The vaccine - as Johannes Löwer, president of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, has pointed out - can also cause worse side effects than the actual swine flu virus.
The vaccine causes death in adolescents? News to me. Vaccination is a numbers game, does it help more than it hurts and by how much. I'd rather get the vaccine and risk some discomfort that ultimately passes, then chance catching the disease and being one of those that dies.
Please do a little Critical Thinking before believing everything you read on anti-vaccination websites.
Ok, you are an idiot. You obviously didn't read and comprehend the scenario he was constructing. If you did you would be calling him an idiot like I did.
This is the event he is referenceing, and you are indicating is an absolute certainty
If a virus were to infect a cell, and the mexican flu would infect the same cell, there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus, which would beat any immunity or vaccine we currently have, would react differently to most treatments and be capable of spreading through open air (through coughing).
1. There is no such thing as the "Mexican Flu"
2. The flu is caused by the virusinfluenza, so collectively the first three sentence fragments demonstrate that he is an idiot with no understanding of infection or immunology.
3. Which virus is he claiming to be more dangerous? The immaginary Mexican Flu, or this unnamed virus?
4. He seems to be indicating that the packaging of the genes from Virus A into the viral coat of Virus B will some how make a new hybrid Virus A/B that is more virulent than either of it's progentors. However, once this new Virus A/B injects the genes from Virus A into a cell it will produce the viral coat for Virus A, not Virus B. That is because the scenario he describes includes no mention of genetic recombination of the two different viral genomes.
Here is a line that you need to remember in the future before posting in topics about which you know little if anything
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln
Ok, I'm going to be undoing several moderations to post this. You are full of shit!
H1N1 does refer to proteins of the viral coat, but there is no inherent reason why we cannot mount an immune response to those proteins.
The flu is either incorrectly refered to as the "Swine Flu" or correctly refered to as the H1N1 flue. It is not refered to as the "Mexican Flu" by anyone other than yourself.
I have no idea what you mean by this:
there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus
But then again, it's obvious that neither do you. If you were capable of packaging the genes for an innocuous flu into the coat of a more virulent flu, it would only increase the chances of infection in the first generation, because the less virulent genes delivered into the infected cell would code for the more mundane viral coat, not the one it had hijacked, becuase it would lack the genes necessary for it's production you moron.
And as to the 1917 flu pandemic, it's not even remotely relevant. Medical science, both prevention as well as treatment of symptoms, has come so far as to make any comparisons nonsensical. For one thing, penecillin wasn't even mass produced until the 1940's. I am aware that the flu is a virus, and not effected by antibiotics, but the flu is also capable of lowering overall immune function such that a significant number of the deaths in the wake of the 1917 flu were as a result of secondary infections resulting from the primary flu infection. Also, the first antiviral drugs were developed in the 1960's so were unavailable in 1917 without a time machine.
Pneumonia is not a disease in and of itself you fuckwit. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that can be caused by any number of infectious agents, including bacteria. My wife's aunt has pneumonia and gave the infectious agent to my wife and daughter. They don't have pneumonia because the disease didn't settle in their lungs but in their sinuses. As a result they simply have head colds instead of the more serious pneumonia despite being infected by the same virus.
Ok, the first 3 paragraphs were negated by the last sentence of your post. To sum up what I read:
I sign any petition regardless of whether or not I agree with it.
Followed up by,
I wouldn't sign this petition because I disagree with it.
Do you understand the definition of contradictory.
Personally I don't care what your politics are on this particular issue, or any other for that matter. I was trying to correct the impression that the objection to the data being made public was out of shame over their position on the issue, when the true objection was one of fear of reprisal. It's the same reason that Unions have secret ballots when deciding whether or not to unionize (to protect against reprisal from both the Company that doesn't want unionization, and from fellow workers that do want it), and why we have anonymous balloting in elections (to protect the voter from reprisals by those they didn't vote for). That second one is particularly important as in many countries people are killed for voting the wrong way.
You apparently believe yourself willing to endure any reprisal for your political beliefs. Congratulations, you are either among the bravest people I've come across or too naive for your own good. Since I'm a skeptic so my default assessment is the later. But I'm also willing to leave open the opportunity that you are the former, however unlikely I find it.
If you can't see the difference between Anarchy and the current system,... I don't know what you and I can discuss because you and I obviously populate entirely different realities. In an Anarchy there are no governments, not public works projects, no infrastructure, no safety, nothing that differentiates the modern world from the island in the Lord of the Fly's.
You indicated that we should just love each other here
Sitting back and saying, "All people who X are stupid. Those people should Y," only serves to widen the gap between you and others. It only makes it harder to love.
that makes what I said commentary on your myopia instead of a strawman. If I misunderstood what you said then say so, but in the absence of a cogent attempt to correct a misunderstanding, I was arguing against what you actually said instead of synthesizing and then deconstructing a position neither one of us posited.
Besides, you obviously don't know how to read. I didn't tell you what you should want at any point. I indicated that YOU have failed to indicate why I should want to love everyone. In case you and I are arguing about different uses of the word want in my post, the only other reference was to your previously mentioned desire to pursue music, and your decision that the sacrifices necessary for said pursuit were unacceptable to you (Just to be clear, I was not judging your desires, only pointing out that it was your decision to get a job and the BS you did, instead of pursuing music). In that case I never indicated what you should want, only discussed wants that you had previously confessed to.
Please refrain from trying to put words in my mouth. I'm perfectly capable of doing so for myself. Also, putting "I mean this in the kindest way" does not excuse insulting me. If you want to insult me, the grow a pair and insult me directly without any pussyfooting around. Insults only bother me when coming from someone who's opinion of me I actually care about, and unless you begin to demonstrate greater intelligence and insight than you have so far, or are secretly a member of my family, you are unlikely to end up on that list.
Please let me know exactly which brand of MJ you smoked with your fruit loops this morning, because it must be some good shit.
