Joe Biden, the man who used to take Amtrak to work, tells people to avoid mass transit, passenger trains, and airlines during the swine flu epidemic. No doubt under pressure from the airline and transit industries, Biden’s office hastily reinterprets Biden’s message to mean people should “avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico.”
This whole swine flu epidemic reeks of political correctness. Budget-maximizing bureaucrats at the CDC and various public health agencies, aided by a media that knows that panic sells papers and news broadcasts, fan the flames of worry. But they don’t want to offend the pork industry, so they change the name of the virus. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security either ordered its employees not to wear surgical masks “because they are too intimidating,” or it didn’t, because the “health of our employees is of utmost importance.”
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The H1N1 virus, to use its politically correct name, doesn’t appear to be a repeat of the 1918 Spanish flu. But Biden was only saying what a lot of people (including many school administrators) are thinking: that concentrating people in dense cities and making them dependent on mass transit makes them more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, more susceptible to communicable diseases, and less able to evacuate from hurricanes and other natural disasters. Fortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile, so we are relatively immune from such problems.
Americans who settle in leafy, low-density suburbs will leave a significantly deeper carbon footprint, it turns out, than Americans who live cheek by jowl in urban towers.
…in almost every metropolitan area, carbon emissions are significantly lower for people who live in central cities than for people who live in suburbs.
Henry David Thoreau was wrong. Living in the country is not the right way to care for the Earth. The best thing that we can do for the planet is build more skyscrapers.
– Edward Glaeser
Increasing irrelevance is a tough gig, eh, Anitplanner?
Fortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile, so we are relatively immune from such problems.
*snork*
That straw you thought you were grasping, Randal, to have a chance at a cogent argument is a nettle.
Unfortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile, so we are not immune from such problems as time away from family, air pollution-related illnesses, obesity, etc.
IOW: what t g said.
DS
ROT:Fortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile, so we are relatively immune from such problems.
ws: Automobiles are just another vector for further spreading of the disease to other non-infected areas. Not having any transportation or freight movement at all would be the best way to quarantine diseases.
I would also be sure you’re not spreading misinformation about people being relatively “immune” to anything. Do you really think it’s responsible to say that?
Antiplanner wrote:
“hat concentrating people in dense cities and making them dependent on mass transit makes them more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, more susceptible to communicable diseases, and less able to evacuate from hurricanes and other natural disasters. Fortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile, so we are relatively immune from such problems.”
The problem isn’t high density human accommodation, but high density pig accommodation. That’s where the disease comes from. It’s only the most visible defect in industrial animal farming.
Francis King:The problem isn’t high density human accommodation, but high density pig accommodation. That’s where the disease comes from. It’s only the most visible defect in industrial animal farming.
ws: Meat is certainly a great food source but we eat way too much of it creating some of these environmental problems.
DS
You state “problems as time away from family”,
It is my understanding that Transit takes Twice as long as a car. Also, not sure that high-density provides less CO2 than single family homes???
Give us some facts.
That was a great brain fart on Biden’s part, though when it comes to communicable diseases you can find them at Wal-Mart or the Home Depot.
Dan said: Unfortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile, so we are not immune from such problems as time away from family, air pollution-related illnesses, obesity, etc.
JK: Dan is wrong as usual.
Long commute times are associated with high density because high density CAUSES congestion
High density also causes pollution because it jams lots of pollution sources closer together.
High density also costs more than low density. IE: $1000/sqft for condo towers vs under $100 for single family hones (real homes!) in areas that aren’t infested with planners.
Thanks
JK
It is my understanding that Transit takes Twice as long as a car. Also, not sure that high-density provides less CO2 than single family homes???
It is well-known that lower density is more GHG-intensive than high. I provided charts recently that showed this.
And surely you don’t think the Victorville residents are driving 5 minutes to their jobs? Their typical commute is 1+ hrs each way. This is not to say that transit doesn’t take a long time, but the single-fam utopia of Victorville is an auto-dependent foreclosure haven.
DS
JK:
Long commute times are associated with high density because high density CAUSES congestion
High density also causes pollution because it jams lots of pollution sources closer together.
High density also costs more than low density. IE: $1000/sqft for condo towers vs under $100 for single family hones (real homes!) in areas that aren’t infested with planners.
ws:
-Long commute times are found in low-dense metro areas too (Atlanta).
