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If the Death toll from road accidents is really 390 times that from terrorism, what the HELL are we doing destroying our basic personal liberties?

Are we totally mad? Who is responsible for this massive over-reaction?

I am getting fearful that the entire democratic world is turning fascist.

This absurd march towards oppressing the common man through the use of excessive authority is frightening. Where does it stop?

I don’t want to invoke Godwin’s Law on my first real post about this trend, but it does have all the hallmarks of Nazi Germany.

As Deborah Davis found out, it appears you now have to show your identification papers on demand – yet according to the American Constitution thats effectively a search without warrant.

Thankfully the ACLU will be helping Deborah get through this completely ridiculous prosecution.

We already have laws to stop “terrorists”… we don’t need new ones. Unless those new laws actually have a more surrupticious intent.

More on my latent paranoia as news comes to hand.

Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under the park and have calculated that in parts of Yellowstone the ground has risen over seventy centimetres, almost two and a half feet, since 1923, indicating a massive swelling underneath the park.

“The impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend.” says Professor McGuire. “Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. The explosion would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years.”

An interesting but very scary read:
Online Journal

Update: Found another link… some stuff from the loopies but also some more interesting explanations and pictures
http://exodus2006.com/supervol.html

Yeah I hear you. Crikey, I thought no one read this web site.

I will go an have a MRI/CAT Scan/Head Check/Bones Read/Tarot Session to try and establish what’s going on.

Jeez *sniff*, I love you guys.

I’m feeling a bit weird and don’t really know what to put it down to.

My feet and legs (below the knees) are burning/tingling/cold. Kind of like pins and needles but not as severe… and they’re also kind of numb.

Admittedly, I have been sat on my ass for the last few weeks doing this GotMyVote.com stuff, but even so – I’m used to that. I’ve always sat in front of PC’s all day (& all night).

I’m just wondering if it could possibly be linked to some other “numbness” symptoms I’ve been feeling over the last 12 months or so.

Probably the scariest was the visual issue I had twice – once about 6 months ago and the other about 4 months ago. I went a bit blurry, then got double vision and after a few hours ended up with a large blind spot in my left eye (but that seemed to affect both??). This eventually disappeared and by the next morning I was fine.

I also had a nasty experience about a year ago where the left side of my face went almost totally numb for about a week. It still moved ok, but not much sensation. Almost how I imagine a stroke would be.

And then there’s the weakness. Every now and then for no apparent reason I’ll just feel weak – especially in my hands & forearms. I’m not actually weaker as I’ve tested that theory… but I definitely feel less capable.

There’s a few other bits and pieces not worth mentioning lest I think of myself as a hypochondriac.

It’s a concern and I’ve logged to make sure I remember it all.

I can’t possibly hope to keep up with the guys at:

http://www.squeak.org/us/ted/sars-graph.html
http://www.sars-spread.com/
http://www.sarswatch.org/
http://www.real-humanity.com/sars.htm

Using those four sites and their links, you can get SARS updates virtually 24 hours a day.

Ah, that reminds me, Google has a news tool at news.google.com that not only lists the latest headlines from thousands of sources world-wide – you can also filter on it. Try it, go there and filter on SARS.

Now, how’s this for interesting? Ted from squeak.org has calculated the following:

The number of reported cases of SARS in the world is doubling every 16 days using the data available on April 17, 2003. There will be 100,000 cases on about July 2, 2003. A million cases will be reached on about August 25, 2003, and ten million on about October 17, 2003. The number of reported worldwide deaths due to SARS will double every 12 days. The number will be 100,000 on about August 7, 2003. A million deaths will be reached on about September 16, 2003, and ten million on about October 27, 2003.

