And, of course, always eager to be on the wrong side of history, the neocon hardliners have been voicing their support for... wait for it... for Ahmadinejad! Way to go, assholes.
Whoops; I see that I've re-posted Jim's link @2. Apologies.
When people on the internets make the error of trivializing the word "lynching," it is useful to refer them here.
So. I wonder how Kass is doin' with the ol' "wisdom of repugnance" today. There is, after all so much to work with.
Like this
...and this.
"Use pump-bottle soap rather than bar soap if you're sharing with others. Some microbes can live surprisingly long times on wet bars of soap."
...But influenza virus is not among them. BAR SOAP AND WARM WATER ARE MORE THAN FINE FOR THE PRESENT PURPOSE.
Bassguy @18: as someone who has spent a *lot* of his career at the bench working on the molecular bases of microbial pathogenicity, I think that that allegation is preposterous and foolish.
Here's some more reason for concern. In two years, endemic seasonal H1N1 in the United States has gone from ~12% oseltamivir (Tamiflu)-resistant to 98.5% resistant this year.
Reference: JAMA.
The other neuraminidase inhibitor besides tamiflu, zanamivir, is in relatively short supply. Endemic seasonal H1N1 in the U.S. is also 98% resistant to the second class of drugs, the adamantine ion channel inhibitors.
As Jim points out, flu viruses are good at recombining, especially with very similar viruses. The bad news: the Mexican strain is also in the H1N1 subgroup. So, while news reports indicate that the Mexican strain is still Tamiflu-susceptible, it is unlikely to remain so...
Pedant point: while a handful of the intercellular messengers that signal infection and control immune responses are enzymes, most of them are not enzymes, because they do not *catalyze* chemical reactions.
Non-enzyme messengers include peptides, among these all of the cytokines (interferon, TNF-alpha, and IL-1 and all of the other interleukins). Other non-enzyme messengers are not peptides, including the prostaglandins and the glucocorticoids.
I want to know the crippling self-defense against the MLA handbook. That thing is godawful.
Read them both last night, back to back, and then tried to sleep as Cockburn's "They call it Democracy" earwormed into my skull...
Re. #65....
Zombie Apocalypse v. Robot Uprising. (Discuss.)
I wonder if the Ethical Governor is hooked up to a camera with a spectral detector that can measure melanin? It *is* a project from Georgia Tech, after all...
It's soooooooo cute! I think that I will name it "ED-209."
• Invent something useful.
• Discover something important.
Evan @ 20: "The one thing I wonder about is -- is the piece trying to extract too much meaning out of the online comments?"
No, it isn't. Remember that about half of the cases are prosecuted for negligent homicide, manslaughter, etc. The reason is that prosecutors, most of them elected, tend to understand the way that a lot of the the folks who vote them into office think; compassion is not a word often heard in such races. Online comments, like votes, can be a form of secret balloting.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 16 |
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