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Swine Flu continues to spread throughout the world today, and is now confirmed in 13 nations and suspected in up to 27 more nations all over the world. Today we remain at phase 5 alert status out 6 phases on the World Health Organization’s warning system. Below is a chart of their warning system.

Still no one knows for sure where swine flu orginated, but it is suspected to have come from Mexico, altough Mexico has sought to point to its orgins elsewhere. It is through to have Zoonotic ogrins, meaning the disease likely crossed over from animals. There are prevention mentions for Zoonotic disease you which you can find here. Unforutnately it is a little late for them now, unless you are going to visit the pig farm, then make sure you take a look at them.

Swine flu is currently treatable with the flu drugs Tamiflu or Relenza, but not with two older flu medications. Currently there are no vaccines for swine flu.

The only prevent methods are the good old fashion ones such as covering your mouth when you cough washing your head regularly, and staying away from others when you are sick.

Still no one knows for sure where swine flu originated, but it is suspected to have come from Mexico, although Mexico has sought to point to its origins elsewhere. It is through to have Zoonotic origins, meaning the disease likely crossed over from animals.

There are prevention mentions for Zoonotic disease you which you can find here. Unfortunately it is a little late for them now, unless you are going to visit the pig farm, then make sure you take a look at them.

The current strain going around is called the H1N1 H and N stand for the two viral proteins, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N), characteristic of all influenza A viruses the numbers after the viral proteins represent genetic mutations in the structure of the proteins. For some reason the virus has been more lethal in Mexico thus far; perhaps because of reduced access to health care and the poor living conditions in much of Mexico.

With Avian flu I recall it was the H5N1 variant they were really worried about, and I believe they are still concerned about the possibility of the H6N1 crossing over to humans. Likewise with swine flu I think our biggest concern is if it mutates into another variant that cannot be treated with our current antiviral medications.

There are also theory circulating that the swine flu may have been cooked up in lab somewhere, as some sort of population control method to help curve global warming. This is because of its high geographical diversity. Although, that is not necessarily true in today’s world of globalization it is still a possibility, as no one knows for sure the origins.

What they do know is the characteristics:
The new virus has genes from North American swine influenza, avian influenza, human influenza and a form of swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe, said Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC’s Influenza Division.

Now as I have said before I am opposed to many aspects of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Mutations here are solely a micoevolutionary thing they will lead to any new species or any radically different virus. If it mutates the virus will still have the same basic structure and the two same proteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase just slightly different organization.

Within the virus genome they are not creating new genes they are simply rearranging current and preexisting genetic materials. The influenza A viral genome consists of eight negative-sense RNA segments that can generate new variants by genetic reassortment.1

In fact virus are not even alive, as they cannot even function without a host organism. They are stripped down parasites. In fact it is likely their simplicity, and not their complexity that allows them to be so adaptable. As they don’t need much material of their own. Granted they are still very complex for our understanding but comparative to the genetic material in the human genome they are not. Also, being that influenza is an RNA virus it is much more flexible than a DNA based virus, RNA while only a half helix and therefore replicates much easier.




WHO PANDEMIC ALERT PHASES
# Phase 1: No viruses circulating among animals causing infections in humans
# Phase 2: Animal influenza virus causes infection in humans, and is considered potential pandemic threat
# Phase 3: Influenza causes sporadic cases in people, but no significant human-to-human transmission
# Phase 4: Verified human-to-human transmission able to cause community-level outbreaks. Significant increase in risk of a pandemic
# Phase 5: Human-to-human transmission in at least two countries. Strong signal pandemic imminent
# Phase 6: Virus spreads to another country in a different region. Global pandemic under way

‡ Not all cases have been confirmed to be due to this strain.
Some are cases of influenza-like illness (ILI) that have not been confirmed through testing to be due to this strain.


Untied States	Cases
State	Laboratory confirmed	Probable	Suspected‡	Deaths Confirmed (unconfirmed)‡
Total	94	143+	477+	1
Texas	16	14+	6+	1
New York	51	8+	75	0
California	14	29	-	0
Maine	3	-	12+	0
Michigan	2	1	2	0
Massachusetts	2	-	2	0
Kansas	2	-	0	0
Indiana	1	2	0	0
Ohio	1	1	9	0
Arizona	1	-	24+	0
Nevada	1	-	0	0
South Carolina	0	17	-	0
Arkansas	0	12	0	0
Delaware	0	10	0	0
Illinois	0	9	0	0
New Jersey	0	7	0	0
Louisiana	0	6	0	0
Maryland	0	6	0	0
Washington	0	6	0	0
Connecticut	0	3	5	0
Wisconsin	0	3	0	0
Iowa	0	2	150	0
Colorado	0	2	0	0
Minnesota	0	1	50+	0
Tennessee	0	1	10	0
Nebraska	0	1	6	0
Missouri	0	1	0	0
Pennsylvania	0	1	0	0
Utah	0	1	0	0
Rhode Island	0	3	0	0
Alabama	0	2	29	0
Florida	0	0	80	0
Oregon	0	0	14	0
North Carolina	0	-	11	0
Mississippi	0	-	10	0
New Mexico	0	0	5	0
Idaho	0	-	4	0
Hawaii	0	0	3+	0
Oklahoma	0	-	1	0
New Hampshire	0	-	TBD	0

