Overheard On The Swine Flu Hotline

Grunt!

Swine Flu: An Epidemic Of Noise

Hard to conceal for TV journalists their salivation for a good international scare story with plenty of potential victims served over a bed of untold but well-suggested horrors…

The WHO seems to add to the worries, even if the number of attributed dead is minimal. And with symptoms almost identical to common flu’s, the risk of misdiagnosis and inflation in the number of swine flu victims is enormous.

What if instead the swine flu outbreak is being used to “test out” the capabilities of the international community, or even as a show-off to prevent an attempt of biological terrorism?

Nature Geosciences – “Planetary” Issue Free To Download

The April 2009 issue of Nature Geosciences, focused on “Planetary Science”, is free to download, at least for now.

There is also a feature article by Paul Spudis on returning to the Moon.

Reacting To Ahmadinejad’s Speech

I do not understand the uproar against the words used by President Ahmadinejad at the UN Racism Conference in Switzerland. And what I specifically do not understand is why people feel compelled to add to the uproar, when it is as clear as daylight that he went to Geneva with the one and only goal of… causing an uproar, in order to go back home as a national hero right in the middle of his re-election campaign.

The most appropriate reaction to President Ahmadinejad’s outrageous remarks is therefore not a theatrical walkout in front of the TV cameras, nor a flurry of comparisons to Nazi Germany or calls for the “free world” to “wake up”.

We just have to call President Ahmadinejad’s behavior for what it is: electoral posturing, if not outright buffoonery. And far from an episode for the annals of Persian pride, just another of his “pickaxe blows” against the good international standing of the great people of Iran.

Inspiration And Perspiration…

…under a different guise. Still, the concept is the same: for everything you do

“Expect failure…but keep trying“

(from the Skeptics Society’s eSkeptic newsletter)

(Almost) Little To Worry About North Korea

In a new twist of the “politics of the tantrum”, North Korea has shown the door, threatened to show the door or told the world it is thinking about showing the door to the UN Atomic Energy inspectors (profoundly sad, no doubt, for being sent back where possessing a shortwaver radio is not a criminal offence). Pyongyang’s reaction to the UN Security Council latest feeble condemnation is so sudden and over the top, there is little to read into it politically (apart perhaps as yet episode in the Kim-succession saga).

One has to remember that North Korea has built and detonated an atom bomb a few years ago, but alas the boom was not big enough to make it a serious weapon. Now they have launched a satellite towards orbit, but alas the rocket was not strong enough to make it a serious weapon either (“going to orbit” is not militarily important as much as being able to reach the necessary speed. And the North Korean missile did not go fast enough).

At best there will be more puffing, more huffing, and the negotiations will start again. If the current dictator dies, there will be plenty of turmoil and maybe even the chance for Reunification.

Trouble is, at worst the North Koreans will explode an atom bomb in the atmosphere. Even if only unwittingly. And that is plenty to worry about.