-Low density causes pollution too: Ever hear of Houston or Atlanta? They have some of the worst regional air qualities in the nation.
-High density costs more to buy because of location. Most low density costs more to service than high density (except very rural locations, although these areas get billions in federal subsidizes like water engineering projects, rural electrification, and rural broadband). Your methodology does not factor in externalized costs not paid for by cost of the home-buyer.
Price per sq. ft. is also determined by demand. Location, Location, Location. Manhattan will always have a high price per square foot because it generates something called demand. Land is always cheapest at the fringes of cities because it does not have location, unless it is near a beautiful setting.
FYI: There’s plenty of Houston area homes that are well above $100 per sq. foot, and I would bet that the median price/sq. foot is above this mark. The home displayed on Wendell Cox’s PP for the ADC even shows a homes priced above this mark.
Also, I have never seen a condo in the Portland metro area that is $1,000 per/sq. foot. More like the 200-500 range. The most expensive I have ever seen (and we’re talking a 3 million dollar condo) was 800/sq. ft. Sure there are a few in the range of 1,000 / sq. foot, but you obviously decided to sample the low end of homes, and the high end of condos. The first thing I know to do with anything you say is to question everything. I think that says something about your credibility.
Clearly your MO is to mislead people as much as possible, which is not a testament to your character, albeit your online persona.
Jim “Smoke and Mirrors” Karlock…
ws:The first thing I know to do with anything you say is to question everything. I think that says something about your credibility.
Clearly your MO is to mislead people as much as possible, which is not a testament to your character, albeit your online persona.
Jim “Smoke and Mirrors†Karlock…
THWM: Though why play all these games in the first place?
ROT: CDC: Don’t Panic, Just Send Money
THWM: Why not just dance? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M65zI9LH-as
Jim “Smoke and Mirrors†Karlock…
Isn’t the known purveyor of oft-refuted misinformation running for elected office? Or is that mercifully over (the voters ignored him like we do here)? Let us hope so for the community.
DS
“46,000 Americans die every year on the highways. In contrast, 17,000 die from criminal violence….In some sense, the decision to avoid crime by fleeing cities in favor of auto-dependent suburbs is irrational: The move actually increases your chances of dying prematurely.
[ » ]
That crude calculation ignores the angst and anxiety…No one wants to live in fear. And for any number of reasons, the fear of an impersonal auto collision can’t match the fear of the indignity of being mugged, or for that matter being stabbed or shot dead. The millions of middle -class Americans who fled inner cities were fleeing this psychic turmoil, and it’s hard not to sympathize with them. This fear also led to an explosion in the ownership of personal firearms and a climate of political and cultural polarization that is still with us.”
DS
Dan said:
Jim “Smoke and Mirrors†Karlock…
Isn’t the known purveyor of oft-refuted disinformation running for elected office? Or is that mercifully over (the voters ignored him like we do here)? Let us hope so for the community.
THWM: Mr.Karlock hates government so much, he wanted to join it!
I just can’t get enough of planners thinking that everyone who moves to the suburbs are irrational and don’t know what is good for them.
Borealis:“I just can’t get enough of planners thinking that everyone who moves to the suburbs are irrational and don’t know what is good for them.”
ws:Except that planners made the modern day highway/suburbia typology – not to mention there’s plenty of planners who work for suburban cities.
Borealis, why do you want to believe I quoted a planner? I gave you the link so you can check for yourself. Oh…I know, I know – references and links are a waste of time…
DS
ws said:
Borealis:“I just can’t get enough of planners thinking that everyone who moves to the suburbs are irrational and don’t know what is good for them.â€Â
ws:Except that planners made the modern day highway/suburbia typology – not to mention there’s plenty of planners who work for suburban cities.
THWM: That’s the irony, maybe Mr.O’Toole should call himself “The Autoplanner”?
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCall/story?id=2644212&page=1
Germs, Bacteria Lurk in Your Car
Expert Says Dashboard, Cup Holder Are Dirtiest Areas
Nov. 11, 2006
Debra Farber, a New Jersey mother, uses her SUV for way more than just getting from point A to point B.
Sometimes, her car is an office and sometimes, a closet. With two kids under three years of age, it’s often a dining room.
Little does Farber know that her car could be a breeding ground for bacteria.
Like so many American moms, Farber, who works full time in pharmaceutical sales, lives in her car and it shows.