While searching around for swine flu related marital I found this graphic, I apologize for the somewhat ghastly nature of it. Nonetheless I think it sums up Swine Flu well, and the powerful nature of it focuses us to the problem while not overwhelming us too greatly. The graphic was originally created for a video game entitled Biohazard (the Japanese name of Resident Evil)

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So far there are 91 confirmed cases of Swine Flu in the United States as of 11:24 a.m. ET and the World Health Organization (WHO) has raises their alert level for swine flu to phase 5.

In Egypt they are slaughtering all of their pigs, roughly 300,000 as a preemptive precaution against swine flu. Egyptian farmers are very unhappy and some have even refused to slaughter their pigs. Also there are now 6 probably cases in Maryland according to the governor there, and possible cases in Chicago Illinois.

Also now google has put their flu tracker to work on Swine Flu in Mexico, and I imagine they will probably have one for the US soon or maybe they already do. You can see the Mexican flu tracker here

Update 8:30 p.m. EST
Wow I am not sure how I missed this one, but I just found from my neighbor and then got hit with a comment on Facebook as soon as I walked back in. Now North Kingstown High School has a probably case of swine flu, and that is my town! Now school at NKHS has been canceled for the rest of the week, as a precautionary measure.

Swine Flu is starting to spread, and for many it is coming a little too close to home. According to the Associated Press it has struck in Boston now. For me living in Rhode Island I through New York was pretty close when I heard three days ago that eight N.Y. high school Students tested positive for Swine Flu, according to the N.Y. Mayor. Now that I know it is near Boston it is getting way too close for comfort.

BOSTON (AP) — Two young brothers in Massachusetts who became sick after a trip to Mexico have tested positive for swine flu, health officials confirmed Wednesday. The boys, ages 8 and 10, are from Lowell – about 35 miles northwest of Boston. They are the first confirmed cases in New England.

Monday the World Health Organization raised their Pandemic Alert Level to 4 because of Swine Flu and in Mexico many public gatherings were canceled and many people are wearing masks out in public.

Now we sadly have our first confirmed dead from Swine flu in the United States today

First U.S. Death From Swine Flu — 23-Month-Old From Texas — the CDC Confirms [6:54 a.m. ET]

David Kellerman the acting CFO (Chief Finical Officer) of Freddie Mac hung himself today in his home, and was found dead just this morning. The question of why he would kill himself could be answered in one of two ways: either he had an enormously guiltily conscious, or he was under an abnormally huge degree of stress. Either, way we can see the damage that can be done to a man physiological when they are involved in such a catastrophic, whether he was at fault or not; he was suffering the consequences of losing so much of this countries money.
It is certainly awfully hard for me to believe that this man was not involved in some crucial decisions that led to the collapse of Freddie Mac being that before he took over as acting CFO he was a senior vice-president and led the company’s accounting and finance operations.

According to the guardian.co.uk

At least six other financial services executives have committed suicide under stress from the current credit crisis. Those include Germany’s fifth richest man, Adolf Merckle, who in January threw himself under a train in an act his family blamed on his company’s “desperate situation”. In December, a French fund manager who had lost $1.4bn of clients’ money to Bernard Madoff’s ponzi scheme was found dead at his desk in New York.

While I do not know the hearts of these people these people are examples of the damage money can do to a person. Just because you have money does not mean you are well off. Money is only good if it does not come with undue stress and comes ethically, ultimately for these people that was not the case and they had to pay the ultimately price for their money.

NASA has captured a photo of what appears as the Hand of God. While this certainly does not prove the existence of God any more than an interestingly shaped cloud would. Certainly, God has already provided sufficient wittiness and proof of His existence, and is pleased to do so through things, which many would consider foolish. Accordingly, we need not believe that this is the necessarily the hand of God, but simply that this is the work of God to be impressed. The mere possibility that this could be an image of the hand of God is enough.

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Barack Obama is now the president elect, and John McCain has just conceded the election moments ago. According to some sources John McCain had a suspicion all along that Obama might win. Very strange how that feeling was there that Barack Obama was going to win. I know America is ready for change; lets just hope Barack Obama can bring the positive change we need, and not just change for change sake. I really hope he will to good things for this country, because he will have a lot of support being that his popularity was so high, and he has so much Charisma. I am Hopeful that he will also be able to balance his pragmatism with a healthy amount of idealism. For now we can only wait and see what he will do when he takes the office in January.

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Who will you vote for Today? Tomorrow the election will all be over, and the media will find something else to talk about. That is as long as we do not have a repeat of the 2000 election, then we will never stop hearing about it. Of course I am sure no matter what happens we will hear still hear about it in a historical context since this is, as most everyone knows by now, it is an election of firsts.




If the Republicans win it will be two firsts the first man over 70 elected president which will make John McCain the oldest president every to be elected (the current oldest man elected President was Ronald Regan at age 69), and the first woman Vice President. If the Democrats win it will Barack Obama will be the first Black or Mulatto (I think the more Politically correct term may be biracial, although I think both of the terms are kind of ambiguous terms. So please forgive me if you consider this a racist term or something, because I do not mean it as such; I am just at lost for a appropriately descriptive term.) Whatever race he is technically considered Barack Obama will be the first person from his ethic background elected president. While many may say that it is a big step to elect a Black president, I do not believe that the color of their skin will make the difference. After all Abrham Lincoln was a white President and saw fit to free slaves and empower Blacks, by going against the sentiment of the day. Accordingly we to select a President based on values, and if that is Barack Obama for you so be, and if it is John McCain for you so be it. I believe race and age should not even be a secondary factor here, lets vote or for against a person because of who they are and what they have done. Not because they are “too old”, “too black”, “too white”. So go get out there and vote for the best Candidate!!!

My impressions

This Friday the LUKoil station (aka Coventry Petro) on Nooseneck Hill Road in Coventry will be offering $1.99 a gallon gas from 10:30 AM to 1:00 PM. According to the gas station attendant there is no limit to the amount of gas you can get; as long as you are not bringing a tanker truck or something crazy of that nature. Therefore, I would recommend that if you have some gas container laying around to bring them too.

There is apparently a radio station sponsoring the event. Accordingly, I expect there will probably be music and maybe a few give aways. Also, expect a long line of perhaps a mile or more; considering that the radio station is probably spreading the word rapidly and of course I am spreading the word too. Look for the LUKoil sign along route 3 in Coventry about 1 mile from exit 6 off of 95. Although the sale is from 10:30 to 1:00 they will allow the people who are in line by 1:00 PM to still get gas at the discounted price, although to be on the safe side I would recommend getting there early. That should give you the best chance of wasting the least amount of gas siting in line.

Aside from the wait time the only down side I can see is that if this promotion attracts more people to LUKoil this may to a degree be helping Putin and keeping Russia going so they can pull more stunts like they did in Georgia this past Summer. Although, this of course probably only a small consideration at best right now, since no matter what gas station you use you will likely be helping to fund volatile countries that may put the money towards violence.

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For those of you that might have doubted the virgin birth of Jesus through Mary here is one more small thing showing the possibility of virgin birth. Albeit, it only seems to allow female births, at the moment; so it does not bring the virgin birth of a boy child into the realm of non-miraculous just yet. What it does show is that anything you think you “know” about science can turn out to be wrong at any time turn. This is yet another reason why no one should ever insist that anything is impossible, and should always remain open minded to the possibility of the supernatural.

Apparently, this is not the first incident; there has been one other recorded instance of a virgin shark getting pregnant! The first such recorded instance was of a hammerhead shark at the Omaha, Neb Zoo. This current case involved a blacktip shark that had been living in isolation at a Virgina aquarium which recently died, but was found, upon autopsy, to have been carrying a well developed embryo that was very close to full term. The shark is believed to have produced this embryo asexually, and this was confirmed by genetic tests carried out by Mahmood Shivji of the Guy Harvey Research Institute of Nova Southeastern University in Dania Beach, Florida, and his colleagues. They used DNA fingerprint analysis to test for parental markings, and the embryo showed no evidence of having a father. This study concerning a shark named Tidbit and this phenomenon was published in the Oct. 10 Journal of Fish Biology; if you want to look it up for yourself. I am sure you can find more in other news sources too.

Asexual reproduced is certainly not an unknown phenomenon, however it has previously only been observed in birds and reptiles, and they use a different type of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis. Also asexual reproduction is quite a common phenomenon among prokaryotic organisms, which has been known much longer than eukaryotic asexual reproduction. Perhaps there is also some truth to Jurassic Park; “life…finds a way”.

It Is official CNN has just confirmed that Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden is Senator Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick. Text messages will be going out sometime Saturday morning. I guess the mass text message approach just isn’t as fast as old fashion reporting.

Update 0: It is all over the web now. Even wikipedia has it “On August 22, 2008, the Associated Press reported from an anonymous source that Biden has been selected by presumptive Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama to be his running mate as the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States.” and they sited yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/veepstakes;_ylt=AjGbUgn_I1l0zlRhA3K64_ms0NUE. So much for not preempting the text message. I wonder if we will ever find out who leaked it, or if they would have been watching Sen. Biden house anyway when the Secret Service showed up.