World hits 400 ppm of C02 in atmosphere

Well, the heat is on. The world has officially reached 400 ppm of C02 in the atmosphere in unpopulated, temporate latitudes, according to The Huffington Post. The last time this happened was about 10 million years ago, during the middle of the Miocene period, The planet was substantially warmer then, with very little ice – and higher sea levels.

Moreover, this has very little chance – or hope – of coming down any time soon. The G8 has set an upper-target of 450 ppm, but that is unrealistic unless drastic measures are taken to reduce our emissions. That means to END the burning of fossil fuels. That won’t happen. Not in the developed world with cars, not in the developing world building more coal-fired power plants. Not in the United States where coal-fired power plants continue to be used.

It will lead to water shortages, wars over water, crop failure, and mass starvation. Will it reverse? Probably not, until we have Canfield Oceans and the end of aerobic (oxygen using/consuming) life on the planet. That won’t happen until we hit around 800 ppm, currently slated for about the year 2100 which is almost 90 years away. Children born today will likely experience the collapse of their biosphere long before that. See the previous post, Surviving an Overheating World – We’ve Run out of Time to Play Politics posted August 18, 2012. It’s continuing, and it’s happening.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Human extinction, maybe global extinction, this century

Numerous intelligent people are giving significant probabilities to human extinction before 2100.

Barely a month ago, Stephen Hawking said that human kind would not survive another 1000 years unless we get off of the planet before then. 1000 years is a long time, possibly long enough to find another planet that will support life as we know it. The only problem is that it is likely that life has already evolved there. Possibly, intelligent life. That leaves the ethical question about whether it is right for humans to invade another planet, much like the fears of mid-20th century of “the Martians” landing, and of the whole pantheons of space aliens – who were either here to teach, inspire, or save us or to do horrible medical experiments on some people night after night by whisking them out of their beds as their cohorts mutilated cattle. Popular media brought us everything from cute and friendly ET who just wanted to phone home to The Borg who are intent upon assimilating everything in their path. As Stephen Hawking pointed out, the race which will win space is not going to “play fair”, and will conquor others by the most efficient means – that if extraterrestrials exist, the are much more likely to be ruthless conquorers than ethical beings who play fair and nice by our code of morality.

John Leslie in The End of the World assigns a 30% chance of human survival over the next 5 years.

Sir Martin Rees in Our Final Century gives humanity a 50/50 chance at surviving the 21st century. The “Bulletin’s Clock” from The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has once again placed the “time” at a few minutes until midnight – close to where it was in 1989 when intercontinental nuclear war was seen as the gravest threat of mankind. Nuclear conflict is no longer seen to be the most likely, but now there are numerous other threats, from terrorism to nanotech to pandemics to bio-weapons, along with the nuclear armaments.

Back to humankind, are humans to become a ruthless conqueror, and take over worlds inhabited by others, just as we feared others would do to us?

But, we cannot possibly conquor space without more technology.

Indeed. But, even now, much technology is beyond the ability for any one person to understand but a small piece of how it works. To put it all together, will, ultimately, take more intelligence than we have. It’ll be a follow-on generation of artificially-intelligent computers. All of this will run automatically, and will essentially run itself. And, the technology will have gotten out of our hands.

All of this works seamlessly. Yet, all computer software has bugs. Indeed, “Proof of correctness” can be mathematically proven to be impossible in any but the most trivial of programming cases. As programs get beyond what human minds can comprehend as “the big picture”, it will be impossible to tell whether or not the program works! At that point, the computers are designing the programs for other computers. Humans have become irrelevant.

Something can go profoundly wrong with all of this. These computers, machines as they are, will have a digital, black-and-white, single-sighted view. And, they all have bugs, perhaps those bugs could compound and create an electronic “superbug”. Or, the technology itself might turn on us. See the previous post Are “autonomous weapons”, the next-generations of drones, working to become “Killer Robots”?

We already have many people who cannot live without technology. Most of those are living what might be considered “medical miracles”, but they are dependent upon cardiac pacemakers, defibrillator, medication pumps, heart/lung machines. In the future, these will extend to other artificial organs. Some of it might not be a medical requirement but rather an augmentation – to allow someone to run faster, jump higher, stay awake longer, be more intelligent, see better, hear better, live longer. But, just one thing that was unforeseen – a “Y2K problem” of sorts, and suddenly all shuts down, like the dire predictions of Y2K. Or, it could be done with an electro-magnetic pulse high in the atmostphere – due to aggression or an accident or even a natural one by some means. And, electronics shut down. Then, humans could no longer function.

Too much technology can destroy us just as well as none or not enough. Tech is not going to save us! Indeed, tech itself may destroy us.

See:

Posted in Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

New, deadlier H7N9 bird flu breaks out

A new strain of flu virus has broken out. Initial reports from China were that all 3 of the first patients identified as having the virus had died.

As NBC Newssays, these deaths from the new bird flu underscore grim fears. However, it appears that it’s not quite so bad. According to a newer Forbes report, there are now 60 cases of H7N9 bird flu in china, and only 12 deaths. That’s “only” a 20% fatality rate, as compared to 100% as it looked initially. Comparitively, the mortality rate from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic were 2.5%

This virus quickly causes multi-organ failure, including encephalitis or infection of the brain as well as pneumonia.

Of the first three cases, two were found to have had recent exposure to butchering chickens. The third had no exposure to live birds or recently killed birds. Confirmation of any human-to-human transfer of this virus is not (yet) established, but in a 2003 outbreak of an H7 virus in the Neatherlands, human to human spreading of the virus was confirmed. So, H7 can infect humans.

In a New England Journal of Medicine article Global Concerns Regarding Novel Influenza A (H7N9) Virus Infections, they have concerns regarding subclinical infections, or in apparently non-sick birds, which are not made ill by H7N9. This makes this flu troubling as it is not sufficient to cull out birds, including poultry flocks, which appear to be sick.

