off topic - SARS

"Barry Gaudet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Apologies for being off topic but this is downright spooky.

From the world Health Organizations List of Acute Respiratory and then Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome updates; starting in 1999 in Afghanistan. Note the timeline and progression

who.intSY02.htmOpen ↗

Here is the list of alerts in reverse chronological order

Reading the actual alerts is definitely spooky.

Draw your own conclusions.

2003 21 Apr 2003 Severe Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) - multi-country outbreak- Update 35

Assuming the virus was not designed in a laboratory by someone nasty, I don't find anything spooky
about it. It's doing what viruses do. And, it's doing it more quickly in 3rd world countries,
where various factors may keep governments from reacting correctly. What *I* find spooky is that
the Chinese still follow their bullsh*t code of secrecy. There ought to be some sort of hideous
public punishment for the officials responsible for not releasing every bit of information they
had to the rest of the world. Perhaps something only slightly milder could be arranged for a few
Canadians who were interviewed on NPR last week, saying they didn't think any part of their
religious services should be altered because of the disease. They were OK with sharing a wine
chalice and having their entire congregation kiss the same crucifix. Apparently, fully functional
minds prevailed in some churches.

I'm going over to SE ASia in a weeks time for a three month bike ride. I'm not really worried. What
with the huge poulation density in places like Hong Kong and Singapore and there's still only been a
hundred or so deaths, I figure I'm much more likely to get hit by a bus.

--
Cheers Damian Harvey

This space reserved for standard disclaimer, witty quote, plug for own business in caps and large,
bad ASCII art.

Quoted message said:

Damian Harvey wrote:

Quoted message said:

I'm not really worried. What with the huge poulation density in places like Hong Kong and
Singapore and there's still only been a hundred or so deaths, I figure I'm much more likely to get
hit by a bus.

Full of people with SARS.

Jim

"Doug Kanter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Assuming the virus was not designed in a laboratory by someone nasty, I don't find anything spooky
about it. It's doing what viruses do. And, it's doing it more quickly in 3rd world countries,
where various factors may keep governments from reacting correctly. What *I* find spooky is that
the Chinese still follow their bullsh*t code of secrecy.

That [censored] code of secrecy maintains the Communist Party in power and ensures its
legitimacy....The maintenance of your power, in any system, is always more important than your
concern for your subjects. Democratic systems minimise this by making the maintenance of power
explicitly contingent on at least some concern or consultation with the governed.

Not a defense of the CCP, merely an elucidation of their internal logic.

Quoted message said:

There ought to be some sort of hideous public punishment for the officials responsible for not
releasing every bit of information they had to the rest of the world. Perhaps something only
slightly milder could be arranged for a few Canadians who were interviewed on NPR last week, saying
they didn't think any part of their religious services should be altered because of the disease.
They were OK with sharing a wine chalice and having their entire congregation kiss the same
crucifix. Apparently, fully functional minds prevailed in some churches.

Nobody compels you to venerate the cross by kissing it, nor has anybody compelled anybody else to
drink from the chalice since the days of Jan Hus and the Utraquists.

-Luigi "Ubi in Roma, fac ut Romani" -S. Beda

"Luigi de Guzman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Nobody compels you to venerate the cross by kissing it, nor has anybody compelled anybody else to
drink from the chalice since the days of Jan Hus and the Utraquists.

-Luigi "Ubi in Roma, fac ut Romani" -S. Beda

Nobody compels you or I, but there are still people who live in fear of violating church rules or
changing traditions. Sad, but true.

"Chris Wheeler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On 24 Apr 2003 06:01:51 -0700, [email hidden] (Luigi de Guzman) wrote...

(snip)

Quoted message said:

That [censored] code of secrecy maintains the Communist Party in power and ensures its
legitimacy....The maintenance of your power, in any system, is always more important than your
concern for your subjects. Democratic systems minimise this by making the maintenance of power
explicitly contingent on at least some concern or consultation with the governed.

Get your politics right Luigi. China is not a communist state (the media could be blamed for this
misconception).

Listen more closely to the news. There are still *plenty* of leftovers, in places of power in China.
It may not be called a "communist state" any more, but some old habits die hard. Pointless secrecy
is one of those habits.

Chris Wheeler said:

Get your politics right Luigi. China is not a communist state (the media could be blamed for this
misconception).

They might not be much for the workers and peasants anymore, but they're still communists. and they
still have power.

My Asian Politics supervisor is a china-watcher. He keeps a portrait of Sun Yat-sen in his office.
It's the easiest way to save offense.

-Luigi

Who cares about SARS? Get out and ride and go to biking websites like
24.83.181.174index.htmlOpen ↗.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

-Luigi "Ubi in Roma, fac ut Romani" -S. Beda

fac me? fac U! And the ubi you rode in on.

On 24 Apr 2003 16:17:03 -0700, [email hidden] (Luigi de Guzman) wrote...

Quoted message said:

Chris Wheeler said:

Get your politics right Luigi. China is not a communist state (the media could be blamed for this
misconception).

They might not be much for the workers and peasants anymore, but they're still communists. and they
still have power.

My Asian Politics supervisor is a china-watcher. He keeps a portrait of Sun Yat-sen in his office.
It's the easiest way to save offense.

There never has been a communist state. The same could even be said for democracy. A few people get
into power and take advantage of the mass populace for their own personal gain / power and that of
their friends. This happens under so-called 'communist' states, and also so-called 'democracies'.
Real communists tend to spend most of their time in talking shops, not really getting anywhere. You
won't find any in positions of power, in China or anywhere else. They may be labelled communists, or
call themselves communists but they are not. The Communist Manifesto makes for an interesting (if
outdated) read.

-Chris

"Pbwalther" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Nobody compels you to venerate the cross by kissing it, nor has anybody compelled anybody else to
drink from the chalice since the days of Jan Hus and the Utraquists.

True. In the Episcopal Church most people seem to think that the

eucharist

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somehow kills microbes. I come from a background in the biological

sciences

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and the idea of sharing a glass with 150 other people makes my skin crawl

and

Quoted message said:

that comes from the days when the worst you would get was a cold.

Our church may have gone a little overboard on this choice issue. There's 4:
1. Wine in chalice
2. Small individual, reusable container with wine.
3. Small individual, reusable container with grape juice, for the young or those avoiding alcohol.
4. Small individual, reusable container with water.

Rather few take choice #1 anymore.

As Pbwalther notes, an old superstition was/is that it would be disorderly for God to allow you to
be sick from sharing a cup at a worship service, OR that the alcohol provided sufficient protection.

"Mike Kruger" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:0ad5c461353194dbde9823c9cd669b78@TeraNews...

Quoted message said:

As Pbwalther notes, an old superstition was/is that it would be disorderly for God to allow you to
be sick from sharing a cup at a worship service,

OR

Quoted message said:

that the alcohol provided sufficient protection.

Pretty obvious. Wine turns to vinegar pretty quickly. Only a silly person (or a fundamentalist)
would argue against the presence of microorganisms in the bottle, despite the alcohol.

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Nobody compels you to venerate the cross by kissing it, nor has anybody compelled anybody else to
drink from the chalice since the days of Jan Hus and the Utraquists.

True. In the Episcopal Church most people seem to think that the eucharist somehow kills microbes.
I come from a background in the biological sciences and the idea of sharing a glass with 150 other
people makes my skin crawl and that comes from the days when the worst you would get was a cold.

The trick is to fill it with 100% proof Russian vodka.
--
_________________________
Chris Phillipo - Cape Breton, Nova Scotia ramsays-online.comramsays-online.comOpen ↗