The Blog of Harald

There’s a news story today about how antibiotic resistant bugs are on the rise again. Ah, but this time doctors are blaming patients; it seems we’re “demanding” antibiotics for all of our ailments.

Here’s the kicker: antibiotics are prescription drugs (up here in Canada). If you don’t think the patient needs them, *don’t prescribe them*! Passing the buck to patients is just plain irresponsible.

MSNBC – First Amendment no big deal, students say

bq. The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.

bq. Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

Wow.

bq. They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. — Ben Franklin

or even better:

bq. I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire

Scary statistics from the CIA world factbook. The 45% of the population is under 14; the median age is 17; the average life expectancy is 42.5. Why?

AIDS…

I’m going to (briefly) break a “long standing trend”:http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/archives/2003/01/16/blogging-politics/.

I find myself completely apathetic about the events of Tuesday. In fact, I didn’t even know what was going on until Wednesday morning when I arrived at work and my cow-orkers were chatting. But I know several people who are majorly bummed about the results. Is this simply part of my whole “If there’s nothing I can do, there’s no point getting worked up” philosophy, or am I missing something fundamental about what it means to have “W” back in power for another four years?

I think the coming crisis for the US (and therefore world) economies has little to do with which president is in power; it has more to do with greedy multinational corporations and lax regulation (which isn’t going to change anytime soon), and with the impending energy crisis; neither of which is going to be affected by any US president…

There was a “major accident on the 401”:http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/09/29/hwy_crash040929.html this morning. Two trucks collided, and one caught fire. The cleanup closed the express lanes in both direction through Yonge Street during the morning rush hour; traffic was backed up all over the city as a result. (The westbound collectors are under construction through that section, so the highway went from 5 lanes to only 1 through that stretch, if I remember correctly). Worse, the fire damaged the roadbed in the westbound lanes, which means it’ll be a while before they can re-open them. I suppose it’s possible that the fire damaged the underlying bridge structure, in which case we’re completely hosed…

Anyway, I don’t drive the 401 (although I cross over it every day; that was a bizarre sight). However, there was a huge traffic backup across the bottom of the city this morning too; the Gardiner Expressway / DVP were stop and go from about Gerrard all the way across to _Islington_. Apparently our traffic network is so overloaded that a 401 closure causes backups on the other side of the city…

Avoiding technology has it’s drawbacks:

Hurricane JEANNE

bq. WE ARE REMINDED THAT FROM SUNDOWN TONIGHT UNTIL SUNDOWN SATURDAY IS YOM KIPPUR…A SOLEMN JEWISH HOLIDAY. SOME OF YOUR JEWISH NEIGHBORS IN THE WATCH AND WARNING AREAS OBSERVING YOM KIPPUR WILL NOT BE LISTENING TO RADIOS OR WATCHING TV…AND MAY NOT BE AWARE OF THE HURRICANE SITUATION.

Jewish law does say that personal safety is more important than religious observance. So, for example, it should be ok to drive one’s car in order to evacuate from the hurricane watch zone. But the question remains: how many people will miss the warnings? Current predictions have the storm making landfall in Florida before sunset tomorrow…

Stay safe, everyone.

The commentary is the usual, but I loved Mr. Greenspun’s way of phrasing it:

bq. American labor is wonderful but it is a luxury that most American families can’t afford

(from Philip Greenspun’s Weblog:)

I’ve been paying a lot more attention to Hurricanes all of a sudden. I could claim it’s because of the upcoming Kitefest (we were worried about getting rained out, but it seems Ivan is going to stall in the Appalachians and leave us alone), but I think it’s simple fascination.

But for some reason, I’ve got a Tragically Hip song stuck in my head…

That’s the first time _ever_ I’ve had to remove my belt to get through the airport security checkpoint. My wife had to take her shoes off!

Keep in mind, when reading this, that I have travelled in Europe during their anti-terrorism crackdowns; there’s no comparison. The United States is more interested in the appearance of security. For example, I watched two separate TSA agents walk into the bathroom, look at an “abandoned” suitcase sitting there, and walk out again…

Anyway, we’re home, safe and sound. It’s too bad we didn’t get to see the VAB _before_ Frances punched great big holes in it…

The north eyewall (what’s left of it) is less than 40 miles south of us, according to Channel 13’s spiffy doppler radar. The storm has lost quite a bit of strength; it’s impressive out there, but no flying alligators yet!

The big hassle with this storm is its size; we’ve been under it for over 18 hours now, and it’ll be at least another 18 before it calms down enough for emergency crews to start opening everything up again. Fortunately we have power, and Footloose is on VH1 right now :-)

So I’m staring out the window at rain falling at 45° and the trees starting to lean over… Part of me wishes Frances would just _get_ here already; the suspense is wearing. It was supposed to arrive Friday, then Saturday, now Sunday early morning.

Our hotel is open, and packed with people who have fled their homes, both from Orlando and farther east. We still have power; we’ll see how long it lasts, as they’re predicting that most of Florida will be darkened by this storm. The hotel is currently planning a curfew at 10PM tonight, until at least 10AM tomorrow. But the storm has stalled, so I’m not sure if they’ll change those times.

