World AIDS Day - Today

Acquired immune deficiency disease (AIDS) is the result of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus. This is a terrible disease, it basically destroys your immune system. Forty million people are infected with HIV worldwide. Last year 3 million new cases appeared. 8000 people die as a result of AIDS every day. There are only 4 ways you can become infected with HIV: (1)unprotected sex with an infected partner, (2) sharing HIV-contaminated needles, (3)transfusion with infected blood or blood products or transplanted infected tissue or organs, (4) from infected mother to child, in the womb or by breastfeeding. All of these means of infection can be prevented. A huge amount of money is spent on research, drugs, and medical treatment, 19.7 billion dollars in the USA last year.

Tuberculosis is caused by infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 2 billion people are infected worldwide. Every year 3 million people die from tuberculosis, 1 million die needlessly because they were also infected with AIDS. Although TB can be treated with drugs, preventing TB is very difficult. The NIH spends about $40 million dollars on TB research.

Malaria is caused by infection with the protozoan parasite Plasmodium falciparum and 3 other strains of lesser importance. 300-500 million people are infected with malaria with 1-2 million dying every year. Most of these being very young children. Malaria can be treated with drugs but it can also be prevented by getting rid of the mosquito vector that transmitts the disease. The NIH probably spends about as much on malaria as it does on TB, maybe less.

Why does the USA spend so much money on AIDS and not so much on TB and Malaria. Simple, very few people in the USA become infected with TB or Malaria.

Find out more about these diseases at this website.

Bush, Stem Cells and Jobs

Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins are a husband-wife research team. They are famous for developing methods that identify cancer-causing genes, work completed during their three decades at the National Cancer Institute at NIH. They are leaving because of restrictions, by the Bush administration, on use of stem cells. They hoped to go to Stanford and use state funds for stem cell research, but lawsuits by anti-abortion groups have held up use of that money. So where will they go? The Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore. Now we are exporting medical research jobs.

National Strategy for Victory

I read the document and still do not understand what the strategy is, however the strategy is working.

Economic front: "Our restore, reform, build, strategy is achieving results."

Political front: "Our Isolate, Engage, and Build strategy is working."

Security front: "Our clear, hold, and build strategy is working."

In other words: STAY THE COURSE! DON'T CUT AND RUN! (I love to say cut and run).

It only took Bush 30 seconds into the speech to refer to 9/11.

Wal-Mart Wages

Wal-Mart pays wages about 16% below those paid by other large retailers. If Wal-Mart were to pay wages comparable to other large retailers it would cost them ~2% of sales. So an item priced $1 would cost $1.02 instead. If they did this, their employees would make a living wage and Wal-Mart would still out-compete all other retailers. So why doesn't Wal-Mart do this? I guess because they want to make 11 billion a year in profits instead of 10.78 billion dollars. Where are their values?

Doonesbury, Bush and Torture

I've read 'Doonesbury' almost since it first started being published in newspapers. Since the cartoon strip's author Gary Trudeau is from Saranac Lake, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise probably ran the cartoon from the beginning. More to the point, Gary Trudeau was a student at Yale University at the same time as upperclassman G. W. Bush. Although Trudeau probably got accepted due to his smarts and not his dad.

Last Sunday, there was a really funny Doonesbury cartoon connecting 'W's frat boy days with current attitudes on torture. I didn't realize the cartoon was fact based. Evidently DKE, Bush's frat, was branding frat members with a red hot coat hanger. Gary Trudeau broke the story in the Yale student newspaper. Bush made the following statement to the newspaper "Insignificant! There's no scarring mark physically or mentally!"

Saranac Lake Big Box Store Building Site

This is the 10 acre sand pit owned by Saranac Lake. It is on Rt. 86 behind McDonalds and the car dealership. It is currently zoned residential but the village board wants to rezone it as commercial. Just to the right, going up the road, is the Will Rogers Retirement Village.



Here is another view of the site. It's taken from the railroad tracks (Adirondack Scenic Railroad).



See? What is on the other side of the tracks?



Pretty nice, even with the capped landfill in the upper left corner. Can you say wetland?



The wetlands are actually quite extensive. Actually I don't really use an environmental argument against a Wal-Mart in SL. Although after seeing the potential building site, I could change my mind. Wal-Mart could change my mind if they would only treat their employees better. There is no doubt they can afford it.