The good news is that the genome was identified quickly. However, no vaccinations for this as yet exist. Depending on how fast this virus spreads, it might wipe through the world population before a vaccine can be developed, and possibly kill about 1 out of 5 people – FAR higher than any pandemic, including the bubonic plague! A conspiracy theory could easily be brought forth that the genome being identified SO quickly indicates that they’ve been working on it for some time. That could be because: 1) This has been going on for some time, but is just now getting media attention. 2) The virus was artificially produced somewhere, by somebody. Since the Chinese first identified the virus as well as the genome for the virus, it could be that they engineered it. Since they are sharing their information, it does not seem likely that they developed it as a weapon, even aside from the fact that flu viruses do not make for a very good weapon.

We’ve heard a lot about bird flus over the past several years. Each one comes up with the question of “Is this the big one?” This one could be it, especially if it is not contained – or if it even can be contained. If the flu goes beyond domestic poultry, birds fly. They fly across national boarders. They do not appear to be sick, and there is a demand for poultry as food, especially with the starving people of the world.

Then again, on April 5, the CDC said, “Don’t panic” over this new bird flu. I agree. Don’t panic. Even if this isn’t “it”, a pandemic will get a sizable portion of humans eventually, since we’re overdue for a global pandemic.

If you become ill, I will again caution against going to a hospital, just as I did in prior posts.

While there [in the hospital], they can be exposed to common bacteria, which often are in ventillator tubes, or to more deadly Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae which are both airborne and resistant to even the last-line antibiotics. In someone who already has a life-threatening disease, these are almost certain to be deadly if a patient becomes infected. Hospitals are the main source of these diseases, so if seriously-ill flu patients go to the hospital, and are infected by a nearly-untreatable bacteria infection too, they will be unable to fight it. That is especially true for those most likely to go to the hospital with flu symptoms – those who already have serious health issues.

Don’t worry. You’ll never get out of this alive.

Posted in Pandemics, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

New bird flu, drug resistant germs in hospitals, tuberculosis, and inability to treat, high ability to spread these horrible diseases with hospitals.

We’ve got a new strain of bird flu seen in several humans in China. It starts out like many flus, and people get pneumonia. Several people have died. including two men, ages 27 and 87. A woman is said to be in critical condition. All, thus far identified, are in China. There is a low number of cases and deaths reported thus far, but the fatality rate appears to be very high. This latest bird flu is of type H7N9. See China bird flu: Two men die in Shanghai. This is being taken seriously by Taiwan in terms of border security. Taiwan on alert against H7N9 bird flu.

People will go to hospitals for this, and for other flu scares, to try to make sure that they don’t die. While there, they can be exposed to common bacteria, which often are in ventillator tubes, or to more deadly Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae which are both airborne and resistant to even the last-line antibiotics. In someone who already has a life-threatening disease, these are almost certain to be deadly if a patient becomes infected. Hospitals are the main source of these diseases, so if seriously-ill flu patients go to the hospital, and are infected by a nearly-untreatable bacteria infection too, they will be unable to fight it. That is especially true for those most likely to go to the hospital with flu symptoms – those who already have serious health issues. Going to a hospital these days appears to be a matter of taking your life into your hands, and in the United States, your life savings with it.

Visitors and hospital staff may also become colonized or infected with either the flu or a resistant strain of bacteria, and unknowingly take it back to the community with them, and this could spread further.

Add to that the threat of war in North Korea has stated it is at war with South Korea and the US. Air wars, including missiles, work well to destroy a nation’s infrastructure, but ground-troups are required to actually take a country. I have written previously on this blog about North Korea’s big problem with Tuberculosis. As I said in that post, the North Korean people can be considered biological weapons of mass destruction. If many people encounter North Koreans, many will catch these resistant strains of TB, and they will spread it to others before they know they are infected, and before they could possibly be treated or quarantined. Of course, the problem with TB-XDR or TB-MDR is that treatment is mostly ineffective against these strains. Yes, this amounts to biological warfare, but TB is so slow in making someone sick that it will not do any military any good – which is why it’s not used in typical WMDs.

Before I close, I’ll wish everyone a Happy Easter. Enjoy it while you can.

Can or will the US take similar steps as Taiwan in watching for people coming into the country infected with H7N8 or other serious disease via airports, sea ports, coming over a land border. The US has not done well with preventing people entering or leaving the country with deadly disease. The US has in the past, as it would not allow ships suspected of carrying deadly disease land, or it would quarantine people coming into the country. Will we do it again?

Posted in Health, healthcare crisis, Pandemics, Uncategorized, Warfare | 1 Comment

Are “autonomous weapons”, the next-generations of drones, working to become “Killer Robots”?

Of note here, in my 65 previous posts to this blog, I have not written of military action, wars, or weapons of war, with the sole exception of the possibility of using infected civilians as a weapon of biological warfare in the post North Korea poses risk to world with Drug-resistant, Multiple-Drug-Reistant, and Extensively-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Until now, I have not blogged here on the topic of warfare, for the simple reason that while war will disrupt life for those living in countries fighting the war, and after the war the war-torn country may be left devistated, wars have never caused a significant decrease in populations in any area of the world for more than a few years. This use of autonomous robotic weapons could be very different, since they can potentially continue fighting each other long after humans are ready to stop fighting, have ceased fighting, or the nations that sent them out ceased to exist.

“Killer Robots” have long been a mainstay in science fiction’s depictions of future wars.

They’re coming out of the real of science fiction, and becoming science fact. Hence, this post is not in the “absurdities” category.

There are already questions and issues of the ethics or morality of the use of drones, and how using them may or may not comply with the rules of warfare set down in documents such as the Geneva Convention.

Robots already exist. They’ve been used for years in factories and to decontaminate areas which are too dangerous for a human being to enter, sometimes using chemicals to clean areas which would be deadly for a human being to use, such as are used to decontaminate areas known to be infected with MRSA using aerosol hydrogen peroxide.

