John Stuart Mill and Bill O'Reilly

How did I miss this one? Thank you reader RB for the send-in.

According to Bill O'Reilly (who I hear gets people agreeing with him up North all the time) the higher life expectancy in Canada is to be expected, because there are 10 times as many US citizens as there are Canadians. I mean, where do you start with this?

John Stuart Mill said it best.

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

What to fear, swine flu or an uncaring government?

Juan Sheput at his blog Mate Pastor made an excellent point today. The confirmation of 16 cases of swine flu (or AH1N1 if you insist) in Peru has caused consternation in Lima and headlines in all news media. The majority of cases are in a bunch of students who recently came back from their end of studies joint vacation to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

However, even though it's only early in the Andean winter season there have been 42 children killed by pneumonia in the poor and high altitude Puno and Cusco regions of Peru. Here's what Sheput had to say (translated) and for the record I agree 100%;

UPDATE: Make that 86 children dead

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Swine flu or AH1N1 has arrived in Peru and its spread is exponential. There are 16 cases at the moment, the majority of those students that ame back from their college "promo" trip to the Dominican Republic. They are therefore children from middle class backgrounds. We hope they recover quickly.

But at the same time 42 children have died of pneumonia in Puno and Cusco. They are not mentioned or worried about by Health Minister Oscar Ugarte. They are children aged between five and ten years. Is it true that the lives of the poor don't matter? It's fine that resources are earmarked to fight swine flu (around 60 million Soles), but the children of Puno and Cusco also deserve the same treatment, and not even a million has been set aside for them. They don't have antibiotics, vaccinations, heating or the thoughts of the authorities.

The figures for (Peruvian) children that die due to lack of opportune care in health centres and medical posts is extremely high. It is also unpardonable because the reasons for the deaths are totally predictable. Peru has never had the amount of economic resoruces that it has at the moment and it is therefore injust that children die due to this lack of care. Inequality in treatment is more than evident.

Mexico Swine Flu Update

For all news and views coming out of ground zero Mexico on the quickly-becoming-world-number-one headline story about the swine flu outbreak, I thoroughly recommend you switch channels immediately and go to The Mex Files, as RG is on the case and updating regularly. He's already posted on the situation in downtown and provincial Mexico, but now he's dug up a story about how BigAgro and its confined space farming techniques for pigs in Mexico may (repeat 'may') have created the breeding ground for the mutated virus. Interesting stuff.

Go see for yourself. Here's the link to The Mex Files. Use it and be wise before the rest of them.

UPDATE: I just happened across this report in Mexian daily La Jornada and it's worth sharing, I think. According to Mexican doctors in the thick of things, early diagnosis and treatment of the swine flu virus strain that's making all the headlines is effective in treating the problem. That, in my book, is good news. Here a translation of the quote from the doctor:

"...the information we have is that those patients that are admitted early are managing to control the effects of the virus."

Eleven Presidents...no, make that twelve...hold on, let's call it thirteen

Eisenhower

Kennedy
Johnson
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush Sr.
Clinton
Bush Jr.
Obama (elect)

There's little doubt that Cuba's Fidel Castro is about to add another to his personal list of "US Presidents I've Seen In Power", even though Fidel isn't Cuba's top man himself any more. But according to this report (and amazingly there's only one English version of the report published by the Indo Asia News Service...no Reuters, no DJNW, no Bloomberg, no AP, no AFP....strange that, innit?) Fidel is in good health and is fit enough to return to power if he wanted.

So the question is, "Will he see his 11th POTUS come and go and the arrival of number 12?" I think it's very likely. Here's how the report starts:

Buenos Aires, Nov 17 (IANS) Former Cuban president Fidel Castro ‘is in very good health’ and ‘could return to power’ if he desired, a Spanish doctor who treated the leftist leader when he seriously fell ill in 2006 has said.

‘Today, Fidel is doing very well, he leads a normal life and could return to power if he wanted to. He has no physical or medical impediments,’ Spanish physician Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido said in an interview published Sunday in the Argentine yada yada continues here.