Thinking about influenza

I never paid much attention to the flu in the past. If I caught it, I got sick, ate chicken soup and got better. No biggie. As I get older, however, my asthma seems to react more and more strongly with each bout of flu or cold I get. Last year, for the first time in many years, I had to go get breathing treatments.

Why am I mentioning this?

Every year there are more people who are being diagnosed with asthma as they get older. Every year, more children get asthma. For these people, in whom the flu might not have been a big deal previously, it could now be deadly, or at least more incapacitating than before. Something to think about.

This swine flu thing has a bunch of people freaked out but it also has quite a few media types downplaying the significance of this disease. Yes, people don't seem to be dying of swine flu in the US as much an in Mexico. But this doesn't mean that the disease is mild. It's beginning to appear that this strain might have a similar mortality rate to the regular flu. The old-fashioned garden-variety seasonal influenza kills approximately 30,000 people a year in the USA. Hundreds of thousands more are sickened. Let that sink in. Now think about what would happen if a pandemic hits, where millions of people come down with a disease within a very short period of time. It doesn't matter if the mortality rate of the pandemic disease is only the same as regular flu. That many people all getting sick, being out of work, staying home in fear and, yes, dying, IS going to have an impact on society at large and you in particular.

Pay attention. Wash your hands. Stay home if you're sick. You've heard all this from the government and other sources. What you don't hear as frequently is that it's probably a really good idea to get stocked up on some basic provisions: canned food, bottled water. Keep your car's fuel tank topped off. Think about the impact to your daily life if you got a call that said your child's school is being closed. Can you telecommute to work? Are there any corporate plans to be aware of in the event of a period of isolation?

This isn't being paranoid, it's being practical. Even if nothing happens directly to your or your family, use this as an opportunity to restock your hurricane supplies (FL bias; that's where I live). Talk to your friends and family, especially those that my live alone or have disabilities that restrict movement. What are their plans if they get sick? Who's going to help take care of them? Even if it doesn't kill them, you have to consider the effects of being alone, sick, possibly having the stores closed and having the normal support structures disrupted.

Let's not let this catch us with our pants down. Let's pay attention and deal with this as calmly and as rationally as possible.

Oh, and stop making out with pigs. This thing will spread all on its own, we don't have to help it out.

Some resources:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC Social Media tools
Follow @CDCemergency on Twitter

Some good blogs following this stuff:
Effect Measure
Greg Laden's blog

I think we need waterboarding license plates

If we're going to have the state sponsor putting a person being tortured on a license plate, I say we need fair representation of all forms of torture. Waterboarding is big in the news, but let's not forget our old favorites like being drawn-and-quartered, getting put in the iron maiden or being staked to an anthill. C'mon, we can do better than crucifixion. It's so hackneyed. Let's get creative on our next license plate.

h/t PZ

Link: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/poll_time_everyone_take_a_poke.php

Here piggy, piggy, piggy

Good FSM. I slack on keeping up on my google reader and the next thing I know we're ALL GOING TO DIE FROM THE PIGGY FLU!!!1!11!

Well, maybe not. There is an outbreak of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection in the US, presumably starting from an outbreak in Mexico. Apparently quite a few people have died in Mexico, but it also appears that the infection in the US is not quite as powerful as the one in Mexico. No one has died here and only one person has been hospitalized.

Regardless of how bad this gets, it more than likely will spread. I'm not part of the tin-foil hat crowd nor am I prone to paranoid fantasies. That said, it's always a good idea to be prepared. If you start to have flu-like symptoms, stay home from work. Go to the doctor. Wash your hands alot. Ready your house-containing plastic bubble (you have one of those, right?) Ok, the last one might be a little over the top.

Your absolute best bet is to stay informed from legitimate sources of information (i.e. NOT this blog).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu
Follow them on Twitter @CDCemergency
The Effect Measure blog, the editors of which are senior public health scientists and practitioners, has had some great, rational discussion of the ongoing outbreak.

Most importantly of all, quit making it with pigs. Seriously, it's freaky enough without the added threat of piggy diseases.

Link: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu

Weekend of Adventure

The Goddess has taken off for New York. She's having a weekend in the big city with her sister. I'm here with the lizardlings till Sunday night. So far we've played dollies, built with Legos, watched Mario Bros. cartoons and now MK is making me wooden food from her play kitchen. I certainly won't be bored this weekend.

