhaps in New Jersey. It’s existence might cause some moral reflection. I assume and hope people would continue to think it bad to electrocute dogs for fighting badly. I also don’t doubt that at least some people in a reflective equilibrium would continue to attach a special moral significance to canis lupus familiaris, perhaps because we’ve coevolved with them or something. But I do hope they’d find it at least slightly weird to get so frenzied over dog fighting, while countenancing cock-fighting or bull-fighting, and while consuming more meat and dairy than people ever have in the past. There probably isn’t enough significance attached to the welfare of animals at large, but it also seems obvious to me that too much is attached to that of cute, photogenic or cuddly ones, and it being that being easy on the eye has no particular ecological or ethical significance, that over-weighting seems untenable.
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Two items in the news regarding web based networks – the social dynamics of Facebook and the limits of free speech on blogs.
ALBANY, N.Y. – Alice Connors-Kellgren was surprised by her boyfriend's new Facebook profile picture a few weeks ago: He was kissing another girl on the cheek.
The picture was up only briefly. And she figures it was just a friend. But she plans to discuss it with him when they're back together this fall at Cornell University.
"We trust each other. Deep down, I know nothing is going on. But when you first see it, it's like `Oh my goodness! What's going on here?'" says the college student from Westchester County, N.Y.
All this friending, poking and picture-posting on Facebook can get you in trouble with your significant other. Couples are finding that old flames and flirty friends on the social networking site have a unique ability to stir jealousy and suspicion. …
"It seems like Facebook is creating jealousy even where there was not jealousy to begin with," said Amy Muise, a doctoral candidate at the University of Guelph's psychology department who led a recent study on how Facebook can spark jealousy in romantic relationships among college students.
She said Facebook doesn't necessarily make people more jealous than they would be normally. But all the information divulged on Facebook — those answers to "What's on your mind?" and reactions to those posts — can increase "triggers" for jealousy.
"Part of the issue with information on Facebook is that it lacks certain context, " Muise said, "so there could be things posted on your partner's wall that you really don't know what it means."
And then there is the blogger who threatened federal judges on his blog and has landed in jail. How about threatening doctors, businesses or the president of the United States?
CHICAGO — Internet radio host Hal Turner disliked how three federal judges rejected the National Rifle Association's attempt to overturn a pair of handgun bans.
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed," Turner wrote on his blog on June 2, according to the FBI. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions."
The next day, Turner posted photographs of the appellate judges and a map showing the Chicago courthouse where they work, noting the placement of "anti-truck bomb barriers." When an FBI agent appeared at the door of his New Jersey home, Turner said he meant no harm.
He is now behind bars awaiting trial, accused of threatening the judges and deemed by a U.S. magistrate as too dangerous to be free.
Turner's case is likely to test the limits of political speech at a time when incendiary talk is proliferating on broadcast outlets and the Internet, from the microphones of well-known commentators to the keyboards of anonymous netizens. President Obama has been depicted as a Nazi and slain Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller as "Tiller the killer." On guns and abortion, war and torture, taxes and now health care, the commentary feeds off pools of anger that ebb and flow with the zeitgeist.
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Can someone tell me how Ireland plans to enforce this law without turning into a country like Saudi Arabia? The weird thing is that the law was passed last month and not in the past century.
When a modern Western country whose economy is based on science and technology adopts an absurdly medieval law, one would think that this would be a news story of at least moderate size.
Oddly though, almost no attention has been paid in the United Stares to the passing last month of a bill establishing a crime of blasphemy in Ireland.
Approved by the Irish parliament, it states: "A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding 25,000 euro."
Furthermore, "a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."
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Malcolm Gladwell, the tireless social commentator and examiner of sacred cows and conventional wisdoms has another provocative piece out. This time he analyzes the cultural and moral disposition of Atticus Finch, a leading character in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the celebrated American novel set in the deep south of the 1930s Depression era. In the New Yorker article Gladwell takes a look not just at Finch the man, but also the lawyer. I did not know until I read the Gladwell piece that the fictional Finch's court room tactics on behalf of his beleaguered client has occasionally been a topic of discussion among real life lawyers. I suppose one does analyze and fret over fictional characters when those characters become iconic symbols with respect to societal arrangements and our comfort levels with accepted norms.
The main question posed by Gladwell however, is: When confronted with unpleasant or unethical laws and practices, whether public figures (authors, politicians, lawyers and others) have an obligation to use their platforms to reform such wrongs with vigorous opposition if necessary, or must they work within the system and let their own personal decency be the guideline for bringing about incremental "live-and-let-live" variety of accommodations?
Since Finch's lawyering skills are discussed at length by Gladwell, I asked my lawyer co-bloggers to comment on the essay. I heard back from a couple of them.
Joe, a recent law school graduate asked:
"I can't stop myself from pointing out that Gladwell is annoying and overrated. But apart from that, I just don't understand why so many people seem to care about the arguable personal failings of a fictional trial lawyer."
Another co-blogger Anna, a disabilities rights attorney who has been in the legal profession for some time had more to say:
"Unlike Joe, I often like Gladwell's pieces, but this one doesn't work for me. My basic problem is that Gladwell avoids obvious textual readings to force a novel thesis. The worst case of this is his reading of Boo Radley at the end. It's explicit in the book that Boo Radley is not just "reclusive"; he has traits we would probably now describe as a developmental disability. And he's no more "respectable" than Tom Robinson. It's not the "burden of angel-food cake" that worry Atticus and the Sherriff, but concern over how Boo would hold up under the scrutiny that would accompany the cake. The book clearly connects the characters of Tom and Boo as harmless outsiders at the mercy of an often unkind world: the eponymous mockingbirds of the title, whom Atticus says that it is a sin to kill, because
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
The politics based on that view are certainly open to criticism, but not through the trite race/class/gender bias-swap that Gladwell posits. Gladwell's right that To Kill a Mockingbirdis, in many ways, a conservative book, but Lee's blind spot is not so much complacency as it is paternalism. As with Uncle Tom's Cabin, in many ways TKM's obvious ancestor, the book's weakness is that in its appeal to readers' sentiments, it limits its underdogs' characters to noble savages.