We have also been using drones for years in warfare. In addition to having drones run reconnaissance missions, drones strike areas with other weapons, even going so far as direct assassinations or executions on particular people. All of this has not happened without controversy, such as discussed in The Atlantic, or even the specific execution or assassination of naturalized US citizens in Yemen, without due process, including a trial, conviction, and sentencing, as reported in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

These drones are used closer to home, like overflying Mexico as part of the drug war, as reported in 2011, although the Mexican government insists that these US-made drones are under their control. If they are not, as has been alleged, overflying another sovereign nation’s territory is an act of war, and it would not be the first, second, or third time the US has had an overt war with Mexico. The issues involving the drug war may be one for a future post.

As of now, drones are remotely flown with a combination of direct human direction and their own sensing of data. This is not that different than a video game, and the same people who are good at video games are sought for training as drone pilots. In the future, the programming may become sufficient so that they can work autonomously, under some more generalized orders which are programmed in.

As these “autonomous weapons” become more and more autonomous, they look more like robots. The problem of making the robot distinguish between a man holding a military assault rifle, a musician carrying a flute, a carpenter carrying a board, and a child holding an ice cream cone has evidently been solved, as to locate, identify, and strike specific people is being worked on. More detailed difference, like detecting an enemy tank from an ambulance, or distinguishing non-combatants and civilians from soldiers will need to be solved. But, I have confidence that this is a solvable problem.

In science fiction, author Isaac Asimov created The Three Laws of Robotics (often shortened to The Three Laws or Three Laws). The Three Laws are a set of rules devised to govern how robots may be allowed/designed/programmed to behave, to ensure the safety of human kind. The Three Laws are:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Clearly, the use of drones to decontaminate areas of hospitals more thoroughly than is possible with human labor obeys these three laws.

Drone strikes, where the drone is operated by a human being, even remotely, would not fall under those three laws.

The notion of autonomous weapons would seem to violate Asimov’s First Law, and by extension, the other two as well. Asimov wrote fiction, and he found that he needed to have these three laws in place to prevent his stories going in such a way that the robots would destroy any and all humans, and eventually the robots would take over.

That is not what those programming them, nor those giving the specifications, designs, or executive orders to make such things want.

But, how do we prevent it? How do we prevent someone from starting such a war, putting themselves and anyone or anything they want to preserve into a deep bunker with them, and waiting until after they are sure that the drones will run out of fuel, or after some pre-assigned date when they will stop operating, after they will have been sure to have done their “deed”, leaving the entire world and its resources for this ruler, leader, or person with enough money to finance such an army of “killer robots”?

What was once completely in the real of science fiction, has become a real possibility for the future. According to the article in The Atlantic such autonomous weapons or killer robots could exist within a decade.

Posted in Social Commentary, Uncategorized, Warfare | 1 Comment

CREs: New, Deadlier Antibiotic-Resistant Strains of Common Bacteria

Less than two months after I posted Death by resistant strains of common bacteria, another, more deadly type of resistant bacteria is coming more to light, although it has existed in small numbers for several years. It is getting more common and more widespread. These are much much more deadly than MRSA and C. Difficile infections, which I discussed in that earlier post.

CCarbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CREs, which are of the genus Enterobacteriaceae, appear to be deadly in 50% of those infected in their bloodstream. The death rate is lower if the infection remains in a limited area. The bacteria involved are common in soil, and common as normal gut bacteria in healthy people and animals. This includes E. coli, which we get periodic reports of outbreaks in various items or brands in the food supply. Even with non-antibiotic resistant strains, these can be deadly. With these same germs, which normally exist in the intestines of healthy humans and many other animals and birds, these outbreaks will be untreatable.

As NPR reported,

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Brad Spellberg, of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, likens the situation to the Titanic’s ill-fated voyage. “We’re not talking about an iceberg that’s down the line,” he says. “The ship has hit the iceberg. We’re taking on water. We already have people dying. Not only of CRE, but of untreatable CRE.”

That appears to be a strong statement coming from a specialist in infectious diseases who works at a major university medical center’s biomedical research arm. People will die of this. The only remaining question is how many.

USA Today voices a concern that this is not a reportable disease or infection in most states, nor to the federal government, so US data on how widespread or bad the problem is has become impossible to get.

In the past, it was rare for a doctor in a first-world country to lose a patient to an infection for which there were no treatment options. It may go from rare to common or very common.

Overuse of antibiotics, not using them appropriately, not taking them for long enough or at a high enough dosage, or feeding them to animals led to bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics. This has led to antibiotics having less and less of a “usable lifetime” before that antibiotic too was ineffective. It’s gotten to the point that no drug company anywhere in the world has any new antibiotics in their “pipeline” – their usable lifetime is too short for them to be profitable.

We might have really “screwed the pooch” on this one. However, there is a line of hope that came from “behind the iron curtain” – as in the former Soviet Union and other eastern European Communist nations. That is something called a bacteriophage, or a virus that infects a bacteria. An example in a simple-to-understand form is available at http://www.cellsalive.com/phage.htm. A more indepth explanation is available at phages.org. A far more indepth description is available at http://textbookofbacteriology.net/phage.html. It is nearly certain though that phages will not come into use in time to prevent hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of deaths.

CREs increased most for the worrisome Klebsiella pneumoniae, jumping from 1.6 percent to 10.4 percent between 2001 and 2011, a rise of 550 percent. That’s the bug that made headlines last summer after reports that it was part of an outbreak that swept through the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center near Washington, D.C., killing seven people, including a 16-year-old boy.


The entire article this is quoted from is available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/business/27germ.html?em=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1267412412-yP2bfl/3pu4+g34XVmluJA&_r=0

The Center for Disease Control has a CRE Tool Kit.

As a patient, there is a simpler list to understand what should be done, and what the risks are, also at the CDC.

Of note, pay attention to “Removing temporary medical devices as soon as possible”. This includes everything from ventilators to IV lines to heart catheters to urinary catheters. Be sure that all devices used intermittently are clean, sterile, and used with aseptic techniques. Better still is to not have or allow anything to be inserted without a clear evidence-based reason, and you and your doctor weigh the relative risks and benefits of using such a device before deciding to use it.