Victory Strategy for Iraq

Tomorrow our president is going to speak at the US Naval Academy. There he will outline his 'victory strategy for Iraq'. Is this something he's been keeping a secret and is only now going to tell us about? Or is it something new? If it's a new plan, isn't it a couple of years too late?

Conspiracy Nut

Ok, maybe I've gone to far over to the other side and I've become a conspiracy theorist. But don't forget that Mel Gibson movie 'Conspiracy Theory'. For reasons I will not go into I was reading about fascism last night. Fascism basically says that the government is everything and the individual is nothing. The word Fascism is derived from the latin 'fasces'. This was a bundle of sticks bound by a red ribbon. The bundle represented the state and the individual sticks represented the citizens. The message was that the bundle was important and not the individual sticks. Sure sounds un-American to me. Surely this symbol would never be used in the government of the United States of America.


Behind the Speakers podium in the House of Representatives


Et tu Abraham? Look at the arms of his chair.


The reverse of the dime. Notice the axe, that is often part of the symbol as well.


National Guard Symbol

Geez, now I've really got to look into those barcodes on the back of road signs!

New Links Added

I added two new links. One to the UK Guardian because if you want to know what's really going on in the world, especially concerning the USA, it's a must read. The second is to Russia's 'Pravda' because it's fun to read. I can't figure out how to get my links etc back up to the top of the page without screwing up the html.

Finally - NYT Editorial on Use of White Phosphorus

"White phosphorus, which dates to World War II, should have been banned generations ago. Packed into an artillery shell, it explodes over a battlefield in a white glare that can illuminate an enemy's positions. It also rains balls of flaming chemicals, which cling to anything they touch and burn until their oxygen supply is cut off. They can burn for hours inside a human body". NYT

The battle to remove Saddam worked quite well. But what has gone right militarily since then? I can't believe Sec. Rumsfield hasn't resigned in shame. We may or may not be safer with Saddam gone, but at what cost?

RFID Good or Evil?

Passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). What to hell is this? Well it's simply a high tech means of storing and remotely retrieving information. They are small wireless devices that emit unique id numbers when interrogated by RFID readers or sensors. I use one of these devices several times a day to get into work and into various facilities at work. Somewhere, a computer records who, when and where every time the device is used. Great for security!

These devices can be very small (.4mm x .4mm). They can also be as thin as a piece of paper. This is great for the manufacturing, transportation and retail industries. Millions of items can be tracked from manufacturing to store shelves (and to your home or anywhere else).

RFID will be a life saving technology in hospitals and medicine. It would be awesome to require some devices to be labeled with them (handguns? ammunition? explosives?). But what about drivers licenses, passports, SS cards etc? Do you use EazyPass? RFID is used there.

I'm certainly not a Libertarian or a conspiracy nut. But these devices are becoming cheaper and are being used more and more. There is a very high potential for these devices to be misused. Without good security RFID tags create 'privacy pollution' by potentially exposing personal information to snoops.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has comments on this techology

Science and Religion

The United States of America without a doubt dominates the world of science, especially the life sciences. How is it then that over 60% of Americans do not understand evolution? Evolution does not address how life began. I think this is the main misunderstanding. Evolution is simply changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next. The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother. Humans did not evolve from chimpanzees. We are cousins that evolved from a common ancester. But that is not the main concern here. The question is why do so many Americans believe the earth was created in 7 days, is 4000 years old, and everything present today was present 4000 years ago.

These same individuals likely believe that the USA is a special place, a christian place with a special divine purpose. So we are back to fighting Darwin. More monkey trials, more foolish school boards, more stupid things being said to save political careers. All this in a liberal western country that has trouble understanding the Islamic fundamentalist mind. Well maybe we should start trying to understand the fundamentalist christian mind as well.

We are going to war to make countries accept democracy and reject theocratic rule. At the same time, our own country is becoming more and more religious. So much so that after hundreds of years, science is once more being stepped on by theocrats.

Maybe we do need to teach religion in our schools. Let's require a course in comparative religion, but let's also require a science course that insures that the average student understand what science is and is not.

Go here for everything you want to know about evolution in an easily understood format.