Whether the Aristotelian value of human decency and empathy within a society troubled by structural injustice is necessarily bad, or just incomplete, is a separate question that I am too tired to tackle here. Ditto the related question– given the strengths and weaknesses of our current President– of compromise versus confrontation. I tend to believe that the world needs both. "Power concedes nothing without a demand" (Frederick Douglass), but zig-zag battles for hearts and minds create fertile territory for the demand, and are important to implementation of a demand that's been satisfied with an order. Brown v. Board of Education carries tremendous declaratory import, but had Folsom or someone else succeeded in equally funding traditionally black schools, regardless of the reasons for doing so, the process of actually carrying out Brown's dictates would have been far easier.
Because it does not fit his thesis, Gladwell also wholly misses the book's point about Due Process– that justice requires a lawyer to provide the best representation possible even to someone hated and already condemned in the court of public opinion…and that requirement holds true even if the other actors in the process (here, the jury) do not hold up their end of the bargain. I continue to believe in that moral– the value of due process- though having represented more than my share of underdogs and accused, I also think it's hard not to become embittered by the adversarial system."
More thoughts, anyone? Legalistic or just common sensical? Also, have any of the law blogs discussed the Gladwell article?
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Stephen Bainbridge, a conservative law professor at UCLA, in response to Brian's veganism poll:
[T]he efforts by some vegans to turn the issue into a political one,
using the state to regulate food choices (see, e.g., foie gras bans),
needs to be resisted at every opportunity.But the same Professor Bainbridge on gay marriage:
I don't have particularly strong views one way or the other on the
issue of gay marriage as a legal institution. As long as the government
isn't telling the Catholic Church (or any other church) that it has to
recognize gay marriages as a religious matter, my libertarian instincts
incline me to take a laissez faire attitude towards marriage as a legal
institution.Whatever happens with the legal institution of
marriage, however, ought to happen as a result of democratic processes
rather than by judicial fiat.So when the democratic process results in laws banning foie gras because the people of a state disapprove of foie gras, it's a bad law. This type of result ought to be resisted. But when the democratic process (which apparently does not include courts interpreting constitutions) results in laws banning same-sex marriage because the people disapprove of same-sex marriage, meh. It doesn't really matter.
Consumers of food should have more rights against the tyranny of the majority than GLBT persons? Am I being unfair in reading his position this way? I really don't think so.
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Brian Leiter has a poll on his law blog asking about veganism as a moral choice. I haven't thought deeply about this — I'm not giving up meat, although I admire those who do — but isn't the poll missing a choice? Given that vegetarianism is more prevalent than veganism, it's plausible that a fair number of people don't consider veganism to be morally superior to vegetarianism.1 These people wouldn't think veganism is the most morally defensible diet. How are they supposed to vote?
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1. It's also possible that they're like me but a little more committed, so they're willing to cut out shrimp, chicken, lamb, etc., but they're not willing to go so far as to cut cheese or eggs or yogurt out of their diets. -
My recent post on peace and happiness reminded me of one of my paintings whose title was Serenity. I have never put up my paintings for sale. But I did end up selling just one and it was Serenity. A good friend of mine really, really wished to have it. She is a psychologist / counselor and wanted the painting for her office where she thought it would exude a peaceful aura. After much friendly persuasion, I agreed to sell it to her knowing that it would be in good hands and that I would always know where to find it. The title was not my choice. My art instructor Joanie Furrow suggested it when I needed names for my paintings during an exhibition. (More of my paintings here)
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The first casualty in war is truth, closely followed by the rule of law. In the run up to and during the Iraq war the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration bombarded us with lies and their war efforts were riddled with unlawful actions that skirted or directly violated US as well as international laws. Among the extra-legal methods of warfare that the Bush administration engaged in was the deployment of "private security" personnel to protect US interests in Iraq. These para-military forces did not have to abide by US military rules, were armed, dangerous, fanatical and above all greedy. Manned by trigger happy bullies, they acted as the US government's Praetorian Guard, mercenaries with a license to kill and plunder.
Most prominent among the private security contractors in Iraq was the outfit Blackwater. Its chief Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAl, is not only a war profiteer but also a religious zealot who saw his mission as that of a Christian soldier on a crusade against Islam. Although the Bush administration chose to look the other way, the excesses of Blackwater were noted by journalists, Iraqi citizens who saw their fellow Iraqis being killed and bullied by its operatives and sometimes even by the firm's own employees. As the truth about its unlawful actions in Iraq began to dribble out into the media, Blackwater decided to change its name to Xe to avoid recognition and perhaps also to evade prosecution. Now it is reported that despite secretive maneuvers to keep his criminal wrong doings under wraps, Prince is under investigation for the murder of witnesses against Blackwater who may have co-operated with federal authorities. Other charges against him include allegations of war crimes. So much for exporting democracy with the help of murderous thugs.
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.
These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater's motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.
Update: More details of the charges (including child prostitution) against Blackwater here.
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"If you wish to win public support for your healthcare plan, please stop calling it Healthcare Reform and instead try selling it as Health Insurance Reform. Americans like the health care they are getting for the most part but are tired of being jerked around by insurance companies. Best of luck!"
Accidental Blogger 