If you must use such a device, ask to be sure that your roommate is not colonized by – a carrier of – CREs, or infected with a CRE. They cannot give you the information due to privacy concerns, but ask your doctor to be sure, and also ask your doctor or administrators of the facility you are in whether they routinely check patients for CREs upon admission to the hospital. If they don’t, please encourage them to do so. Better still, if you are not yet in the hospital, see if the hospital you intend to go to checks for CREs, and select a hospital that does such checks if you have a planned, upcoming hospital stay. Even if you don’t, find out what hospitals in your area do or do not do such checks, and make it known to your doctors, family, and friends that you wish to go to specific ones that do. You might consider putting this in an advance directive which you keep on your person.

Another is to consider whether you need to be treated in a hospital for what you have, or are there options other than hospitals? Is it an elective procedure which can be forgone or put off? In the case of a birth, is a home birth an option for you? Certified Nurse Midwives can provide very safe and good care for prenatal care, the birth itself, and antenatal care. Can you or your family member or friend be cared for at home or do you or they really need to be in a facility? So far, CREs have been mainly limited to hospital and long-term care facilities.

The biggest single thing to prevent getting or spreading such infections is for the staff to observe “universal precautions”. This includes washing their hands before and after touching a patient and wearing clean gloves. Prevention is far more sure, easier, and less costly than curing such infections! These can be more than a long, painful recovery. Untreatable infections can be deadly.

CRE bacteria — Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae — germs resistant to last-resort antibiotics. This is a “nightmare” scenario, involving bacteria of different types. According to the CDC, about 4% of all 3,900 US hospitals it surveyed in the first half of 2012, 4% of U.S. acute-care hospitals and 18% of long-term acute care hospitals reported at least one case. Some hospitals had many more. This is most troubling since the incidence of these infections has quadrupled in the past decade.

So, is this really the disease that destroys much of the population? It could be, especially if it becomes a “community acquired” infection. It is impossible to say if it will stay the same, become more common, more virulant, and more deadly, or mutate into a form where it’s relatively harmless – or just when any of those will happen.

If there’s anyone reading this who has missed that this is not a religious blog, and is still reading it who does not believe in evolution, this most certainly will not effect you. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is an example of evolution. Creationists will have to disbelieve that others around them are dying of untreatable infections, or attribute it to some sort of conspiracy – that the New World Order or the Illuminati or somebody have somehow prevented doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and pharmacists from treating infections – and ALL medical professionals would have to be in on it, some willing to die themselves. Or, perhaps a new weapon of some kind – from a foreign country, even though this would be going on in all countries, except maybe North Korea which has been isolated from the rest of the world since 1950. Perhaps it’s an attempt from the UFOs to clear the Earth for colonization (a tin-foil hat should protect you from detection). The alternative explanations are too hard to believe, so evolution of bacteria would be the most likely cause.

An item of good news for humankind is that because North Korea has remained so isolated for over 60 years, they are unlikely to be effected by this pandemic. North Korea could be the only enclave of human beings large enough to be genetically viable so as to be able to repopulate the earth. It probably won’t lead to human extinction, even in the worst case. It will be a few centuries though until the population can get back to its current level, since the knowledge and technology that allowed it to grow to its current level will still exist. It will give the rate of greenhouse gas emissions a break, and perhaps slow-down or even reverse global climate change, since this is exploding now.

Ultimately, this could be humankind’s only hope of survival as a species into the 22nd century!

Posted in Health, healthcare crisis, Overpopulation, Pandemics, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Unique Strain of TB in California. Will AIDS-Activists Prevent Effective Containment?

According to reports in Reuters and the LA Times, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health aided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have identified 78 cases, including 11 deaths, from a unique strain of tuberculosis. The LA County Health Department is trying to track down, test, and treat those who have this strain of the disease. As the LA Times puts it, “But officials are concerned that the outbreak could spread beyond skid row if action isn’t taken.”

When such a “scare” of a disease comes around, there is a notion of “It can’t happen to me.” Many people will decide that this mainly affects people on skid row, mainly alcoholics, drug users, and prostitutes. They stay secure in their notion that it can’t happen to their middle-class or upscale gated communities, coffee shops, malls, and schools. Moreover, as taxpayers, they balk at funding the detection and control of such disease. While I’m sure that the LA Health Department is putting everything they can into it right now, that if this goes on very long they will be told by the taxpayers through the representative government that there are “other priorities”.

Unfortunately, the notion of the underclass having the disease and it remaining there is flat-out untrue. If just one person goes into that area and goes into their area – a police officer, firefighter, hotel maid, restaurant worker, soup kitchen or shelter volunteer, bargain hunter, drug dealer, or anyone, then comes into their upscale community or someone in the community goes to them, it’s easily spread, and then it spreads through the community – across all socioeconomic classes.

Moreover, this is not just a problem of Los Angeles. With the ease of travel in the early part of the 21st century – automobiles, buses, planes, and trains, it will not be long before someone acquires this strain of TB in the LA area, and travels to other parts of the United States – and the world – spreading the disease before they even know they are sick. That is true even if they are frequently tested.

If this strain is not easily treated with the existing TB drugs, making it a variant of a drug resistant strain, this could have dire consequences for the majority of the US population. It would be just as bad as if it were a TB-XDR or TB-MDR strain coming from North Korea, as I’ve previously blogged on this site. It will be worse, because this strain already exists here in a number of people.

TB is a slow-acting infection in many cases. It will be years or decades before this is taken seriously by the majority of the public. Alas, the majority of Americans are nearly complacent about TB – that it was stamped out years ago, as we don’t have TB sanitariums as we did even in the early part of the 20th century. The TB that exists is considered to be a problem with the third world, on illegal immigrants from third-world countries, from the “skid row” alcoholics and drug users (along with the notion that it’s their fault for not “living right”). And, moreover, a problem in AIDS.

