gregladen | April 29, 2009The Minnesota cases are not confirmed but health officials are saying they likely will be. There will be a press conference on this at 9:00 AM Wed.
A child in Texas has died of the flu.
Which brings us to the relative severity, or more exactly, the mortality rate. It has seemed to some a mystery that many have died in Mexico but not elsewhere. However, it is also thought that thousands were ill in Mexico (no reliable estimate exists). So dozens out of thousands have died in Mexico, and now one out of dozens in the US. There simply are not enough data to assess overall mortality and…
gregladen | April 29, 2009Seriously.
Dr. Sandra Porter of Discovering Biology in a Digital World provides evidence that "the California outbreak might be the same strain that caused an outbreak in 2007 at an Ohio country fair."
What a nice piece of research and blogging.
UPDATED: There is some interesting discussion on Sandy's blog about the validity and meaning of this finding, and Tara Smith has further discussion here.
I also want to be more specific about one thing: When I say the word "Source" of Swine Flu in the head line, I mean "phylogenetic source" ... the actual source of a person's case of swine flu…
gregladen | April 28, 2009I am not an expert on binoculars, but that is not going to stop me from giving you some excellent advice.
Wildlife watching requires binoculars, and although I'm focusing on birding here, everything we're talking about applies generally. So this advice may be useful for your Safari to Africa where birds will be only one component of your viewing.
Here are a few guidelines that I've found to be useful. I'd love to see people add comments.
1) The person in the store knows crap.
2) Bigger binoculars will always be optically better all else being equal. In other words, whatever you are…
gregladen | April 28, 2009Apparently, this is being seriously considered. By whom you may ask?
Michlele Bachmann! Who else!?!?!?
Bachmann is quoted in the Star Tribune as saying that it is an "interesting coincidence" that the last swine flu outbreak also occurred under a Democratic president.
That, of course, would be Democratic President Gerald Ford. Who was a Republican.
To be fair, Bachmann is saying that she really isn't blaming Obama for the swine flu. She just finds it "very interesting." Just sayin'
I certainly hope that she does not find out that Woodrow Wilson was president at the time of the 1918 flu…
gregladen | April 28, 2009While it is still true that no deaths have been reported for the new swine flu outside of Mexico, the virus has been identified in additional countries.
Here is the current breakdown:
Mexico: Over 1,000 unconfirmed cases; 152 suspected deaths - 20 confirmed cases
US: 51 confirmed cases
Canada: 6 confirmed cases
New Zealand: 3 confirmed cases
United Kingdom: 2 confirmed cases
Spain: 2 confirmed cases
Israel: 2 confirmed cases
Spain: 2 confirmed cases
Suspected cases are reported in about seven other countries.
Do no assume that we are seeing a spread of the disease as much as we are…
gregladen | April 28, 2009When I contacted Steve Kelley's campaign director to arrange a meeting with Steve and Sophie Kelley, I suggested Tuesday. She responded that they had arranged their schedule to meet me on Wednesday. When I read her response, the part that I saw was, "They had arranged their schedule to meet with you at Pizza Nea, 306 Hennepin Ave..." The part that I missed was, "...Wednesday at 7."...
I hate when that happens... Read the rest here at Quiche Moraine.
gregladen | April 28, 2009Gallup has taken on the task of explaining, in ultimate terms, the evolutionarily designed features of the human penis. He works this as an engineering problem from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, which is always a little bit dangerious, but gallup isn't quite the arm waiver that a lot of other EP's are, so he may be doing it right.
Gallup's work is written up an an all-too-sophomoric Scientific American article by Jesse Bering which just barely falls short of explaining this important biological phenomenon in terms of a pair of headlights, a flashlight, and a little red waagon.…
gregladen | April 27, 2009You'll notice that I'm reviewing bird books. (Don't worry, not all will be US based.) Please feel free to chime in with your suggestions and comments.
The ultimate bird book for North America has always been two books: both Peterson's field guides, one for the East, one for the West. Now, the new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (Peterson Field Guide Series) combines the two. I do not own a copy, and therefore can not review it for you. (Note: I don't normally review books that publishers are unwilling to send me, and Houghton Mifflin has not been a good partner lately…
gregladen | April 27, 2009Did he take a bribe? Did he try to buy a senate seat? Did he misuse campaign funds?
NO! He was trying to save the lives of thousands, make life better for countless people living under the oppressive regime of the Sudanese government. Minnesota Fifth District Congressman Keith Ellison was arrested along with others at the Sudanese Embassy where they were protesting the current situation in Darfur. Details are available here at MN Progressive Project.