“Crumbs, raisins, bagels, anything the dog can’t eat, it’s in the car,” Farber said. “Half the time, I’m like jumping in and out of the car. I don’t have time to clean it. I try to get to the car wash as often as I can but it doesn’t always happen.”
Compare that to her husband Steven Farber’s brand new BMW, which the kids have only been allowed to ride in a couple of times.
“His car is like the sanitarium,” she said. “He doesn’t even let me drive the car.”
Farber admits she would never let her house get this way.
ABC News asked germ expert Dr. Chuck Gerba, a University of Arizona microbiologist, to swab every inch of Farber’s SUV and her husband’s BMW to let them know, for better or worse, what’s growing in there.
“We found that cars are the moldiest of all forms of transportation,” Gerba said.
He added that most people don’t realize their cars are perfect breeding grounds for germs.
“In cars, germs seem to tend to build up because people aren’t really cleaning or disinfecting these areas,” he said. “Our germs are traveling with us and everybody that travels in that car carries their germs and leaves them in your car.”
Gerba took the samples back to his lab while Debra Farber waited and worried.
“It’s definitely making me nervous. I mean, obviously, I wouldn’t want to expose the kids to any harm … They both have colds now,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll find plenty of germs in the car.”
Unfortunately, Farber was right. Gerba found millions of bacteria on the door handles, seat and floor of the SUV, compared to just a few hundred in Steven Farber’s new BMW. Gerba even found MRSA, a staph bacteria that can cause skin infections.
“The germiest areas in your car are your dashboard, your change holder and where you keep your coffee, actually,” Gerba said. “The reason is … because the air flows … over your dashboard and so, the bacteria tend to build up on that surface.”
On the car seat, Gerba found hundreds of thousands of bacteria from the sample he took, plus mold all over a child safety seat.
The SUV’s radio dials, however, were quite clean; Debra Farber is the only person who touches them.
As for the rest of the car, Gerba says Farber should consider wiping down some parts with a disinfectant once a week.
In Antiplanner-ese:
Fortunately, America has lots of low density suburbs filled with people who travel by personal automobile.
English translation:
Unfortunately, America has lots of leafy, low density suburbs filled with people who leave relatively deep carbon footprints and travel by the moldiest form of transportation.
“…and travel by the moldiest form of transportation.”
🙂
The Autoplanner wrote: CDC: Don’t Panic, Just Send Money
http://www.smartmoney.com/Spending/Travel/Can-You-Catch-Swine-Flu-from-Money/
Can You Catch Swine Flu From Money?
To reduce the risk of catching swine flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends frequent hand washing and using tissues when you sneeze. But there’s another way to protect yourself â€â€even if it’s not so good for the economy: Stop spending money.
It doesn’t get talked about much, but the fact is paper currencyâ€â€the dollars, fives, tens and twenties most people routinely touch every dayâ€â€can spread a virus from one person to another. So if you have contact with money that an infected individual has also handled, there’s a possibility of catching the flu.
How likely is that? Despite the pervasiveness of cash in society, its role in transmitting illness has been the subject of surprisingly little study. But some recent research suggests that flu bugs can show some staying power when they land on one of the countless banknotes that change hands every day.
Generally speaking, scientists interviewed by SmartMoney estimate the lifetime of a plain flu virus deposited on money at an hour or so. But mix in some human nasal mucus, and the potential for the virus to hang on long enough to find a victim increases, according to one of the few scientific studies done on flu transmission through cash.
In a study conducted at Switzerland’s Central Laboratory of Virology at the University Hospitals of Geneva, researchers tested to see what would happen when flu virus was placed on Swiss franc notes. In some of these tests, researchers placed flu virus mixed in with nasal secretions from children on banknotes â€â€and saw some unexpected results.
When protected by human mucus, the flu cells were much hardierâ€â€in some cases, lasting up to 17 days on the franc notes. The virus that persisted for 17 days was a form of influenza A called H3N2. In an email interview, Dr. Yves Thomas said samples of an influenza A strain called H1N1 also endured for quite a bitâ€â€in some cases, up to 10 days. That bug was similar but not identical to the virus at the center of the current swine flu outbreak, which is considered a new strain of H1N1.
The research suggested that in the real worldâ€â€where runny noses get wiped by hands that then handle moneyâ€â€flu viruses may have more persistence than previously thought. (Read the full study, “Survival of Influenza Virus on Banknotes,” in the May 2008 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology here.)