In fact, TB is considered one of the “AIDS-defining diseases” according to the CDC and AIDS awareness, treatment, or activism organizations. That is, a condition which if you have, is considered evidence for a diagnosis of AIDS. Of note, a positive HIV test is no longer a requirement for a diagnosis of AIDS. So, someone who is a drug user, gay, or Haitian with this strain of TB gets it diagnosed as AIDS. Someone who is heterosexual, American, not suspected of drug use will be diagnosed with TB, possibly of a particular strain or type.

This could cause a problem for containing the disease, as well as controlling it.

Getting the TB test will probably cause some people to get an AIDS diagnosis. There is still a stigma associated with AIDS, because HIV which used to be part of the definition of AIDS is spread through certain behaviors – specifically it’s usually sexually transmitted or transmitted via needle sharing in drug use. A few people are recognized to have gotten it without engaging in risky behaviors, including infants, recipients of HIV-tainted blood, accidental needle sticks, and the like.

This will lead to less people allowing themselves to be tested for TB because of the stigma attached to getting a diagnosis of AIDS. Diagnosing them with AIDS makes it less likely that they will get appropriate treatment for their TB, instead of a large cocktail of expensive drugs with horrible side effects. The proper treatment for TB is expensive enough – especially drug-resistant strains of TB, but there’s no need to add other things, and possibly not include the TB drugs.

Now, it is possible to have Tuberculosis and a legitimate diagnosis of AIDS as well. I’m not refuting that. It’s also a given that a significant number of people with TB will be wrongly given a diagnosis of AIDS – along with its death sentence.

There are strains of TB which do not respond well or at all to the drugs we have for them. They are also just as easily spread as other strains of tuberculosis. In the past, all identified TB patients were quarantined or isolated via the TB sanitariums. The World Health Organization suggests quarantining or isolating people with TB-XDR (EXtensively Drug Resitant) if voluntary measures do not work. The CDC maintains the ability to quarantine people against their will, even though they have only done it once with TB-XDR in 2007, and it was many years previously that they had quarantined a case of tuberculosis. But, they still can.

AIDS quarantines have been talked about in the past. It was talked about in the 1980s, and there were such proposals for laws. They were shot down, because AIDS as caused by HIV can only be transmitted by contact with bodily fluids – not casual contact. However, now with TB being an AIDS-defining illness, along with certain other persistent infections including candida or recurrent pneumonia which are transmitted by casual contact, it might be time to revisit that.

AIDS activists will not permit such a thing! At the same time that they say that hard-to-transmit HIV is not an AIDS-defining condition, they say that AIDS is equally difficult to transmit. To increase the number of AIDS victims, and research funding, and funding for AIDS organizations, all of these other conditions, including TB, were put on the list of AIDS-Defining illnesses. Now, tuberculosis redefined as AIDS IS a transmittable disease, is airborne, and is something that must be controlled.

Who will win? The public who may become panic-stricken for fear of this disease, whether it is by then called tuberculosis, or AIDS, or something else, will demand protection. It may mean another bout with murderous homophobia – the -phobia being the operative word because it is fear of TB – reclassified as AIDS which has been thought of as a primarily gay disease, is killing their friends and family.

I’ve said for a long time that the next pandemic will be from a disease which has been well-known for a long time, and possibly or probably treatable with existing medicines which are off-patent. I’ve said that the old disease will get convoluted in the definition of a new disease which gets a lot more research funding than any old disease, and the whole thing will become a disaster, all in the quest for funding and the educated researchers who should know better about what they’re doing, being blinded by the notion of getting recognized for their research in the new disease. It won’t give as much prestige to discover an old, well-understood disease is causing death and suffering in modern times. The pharmaceutical companies which fund a lot of disease and drug research won’t make any money if a researcher discovers that a dread-disease can be treated with Isoniazid or Rifampin – an important discovery a couple of generations ago.

Posted in Health, healthcare crisis, Pandemics, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Vacuum Instability – the big “Poof!”

Well, it now appears that the cosmos may be inherently unstable.

This was ascertained after the discovery of the Higgs Boson, discovered to be at a very low mass, and the mass of the top quark. Some properties of quantum physics could change the mass of the Higgs Boson, which appears to be at its minimum theoretical mass, ever-so-slightly. From there, the vacuum of this universe could tunnel into a lower vacuum at the speed of light. POOF! This goes well with the notion of cyclical universes, and multiple “big bangs”, solves the problem of “How did the primordial black hole get there, anyway?”

All of the math seems to lead to the present universe being unstable. It is subject to the chaos theory of mathematics. This is described in Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleik, or there’s a brief overview of chaos theory and things as topographical mixing at http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/06/07/chaos/.

With all of the difficulties of understanding chaos theory of mathematics, one simplification is this: Anything that can happen, will happen. When it will happen is based on the probability that it will occur in some particular time frame. The odds may be high over the next 10 trillion years that something will happen. They are extremely low that it will happen over the next year. Being low though is not the same as it being zero, as everyone who plays the Lotto knows. The odds may be low, but there are Lotto jackpot winners nearly every week. and sometimes weeks will go by with no jackpot winner causing the prize to be very high. That could be what our universe is.

“What happens is you get just a quantum fluctuation that makes a tiny bubble of the vacuum the Universe really wants to be in. And because it’s a lower-energy state, this bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep everything before it,” the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory theoretician told BBC News.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21499765

In short, changing the mass ratio between the Higgs Boson particle and that of the top quark changes the fundamental constants of the universe. That is one of the top ten doomsday scenarios, along with collapse of the quantum vacuum and the big crumble caused by changing the universal constants at Exit Mundi.

Note that this would not be a risk – or doomed if the mass of the Higgs Boson were just a tiny percent different. See LiveScience article http://www.livescience.com/27218-higgs-boson-universe-future.html. For those who say that the constants of the universe are perfectly tuned – yes, they are. They are tuned for this universe to implode upon itself, into a new universe at any time. It’s chance that’s caused it to go on as long as it has. Einstein may have said, “God does not play dice with the universe.”, but from this, it appears that God plays Russian Roulette with the universe!

