Thoughts Out Of Season

The novel coronavirus, aka MERS-CoV has claimed  the life of a Frenchman who contracted the  virus while visiting Saudi Arabia. He also passed on the infection to his roommate at the hospital he was being treated at. No word on the condition of the roommate as of yet. So far of the 40 confirmed infections there  have been 20 deaths. A 50% mortality rate. horrifying! In earlier times, prior to travel by train and especially train such a disease could take many months to reach across oceans and infect those far away. Not anymore. Someone who has just contracted the virus but is not showing any symptoms can hop a flight and be in many different countries in hours before becoming sick infecting everyone along the line. As another example, look at Haiti where conditions are still a whole level below horrible following the 2010 earthquake (I was there following the earthquake. Conditions in Hell must not be  much worse). Just imagine over a million people still living in ...

President Obama's State of the Union Address  was notable for several things: 1. Efforts to contain or slow climate change. This is a hot button issue in the United States as thoughts about it's causes and alleged progression run clearly down party lines. Republicans denounce it as a tool used by the pinko, tree hugging left to keep the United States dependent on foreign oil for the future; Democrats see climate change as a future significant threat to the globe and accuse Republicans of stymieing efforts at  curbing climate change so that their big oil donors will keep reaping record profits from the sale of oil and gasoline. Conclusion: no politician is really going to stick out his/her neck on an issue that may not cause any significant disruption to the globe in 40-50 years. Their chief concern, both Democrat and Republican is  garnering enough votes to get reelected in 2 or 4 years so you'll end up seeing a lot of kicking the can down the road on this issue 2. I...