Don't worry about the "swine flu".

Instead, worry about your own government, which will do everything to "save you for your own safety". 

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html

In 1976, swine flu came around and that immediately became headline news and government quickly concluded that anything of this sort could become a worldwide plague that would wipe out many people.

But the reality was that only one soldier had been killed by the flu and many others had not been affected by the flu despite infection.

A costly program of vaccination/inoculation was started country-wide. 

Many more people died from the vaccination than from the flu itself. (25 confirmed vaccine kills to 1 flu kill)

The moral of the story is that the flu, though deadly, is not nearly as bad as the fear is creates. 

As of this time, I do not know of any other deaths in other countries besides Mexico. Some of the infected in the US didn't even have to be hospitalized.

Of course, this flu is much more widespread than the other one. But it is obvious that sub-standard medical care and close proximity of swine and humans are to explain why Mexico has suffered so many more deaths. To add to that, people are somewhat afraid to go to hospitals for whatever reason, because the conditions are poor. 

The media has blown this "pandemic" up way more than what it actually is.

NEvertheless, it is no reason to do nothing to prevent infection.

work. future. freedom.

Interrogation and Torture

Torture is never justified. It is sickening. It is unusually cruel and never justified. It is useless. It is ridiculous that people cite cases in which victims under torture have revealed bits of information. In reality, the chances are extremely low and usually, when the torturers are that angry, the victim is either guilty or will admit to everything to get out of the situation. It is ineffective. Justice, by which this has been conducted for, is not served. 

Physicians should be banned from participating in any form of torture. Physicians are people trained to help sick people. They should not be involved in harming or killing people.

If anyone agrees with torture, I will assume that they are ready to be tortured with every and any procedure developed by the CIA. Can anyone even imagine what it would feel like to be waterboarded up to 200 times? And I am certain that cannot be the only thing done to prisoners. 

Meanwhile, people are talking about technicalities about memos and who wrote them. The whole system needs to be investigated for legal violations, based on US law and all international treaties the US has signed. 

All this crap boils down to one thing. The real reason they do this is simply to try and convince the victim that they are under total control of the people doing the torture. It is a sadistic and childish game. An atrocity committed under the name of liberty and justice. 

An Inconvenient truth

In general, I think a significant portion of time is wasted on AG talking about his political campaigns, what his family was doing, the condition of some river and his belief that the US had a democracy. In other words, irrelevant things intended to emotivate the viewer into a state of urgency and sadness. AG then builds on this and turns it into alarmism. 

And then, he turns alarmism into government restrictions. That is not to say that governments should not do anything about pollution and emissions. However, carbon taxes and deliberate goals based on shakey evidence that it will help is useless, unimaginative and hinders development of everyone. The only good part of this presentation may be the promotion of relatively independent energy sources like wind-turbines. Property rights, health rights, responsibility, free information, adapting to change and ingenuity are the things that have allowed human beings to deal with problems, not larger and larger and more unaccountable government powers.

So what do I think? I think, at the most basic and well-found level for me, that there is something strange going on with the climate. All the "heat-waves" and disasters are concerning. Climate is changing. But I am also aware that climate was changing long before I was around. Likewise, I am aware of the data that shows that the average temperature is going up.

A scientific argument can be made about greenhouse gases. Water vapor is overwhelmingly the worse greenhouse gas, in both quantity and what it can do. I can prove this to you. Cloudy days tend to be very stuffy and hotter, compared to a very clear day, partly because humidity, but also because the cloud will trap radiation in. This is very similar with what fog and smog and buildings can do as well.

Clouds also remove a significant amount of heat because vaporization requires a significant amount of energy. If global warming is as significant as the IPCC says (0.6 degrees, error 0.2), then quite a lot more water will be taken up and certain areas will be cooled. 

This already makes the effects of CO2 small. How much CO2 are we putting out, compared to the stuff coming out of the sea? The only way this whole thing would make sense is if they formed a hypothesis, stating that strong positive feedback will force more greenhouse gas out due to the current 0.6 degree rise. This needs to be clearly demonstrated. If this is not proven, then I will stick with my prediction that the averages are only going up about 1 degree, with 0.5 error. 

The results of such an increase would lead to only a handful of effects, which damage can be neutralized if people were more alert and prepared. But that would be the result of only CO2 generation, partly human and partly natural, and not crazy positive feedback that authorize the use of exponents. 

People always like to talk about the "delicate balance of nature" and how we may disrupt it. Yet, they never realize that nature changes and has always adapted to changes in variables. Sure, these changes may not be good, and are not what we want. But fearing change or using fear is irrational. Instead, the focus must be on adapting to the change. If you can see that the Himalayan glaciers are receding, then one needs to take steps to deal with this. The main thing that needs to be done is to not panic in any way, because panic has always been more dangerous than the event itself. 

Note that I have no intention of denying the phenomenon of global warming and human-caused pollution. I would very much prefer if we didn't destroy rainforests or put so much toxic chemicals into poisoning ourselves. It does me no good in denying global warming. I am just asking questions. 

Last of all, I am displeased that the school has decided to use "An Inconvenient Truth" as part of the Physics course. I hope I do not have to see this for Chemistry as well.