Even more interesting is this excerpt from real-humanity.com:

The SARS death rate will continue to rise and will likely eventually fall between 6.4% and 9% and this doesn’t include the probable lack of respirators as hospitals become overloaded. This death rate increase is solely a function of mathematics. The problem is that cases are reported when the patient presents with symptoms, but the patient does not die straight away. It is likely from all reports that those patients that will die, do so between one and three weeks after they go to hospital. Which means that the death rate should not be calculated by dividing the number dead by the number of cases now, but by dividing the number dead by the number of cases one or two weeks ago. If the time is one week on average then the rate should be taken as 6.4% and if it is two weeks, then the death rate is 9%. Of course, if the average time from being classified as a SARS patient till death is longer than two weeks, then the fatality rates get even higher.

Ok, I am worried about SARS, but if these guys are right – we may be confronting the next Spanish Flu or Black Death.

Sars spread at a HK apartment block baffled doctors

Experts have a new theory on how the Sars illness raced through an entire apartment block in Hong Kong.

They believe that cockroaches may have carried the infection from flat to flat.

The death toll from Sars – Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome – continues to mount.

Officially, 98 people have now died worldwide from the severe pneumonia it causes, and the true figure is likely to be over 100 when deaths over the past few days are confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Link: BBC News

GUANGZHOU, China – China disclosed Monday that a deadly respiratory illness had struck in more of its provinces than previously reported, while experts in the south looked into whether the disease came from animals on farms or in the wild.

In nearby Hong Kong, officials said they were preparing for a worst-case scenario of 3,000 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, amid fears its health system could be stretched beyond its limits. There are 700 cases here and officials say its hospitals can currently handle 1,500 cases.

Link: duluthsuperior
Link: Sydney Morning Herald

The WHO (World Health Organisation) has just begun investigations in Foshan, Guangdong province, in China, where the SARS epidemic began. ?The Chinese scientists believe that Chlamydia (an infectious germ, larger than a virus) is to blame. ?They found a rare, airborne form of Chlamydia — related to a germ that is usually transmitted through sexual contact — in many who died of SARS. ?
?
Hong Tao, a researcher with the Institute of Virology under the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told a new conference that their laboratories were finding Chlamydia, which could be causing SARS. ? “We’re 80 percent sure,” he said.

Link: AlertNet
?
More information on Chlamydia can be found here.

Link: StraitsTimes

From Chris Erway’s blog cce hk blog comes the story that the high rate of SARS infection in Block ‘E’ of the Amoy Gardens Housing Estate in Hong Kong may be due to infected construction workers on a nearby high rise urinating out of the side on the unfinished building. The aerosoled fluid could then be making it’s way to the estate.

Read more: chris.erway.org

Call it disasterbation, call it what you will… I’m scared of SARS. We’re talking 3-4% mortality, 10-15% requiring mechanical ventilation and a current spread rate of ~2% per day. At that rate – everyone on Earth will be infected within 6 months.

If the 3-4% mortaility rate holds – that’s 200-300 million dead.

And what if re-infection can occur?

Reported infections were up 15% yesterday in the US.

Link: SARSwatch
Link: World Health Organisation
Link: SARS Spread Rate

The World Health Organization calls Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, a new communicable disease that is a global health threat. More than 480 people have recently fallen ill from the potentially fatal disease, which has spread around the globe by air travel.

Currently sporting a 3-4% fatality rate and requiring about 10-15% of victims to require mechanical ventilation – this is one nasty bug.

Consider that it appears to be related to the common cold which has an infection rate of 2-10% and we could be in for some big trouble.

Main Symptoms:

High fever (>38? Celsius);
Dry cough;
Shortness of breath or breathing difficulties;

Changes in chest X-rays indicative of pneumonia also occur;

SARS may be associated with other symptoms, including headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, malaise, confusion, rash and diarrhea.

The respiratory symptoms appear two to seven days after exposure.

On March 25, SARS became a reportable, virulent, communicable disease in Ontario. The change allows public health officers to quarantine infectious people and their family members for up to 10 days to track the disease and prevent it from spreading.

On the other side of the Pacific, health officials in Singapore have quarantined more than 700 people who may be at risk. In Hong Kong, officials have called for all schools to be disinfected. Children with infected family members must avoid classes for a week.

Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/sars.html