On the plus side, the storm track has moved; we’re no longer centered in her sights :). The hurricane is predicted to move across Florida and keep going west. That means that there is _some_ chance that our airplane will actually leave Toronto on Monday, so that we can go home again!

These days it is stories like these that keep me awake at night.

* “China – An Energy Timebomb?”:http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2004/08/china-energy-timebomb.html
* “Basic Choices and Constraints on Long−Term Energy Supplies”:http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-57/iss-7/p47.html

Basically: We’ll run out of oil in my lifetime; long before that, it will be expensive, and then rationed. Alternative sources simply can’t fill the gap; we do not have the capability to replace just our electricity needs with renewable energy, never mind our other energy needs. Even if North America switched to nuclear power, we’d run out of fuel in 35-58 years, a mere band-aid for the problem.

Meanwhile, SUVs are the fastest growing market segment in China, and GM is actively marketing them.

I haven’t the faintest idea what we’re going to do about this looming crisis; I do know that our current technique (hiding our heads in the sand) isn’t going to cut it.

Yuck!

Yahoo! News – Kids Plus Rocks Equals 120,000 Angry Bees

Reminds me of watching “The Swarm”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078350/ when I was a kid. Not so amusing is that African “killer” bees are “slowly moving north”:http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/killerbees.html across the USA, and interbreeding with our European honey bees…

<tongue-in-cheek>

Quebec has 75 seats in the House of Commons. Quebec has the Bloc Québécois, a Federal party that really serves Quebec interests over those of the country (if you believe their critics, anyway :-).

Ontario has 106 seats in the House. I think we should form and elect the Ontario party and get _our_ special interests taken care of at the Federal level…

</tongue-in-cheek>

I thought I was being funny, but then I went digging around on the “Elections Canada”:http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=pol&document=index&dir=par&lang=e&textonly=false website, and found that “The Ontario Party of Canada” does/did exist, but lost their eligibility to be registered. I found a “canoe article”:http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/05/01/442912.html describing the party and its brief history.

I guess I’m not as original as I thought :-)

A Kansas company wants to export beef to Japan, despite the Japanese ban on all American beef. The Japanese have said they will accept beef that has been tested using a $20/head, government approved, “rapid test”. The USDA told them not to.

bq. The rationale for the USDA decision was that the rapid testing was only approved as a measure for surveillance of animal health and that Creekstone’s 100% testing proposal would have “implied a consumer safety aspect that is not scientifically warranted.”

There is apparently _way_ too much cattle money in Washington…

(via “Plastic”:http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=04/04/11/16342611 )

* “Phil Ringnalda”:http://philringnalda.com/ has a “good comment”:http://philringnalda.com/blog/2004/03/i_want_a_new_country.php on “this village voice article”:http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0409/conaway.php on Bush’s anti-gay constitution ruckus by Laura Conaway.

* “chuqui”:http://www.plaidworks.com has “a rant about the NHL”:http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/001374.html and the whole Bertuzzi thing.

Health – canada.com network

bq. New research suggests that the human form of mad cow disease is a lot more complicated than originally thought, and, potentially, much scarier.

bq. Scientists have long agreed that eating cattle tissue infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy – mad cow disease – can cause the human form of the disease, known as variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.

bq. But recent animal tests indicate that eating infected beef may also cause another form of the disease, classical CJD, forcing scientists to re-examine assumptions about the nature of the deadly disease and raising fears that it may be more widespread than previously thought.

bq. The accepted wisdom has been that classical CJD has nothing to do with mad cows. It affects older people, those over 55, and generally occurs spontaneously at the rate of about one person per million per year.

bq. It has been confused with Alzheimer’s disease and there is some concern that because of misdiagnosis, it may be more widespread than the confirmed numbers indicate.

CJD may be going undetected because budget cutbacks mean fewer autopsies, and in many cases that’s the only way to diagnose CJD. Still, I think you’re more likely to get hit by a beef delivery truck than contract CJD from beef, at least here…

bq. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

bq. — General Herman Goering, President of German Reichstag and Nazi Party

(via “Reid”:http://rae.tnir.org/archives/2004_01.html#000446)

Oh brother. (Or is that Big Brother?) The FBI has “issued an alert against almanac carriers”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20031230/ap_on_re_us/fbi_almanacs

bq. The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.

I guess that means tourists with Rand-McNally road atlases and cameras should be pulled over too.

The nicest thing that can be said about this directive is that it is pointless; the net is too wide. There are nastier things I could say…

(via “Perverse Access Memory”:http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/005015.html)

In a move that is eerily familiar, it looks like the USDA is more interested in convincing people that US beef is safe than it is in actually making it safe, according to “United Press International: USDA refused to release mad cow records”:http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031223-103657-3424r

And naturally, they’re still “blaming Canada”:http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=516712 .

Maybe it really is time to stop eating hamburger, or to be truly safe, all beef. That would suck, but then so would variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease…