Outbreaks

The recent Tomato outbreak was first reported in April 2008. To date, there have been roughly 160 reported cases of salmonella poisoning in 17 of the 50 states. Of the 160 cases, 23 have required hospitalization and one has died. The man that died, passed away from cancer and the salmonella poisoning was a contributing factor. The FDA has now added Jalapeño peppers to the vegetable crisis. Now there is a report of a Measles outbreak in 15 of the 50 states. There have been 123 reported cases. (Local advisement - The state of Virginia is on the list.)
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To be clear, neither is considered an epidemic. They are referred to as 'Outbreaks.' I'm not a medical professional. But I have to admit that I was rather stymied at the term 'Outbreak.' So I pondered the thought, and asked myself what is an outbreak. By googling: An outbreak is defined as more cases of disease in time or place than expected. If the condition is rare (i.e. food borne botulism) or has serious public health implications (i.e. bio terrorism agent), an outbreak may involve only one case. ONE CASE???
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A food borne outbreak is defined as two or more cases of a similar illness after ingestion of a common food or beverage or ingestion of food or beverages at a common meal or event. The definition of a laboratory-confirmed food borne outbreak depends on the pathogen but usually requires two or more cases with the same laboratory diagnosis. TWO or more???
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An epidemic is defined by an illness or health-related issue that is showing up in more cases than would be normally expected. A pandemic is normally used to indicate a far higher number of people affected than an epidemic, and a refers to a much larger region affected.
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So okay, neither 'outbreak' appears to meet the definition of an epidemic or pandemic, even though the Tomato crisis is more widespread. Let's think about this:
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The July 2008 est. United States population is 301,139,947.

• Tomato - that's 0.0000531% of the population (160 cases/301,139,947)
• Measles - that's 0.0000408% of the population (123 cases/301,139,947)

The July 2008 est. Virginia State population is 8,254,315 (est 8% increase 2006)

• Tomato - that's 0.0019384% of the population (160 cases/8,254,315)
• Measles - that's 0.0014901% of the population (123 cases/8,254,315)

Those are such tiny numbers. How can either combination be considered an OUTBREAK? Is it just me? Stay healthy! Wash your veggies and get your booster shots. I got my MMR booster in December. I need to get my Chicken Pox booster soon. I've nevah evah had the chicken pox!!

Second-Hand Smoke

I believe I have blogged before about the funny, strange, stupid, and inappropriate conversations that I have with some of my co-workers. All of the conversations are often with women that generally start the conversation in the first place, so I feel safe in saying that it's consensual. Today's conversation was about second-hand smoke.

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Work posted a "no smoking" sign in an area that smokers have usurped as their own, but not company sanctioned. When I go out, I try to corral everyone over to a relatively 'safe(r) zone.' Since the area in question is in the path of everyone near a walkway. And because most people just throw their cigarette butts on the concrete. Which frankly makes the area look nasty.

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The past few days, the air has been humid, so the smoke lingers in the air. So I said something about moving further away (before the sign went up). Today, since the sign went up, one of my friends commented on it and said that second-hand smoke had to be more dangerous than Drunk Driving. She wondered why there was only publicity about Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). I reminded her that there were plenty of anti-smoking commercials. She retorted, but still nothing like M.A.D.D for second-hand smoke. I suggested there might be a Mothers Against Second-hand Smoke, or M.A.S.S. We both kind of giggled. But it made me wonder if there was such a thing. I didn't find a M.A.S.S out there but there was A.S.H., which stands for Action on Smoking and Health. Check the website out if you'd like.

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I'm neither advocating nor rebuking the existence of the issue. I was just pointing it out to you, because it was just a silly conversation that had serious undertones, that neither of us really cared that much about. It just stuck in my head all day and I figured it was blogible.

Phooey

Phooey !!!

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I'm not feeling Blogical tonight.

But I thought I'd bring back an oldie Cartoon Hero!

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Enjoy

Admiral, There Be Whales Here

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; when Scotty says "Admiral, There be Whales Here!", he wasn't talking about inside of you. He was just thrilled that he was able to rig the transporter to re-materialize two humpback whales on board a makeshift aquarium inside a Klingon battleship. But, if scientists have their day, they will put a whale inside a person. Well - maybe not the whole whale, but genetically engineered bits and pieces.

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It appears that whale hearts are more sophisticated than our own at being able to send pulse signals through fibers/wires around their hearts to keep it pumping. Read the article.
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Could this put an end to the pacemaker, a multi-billion dollar business? I'm sure there will be plenty of self-interested groups looking to put a stop to all this scientific advancement. I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share. I thought maybe someone out there might like to know they plan to put a sea cucumber inside of you... hee hee.