You are talking about a Utopian society that is impossible. It is not impossible because it can't be designed, but because you need every person in the WORLD to be fanatical about it and quite frankly you will never get even one millionth of the population to care enough for long enough to make it work long term.
Your claim that people doing what they love benefits everyone is a perfect example of your myopia. Pedophiles come to mind as individuals who harm others when pursuing what makes them happy. Same thing for anyone with the smallest amount of greed in their soul (Pick a CEO of your choice to illustrate). I fail to see why I should want to love everyone. Some people intentionally make themselves difficult to love and healthy love is a two way street, not this idealized fantasy of yours.
As to you wanting to pursue music, I don't see what is stopping. I know people that sacrificed everything to pursue music. That you have a computer of some sort and presumably pay for your internet connection indicates that certain creature comforts are more valuable to you than you musical aspirations. Welcome to adulthood! We all need to decide what are priorities are and what we are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve those goals. That you've placed certain priorities above your musical aspirations was your choice and I fail to see why anyone else should subsidize your dreams if you are willing to make anymore sacrifices than you already have.
I'd much rather spend money on education than war, but I'm also realist enough to recognize that providing for the public defense, including the defense of our nations interests is necessary to ensure that someone else doesn't take our freedom to make life decisions away from us. You can argue as to the details of which wars are justifiable, which interests are truly worth pursuing, etc. But I get the impression from your ranting thus far that you probably believe that there is no adequate justification for war ever, and that we should all just chill around the bong, hold hands, make love, and sing Kum Bay Yah. That's an admirable desire, but has no practical connection to the real world that we all live in.
Please keep you asinine hyperbole out of the discussion. First off, schoolyard bullying has no relevance to the discussion at hand. Please leave your straw-men at home. No one blames kids for being bullied, but that doesn't mean that a kid can't do something about the original problem. I took martial arts classes in elementary school after a bully almost got my brother killed by chasing him into traffic. I never used what I learned offensively and was eventually able to convince the bully that I wasn't worth his time.
I have plenty of empathy, that doesn't mean I am willing to be taken advantage of by those too self absorbed to realize that the definition of everyone doing what makes them happy is Anarchy and that system only works for the strong at the expense of the weak. That you can't see that is unfortunate, but doesn't change anything in the real world.
Student loan lenders cannot seize any assets to cover the cost of your loans. So, if you cannot afford to buy food and pay your loan then by all means buy food. The lender will send you an angry letter, but there is nothing they can do outside of hitting your credit report. If you are in the situation described above, then your credit score is the least of your worries as it is already low due to your high debt and low income.
Occasionally my wife cannot afford to pay the entire amount on her student loan. Last month she shorted it by $20. They'll hit her credit score, and that sucks, but it's not like they can do anything else about it other than sending her nasty letters about how she's behind on her payments and keep adding up the interest. They can't take her knowledge and she isn't shorting them enough for it to be worth suing her.
I don't think the problem is that those signing the petition are being outed, but that they fear they are going to face unlawful retribution as a result of having their names known to the general public.
I'm a scientist, and I do research that involves the use of Animal Models. You can find my name on my University's website, and it would be trivial for an interested party to ascertain my home address as my last name is fairly unique (No one in my town has it except for me and my family). However, groups like PETA and ELF/ALF have in the past done the research to locate animal researchers and published the information on the web so that their more psycho members could harrass those researchers. Those publishing the information are not considered to be breaking any laws, but it would take a moron to miss the fact that without that information being made easily available to the more radical members of their organization the scientists wouldn't be experiencing harrasment. Some examples of this are the attempted car bombings of animal reasearchers from UCLA
Also, the retribution does not need to be violent. There is the possibility that someone who signed the petition is a subordinate of a homosexual that visits the site. It would be near impossible to proove that being passed over for promotion is not connected to having signed a petition that is at odds with the political wishes of one's superiors. I'm not saying that I believe homosexuals to be more vindictive than heterosexuals, but they are human and vindictiveness is a common human failing.
Besides, signing a petition does not make one an acitivist. It simply means that when approached by an activist, they were willing to register their opinion on an issue. I've signed petitions for causes I didn't care about to any large extent, I didn't seek them out or try to convince others to agree with me, I simply read the document and decided whether or not it was in line with my beliefs on the issue and then decided to sign accordingly.
Ok, I didn't realize I was talking to a tinfoil hat-type. If I'm mistaken in my assessment of you, then I apologize, but you should be aware that you can't just make stuff up to win arguments.
Banks do not issue currency, at least not in the US. The government issues currency, originally based on the amount of bullion in their possession, but admittedly not any more. If the government wants more money it can print its own contributing to inflation, but banks cannot do that. In the US they are expressly forbidden from doing so. It is one of the reasons why the US gave up on its original Articles of Confederation. They allowed for each state to print it's own currency, and as such interstate trade was very difficult and pricy. That is why the current constitution grants the federal government the powers to regulate interstate trade and coin currency.
There was a huge debate back in the early years of the current consitution as to whether the Government should set up a series of federal banks or let the market control banking. Ultimately we ended up with a hybrid of the two, where the Federal Government has a handful of Federal Reserve Banks, but most banking is handled by the market. As a result of the power that the Federal Reserve system has, the government is able to influence the banking industry, but not control it absolutely (until the recent nationalization of the independent banks by Bush and Obama).
I agree that debt can get out of hand, but I know plenty of people that owe money to no-one. They make more money from their employer than they spend in a given month, and have neither credit cards/mortgages/or loans (education or otherwise). They are the admitted minority, but I hope to join their ranks as soon as possible by paying off my student loans at an aggressive rate upon graduation.
As to your comments on the apprenticeship system, I've never undergone a formal apprenticeship. However, I would consider my graduate program where I do research for a stipend I can live on in exchange for tuition remission and education at the hands of an experienced faculty member to be an apprenticeship in all but name. The rest of your comments strike me as being nothing short of the semantics I mention earlier. Debt is debt, be it social or monetary. Our entire society is based around obligations, be they to family, friends, employers, co-workers, fellow citizens, etc. That is what it means to be a social animal. you can dress the debt up by dividing it into different categories based on your own preferences, but that doesn't change the fundamental nature of how a society functions. Money is simply a currency that we have all agreed to accept to make bartering easier.