To be sure, many kinds of frequently touched surfaces could temporarily harbor the flu virus. Broadly speaking, scientists consider the risk of transmission in this way to be low, particularly if hand-washing and other hygiene measures are practiced, says Dr. Philip Tierno, director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University’s Langone Medical Center and author of “The Secret Life of Germs.”
Three things must happen for a flu virus to be transmitted from one person to another via money. First, a person who is infected with the swine flu must sneeze or cough onto the bill or blow their nose and leave remnants of their mucus on the currency. Next, an uninfected person would need to touch the money while the virus is still present.
Finally, that person would need to put their contaminated hand in their mouth or pick their nose, says Dr. Murray Grossan, an otolaryngologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
As public concern and media hype about the swine flu outbreak grows, it’s remarkable how little the subject of money comes upâ€â€and how few people want to discuss it. The CDC wouldn’t discuss the role of money in flu transmission. At the New York State Health Department, spokeswoman Claire Pospisil declined to comment. And when we asked the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printingâ€â€that’s the government operation that actually manufactures moneyâ€â€a spokeswoman told us that what happens to U.S. dollars once they’re in circulation is beyond the bureau’s control.
Meanwhile, concern about the potential spread of swine flu continues to grow in the U.S. and abroad. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert level to phase 5, one level shy of WHO’s highest readiness. As of Thursday afternoon, there has been one confirmed swine flu death in the U.S. — a 23-month-old Mexican child brought to Texas for treatment. Also as of Thursday afternoon, the tally of confirmed U.S. cases of swine flu stands at 109, measured from when it was first identified as a new strain on April 24. To put those numbers in perspective, an estimated 36,000 Americans die annually from complications related to regular seasonal flu strain, according to the CDC.
Still, if all this has you looking more suspiciously at the folding money you’re carrying around, you could consider relying more on coins. Scientists say those are much more likely to be virus-free since metals like nickel and copper inhibit viruses.
And even the humble dollar bill may have some defenses. The ink on freshly-printed U.S. dollars has a fungicidal agent in it that can inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi and the influenza virus can be killed more easily because of it, says Tierno. As the dollar gets used and abused – especially with perspiration or water – the strength of the ink weakens, he says.
As for the paper, Peter Hopkins, a spokesman for Crane & Co., the exclusive provider of paper for U.S. currency, says he doesn’t know whether the paper has any antiviral properties, but says it is made out of 75% cotton and 25% linen (he wouldn’t disclose the other elements). Tierno says that those natural fibers can be degraded by fungus. And, therefore, to prevent that from happening, the pulp — like the ink — also includes a fungicidal agent.
One big unknown at the moment is whether the swine flu will continue to mutate and grow stronger, says Dr. Rani Bright, assistant professor of pathology, microbiology and forensic medicine at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. If it does, the virus could conceivably survive on dollar bills for an even longer period of time.
When severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, first broke out in China, some researchers expected the virus to survive on currency and other surfaces for just a few hours. Instead, it lasted a few days because it was much stronger than originally anticipated, says Dr. Jean Patterson, chair of the virology and immunology department at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas.
Even after the spread of swine flu subsides, consumers may want to continue being cautious when handling their cash. Some infectious bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, can stick to currency for a longer period than viruses, according to a 2002 study that was published by the Southern Medical Journal, titled “Bacterial Contamination of Paper Currency.†Dr. Peter Ender, an infectious diseases physician at St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa., who co-authored the study said that while the average health risks are low, bacteria on U.S. dollars could cause mild or serious illness.
Are there ways to make cash cleaner? One approach: ATMs that sterilize your money. Some years back, just such a machine was marketed in Japan, where cleanliness can be something of a cultural obsession. These “clean ATMs” were manufactured by a Hitachi subsidiary, Hitachi-Omron Terminal Solutions. However, according to Hitachi spokeswoman Lauren Garvey, those machines were not available outside of Japan and are no longer manufactured.
There may be a much simpler solutionâ€â€if you don’t mind making the credit-card companies richer. Paying by credit card instead of cash could lower your risk of catching a bug, says Patterson. That isn’t because of any special properties of plastic, but because your credit card typically passes through fewer hands than cashâ€â€reducing the chance of contact with an infected individual. But don’t throw away your bottle of sanitizing gel. Viruses can still live on your plastic for up to an hour or so, she says.