NOTE: I hope I don't get in trouble. It seems the operators of the evolution website above are being sued. "In the lawsuit filed last month, the Caldwells contend the site is an effort "to modify the beliefs of public school science students so they will be more willing to accept evolutionary theory as true." The site is run by UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology and paid in part by a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Two university scientists and a foundation official were named as defendants. [Info from Yahoo News]

Happy Thanksgiving

Mmmmmmmmm turkey! First time we ever tried brining a turkey. Try it, you will never go back. It is so moist.

Saranac Lake Mountains

Looking across Lake Flower (it's really a dammed up part of the Saranac River)to the left is Mt. Baker, a wonderful little mountain that has beautiful views of the village and lakes from the top. Mt. Baker is in my back yard and I can easily see the hikers at the top. In the middle of the photo is McKenzie Mt., also known as 'Saddleback' by locals. The 'Jackrabbit' cross country ski trail runs over this mountain to Lake Placid. All the way to the right is Haystack Mt. For some reason, no one ever talks about Haystack.

Darwin Exhibit

The Darwin Exhibit opened last Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Too bad American corporations are afraid to fund the exhibit. If you want to learn more about what MOST Americans believe, go here.

Echinococcus (Hydatid Disease)

So what brings this topic up? I was watching 'House' last night. I really like the main character because he is a curmudgeon but really smart. In any case, a couple of people ended up diagnosed with Echinococcus infection, one of my favorite cestode helminths. House COMPLETELY mispronounced the name of the parasite which of course made me laugh. I'm pretty sure the medical advisor to that show probably didn't know how to pronounce it either (E KINE OH COCK US) not (ECHO NO COCK US) or something like that.

There are two major species of Echinococcus that infect man. The two individuals last night were infected with Echinococcus granulosus, which can at least be treated surgically by removing the cysts. But I'm really not sure that E. granulosis is commonly found in the USA, even in the Northwest sheep raising country. However, E. multilocularis has been reported in Canada and Alaska I believe. In any case, if these cestode infections are found in the USA, it is more likely in a feral rather than domestic cycle. So hunters beware. There is no treatment for E. multilocularis as far as I'm aware. You just die.

Why is that?



Hydatid cysts cause by infection with E. granulosus look like those above. They are individual cysts and the brood capsules grow off an INTERNAL germinal layer. One problem with these cysts is that they are filled with fluid that causes severe anaphylactic shock if they are broken open. This happened to the guy last night after House hit him with his cane. Luckly it happened in the hospital. By the way, the guy (father) had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and the son with a tumor of the heart and lungs. Hydatid disease often presents with signs resembling cancer.



Infection with E. multilocularis is very different and very scary. In this infection the germinal tissue of the cyst is located on the OUTSIDE resulting in malignant spread of the cyst. The cyst is not defined or contained as with infection with E. granulosis and thus cannot be easily removed.

So how do you prevent yourself from being infected with these dreaded cestodes? Very simple. Don't eat infected dog, fox, wolf, dingo or coyote shit.

Sometime when you are bored, ask me about infection with the dreaded Baylisascaris worm (brain worm).

Community Comments on Wal-Mart

I got these comments from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise website. They are somewhat typical of the for and against Walmart factions in Saranac Lake.

"Looks like we have a real class war starting here! The ironic thing is that the morons who are for Walmart are the ones who will be hurt the most. When Walmart moves in we'll lose our downtown and we'll have an ugly eyesore right at the entrance to the village. Then vacationers, tourists, and sucessful transplants won't want to be in Saranac Lake anymore. We come to Saranac Lake to GET AWAY FROM WALMART and because Saranac Lake is a beautiful and special place. When that changes, we'll leave. I'm sure you'll say "good riddance", but watch what happens to the town when all the rich and educated people move away. All that will be left are the welfare losers who wanted Walmart in the first place, but now without any tax base or jobs. Why ARE you here? To get OUR jobs we nasty "elitists" had to go away to school, work eighteen hours a day, fit in with strangers, move several times for jobs, rent one apartment after another, all the while longing for a neighborhood to fit into. I CAME from farm country, and I could have stayed. I gave up a lot. I didn't get a car passed down to me or Uncle Bob fixing my plumbing for me, or the chance to inherit Ol' Gramma's house mortgage free. Why does everyone assume that people who make money now got it easy?? Look, we worked, and we work. Do you know what this elitist does? Volunteers on two town groups that don't give anything back to me, donates to the library which all of your kids can use, volunteers at the school just because I like your kids and would like for them to all have jobs when they grow up, I promise, and pays about three times the taxes you do. Do I live in one of the big new houses? No. I don't believe in living that way. I believe in being part of the town. I believe in being able to talk to everyone. Do I shop at the so-called "elitist" stores? Yes, when they have $1 toys for birthday grab bags, or give free books to the school programs, or offer me the broken belt for the Cub Scout project because we'd rather not pay for the new one. Keep in mind that it's the wealthy and educated people who make Saranac Lake what it is -- one of the most livable small towns in the country. We're the ones who pay the huge taxes, who support the library, the carnival, and a million other charities and who volunteer at the schools while the losers sit around and gripe about not being able to buy cheap cigarettes. If you want a Walmart so much, and care so little about the town, why don't you pack up and move to Plattsburgh? You won't be missed..."