I didn't even apply to expensive schools for my BS because I knew I didn't want super huge loans and I also knew that a graduate degree was in my future (originally DVM, but later switched to MS and PhD track).
High priced schools are over rated. You can get an excellent education no matter where you go as long as you apply yourself. The only thing you are missing with a BS from an affordable state school is the indefinable Smarmyness that comes with being raped up the ass by the bursars office at a school with a Brand Name.
P.S. I'm going to a school with a name now, but they are paying me more than I pay them every semester so who's getting screwed now.
No one gains by students defaulting on their student loans, except possibly the student (they got something for virtually nothing). Predatory lending in other markets does take place (home loans), but since there is not collateral that the bank can take in the event of a student defaulting, there is nothing to gain by encouraging that.
Most student loans are guaranteed by the federal government, so if the student does default the bank still gets paid and the student still has their education. The only real looser in this scenario is the Federal Government, which in the US is the PEOPLE of the US such as myself.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln
Whenever you assume, you make an ass out of you and me!
My MS and pending PhD were funded by industry, not the Government. I'm a graduate student in the Animal Sciences and that industry does a lot of research. They offload a lot of the studies to Universities that then pay graduate students to do the work as part of their education.
My PI has accepted grants from the government, but those grants were to answer questions the government wanted answer to. They were NOT handouts of the like seen for the humanities.
I also have acquired outside funding myself by way of a competitive grant competition sponsored by a company based out of France. They wanted research performed in a certain area and were willing to pay to fund those studies they thought were worthwhile, not as handouts but because they thought the answers might help them better serve their customers.
The only people that should be pursuing degrees that are unlikely to ever help them acquire gainful empolyment in the future should be those that are wealthy enough to pay their expenses out of pocket.
I have no problem with someone spending their own money to acquire knowledge that they desire. I take HUGE offense at attempts to use Taxpayer money (as most student loans are guaranteed by the fed) to learn something that they can't use and then expect the same government to forgive their tab because of the uselessness of the degree in question.
Not everyone in a country can be college educated. Who will do all of the jobs that don't require a college education (Hint: most jobs don't require a college education). If you make college free the way other public services are (which are not free by the way, just included in your taxes already), then everyone will go to college and the college degree itself will become useless. Those that can will then pursue graduate degrees and they will become the minimum requirement for jobs that currently require a BA/BS.
Everyone in the US has the Opportunity to pursue an education, they just don't IMO have the right to pursue a useless degree unless they can afford to cover the costs themselves. You apparently have decided that you wanted to learn skills that don't necessarily help you find gainful employment. That's fine as long as you pay the bill for your own education. Sounds like your doing just that, so I have no complaints that should concern you.
They are providing the means to an end. The means is money and the ends are an education and certification to that effect. (I can learn at the library, but the diploma is what most employers are looking for).
The only differences are semantic. The Apprentice system may have changed, but originally the apprentice had to work for crap pay while learning, and in many trades had to pay a percentage of their earnings back to their instructor for a certain amount of time after becoming a tradesman them-self.
The only differences I see between that and the current system of paying for college by use of student loans are semantic, with one possible exception. It is much more difficult to find an apprenticeship in a field that already has too many practitioners or too little demand. Universities on the other hand are more than willing to take on a nearly infinite number of students seeking useless degrees because they get paid up front.
My best friend from HS got a BS and MS in Tech Ed, but his older brother got a History degree, and his older sister got an art history degree. The older brother works for the power company and the sister works as a social worker. Neither one of them are using their degree's because they chose degrees that were less vocational and instead chose degrees based on what interested them with no regard for later employability.
I think it is particularly interesting that my friends parents paid for all of their children to go to college, but only 2 of the 5 managed to pick degrees that they are now using. That's why I won't be saving up for my child's college education. They can pay their own way with loans and if they fail it'll be on their own dime. I'll help where I can, but NO ONE is ENTITLED to a college education.
No, it's about making intelligent decisions about your liability and prospects for being able to live up to obligations you take on. It has nothing to do with being enthusiastic for being taken advantage of. I think if our bankruptcy laws were a little harsher, people would be less likely to take ill advised risks with other peoples money.
I've never understood why the wealthy can file for bankruptcy without risk of losing their mansions. I think that if you own enough assests to pay back your bill, then you shouldn't be filing for bankruptcy. you should be selling your shit to pay your bills.
Lenders are out to screw you, but that's nothing new. Most people are out to screw lenders if they can so whats the difference? The difference is that a lender can't tell so sob story about how they are weak and need to protected because they are funking infantalized like people can.
I took a chance when I took out student loans. I minimized my risks by attending a community college at a much lower cost first, pursued a degree in a field that is not overpopulated and will give me skills useful outside of my chosen field, and then pursued a graduate degree with a professor that was offering a stipend instead of the one that thought he "Might" be able to find funding next year despite having more interest in the research of broke professor.
I've minimized my expenses while in college by having roommates, constantly looking for cheaper rent, carpooling to work when I lived too far from the bus, and taking the bus when I could. I fail to see why anyone who failed to do as much deserves to get out of paying the bill for their education. Student loans can be payed back over DECADES if the former student so chooses, with lower monthly payments in that situation. There is nothing to stop the student from making higher payments after eventually getting a better paying job and paying off the debt early and saving themselves some money in the long run.
If you try and make it so that students can welch on their loans, people will stop extending loans to students. Either that, or the federal government will have to eat that loss as most student loans are guaranteed by the Fed. Then it goes from the Rich Fat Cats getting screwed to EVERYBODY THAT PAYS TAXES getting screwed by someone that was unable to find a job right away.
Except that those defaulting on student loans, by definition, are not earning enough money to pay back their loans.
