Wow, I have been stuck in the Guardian for about the last hour or so, so many good stories, although some good in a depressing kind of way.
This one notes that amongst all the UK anniversaries this year (Trafalgar, VE Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki) one seems to have been glaringly missed. In November it will be 400 years since Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the King, Parliament and everything. The writer goes on to note that the Catholics in early 17th Century Britain were the equivalent of early 21st Century Muslims. Not quite thought of as equals, mostly peaceful, with some nutters wanting to destroy everything.
After the Gunpowder Plot was exposed, torture of the plotters was condoned by the King himself, and it took over 200 years for Catholics to be treated as equals in the UK again. Just thinking, was the Thirty Years War before or after 1605? That was basically Catholics v Protestants fighting across Europe, wasn't it?
Good article, and makes you think about the Global War on Terror, or whatever the State Department is calling it nowadays. Won't even link to the Iraq stories today, I have read a few but I am sure anyone who wants to google can find them...
This article is one of those 'what would you do?' ones. Someone got stabbed on a London bus last week, the writer assisted him, but maybe only two other people on the entire bus did anything. The rest of the passengers milled around outside from how I read the article. I would like to think that I would help, but I have a fear in the pit of my stomach that I would avoid the issue as much as possible. Of course, one of those things you don't know how will turn out until the actual situation happens to you. I would hope my gut instinct would be overridden by my overall humanity.
Hmm, overall humanity, funny phrase when I think about it, is that the humanity of love and peace and all, or is it the humanity of ignorance, genocide and war? That is the dilemma of the human condition, we always seem to be on the knife edge between good and bad, with that edge in between called indifference.
The South Koreans have managed to clone a dog, whom they have called Snuppy. Cloned from a three year old Afghan. Out of a thousand attempts though, only three embryos were created - one miscarried, one was born but died shortly afterwards, and then there is Snuppy. You just know that someone somewhere is working on chimp and human clones already don't you?
Hmm, if HN51 bird flu does mutate into a fully human transmitted flu, and worst case scenario comes to pass, it will spread around the globe in three months and infect half the world's population fifteen months later. With a current HN51 mortality rate of 50% that is a scary scary worst case scenario.
Best case scenario is catching the human version of HN51 in its infancy, with 50 people infected, and 20,000 people closest to them inoculated and quarantined, with schools and workplaces closed, it would be stopped within sixty days. Possibly. And with wild birds migrating all over Asia within the next few months, it might not be South East Asia which is Ground Zero.
When, not if. Exactly the same phrase that London lived under for three years after 9/11.
Okies, enough for now
Pauly
This one notes that amongst all the UK anniversaries this year (Trafalgar, VE Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki) one seems to have been glaringly missed. In November it will be 400 years since Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the King, Parliament and everything. The writer goes on to note that the Catholics in early 17th Century Britain were the equivalent of early 21st Century Muslims. Not quite thought of as equals, mostly peaceful, with some nutters wanting to destroy everything.
After the Gunpowder Plot was exposed, torture of the plotters was condoned by the King himself, and it took over 200 years for Catholics to be treated as equals in the UK again. Just thinking, was the Thirty Years War before or after 1605? That was basically Catholics v Protestants fighting across Europe, wasn't it?
Good article, and makes you think about the Global War on Terror, or whatever the State Department is calling it nowadays. Won't even link to the Iraq stories today, I have read a few but I am sure anyone who wants to google can find them...
This article is one of those 'what would you do?' ones. Someone got stabbed on a London bus last week, the writer assisted him, but maybe only two other people on the entire bus did anything. The rest of the passengers milled around outside from how I read the article. I would like to think that I would help, but I have a fear in the pit of my stomach that I would avoid the issue as much as possible. Of course, one of those things you don't know how will turn out until the actual situation happens to you. I would hope my gut instinct would be overridden by my overall humanity.
Hmm, overall humanity, funny phrase when I think about it, is that the humanity of love and peace and all, or is it the humanity of ignorance, genocide and war? That is the dilemma of the human condition, we always seem to be on the knife edge between good and bad, with that edge in between called indifference.
The South Koreans have managed to clone a dog, whom they have called Snuppy. Cloned from a three year old Afghan. Out of a thousand attempts though, only three embryos were created - one miscarried, one was born but died shortly afterwards, and then there is Snuppy. You just know that someone somewhere is working on chimp and human clones already don't you?
Hmm, if HN51 bird flu does mutate into a fully human transmitted flu, and worst case scenario comes to pass, it will spread around the globe in three months and infect half the world's population fifteen months later. With a current HN51 mortality rate of 50% that is a scary scary worst case scenario.
Best case scenario is catching the human version of HN51 in its infancy, with 50 people infected, and 20,000 people closest to them inoculated and quarantined, with schools and workplaces closed, it would be stopped within sixty days. Possibly. And with wild birds migrating all over Asia within the next few months, it might not be South East Asia which is Ground Zero.
When, not if. Exactly the same phrase that London lived under for three years after 9/11.
Okies, enough for now
Pauly
No comments:
Post a Comment