I sometimes have a hard time balancing my attention between the two little ones. MK demands a great deal of attention and interaction. She's a very communicative almost-3 year old. When the Turkey was that age our only focus was on him, so it's difficult to think about how much individual attention he got versus what MK gets. Turkey also requires a lot of attention, but he's 6 so he is much more able to entertain himself. His imagination is tremendous and the bulk of his play is dressing up and pretending to be various characters. He loves to make costumes. Right now, there's a storm trooper tumbling through the living room, complete with paper helmet and a white t-shirt with storm trooper armor drawn on.

One thing that I'm extremely proud of with regard to our parenting is that we actually play with them. My parents never played with my Star Wars figures with me, or built Legos. We participate completely in their play; we dress up, play action figures and create fantasy worlds to explore together. Don't get me wrong, my parents didn't neglect me. We read constantly and discussed the world around us at great lengths. My curious questions were met with, "let's go look it up in the encyclopedia". I would wrassle with my dad and we went to the go-carts almost every Friday night. But actual play was left for me to do by myself.

Now I've got to go and play with the lizardlings. MK is boogie-ing to the new Depeche Mode album. I think it's time for dance party!

Existential Dilemma

Depeche Mode has a new album coming out today, Sounds of the Universe! Even better, they are touring the US! I haven't missed a Depeche Mode concert since Violator. I was unbelievably stoked when I heard they were coming. Then I saw the dates they would be in Florida: September 4th and 5th. Can you spot the problem? Don't worry, I didn't see it either, at first. Then I realised the horror:

That's the weekend of Dragon*Con!!!

WTF am I going to do? To make it suck even harder, they are playing in Atlanta, which is where Dragon*Con is, on September 1st. So it looks like there's no way I can do both.

FML

How's it hangin'?

What is the average length of the penis? How about when the penis is flaccid? Or the length of an erect penis? Inquiring minds want to know. Fortunately, science comes the rescue. Penis science. Specifically, the science of the size of penises.

Scicurious over at the Neurotopia blog has the skinny on this paper, Mondaini et al. "Penile length is normal in most men seeking penile lengthening procedures." International Journal of Impotence Research, 2002. Seriously, go read the post.

See? Real science. Important science. The kind of science that can make us dudes feel good about our penis. Check out this graph:

Oh, and for the benefit of the american readers, don't freak at the numbers. They're centimeters, not inches. I know I started to have a panic attack.

*looks down to reassure himself that it's still there*

Ok, guys. Break out the tape measure. You know you want to.

And, ladies, no, I'm not going to tell you where I fall on the nomogram. But I will show you. Just come on over ;-)

---

P.S. (penis script) - Just to include one more sophomoric reference to penises:

Zack Brown: I'm gonna fuck you with my pecker!

Miriam Linky: Dude... that's really dirty.

Zack Brown: That's too dirty?

Miriam Linky: That offends me.

Zack Brown: Penis?

Miriam Linky: Fine.

Zack Brown: I'm gonna fuck you with my penis!

Link: http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2009/04/friday_weird_science_for_men_i.php

Sounds like tea bagging left a bad taste in the republican's mouths

Headline from the WorldNutDaily:

If you can't beat 'em, bad-mouth 'em?
News anchors resort to sexual innuendo to criticize tea parties

"bad-mouth 'em"

*giggles*

Jon Stewart chronicles this sudden reversal of roles in the mainstream media

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Nationwide Tax Protests
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Isn't this just a little over the top?

A REVOLUTIONARY IDEA
Palm Beach tea party: 'Chains we can believe in'
Americans outraged by Obama's perceived shift toward socialism

C'mon, seriously?!? For real? Our friends at the WorldNutDaily are practically having an orgasm over the hundreds of people who turned out for teabagging today.

Those braving rain showers to sound their objections to President Obama's policies voiced a common theme, one suggesting America is rapidly racing toward socialism.

"We're headed toward socialism, and socialism is anathema to everything this country's ever stood for," said Fritz Breland, a self-employed yacht broker from Boynton Beach. "I'm essentially unemployed because no one's buying."