The bank may not get all of its money back in the event of a repossessed car, but it will get some, and most of the time the early payments in a car or home loan are applied to the interest and not the principle, so including the money they've already collected from you in addition to the money made from the sale of repossessed merchandise, they usually do a little better than break even.
That's why you can buy homes and automobiles at steep discount from forclosure sales, the bank isn't as interested in making a lot of money as breaking even and offloading the merchandise before its value decreases further.
How does viewing an education as an investment prevent briliant individuals from making meaningful contributions? Genius is Genius, independent of whether their peers are looking at their education simply as a means to an end. As a PhD pursuing American at a State Run University, I take exception with your assertion that North Americans cannot make meaningful contributions simply becuase they have to pay for their education. Most of the faculty in my department are North American born, and more importantly North American Educated, and they've all made major contributions to their field. They are all Scientists, although not in the one field you've listed, and do very good and necessary work every day!
Sounds more like you just don't like the culture you are from and are willing to tar and feather it to curry favor with those from other places with different systems.
Willing to accept slavery based on a series of manipulations.
No, they are willing to accept indenture in exchange for education. How is that any different from the use of the indenture system for transit to the new world by settlers, or the Apprenticeship systems for learning trades. You work for me and I give you what you want in return. It's basic economics. I'm not going to take time to teach someone a trade or a scientific course gratis. I need to be reimbursed in some way for my time and effort that I could be spending earning money from people willing to pay me for my skills. Gratitude is adequate reimbursement in some situations, but not adequate payment for a college education.
Most degree programs have requirements that can be completed in far less than the 4 years that they claim. The community college system is also underutilized by those seekig BS/BA's. I was able to afford an associates quite easily while working 35hr a week (living at home). It was orders of magnitude less expensive than the 4 year college I finished up at. There was even a credit transfer program where if I got above a 3.5/4.0 while at the community college, I received a 33% price break on tuition and was guaranteed admission to the local 4 year University.
As a result I only needed 2 years of student loans to get my BS, most of which covered room and board. Even with some of my Community College credits not transfering I was eligable to graduate a semester early, and could have taken a part-time schedule my penultimate semester because there were less than 12 credit hours worth of material I still needed to take.
I then pursued a graduate degree in a field that Pays it's MS and PHD students a stipend you can live on. I don't make a lot (13 to 16k/year), but with careful budgeting and a roomate or two you can live on it while getting more education. I have no pity for those that pursue degrees in fields where they need to pay for school and their living expenses. That was their choice. They believe(d) that they will be able to find a job that will enable them to pay back those loans, otherwise they had no business pursuing those degrees in the first place unless independently wealthy already.
As a student with 10+ years of education, 3 years of actively accepting student loads (which have been accruing interest for the last 8 years), and a wife with 5+ years of loans already in repayment I feel justified in saying "BOO FRIKIN' HOOO"
A college education was never meant to be a guarantee of future financial stability, especially in the short term. We need to get away from this pervasive mentality of "Things didn't go exactly according to the PLAN. The Government needs to save me!!!! WAAAAAAAA".
Of course it sucks trying to find a job in the current market, and I sympathise as I'm currently looking for my next job as I'm going to graduate soon. However, that doesn't mean that the federal government, who already bent over backward in order to help me get the loans I needed in order to persue my education, should be expected to further subsidize me into my 30's. Grow a friggin' pair, and if necessary get a job working at McD's and rent the shittiest appartment you can find to make ends meet. This sense of entitlement to an easy life, simpy because you are college educated is assinine and juvenile. The education is supposed to give you more skills, based on the idea that more skills make you more valuable. However, if you pursue a degree in which those skills are next to useless (I'm looking at you art history majors), or one in which the market is oversatturated, well then you were an idiot and deserve to suffer a little for your stupidity. That doesn't mean that you should be able to get your education for free, just because it took you a little while to find a job.
We need to stop supporting those that have made stupid decisions or else they'll never learn that there are consequences for their actions. I learned that in middle school, my older brother took until after high school, and apparently some have failed to learn the lesson despite being 22 (Bachelors), 24-28 (Graduate Degree), or even older 50-60 (Corporate CEO's that ran their companies into the ground). Maybe I'm just an insensitive clod, but not everyone can be happy all of the time. A little hardship can build character, just as our grandparents.
There are nowhere near as many people suffering as there were in the great depression, all the "Worst recession since the depression" hyperbole aside. If the current hardships mean that it takes you an extra 10 years to buy a house, or that you have to settle for something less than a McMansion I'm not going to be losing any sleep over it. I will probably lose more than a little over my own financial problems, but they are MY PROBLEMS and not the governments. A little more personal accountability on behalf of most Americans would go a long way to improving our collective condition.
Except that you completely ignore the social aspects of the human system
All westernized countries have seen dramatic decreases in the reproduction rate. Most countries like the US and the UK would be in population decline if not for immigrants (which is why the immigration issue is so important and unfortunately being miss handled here in the US by both sides). There is a strong negative correlation with quality of life and reproduction rate. If we can increase the quality of life experienced by 3rd world countries, there is expected to be a decrease in the number of children born. That would curb the number of people demanding food and water.
To me, that is an infinitely preferable situation to letting the poor starve and go powerless.
IIRC, the estimate for the peak global population had to be revised downward several years back because they failed to account for the negative popultion growth of western countries. For some reason, when people have more they reproduce less so as to give their fewer children more opportunities. My Stepfather was the oldest of 7, and by biological father the middle of 5 and neither family was considered unusually large. My family had 5 kids and everyone assumed we were Catholic (we were not) becuase it was believed that no one has families that large anymore unless they cannot use birth control (as the catholic church discourages).
I could possibly see them claiming 41% of computers have pirated software installed, but I just don't believe that 41% of all software installed is pirated. I may not have paid for mutliple licenses to software installed on my laptop and desktop machines, but I have at least one legal license for all but 2 of the 200+ apps in my applications folder, and those are apps I'm evaluating for later purchase.
tiered pricing would be acceptable to most iPhone users if it meant those using less were charged less than they are now for unlimited. If they want to meter my use I'd have no problem if the lower half of the teirs (at reasonable use levels) ended up with my bill going down, instead of going up being the only possible change.