"double dumb-ass on you"

Declan - pt. 7

By the time I reached Taylor Street, I had been hiking uphill all the way. Lynchburg never was an easy place for me to visit. I much rather ride downhill on my bike with the wind in my hair. Not uphill with Justine spewing her torment in my face. Taylor Street was yet another steep hill and the rain was growing harder, pelting me in the face like tiny wet rocks. Umbrellas are cumbersome and just get in the way; but now I could use one. Looking up the hill, I begin to dread what I am about to do. Even for just a rib. Lorenzo was my friend, and I had hoped I had buried his crazy ass for good.
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It occurred to me about half way up, that soft dirt or not, I didn’t have a shovel to make the job easier. It was night and everyone was home, lights ablaze. It wouldn’t be so easy to break into someone’s shed and steal one. The rain was getting harder. I think there’s more water flowing now than oxygen in the air. No matter. Step after labored step, I dig my boots into the pavement and head further up. Memorial Avenue, I have one more block; the cemetery exit is at 4th street. I buried the rib close to the exit so that I could get out of there as quickly as I could.
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Cemeteries are sacred ground and I was about to exercise bad judgment. Folks giggle at the thought of graveyards being haunted. Until they meet up with the evils that lay in wait. At this point all I could hear was my heartbeat and breathing and the rushing water passing down toward the bottom of the hill. I was close to the narrow opening of the cemetery that allowed one car to pass through. I stood in the middle of 4th Street. I stood there for probably 30 seconds, but that was time enough for my mind to travel back to the day I buried Lorenzo’s rib into a shallow grave. *at least I had enough foresight to bury it close to the exit and not far underground.* I also knew that any ghoul inside, was relegated to that terrain, never to step beyond the sacred walls. So… In… and Out… it will be.
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5 more steps. 4 --- 3 ------- 2 ------ …ugh 1.
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*Declaaaaaannnnn, come on in. The coast is clear for now. I know what you're up to and I can help you.*
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Shivers are going all down my spine. Not what I need right now. Fireflies in a graveyard are not a good sign. They only draw attention with all that glowing and fluttering sexual tension they convey. But that eerie little voice is familiar. And once I shake off the chill crawling down my back, I gather my thoughts and whisper *Jenii* under my breath. And as I did that, my breath exhaled cold air. Now that just freaks me out more. That had better be Jenii.

*Yes Declaaaaannn, I’ve been sent by Valniria to assist you.*

“Jenii, thank Eritocritos it’s you. And why must you always make an entrance floating on an elm leaf? You can fly with your own wings. You’ve got to be the laziest wood nymph on earth. …I graciously accept your offering of assistance. But how can you, so tiny, help me in this rain?”
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*You need not dig for what you seek, Declaaaaaannn. The wolf Hati and the warrior Valniria have already provided. The object you seek is resting atop the brick column you passed as you entered.*
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“Jenii, how may I thank you?”
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*Upon completion of your task, but a kiss will do… if you survive. And I fear not*
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“Jenii – your kind named me. You know what I am capable of…”
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*We do, we know. And that is why you must succeed. You are already needed in the north – to where I must now flee. I leave you with your next task, to save the sparkling waters of the Algonquin*
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*Jenii, let me do this task first. Then I will help you soon.*
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Walking toward the brick column exit of the cemetery, I laugh aloud. I am all alone, yet I have many to watch over me. With that, I trip over an old truck that I could not see in the darkness ahead of me. As I pick it up, I see that it is red but fading and has a handle on it that a child would use to pull it along. Who would leave that there? I grab the rib, wrapped in cloth and proceed out from the cemetery onto 4th street. “Thank goodness that was uneventful!” *It’s time to get some rest, Happy Birthday Declan. For your birthday you received one rib of a dead friend. What could be better?*
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As Declan walked away from the graveyard, he did not notice the apparition of a small male child with tears in his eyes waving to him, pulling his red truck along behind him.

My Dark Side

Which super villain are you?

I am Doctor Doom - 79%

Notice the Green theme... hee hee!

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

This is my Evil Breakdown:

70% Apocalypse ....68% Lex Luthor ....57% The Joker

57% Juggernaut .....55% Magneto .........55% Mr. Freeze

53% Green Goblin .46% Kingpin ...........45% Two-Face

43% Venom ............41% Poison Ivy ......40% Catwoman

39% Dark Phoenix .36% Riddler .........29% Mystique

I had to edit it a bit from the Html provided by the site. It seemed to want to make it REALLY huge on my blog-post. So I tapped into Doom's mind and dumbed it down a bit.

http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/villain

4th of July Weekend

I trust everyone in the U.S.A is enjoying a happy and safe 4th of July weekend. Celebrate our nation's birthday and remember the freedom's that you enjoy are not free, but earned. And for the most part, not by yourselves. Below, I received an email about the sentencing of Richard C. Reid, a.k.a 'the shoe bomber.' Just to make sure before posting on the blog I checked it out on Snopes.com and verified it was true. I had not heard anything about it on the news.
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Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say.