"It seems that the interests of this community are controlled by a small, but vocal group of elitists who look down their noses at the members of this community who are hard working families or retired individuals who cannot afford to shop at the main street boutiques to fulfill their retail needs. I guess that they believe that the dollar stores are sufficient to meet our needs. I know that Mark Kurtz stated a few years back at a meeting at the Adult Center that "Anyone can find anything they need with the existing businesses here in Saranac Lake". I challenge him to find kids shoes, clothing, soxs, underware, etc… which are of reasonable quality and prices not Dollar Store irregulars!. Working families and retirees in this community sometimes do not have the time or resources to travel back and forth to Plattsburgh to do basic shopping. This village needs to wake up to the fact that there is a large population of dissatisfied customers and taxpayers in this community who want more of a retail choice. The elitist contingent can continue to patronize their downtown boutiques to keep them in business because after all they are not being patronized by the vast majority of us who are travelling to Plattsburgh or elsewhere. As far as Wal-Mart scaring off the tourists, this is a joke as most tourists will still enjoy the beauty of our Lakes, Rivers, Mountains, Campsites, Resort Hotels, etc… Also, our community could possibly work with Wal-Mart or other retailer on an Adirondack Architectural theme - Maybe our Resident Elitist Mark Kurtz could come up with some sketches!"

Like most issues in this community, it seems like sentiment concerning Walmart is about 50/50, if you believe the data presented in the unscientific web poll of the ADE.

JFK Died 42 Years Ago Today

No one seems to notice that today is a date of importance to some. I was 11 when JFK was elected President. The nuns told us we had to campaign for him so we did. We went to the campaign office and got all kinds of buttons, stickers etc and platered them everywhere. Beside, the nuns also told us if Nixon were elected, ice cream would be outlawed. Seem reasonable to us.

It's Ok to Leave Iraq Now

Anyone remember Bush administration official saying we would leave Iraq if the Iraqis asked us too? Anyone? Anyone? Well they have asked us to leave. Anyone think we will keep our word?

Cheap Malaria Control

Sara is raising money for malaria control through the World Swim for Malaria. Go there and donate. You can save a life for $5.

It's sad that all the tools for malaria control are and have been available for decades, yet millions of people die each year from malaria (mostly children). Millions could be saved from death due to malaria using three means: (1) pyrethrin impregnated bednets, (2) spraying low concentrations of DDT on the inside walls of homes in malaria infested areas, (3) drug treatment, especially of infected, pregnant mothers (to protect the baby). None of this is overly expensive.

What burns me is the fact that common use of DDT, to control insect vectors, has been discontinued in many parts of the world. We have Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring to thank for that. Use of DDT has pretty much been banned since 1972 by the stroke of the pen of William Ruckelshaus, head of the EPA at that time. He did this even in the face of much scientific evidence that DDT was not harmful to humans or the environment as used in malaria control. DDT, as used in agriculture, did have effects on the environment. But it was used in vast quantities probably because farmers thought 'more was better'. For malaria control, DDT is sprayed onto the inside walls of homes in malaria endemic regions. The major vector of malaria, Anopheles gambiense bites primarily indoors. After taking a blood meal the mosquito rests on an inside wall. Walls coated with a low concentration of DDT result in the death of the mosquito. Many developing countries governments have been pressured by environmentalist to stop the use of DDT. This has resulted in the re-emergence of malaria. For example, South Africa stopped the use of DDT in 1996 with a resulting 1000% increase in cases of malaria.

For much more in depth info go here.