Slashdot Mirror
The vaccine - as Johannes Löwer, president of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, has pointed out - can also cause worse side effects than the actual swine flu virus.
The vaccine causes death in adolescents? News to me. Vaccination is a numbers game, does it help more than it hurts and by how much. I'd rather get the vaccine and risk some discomfort that ultimately passes, then chance catching the disease and being one of those that dies.
Please do a little Critical Thinking before believing everything you read on anti-vaccination websites.
This is the event he is referenceing, and you are indicating is an absolute certainty
If a virus were to infect a cell, and the mexican flu would infect the same cell, there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus, which would beat any immunity or vaccine we currently have, would react differently to most treatments and be capable of spreading through open air (through coughing).
1. There is no such thing as the "Mexican Flu"
2. The flu is caused by the virus influenza, so collectively the first three sentence fragments demonstrate that he is an idiot with no understanding of infection or immunology.
3. Which virus is he claiming to be more dangerous? The immaginary Mexican Flu, or this unnamed virus?
4. He seems to be indicating that the packaging of the genes from Virus A into the viral coat of Virus B will some how make a new hybrid Virus A/B that is more virulent than either of it's progentors. However, once this new Virus A/B injects the genes from Virus A into a cell it will produce the viral coat for Virus A, not Virus B . That is because the scenario he describes includes no mention of genetic recombination of the two different viral genomes.
Here is a line that you need to remember in the future before posting in topics about which you know little if anything
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln
H1N1 does refer to proteins of the viral coat, but there is no inherent reason why we cannot mount an immune response to those proteins.
The flu is either incorrectly refered to as the "Swine Flu" or correctly refered to as the H1N1 flue. It is not refered to as the "Mexican Flu" by anyone other than yourself.
I have no idea what you mean by this:
there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus
But then again, it's obvious that neither do you. If you were capable of packaging the genes for an innocuous flu into the coat of a more virulent flu, it would only increase the chances of infection in the first generation, because the less virulent genes delivered into the infected cell would code for the more mundane viral coat, not the one it had hijacked, becuase it would lack the genes necessary for it's production you moron.
And as to the 1917 flu pandemic, it's not even remotely relevant. Medical science, both prevention as well as treatment of symptoms, has come so far as to make any comparisons nonsensical. For one thing, penecillin wasn't even mass produced until the 1940's. I am aware that the flu is a virus, and not effected by antibiotics, but the flu is also capable of lowering overall immune function such that a significant number of the deaths in the wake of the 1917 flu were as a result of secondary infections resulting from the primary flu infection. Also, the first antiviral drugs were developed in the 1960's so were unavailable in 1917 without a time machine.
Pneumonia is not a disease in and of itself you fuckwit. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that can be caused by any number of infectious agents, including bacteria. My wife's aunt has pneumonia and gave the infectious agent to my wife and daughter. They don't have pneumonia because the disease didn't settle in their lungs but in their sinuses. As a result they simply have head colds instead of the more serious pneumonia despite being infected by the same virus.
Please mister FUDster, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Ok, the first 3 paragraphs were negated by the last sentence of your post. To sum up what I read:
I sign any petition regardless of whether or not I agree with it.
Followed up by,
I wouldn't sign this petition because I disagree with it.
Do you understand the definition of contradictory.
Personally I don't care what your politics are on this particular issue, or any other for that matter. I was trying to correct the impression that the objection to the data being made public was out of shame over their position on the issue, when the true objection was one of fear of reprisal. It's the same reason that Unions have secret ballots when deciding whether or not to unionize (to protect against reprisal from both the Company that doesn't want unionization, and from fellow workers that do want it), and why we have anonymous balloting in elections (to protect the voter from reprisals by those they didn't vote for). That second one is particularly important as in many countries people are killed for voting the wrong way.
You apparently believe yourself willing to endure any reprisal for your political beliefs. Congratulations, you are either among the bravest people I've come across or too naive for your own good. Since I'm a skeptic so my default assessment is the later. But I'm also willing to leave open the opportunity that you are the former, however unlikely I find it.
You indicated that we should just love each other here
Sitting back and saying, "All people who X are stupid. Those people should Y," only serves to widen the gap between you and others. It only makes it harder to love.
that makes what I said commentary on your myopia instead of a strawman. If I misunderstood what you said then say so, but in the absence of a cogent attempt to correct a misunderstanding, I was arguing against what you actually said instead of synthesizing and then deconstructing a position neither one of us posited.
Besides, you obviously don't know how to read. I didn't tell you what you should want at any point. I indicated that YOU have failed to indicate why I should want to love everyone. In case you and I are arguing about different uses of the word want in my post, the only other reference was to your previously mentioned desire to pursue music, and your decision that the sacrifices necessary for said pursuit were unacceptable to you (Just to be clear, I was not judging your desires, only pointing out that it was your decision to get a job and the BS you did, instead of pursuing music). In that case I never indicated what you should want, only discussed wants that you had previously confessed to.
Please refrain from trying to put words in my mouth. I'm perfectly capable of doing so for myself. Also, putting "I mean this in the kindest way" does not excuse insulting me. If you want to insult me, the grow a pair and insult me directly without any pussyfooting around. Insults only bother me when coming from someone who's opinion of me I actually care about, and unless you begin to demonstrate greater intelligence and insight than you have so far, or are secretly a member of my family, you are unlikely to end up on that list.
Please let me know exactly which brand of MJ you smoked with your fruit loops this morning, because it must be some good shit.
You are talking about a Utopian society that is impossible. It is not impossible because it can't be designed, but because you need every person in the WORLD to be fanatical about it and quite frankly you will never get even one millionth of the population to care enough for long enough to make it work long term.
Your claim that people doing what they love benefits everyone is a perfect example of your myopia. Pedophiles come to mind as individuals who harm others when pursuing what makes them happy. Same thing for anyone with the smallest amount of greed in their soul (Pick a CEO of your choice to illustrate). I fail to see why I should want to love everyone. Some people intentionally make themselves difficult to love and healthy love is a two way street, not this idealized fantasy of yours.