The BBC and Livescience both attempt to assure readers that this will not happen for billions of years – longer than it will take for the sun to go nova, so humans will certainly be long gone. This is an assumption, based on an unknowable probability based on the fact that the universe has been here for about 13 billion years. Such changes and waivers happen on a chaotic schedule. It’s probable that it will take billions of years for this instability to take place. It’s possible that it could happen next month… or within the next minute. The good news is that you won’t see it coming because it’ll travel at the speed of light, nor will you suffer at all.

For more information on vacuum instability, on a physics blog where the math goes over my head, see What’s the Deal with Vacuum Stability?

The really good news about this post is that it has nothing to do with human behavior or technological problem. We did nothing to cause this, and there’s nothing we can do to prevent it nor is there any way to use this one as a weapon. It may occur later than human extinction by any means.

Posted in Earth changes, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Meteor Storm?

A meteor hit the Russian city Chelyabinsk in the Ural mountains on February 15, 2013, just days after the passing of asteroid DA-14. See the Russian reports (in English) at RT – Russia Today news service. Over 1,000 people were injured from this impact.

Scientists tell us that the asteroid and the meteor are not related, but they were very closely related in time. Of course, this is the classical logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), but relatively-similar occurrences within a close timespan usually warrant closer investigation than a more classic example of the falicy, like “The right side of my nose itched this morning, which caused me to have visitors this afternoon.” It’s much more reasonable to postulate that a fairly-large asteroid might have fragments or space debris near it from its gravitational pull. However, NASA says no, that the trajectory was not the same nor were they in the same orbit, such as the various meteor showers follow the orbit of the comet that produced them. NASA’s claim that the Russian meteor and DA-14 were not in the same orbit is at http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Watch%20the%20Skies/posts/post_1361037562855.html. So, it’s been officially denied, so therefore it must be true, right.

Later that day, another meteor came down over Cuba. Reports say that it was a bright light in the sky, “bigger than the sun”, which produced a loud noise and shook windows. There are no reports of injuries, but it must be noted that news from Cuba comes to the US by way of being re-reported in other countries which have relations with the US, and things get lost in re-telling. Others, better described as “fireballs” – which generally occur about a dozen times per year were seen over south Florida http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/18/17001094-another-meteor-fireballs-light-up-florida-sky?lite and the San Francisco area of California.

Meteorites in Saudi Arabia have also been reported on January 7 and many unconfirmed reports of a meteor on February 18, 2013 over Saudi Arabia have been reported, but even Saudi news agencies are silent on the matter.

Regardless, the coincidence of several fireballs over populated areas occurring in the same week as a confirmed meteor hitting a city in Russia, shortly after the passing of DA-14 asteroid. It could be a coincidence. They could be unrelated. Scientists believe they are.

If they are unrelated, as NASA says, that is even more frightening than the notion that they are related.

It is possible that the solar system, moving through space orbiting the center of the galaxy, which itself is moving through space, that the earth has moved into an area of space which has more “free” rocks and other natural space debris. If that’s the case, this could be a foretaste of what is to come. Note that global extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs happened from just one such meteorite landing off of the Yucatan peninsula. It could happen again. It’s much more likely if smaller meteorites begin to hit the earth regularly.

A conspiracy theory, first brought forth by Russian Parliament member Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is that the object which hit the city of Chelyabinsk was a US weapons test. This notion is considered dubious conspiracy theory now by the majority of Russians, but if this had happened in the 1960s or 1970s during the Cold War, it could have been taken seriously and lead to nuclear retaliation. Or, perhaps something that look like meteorites have been weaponized, and the strikes in Florida, California, Washington, were retaliation, and the one in Cuba is a retaliation for that, and the one in Saudi Arabia… a retaliation from somebody. This seems unlikely, but it is possible. One thing pointing against this now is that Russia is not “public enemy #1″ – or even in the top 10 – to the US government or citizens now.

Other, even stranger theories exist. One is that the reason the meteor over Russia exploded was that it was shot down by a UFO.

The UFO digest tells us conclusively what is going on! Yeah, I’m sure they have it 100% correct too! More far-fetched than that is that the meteor was some sort of weapon shot from a UFO, or that it was a weapon shot from the “brown planet” on the opposite side of the sun from earth which was shot down by a UFO. There are even more bizarre claims out there, including these are “leftover” from an ancient war on earth from some prior highly-technological civilization on Atlantis or somewhere, or that the UFOs are tryig to protect the earth from them for some reason.

Posted in 2012- Nemisis, Nibiru, Planet X, Absurdities, Earth changes, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

USA “Empire” coming to a close?

I’ve been looking at history of other major civilizations, their rise, their golden age, their decay, and their eventual collapse. Among those I’ve looked at so far are the Ottoman Empire, the Chinese Qing Empire, the Roman Empire, the Inca Civilization, and somewhat at the Egyptian empire and at the Soviet Union. When looking at these, I see several common threads.

  1. Enemies outside the empire
  2. Empire consisting of a very “diverse” group of individuals, usually obtained via conquest. The empire is racially diverse, culturally diverse, linguistically diverse, and religiously diverse.
  3. Corruption within the government of the empire, and many scandals
    • Moral misdoings and scandals
    • Financial corruption or bribes
    • Military malfeasance or outright treason
  4. Drugs
  5. Citizens of the empire becoming “lazy”, leading to the need for:
    • Payments to citizens from the government – guaranteed minimum income, “make-work” jobs mainly from or at the behest of the government or direct “entitlements”
    • Slaves or a distinct underclass
  6. Attempts at border or perimeter control which fail
  7. Endless wars, many of which were unwise or could not be won and damaged the faith of the people in either their government or their military
  8. Bankruptcy
  9. Hoards who came in to the skeleton of the once-great empire, with the sole desire to break, damage, and destroy what was left. This is decidedly different than someone coming in with the intent to take its wealth.