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His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah," defiantly stated "I think I will not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."

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Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

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January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid. Judge Young:

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"Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

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On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other. That's 80 years. On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines. The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.

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The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further. This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.

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Let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals.

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As human beings, we reach out for justice.

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You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not - you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

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So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've know warriors.

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You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were, and he said: "You're no big deal."

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You are no big deal.

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What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

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I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

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It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious.

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You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

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We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here.

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Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

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See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.

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Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

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Thank you for defending our flag, Judge Young.

Green Lantern Fully Charged

KUDO'S First: Thank YOU BEN!!

http://idiotboy.net/

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"In Brightest Day" Golly I'm Stoked!!!

I know you didn't miss it. If you did, then your blind as a bat and need to look up.

This was my plan from the day I started this blog. To have my Mighty Mouse Green Lantern go GREEN. I was just going to change from my original version to the fully green version. But then - THEN I got to reading Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century. Ah Ha! I can have MMGL change back and forth like he's changing his costume. As if to say "Here I am to SAVE THE DAY!"
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Thanks to Jadielady as well, because she thunk outside the box and "commissioned" Ben to make me flicker. Ben made my animation dreams a reality today. I am so very thankful. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And just so you know, I'm sort of *okay* with computers but I'm no wizard. All that coloring of my MMGL was done by yours truly. A very time consuming task. Patience does pay off.

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Now, I am in concert with my 10 year old self.

The Devil Inside

What is wrong with people?

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This post is not about random acts of kindness. Rather it is about random or quite possibly, purposeful acts of idiocy. I truly want to believe that people are basically good. That at their core, we are not evil beings. But even I know that within me is a dark side that I toy with on occasion. I don't blatantly act out as one of Satan's Spawn, but I recognize that I can be rather ugly. But I don't physically hurt anyone, and if I did, it would surely be unintentional and I would own up to it.

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The news is always filled with nasty and unpleasant human behavior.

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If you have watched the Today Show recently, then you have no doubt seen the footage of the man run over by a car in the middle of the street (somewhere in the Northeast USA). Cars simply passed the man by without stopping. Pedestrians did not even try to help him.

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In Tampa Bay a female police officer shoved a man in a wheelchair into the police station and he fell out of his chair and was not able to get up because he is a quadriplegic. Do you think the police officer helped him up, No. She yelled at him for not getting up thinking he was faking it.

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And just on the news this week, a woman was in an emergency room for hours needing medical attention. She fell to the floor and died. A police office looks in and notices, then walks away. Many other people did the same. Then a nurse walks over to her, nudges the dead woman with her foot and proceeds to walk away.

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...Am I missing something here?

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So Thomas what brings this on? Why are you talking about this issue? Well, I visited my friend Randy in the hospital tonight. At one point he needed to call the nurses station for assistance for a rather mundane issue, but it still needed attention. The nurse came over the speaker and sounded disinterested (which we actually got a rather hearty chuckle out of). But that issue began the posting in my head. Randy is in the hospital because he was riding his motorcycle on Saturday evening and an "allegedly" drunk woman plowed right into him. Now, Randy is no small thing. He's a healthy and big male. This woman hit him so hard that he was thrown OVER her windshield, OVER the car and off into a ditch. She wasn't in a compact car, she was driving a VAN! Randy was not alone. He was being followed by a friend, also on a motorcycle. Well after Randy got mowed down, the van-woman proceeded to turn around and then run over Randy's friend, who luckily grabbed onto the windshield wipers of the van.

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Randy's friend is doing fine and has injuries to his hands for the most part. Randy will be okay but he has a long road ahead of him. Even still he came out of the accident with scraped up hands, compound fractures (plural) to his left leg, bruised ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. It was bad enough, but could have been much worse. Both motorcycles were totaled.

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The "allegedly" drunk woman drove off from the scene of the accident. You got that right! She just drove into and over two people leaving them for dead. How can someone do this. But Thomas it's the alcohol (allegedly). The 'good' in you will agree with me; THAT woman was responding to her inner evil. That kind of disregard for human life, I will never understand. And maybe more because Randy is my friend and colleague. That woman was only thinking of herself. Update: it appears they did locate her on Monday. Kudos to the cops!

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Thomas, why do you keep highlighting the number 9 in red. Well that is because the number 9 is the number that represents Satan and Evil. Interestingly enough, the 9th letter of the alphabet is also considered to be evil. True stuff. Think about it.

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Randy, my friend - Get well soon! We miss you!

Closet Chitty's

What is a Closet Chitty?

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A closet chitty reads my blog about "5 things" and emails me their responses, rather than post them on my blog. I noticed the prevailing trend that most were secret Chitty Chitty Bang Bang freaks. That is why I call you Closet Chitty's. You know who you are. I won't out you since there appears to be a chittiest out there. But I won't out him either, because he's "Truly Scrumptious."