SwineFluential

I saw this picture of a guy who looked sort of like a peacock and thought it was funny so now I am sharing it with all those who haven't caught the swine flu yet - 99.999999999999% of the world's population. They are the ones who might find this amusing. Of course, the drug companies absolutely adore the new flu - it means millions of extra dollars in their accounts by next Fall. Does anyone remember Bernie Madoff? Or Governor Spitzer? Or the Russian war against Georgia? This swine flu thing is a blessing for anyone caught up in a scandal. Too bad that by next month it will be a thing of the past. We must wait until next Fall for the next installment. Please.

Pig

From a Yahoo! News story: “WASHINGTON – No matter what you call it, leading experts say the virus that is scaring the world is pretty much all pig. So while the U.S. government and now the World Health Organization are taking the swine out of "swine flu," the experts who track the genetic heritage of the virus say this: If it is genetically mostly porcine and its parents are pig viruses, it smells like swine flu to them. Six of the eight genetic segments of this virus strain are purely swine flu and the other two segments are bird and human, but have lived in swine for the past decade, says Dr. Raul Rabadan, a professor of computational biology at Columbia University. A preliminary analysis shows that the closest genetic parents are swine flu strains from North America and Eurasia, Rabadan wrote in a scientific posting in a European surveillance network. "Scientifically this is a swine virus," said top virologist Dr. Richard Webby, a researcher at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. Webby is director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza Viruses in Lower Animals and Birds. He documented the spread a decade ago of one of the parent viruses of this strain in scientific papers.” I must say that the pig lobby must be pretty powerful if they can get the curly tail to wag the pig. The man at left does not care either way. As for me, I'll call it swine flu as much as I want - it's still a free speech country, no?

Extreme measures

As you can see, some people are being ingenious when it comes to creating a protection against the swine flu. The story is that retailers have run out of masks so one solution would be this. I would not have thought of it myself. Then again, I'm not afraid of the swine flu - I have a natural immunity. In case you don't know, the media is playing this up for all it's worth because they need to sell papers and magazines and internet ads. Please.

Swine

From a Yahoo! News story: "JERUSALEM – The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday. Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and "we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu," he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel. Both Judaism and Islam consider pigs unclean and forbid the eating of pork products." If this suggestion is not dumb I don't know what is. Is mad cow disease to be renamed because Hindus consider cows to be sacred and they might be offended by the term? The swine flu is so named because it is carried by pigs. Stay away from pigs. And stay away from mad cows. Please. Anyway, I don't think Mrs Clinton cares one way or the other.

Embarrassment

From a Yahoo! News story: “HAVANA – Fidel Castro says President Barack Obama "misinterpreted" his brother Raul's remarks regarding the United States and bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on dollars people send to the island. That appeared to enrage Fidel Castro, 82, who wrote in an essay published Wednesday that Obama "without a doubt misinterpreted Raul's declarations." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had a different perspective on Fidel Castro's essay while speaking about Cuba policy with the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. She said that while Fidel Castro had "contradicted" his brother's previous statements about Cuba's willingness to discuss a whole range of issues with the U.S., it shows "there is beginning to be a debate" inside Cuba about how to move forward with U.S. relations.”

This is actually more embarrassing for the Castros than for anyone else. Of course, there is a risk that Fidel Castro might never die – then what? The lady at left does not care – she’s not even Cuban.

Civilization first

From a Yahoo! News story: “GENEVA – The United Nations opens its first global racism conference in eight years on Monday with the U.S. and at least five other countries boycotting the event out of concern that Islamic countries will demand that it denounce Israel and ban criticism of Islam. The administration of President Barack Obama, America's first black head of state, announced Saturday that it would boycott "with regret" the weeklong meeting in Geneva, which already is experiencing much of the bickering and political infighting that marred the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa. The Netherlands declared its boycott Sunday, while Australia, Canada, Israel and Italy already have said they would not attend. "I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe," Obama said in Trinidad on Sunday after attending the Summit of the Americas. But he said the language of the U.N.'s draft declaration risked a reprise of Durban, during which "folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were often times completely hypocritical and counterproductive. We expressed in the run-up to this conference our concerns that if you adopted all of the language from 2001, that's not something we can sign up for," Obama said.” Almost everyone knows by now that there’s nothing more that U.N. diplomats love than a good long conference in a nice civilized city somewhere. The whole exercise is dumb, meaningless, and hypocritical.

What Poverty???

From a New York Times article: “Poor people have I.Q.s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics. After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart, for example, have I.Q.s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of fraternal twins who grow up together. If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.” How dumb can anybody get? I.Q. is only part of the poverty issue. There are lots and lots of poor people who are very intelligent. There are also lots and lots of rich people who are very dumb. A person can marry money and can also inherit money. They can also win the lottery. Poverty is concentrated among nations whose people are generally (1) inactive; (2) don’t have a cohesive society, (3) do not enjoy good health, and (4) unimaginative. (1) If you stay put all day (if you are inert) you will find that money will not fall down on you from the sky. (2) If you live in a society where people are adversaries and do not work as a family group, where there is no sense of community and belonging, then achievement and progress become almost impossible. (3) If you live in a society where people die young, you will find people struggling simply to stay alive and a life that could be productive for 70 years is simply productive for 30 or 40. (4) If people work hard and live long and work well together but have no imagination, they will also not prosper as much. Education is part of the solution but certainly not all of it. This article in the New York Times is just an effort to sell more books.