Certainly, all of these do not apply to every empire that has risen or fallen throughout history. All have several of them. Now, I could write a several-volume book about the rise and fall of empires, but I’m only going to target a few from the above list, which appears very interesting to me in light of what is going on in the United States of America.

A combination of the lack of or failure of perimeter controls of the nation have partly lead to a permanent underclass, which the United States of America relies upon to be there and available. While I will not get into there being “jobs that Americans will not do”, it is obvious that an employer can pay an illegal alien much less than minimum wage and does not need to provide safe working conditions for such an alien. They provide cheap labor, which allows the company for which they work to sell its products at a lower price and make more profit on it. That is true whether the company is a factory, is a farm growing produce, or whatever else.

If these jobs were performed under US laws, including wage and hour laws, OSHA standards, paid all US taxes including FICA and unemployment insurance, the price of produce, of some frozen foods, of construction, and some other products would greatly increase. If there were more jobs, and higher paying jobs, the US could afford these things. But, the fact of the matter is that we do not want to. We do not want to get rid of illegal aliens at least until they threaten OUR jobs or at least OUR industry. Besides, if the company needs to end employment of some workers, the illegals can be deported and the company nor the State have to pay them unemployment insurance.

The lower wages among Americans, the lack of employment of other Americans, employment well below someone’s education, training, and experience (underemployment), combined with some “creative accounting” by some organizations and individuals adds up to a lack of tax revenue. Combined with the heightened need for some social programs plus a large military and some other things increases the expenditure of the US Government. Hence, the recent “debt crisis” whereby Congress could not or would not raise the debt ceiling enough to pay the outstanding bills worrying creditors about default. Hence the lowered credit rating by Standard & Poor’s in 2011 when they “played chicken” with the debt ceiling until the last second. See “Washington Post: S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating for first time”.

They did this again just before January 1, 2013, when it was all over the news, and the resolution kicked the can down the road for 3 months. They’re doing it again in February, 2013, when the resolution made in late December, 2012 expires in March, 2013. Now, February 21, 2013, it’s not all over the news. Instead, people have become distracted to the point of near hysteria over mass shootings and gun control. Some people say, “They’re just finally reporting the news.” or “People have finally gotten tired of so many people senselessly killed in gun violence that they’re (we’re) demanding a resolution.” No, the violence has existed for a long time. Fewer people are killed every day with firearms than are killed by drunk drivers, and there’s no real hysteria over that, and no calls for “extreme action” against those who drink and drive, serve, or sell alcohol. The way the news involving gun violence is being reported, news articles and reports filled with reports of gun violence leading to the perception that it’s more prevalent and extremely common, and people whipped into a frenzy over gun violence as a destraction from the gravity of the situation involving the government shut down, sequestration of federal pay to Federal workers, including everything from Head Start to the FBI to the guards in Federal penitentaries, to the EPA, FTC, FDA, and other 3-letter agencies, and the military. This will lead to newly-unemployed or “laid off” workers in the millions or 10s of millions, and lead to many many people unable to make debt payments on everything from homes to cars to credit cars to school loans. This will lead to less purchasing, and lead to a depression beyond the 1930s! We saw what happened with gun violence in the 1930s – with the BATF being unable to pay its agents either, along with no federal law enforcement, this will be a return to it.

Of course, if the US economy is totally ruined, the “good news” is that the illegal aliens will return to their home countries where the economy is far better, and where law enforcement exists. That will leave jobs that the illegal aliens used to do available for desperate unemployed US citizens, who also do not have any unemployment benefits nor savings. That will not be legal, but there will be no one to enforce such employment laws, and US citizens will take such jobs for such wages, hours, and conditions. Too many people still won’t be able to afford to buy what they’re growing or making, but perhaps that will improve the trade imbalance. The cost will be that the US sinks into a third-world anarchy if it does not emerge with some other type of (funded) government.

Now, Congressional Representatives take the following oath of office

“I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. (So help me God.)”

Playing chicken along political party lines with the debt ceiling, resulting in damage to the “Full Faith and Credit of the United States”, as described in Article 6 of the United States Constitution does not fit well with this oath. The term “Tea Party Downgrade” has been bantered about regarding Congress’ refusal to get any sort of debt ceiling passed in a timely manner, long-past the time when the budget should have been set, and seriously discussing the possibility of default on debt payments. A discussion is available at UPI.COM – Tea Party Downgrade. More heated words have been used, allegedly some are referring to the “Tea Party” members who were unwilling to negotiate as “terrorists” Joe Biden likened tea partiers to terrorists, which I hasten to add has been officially denied.

So, what is the goal here of those participating in the debt ceiling deadlock? It certainly was not just to get rid of some programs or lower some expenditures of the US Government. That would have been the function of a budget. It was not to lower the cost of such debt, since Standard & Poor’s has been talking about lowering the United States government’s credit rating since this spring. See . They knew it was a risk, Standard & Poor’s clearly stated what it wanted to see, and nothing was done. This will make borrowing more difficult and more expensive for the government as well as businesses and individuals dealing in US dollars.

This won’t help the big corporate entities nor will it help the average American. It won’t help banks. It won’t help importers or exporters. It won’t cut the interest payments on the debt even if the debt is lowered. It won’t even help the Congressional representatives or even a tiny fraction of them.

So, what’s the point? Generally, I look to see who is making money on the whole thing, and I come up with a blank. In this case, I have to look to some other reason than a financial one.

Back to looking at the previous empires throughout history, and one frequent thing that comes in just prior to their demise are some group who seem to have as a primary purpose to destroy what is there, with a secondary purpose to steal things, and a possible tertiary philosophical or religious purpose.

In Egypt, for instance, in its later, declining years, the countries were ruled by Pharaohs who were Greek Ptolmies, the best known of whom was Cleopatra VII. Greeks came in and took what was of value to them, damaged and destroyed other things, remodeled Egyptian temples for worship of Greek gods.