As to you wanting to pursue music, I don't see what is stopping. I know people that sacrificed everything to pursue music. That you have a computer of some sort and presumably pay for your internet connection indicates that certain creature comforts are more valuable to you than you musical aspirations. Welcome to adulthood! We all need to decide what are priorities are and what we are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve those goals. That you've placed certain priorities above your musical aspirations was your choice and I fail to see why anyone else should subsidize your dreams if you are willing to make anymore sacrifices than you already have.
I'd much rather spend money on education than war, but I'm also realist enough to recognize that providing for the public defense, including the defense of our nations interests is necessary to ensure that someone else doesn't take our freedom to make life decisions away from us. You can argue as to the details of which wars are justifiable, which interests are truly worth pursuing, etc. But I get the impression from your ranting thus far that you probably believe that there is no adequate justification for war ever, and that we should all just chill around the bong, hold hands, make love, and sing Kum Bay Yah. That's an admirable desire, but has no practical connection to the real world that we all live in.
Please keep you asinine hyperbole out of the discussion. First off, schoolyard bullying has no relevance to the discussion at hand. Please leave your straw-men at home. No one blames kids for being bullied, but that doesn't mean that a kid can't do something about the original problem. I took martial arts classes in elementary school after a bully almost got my brother killed by chasing him into traffic. I never used what I learned offensively and was eventually able to convince the bully that I wasn't worth his time.
I have plenty of empathy, that doesn't mean I am willing to be taken advantage of by those too self absorbed to realize that the definition of everyone doing what makes them happy is Anarchy and that system only works for the strong at the expense of the weak. That you can't see that is unfortunate, but doesn't change anything in the real world.
Student loan lenders cannot seize any assets to cover the cost of your loans. So, if you cannot afford to buy food and pay your loan then by all means buy food. The lender will send you an angry letter, but there is nothing they can do outside of hitting your credit report. If you are in the situation described above, then your credit score is the least of your worries as it is already low due to your high debt and low income.
Occasionally my wife cannot afford to pay the entire amount on her student loan. Last month she shorted it by $20. They'll hit her credit score, and that sucks, but it's not like they can do anything else about it other than sending her nasty letters about how she's behind on her payments and keep adding up the interest. They can't take her knowledge and she isn't shorting them enough for it to be worth suing her.
I don't think the problem is that those signing the petition are being outed, but that they fear they are going to face unlawful retribution as a result of having their names known to the general public.
I'm a scientist, and I do research that involves the use of Animal Models. You can find my name on my University's website, and it would be trivial for an interested party to ascertain my home address as my last name is fairly unique (No one in my town has it except for me and my family). However, groups like PETA and ELF/ALF have in the past done the research to locate animal researchers and published the information on the web so that their more psycho members could harrass those researchers. Those publishing the information are not considered to be breaking any laws, but it would take a moron to miss the fact that without that information being made easily available to the more radical members of their organization the scientists wouldn't be experiencing harrasment. Some examples of this are the attempted car bombings of animal reasearchers from UCLA
Also, the retribution does not need to be violent. There is the possibility that someone who signed the petition is a subordinate of a homosexual that visits the site. It would be near impossible to proove that being passed over for promotion is not connected to having signed a petition that is at odds with the political wishes of one's superiors. I'm not saying that I believe homosexuals to be more vindictive than heterosexuals, but they are human and vindictiveness is a common human failing.
Besides, signing a petition does not make one an acitivist. It simply means that when approached by an activist, they were willing to register their opinion on an issue. I've signed petitions for causes I didn't care about to any large extent, I didn't seek them out or try to convince others to agree with me, I simply read the document and decided whether or not it was in line with my beliefs on the issue and then decided to sign accordingly.
Ok, I didn't realize I was talking to a tinfoil hat-type. If I'm mistaken in my assessment of you, then I apologize, but you should be aware that you can't just make stuff up to win arguments.
Banks do not issue currency, at least not in the US. The government issues currency, originally based on the amount of bullion in their possession, but admittedly not any more. If the government wants more money it can print its own contributing to inflation, but banks cannot do that. In the US they are expressly forbidden from doing so. It is one of the reasons why the US gave up on its original Articles of Confederation. They allowed for each state to print it's own currency, and as such interstate trade was very difficult and pricy. That is why the current constitution grants the federal government the powers to regulate interstate trade and coin currency.
There was a huge debate back in the early years of the current consitution as to whether the Government should set up a series of federal banks or let the market control banking. Ultimately we ended up with a hybrid of the two, where the Federal Government has a handful of Federal Reserve Banks, but most banking is handled by the market. As a result of the power that the Federal Reserve system has, the government is able to influence the banking industry, but not control it absolutely (until the recent nationalization of the independent banks by Bush and Obama).
I agree that debt can get out of hand, but I know plenty of people that owe money to no-one. They make more money from their employer than they spend in a given month, and have neither credit cards/mortgages/or loans (education or otherwise). They are the admitted minority, but I hope to join their ranks as soon as possible by paying off my student loans at an aggressive rate upon graduation.
As to your comments on the apprenticeship system, I've never undergone a formal apprenticeship. However, I would consider my graduate program where I do research for a stipend I can live on in exchange for tuition remission and education at the hands of an experienced faculty member to be an apprenticeship in all but name. The rest of your comments strike me as being nothing short of the semantics I mention earlier. Debt is debt, be it social or monetary. Our entire society is based around obligations, be they to family, friends, employers, co-workers, fellow citizens, etc. That is what it means to be a social animal. you can dress the debt up by dividing it into different categories based on your own preferences, but that doesn't change the fundamental nature of how a society functions. Money is simply a currency that we have all agreed to accept to make bartering easier.
I didn't even apply to expensive schools for my BS because I knew I didn't want super huge loans and I also knew that a graduate degree was in my future (originally DVM, but later switched to MS and PhD track).