Ellison's office has released the following statement regarding Darfur:
Today, I join with my Congressional colleagues and advocates from…
gregladen | April 27, 2009This is a repost of an earlier review.
Bill Thompson's Young Birder's Guide The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America (Peterson Field Guides) is a book that I highly recommend for kids around seven to 14 years of age. (The publishers suggest a narrower age range but I respectfully disagree.)
This is a new offering written by Bill Thompson III and published by the same people who give us the Peterson Field Guide to the Birds and many other fine titles. The book includes excellent illustrations by Julie Zickefoose.
A birder since childhood, Thompson says he would have loved a…
gregladen | April 26, 2009The most significant thing that has happened over the last 24 hours or so is that the CDC has confirmed a handful of Influenza A (H1N1) Swine Flu cases in new locations. Previously, cases were only identified in Texas and California. Now, there are cases in Ohio (1 case), New York (8 cases), and Kansas (2 cases). In at least some cases, there is a Mexico connection. I think it is reasonable to assume that new cases will start showing up in other locations over the next day or two.
WHO has some updated information on the situation in Mexico:
...as of 26 April, the Government of Mexico has…
gregladen | April 26, 2009A Swiss was fired when she was discovered to be using facebook at a time when she had claimed to be too ill to use a computer. She claims she was just checking her facebook account on her iPhone, and that the company had created a pseudonym on facebook, and that this pseudonym was monitoring her.
Details here.
gregladen | April 26, 2009A tomb in Egypt, on the sea coast, is being investigated by Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, who claims it is the final resting place of Cleopatra and her main squeeze, Mark Antony. One of the pieces of evidence used to make this claim is a mask with a cleft chin, just like Richard Burton's.
It seems that most non-Egyptian archaeologists are claiming that this is incredibly unlikely. Most of the actual relevant evidence that would address the likelihood has not been examined by anyone, so I won't take this disbelief any more seriously that I'm taking the claim.
Details can be found here…
gregladen | April 26, 2009Only 28 percent of Minnesotans think Coleman's current appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court is appropriate. Sixty four percent think he should give up now. Seventy three percent feel that he should not go beyond the State Supreme Court if he loses there. The will of the people has been heard in both the voting booth and the polls.
This will not affect former Senator Norm Coleman's strategies, because the will of the people is of no concern to him. Coleman will continue with the State Supreme Court appeal, and when he loses there (and he will) he will continue on to the US supreme court.…
gregladen | April 25, 2009This was not an intensive bird watching day. This was a day driving to the cabin, sitting in the cabin writing, looking out the window, driving to run an errand, going to town for dinner, sitting in the cabin looking out the window some more, etc.
But the birds insisted on performing. So I thought I'd give you a list.,
En route north from the Twin Cities:
Two probable trumpeter swans heading west.
A flock of about 45 cormorants heading north. Leech Lake look out!
Near Fort Ripley: Rough Legged Hawk?
Blue Jay
Nisswa, overlookng Round Lake: Bald Eagle in tree
Lesser Scaup (small flock)…
gregladen | April 25, 2009.... The Web Carnival, not the General Feeling We All Have, is up at Quiche Moraine Dot Com.
This is a good one. It has videos and everything.
gregladen | April 25, 2009OK, not so new, but still relevant. The following is a repost of a review of this book.
New Smithsonian Field Guide Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Ted Floyd is a newcomer to the bird field guide scene. This guide offers a new combination of features that may make it the best choice as the primary guide for a small number of birders, and as an excellent second (or third) guide for most birdwatchers. Given the guide's qualities and price (it is not expensive) if you are a North American birder (anywhere in the region) this is a must-have for your collection,…
gregladen | April 25, 2009Here is a brief summary of what we seem to know now.
The World Health Organization reports that in the US there have been seven confirmed cases of Swine Influenza A/H1N1 in humans, wtih 5 in California and two in Texas. In addition, there are another nine spuspected cases. These were generally not severe, and no one has died.
Less traditional and less reliable sources have suggested that there are a large number of cases of type A flu (not necessarily the swine flue) in Queens New York, perhaps something like 100, and two cases in Kansas. If these are real, they will probably be reported…
gregladen | April 25, 2009
Shane Murphy, second-in-command aboard the ship seized by Somali pirates this month, is happy to be home. But he's not happy to be sharing turf with land-lubber Rush Limbaugh, who politicized the pirate affair by referring to the pirates as "black teenagers."
"It feels great to be home," said Murphy in an interview with WCBV in Boston. "It feels like everyone around here has my back, with the exception of Rush Limbaugh, who is trying to make this into a race issue...that's disgusting."
source