The ancient civilizations of Central and South America were destroyed by an outside force which they didn’t anticipate, was much better armed, plus were carriers of deadly diseases to which the Aztec, Inca, and Maya people had no immunity – especially smallpox. Indeed, the United States of America has the worlds best military by any account. Indeed, it has been said that “Having the worlds second best military is the worlds most expensive hobby.” So far, the USA has maintained that. If defense spending goes to zero – which means not buying, replacing, or repairing any equpment along with not paying any military members, the US will soon have the second, third, or fiftith-best military.

The other, such as happened in Greece and Rome, was a combination of people getting to complacent (e.g., “We’re the best, and nobody would dare take (us) on.” That was combined with religion, which in addition to taking time and resources from all other endeavors, had scriptures and myths of the Gods giving the Greek or Roman people sovereignty over the world.

Another major thing is that the people became lazy, and complacent. People did not participate in government anymore. There were other forms of entertainment that kept being more and more degraded or degrading. In Rome, there were first sports and exhibits performed in the coliseums. Near the end, it was Christians and others who were unpopular among the masses being fed to lions. It is known that voter turn-out is very low – especially in odd-year elections, or in non-presidential elections. Even in local elections, many people do not know who is running for such offices as county commissioner or school board. Those jobs can make some huge differences in the future, especially the school board. They get to decide what is taught or how, which impacts what these kids will be able to do in the future. It is difficult to say whether music is better or worse, but having some huge rock-concerts with a great deal of drugs and mosh-pit violence is less desirable for society than concerts were in the early part of the 20th century. Movies – well, during the “golden age” of Hollywood, a great deal of money was spent making movies – expensive sets and costumes. Today, we have more impressive computer-enhanced or generated graphics. Not as much is spent on sets, mainly because better ones than could be built can be created using a computer. Television seemed to go down hill. It has gone downhill to the point that I do not own a television anymore! When I am places where a TV is being played, I see “reality” TV shows – where people are put into ridiculous situations, and people find entertainment out of that or their embarrassment over not handling something properly. Truly, these are of good quality for home video, but I do not think they warrant national play! Sometimes I see game shows, and there is not much put into making those. There are rarely good TV series, mini-series, or made-for-TV movies. A great deal more time is spent each hour on commercials than there were in the 1950s, or the 1970s, or even the 1990s. The content of these commercials has changed. Rather than advertising something like breakfast cereals, household cleaners, toys, automobiles, and vacations as there were in the past, from my own non-scientific observation, I see a great number of advertisements for prescription drugs. All of the things I listed in the previous sentence could be purchased by anyone, but a prescription drug requires a prescription from a medical professional, and it is sold to treat specific things. These say, “Ask your doctor if you would benefit from (drug)?” That means more visits to the doctor. There are no clues about what these drugs are to treat, except that they show unhappy people at the beginning, and active, happy people at the end portrayed doing enjoyable activities. See the category on this blog for other posts I’ve made about medical delivery in the United States.

We have poor entertainment-like things on the TV. There is news on the TV, but it is a distilled version, a condensed version, showing only one or two sides of a particular issue. One can get better information from local, regional, national, international, or foreign news sources. One can subscribe to these in print, or many of them are now available on the internet. If you can read blogs, including mine, certainly you can look at the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company), Terra (Mexico) The Sidney Morning Herald, Le Monde (France), Pravda (Russia), al Jazeera (Quatar), the British Broadcasting Company, and many others. It is also helpful if you can read a couple of these in a foreign language, but most of them have many or all of their stories in English. Do you know any foreign language well enough to read a news article in it? Much of the world can read a news article in any of several languages. It might be well worth your time to learn a foreign language such that you can read a news article written in it. Many languages will do for this purpose, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Hindi or Mandarin Chinese. Some of these languages are easier or more difficult than others, and some of them are frequently taught in US schools. It would be well worth your time to dust off your high school Spanish, French, or German and read news in it.

Or, is it better to watch another reality TV show? Is it really much more civilized to watch a woman go into a home of a man and children she doesn’t know, of a different culture, different social class, different religion, and different values and watch her make a fool of herself and have the kids fail to respect her as an authority than it is to watch someone being fed to a lion in a Colosseum? Okay, I suppose it is better in that no one is getting killed, but it does not further the understanding among different people, but heightens the differences.

As I said, much of the world can read, write, and speak in several languages. They may speak it with an accent, but they can speak and understand it. The more they listen, the better they can speak it. They can market items that are sold in their countries to foreigners, increasing their market – to other manufacturers, distributors, and consumers. They can learn to understand other cultures to help in developing and marketing products and services to them – including us. If you were to take a vacation into much of the world, people there could speak English to you, and ensure you had a better time. In the United States, we expect others – including representatives from foreign firms and travelers speak English. This reduces the desirability of the United States as a destination, while it increases the desirability of other countries.

Meanwhile, the US has a momentous national debt, which continues to grow. Although, contrary to popular opinion, it is far from the highest debt/GDP ratio in the world. Numerous countries are higher. It has a gigantic trade imbalance, which is also growing. We are importing more than we are exporting, making the dollars we use as “tokens” to pay for these things more plentiful and more worthless. Meanwhile, we have a large number of people who are not working, refusing to work, voting themselves “bread and circuses” (e.g., entitlements), while the government makes hiring someone for a business to be less and less attractive and more costly. Who owns this debt? US banks only own a fraction of it. All of the “Occupy” protests won’t do a thing to solve that problem, although they may create a bigger problem in themselves. Foreigners own much of the debt – both public and private. If it’s not paid, or is paid with “too cheap” of dollars (inflation), they may demand other things in payment or collateral.

We might not need World War 3. Not if a peaceful foreclosure will do.

Of note, empires seldom last more than 200 years… Democracies or representative democracies seldom last nearly that long.

Posted in Financial crisis and issues, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | 1 Comment