High priced schools are over rated. You can get an excellent education no matter where you go as long as you apply yourself. The only thing you are missing with a BS from an affordable state school is the indefinable Smarmyness that comes with being raped up the ass by the bursars office at a school with a Brand Name.
P.S. I'm going to a school with a name now, but they are paying me more than I pay them every semester so who's getting screwed now.
No one gains by students defaulting on their student loans, except possibly the student (they got something for virtually nothing). Predatory lending in other markets does take place (home loans), but since there is not collateral that the bank can take in the event of a student defaulting, there is nothing to gain by encouraging that.
Most student loans are guaranteed by the federal government, so if the student does default the bank still gets paid and the student still has their education. The only real looser in this scenario is the Federal Government, which in the US is the PEOPLE of the US such as myself.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln
Whenever you assume, you make an ass out of you and me!
My MS and pending PhD were funded by industry, not the Government. I'm a graduate student in the Animal Sciences and that industry does a lot of research. They offload a lot of the studies to Universities that then pay graduate students to do the work as part of their education.
My PI has accepted grants from the government, but those grants were to answer questions the government wanted answer to. They were NOT handouts of the like seen for the humanities.
I also have acquired outside funding myself by way of a competitive grant competition sponsored by a company based out of France. They wanted research performed in a certain area and were willing to pay to fund those studies they thought were worthwhile, not as handouts but because they thought the answers might help them better serve their customers.
The only people that should be pursuing degrees that are unlikely to ever help them acquire gainful empolyment in the future should be those that are wealthy enough to pay their expenses out of pocket.
I have no problem with someone spending their own money to acquire knowledge that they desire. I take HUGE offense at attempts to use Taxpayer money (as most student loans are guaranteed by the fed) to learn something that they can't use and then expect the same government to forgive their tab because of the uselessness of the degree in question.
Not everyone in a country can be college educated. Who will do all of the jobs that don't require a college education (Hint: most jobs don't require a college education). If you make college free the way other public services are (which are not free by the way, just included in your taxes already), then everyone will go to college and the college degree itself will become useless. Those that can will then pursue graduate degrees and they will become the minimum requirement for jobs that currently require a BA/BS.
Everyone in the US has the Opportunity to pursue an education, they just don't IMO have the right to pursue a useless degree unless they can afford to cover the costs themselves. You apparently have decided that you wanted to learn skills that don't necessarily help you find gainful employment. That's fine as long as you pay the bill for your own education. Sounds like your doing just that, so I have no complaints that should concern you.
They are providing the means to an end. The means is money and the ends are an education and certification to that effect. (I can learn at the library, but the diploma is what most employers are looking for).
The only differences are semantic. The Apprentice system may have changed, but originally the apprentice had to work for crap pay while learning, and in many trades had to pay a percentage of their earnings back to their instructor for a certain amount of time after becoming a tradesman them-self.
The only differences I see between that and the current system of paying for college by use of student loans are semantic, with one possible exception. It is much more difficult to find an apprenticeship in a field that already has too many practitioners or too little demand. Universities on the other hand are more than willing to take on a nearly infinite number of students seeking useless degrees because they get paid up front.
I can agree with that.
My best friend from HS got a BS and MS in Tech Ed, but his older brother got a History degree, and his older sister got an art history degree. The older brother works for the power company and the sister works as a social worker. Neither one of them are using their degree's because they chose degrees that were less vocational and instead chose degrees based on what interested them with no regard for later employability.
I think it is particularly interesting that my friends parents paid for all of their children to go to college, but only 2 of the 5 managed to pick degrees that they are now using. That's why I won't be saving up for my child's college education. They can pay their own way with loans and if they fail it'll be on their own dime. I'll help where I can, but NO ONE is ENTITLED to a college education.
No, it's about making intelligent decisions about your liability and prospects for being able to live up to obligations you take on. It has nothing to do with being enthusiastic for being taken advantage of. I think if our bankruptcy laws were a little harsher, people would be less likely to take ill advised risks with other peoples money.
I've never understood why the wealthy can file for bankruptcy without risk of losing their mansions. I think that if you own enough assests to pay back your bill, then you shouldn't be filing for bankruptcy. you should be selling your shit to pay your bills.
Lenders are out to screw you, but that's nothing new. Most people are out to screw lenders if they can so whats the difference? The difference is that a lender can't tell so sob story about how they are weak and need to protected because they are funking infantalized like people can.
I took a chance when I took out student loans. I minimized my risks by attending a community college at a much lower cost first, pursued a degree in a field that is not overpopulated and will give me skills useful outside of my chosen field, and then pursued a graduate degree with a professor that was offering a stipend instead of the one that thought he "Might" be able to find funding next year despite having more interest in the research of broke professor.
I've minimized my expenses while in college by having roommates, constantly looking for cheaper rent, carpooling to work when I lived too far from the bus, and taking the bus when I could. I fail to see why anyone who failed to do as much deserves to get out of paying the bill for their education. Student loans can be payed back over DECADES if the former student so chooses, with lower monthly payments in that situation. There is nothing to stop the student from making higher payments after eventually getting a better paying job and paying off the debt early and saving themselves some money in the long run.
If you try and make it so that students can welch on their loans, people will stop extending loans to students. Either that, or the federal government will have to eat that loss as most student loans are guaranteed by the Fed. Then it goes from the Rich Fat Cats getting screwed to EVERYBODY THAT PAYS TAXES getting screwed by someone that was unable to find a job right away.
Who exactly is being bombed simply because they are hungry??
Wars happen and are to avoided wherever possible, but don't confuse the causes of war and the unfortunate side effects. It just makes you look stupid.
Except that those defaulting on student loans, by definition, are not earning enough money to pay back their loans.
The bank may not get all of its money back in the event of a repossessed car, but it will get some, and most of the time the early payments in a car or home loan are applied to the interest and not the principle, so including the money they've already collected from you in addition to the money made from the sale of repossessed merchandise, they usually do a little better than break even.