Well boo-fucking-hoo. A goddamned yacht broker is "essentially unemployed". He's experiencing the results of a financial downturn years in the making by Republican control, but now that the O-man is in office, it's time to revolt. I'm completely over these fuckers. These people have lost their grip on reality in a major way and now they're being whipped into a frothing frenzy by the likes of Glenn Beck and Fox News. Where the fuck was their outrage when previous administrations were shitting all over the rights of the people through illegal wiretapping and goddamned torture? Where was the condemnation of the president when his administration was raping the poor and working class of this country in order to support the bloated carcasses of the oligarchy funding his power-hungry and delusional dreams? Oh, that's right. During the Bush regime if you criticized the president, you were un-American, un-patriotic, a traitor. But now that their good-old-boy white network has been thrown out of power, it's their patriotic duty to criticize the president. In fact, the man who is a constitutional scholar, who has managed to work and sweat and claw his way up through the disgusting process that has become politics, yet still managed to maintain a modicum of rationality, respect for others and a true desire to help people is the one who is destroying America. That's been his plan from the beginning, you betcha, palling around with terrorists and all.

I'm all for criticizing our politicians and calling them on their mistakes. It's called freedom of speech and it's one of the great things about America. What doesn't make any fucking sense is to start talking about secession and inciting revolution just because you lost an election. Hel-lo, that's how the game is played. You people love to look down on those supposed developing countries, with their coups and dictators and all. Yet here you are, after having run roughshod over the country for the last eight years, ready to start another fracking civil war after only 90 days of a new, democratically elected administration? Have you lost your ever-loving minds?

The only positive result of all this teabagging and the like is that the lunatics are finally revealing themselves for what they truly are. They are joyfully revealing themselves as the racist, fanatical greedy bastards that they truly are.

end of rant

Swapping saliva on Facebook meme

A fairly innocuous question was posed by a Facebook friend this morning. It generated a rash of responses and began evolving, so I figured it was good enough to be a meme all on it's own. Here goes:

• Who was your first kiss and how old were you?
• How many of the people you have kissed are now your Facebook friends?

If you don't want to name names, that's fine, just describe them (or not. No one's holding a gun to your head here). And to clarify, kissing has to involve the exchange of saliva. Little spin-the-bottle pecks don't count.

Here are my (rather sad) answers:

• Who was your first kiss and how old were you?
  It was my freshman year in high school. She was in drama club. There was actually an awful lot of kissing going on in that drama club, come to think of it.
  
• How many of the people you have kissed are now your Facebook friends?
  Out of the 4 total, 3 are my FB friends.

There, now that I've totally destroyed my reputation as the biggest stud muffin on the block, it's your turn. If you can remember back to your junior high or high school or college :-( days, give it a shot. And if you're not on Facebook, well, you're smarter than I am.

Here's who I'm tagging:
Perky Skeptic
Tiana @ the Enemy Combatants Trailmix Appreciation Club
E/R @ Evolved and Rat/i/onal - 'cause that's got to be a fun story!
AM @ Frogguruami Chasing Chickens

and of course the 3 others out there who read this blog!

Teabagging makes the mainstream

Nothing like rightwingnuts to get my panties in a wad. All this teabagging has got me all excited. David Shuster nailed it with this quote:

The people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, both of whom have firm support from right wing financiers and lobbyists. … We can only speculate why widespread tea bagging made [Neil] Cavuto think of the Million Man march, unless he got them confused with Dick Armey. And in Cavuto’s defense, if you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.

David Shuster for the double-entendre win! Watch the video:

Lay off the bible-speak, Obama

This is getting annoying. If it's not opening every fracking public event with an invocation, it's inserting quotes from the bible in his speeches. He gives lip service to America not being a christian nation, but he certainly doesn't make it very convincing when he includes biblical mythology in his appeals to the American people, as he did in today's speech to explain his administration's efforts with regard to the economic crisis.

Now, there's a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when "the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

That parable refers directly to the belief in god and basing your life around that belief. What do you think the "rock" refers to? Sure, he attempts to avoid the implications of this parable by reshaping its meaning to apply to the current financial crisis, but we all know where it comes from.

Hey, Obama, lay off the Jesus-speak and just give us what we elected you for. You promised change, but as far as religion goes, it's starting to smell the same as the previous administration.

Link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/14/The-House-Upon-a-Rock/

Science kicks ass!

I missed my calling in life. I should have been a kick-ass science-musician. Just imagine all the babes throwing their panties up on stage when I performed!



Hat tip: PZ