That's why you can buy homes and automobiles at steep discount from forclosure sales, the bank isn't as interested in making a lot of money as breaking even and offloading the merchandise before its value decreases further.
How does viewing an education as an investment prevent briliant individuals from making meaningful contributions? Genius is Genius, independent of whether their peers are looking at their education simply as a means to an end. As a PhD pursuing American at a State Run University, I take exception with your assertion that North Americans cannot make meaningful contributions simply becuase they have to pay for their education. Most of the faculty in my department are North American born, and more importantly North American Educated, and they've all made major contributions to their field. They are all Scientists, although not in the one field you've listed, and do very good and necessary work every day!
Sounds more like you just don't like the culture you are from and are willing to tar and feather it to curry favor with those from other places with different systems.
Willing to accept slavery based on a series of manipulations.
No, they are willing to accept indenture in exchange for education. How is that any different from the use of the indenture system for transit to the new world by settlers, or the Apprenticeship systems for learning trades. You work for me and I give you what you want in return. It's basic economics. I'm not going to take time to teach someone a trade or a scientific course gratis. I need to be reimbursed in some way for my time and effort that I could be spending earning money from people willing to pay me for my skills. Gratitude is adequate reimbursement in some situations, but not adequate payment for a college education.
Most degree programs have requirements that can be completed in far less than the 4 years that they claim. The community college system is also underutilized by those seekig BS/BA's. I was able to afford an associates quite easily while working 35hr a week (living at home). It was orders of magnitude less expensive than the 4 year college I finished up at. There was even a credit transfer program where if I got above a 3.5/4.0 while at the community college, I received a 33% price break on tuition and was guaranteed admission to the local 4 year University.
As a result I only needed 2 years of student loans to get my BS, most of which covered room and board. Even with some of my Community College credits not transfering I was eligable to graduate a semester early, and could have taken a part-time schedule my penultimate semester because there were less than 12 credit hours worth of material I still needed to take.
I then pursued a graduate degree in a field that Pays it's MS and PHD students a stipend you can live on. I don't make a lot (13 to 16k/year), but with careful budgeting and a roomate or two you can live on it while getting more education. I have no pity for those that pursue degrees in fields where they need to pay for school and their living expenses. That was their choice. They believe(d) that they will be able to find a job that will enable them to pay back those loans, otherwise they had no business pursuing those degrees in the first place unless independently wealthy already.
As a student with 10+ years of education, 3 years of actively accepting student loads (which have been accruing interest for the last 8 years), and a wife with 5+ years of loans already in repayment I feel justified in saying "BOO FRIKIN' HOOO"
A college education was never meant to be a guarantee of future financial stability, especially in the short term. We need to get away from this pervasive mentality of "Things didn't go exactly according to the PLAN. The Government needs to save me!!!! WAAAAAAAA".
Of course it sucks trying to find a job in the current market, and I sympathise as I'm currently looking for my next job as I'm going to graduate soon. However, that doesn't mean that the federal government, who already bent over backward in order to help me get the loans I needed in order to persue my education, should be expected to further subsidize me into my 30's. Grow a friggin' pair, and if necessary get a job working at McD's and rent the shittiest appartment you can find to make ends meet. This sense of entitlement to an easy life, simpy because you are college educated is assinine and juvenile. The education is supposed to give you more skills, based on the idea that more skills make you more valuable. However, if you pursue a degree in which those skills are next to useless (I'm looking at you art history majors), or one in which the market is oversatturated, well then you were an idiot and deserve to suffer a little for your stupidity. That doesn't mean that you should be able to get your education for free, just because it took you a little while to find a job.
We need to stop supporting those that have made stupid decisions or else they'll never learn that there are consequences for their actions. I learned that in middle school, my older brother took until after high school, and apparently some have failed to learn the lesson despite being 22 (Bachelors), 24-28 (Graduate Degree), or even older 50-60 (Corporate CEO's that ran their companies into the ground). Maybe I'm just an insensitive clod, but not everyone can be happy all of the time. A little hardship can build character, just as our grandparents.
There are nowhere near as many people suffering as there were in the great depression, all the "Worst recession since the depression" hyperbole aside. If the current hardships mean that it takes you an extra 10 years to buy a house, or that you have to settle for something less than a McMansion I'm not going to be losing any sleep over it. I will probably lose more than a little over my own financial problems, but they are MY PROBLEMS and not the governments. A little more personal accountability on behalf of most Americans would go a long way to improving our collective condition.
Except that you completely ignore the social aspects of the human system
All westernized countries have seen dramatic decreases in the reproduction rate. Most countries like the US and the UK would be in population decline if not for immigrants (which is why the immigration issue is so important and unfortunately being miss handled here in the US by both sides). There is a strong negative correlation with quality of life and reproduction rate. If we can increase the quality of life experienced by 3rd world countries, there is expected to be a decrease in the number of children born. That would curb the number of people demanding food and water.
To me, that is an infinitely preferable situation to letting the poor starve and go powerless.
IIRC, the estimate for the peak global population had to be revised downward several years back because they failed to account for the negative popultion growth of western countries. For some reason, when people have more they reproduce less so as to give their fewer children more opportunities. My Stepfather was the oldest of 7, and by biological father the middle of 5 and neither family was considered unusually large. My family had 5 kids and everyone assumed we were Catholic (we were not) becuase it was believed that no one has families that large anymore unless they cannot use birth control (as the catholic church discourages).
I could possibly see them claiming 41% of computers have pirated software installed, but I just don't believe that 41% of all software installed is pirated. I may not have paid for mutliple licenses to software installed on my laptop and desktop machines, but I have at least one legal license for all but 2 of the 200+ apps in my applications folder, and those are apps I'm evaluating for later purchase.
tiered pricing would be acceptable to most iPhone users if it meant those using less were charged less than they are now for unlimited. If they want to meter my use I'd have no problem if the lower half of the teirs (at reasonable use levels) ended up with my bill going down, instead of going up being the only possible change.