Links and Minifeatures 2008 05 06 Tuesday

I forgot to submit to any carnivals this week but Real Estate Undressed was kind enough to pick two of my articles for best of April.

And of course, Consumer Focused Carnival of Real Estate will be here tomorrow

Hugo Chavez busted: Via Instapundit, Interpol confirms authenticity of Raúl Reyes's computer files

Gateway Pundit has a list of other stuff that was found by the raid.

Armies of Liberation:

If Saudi Arabia pardoned 9/11 highjacker Mohammed Atta while imprisoning a completely innocent journalist on terrorism charges, the US would be in an uproar. But that's exactly what is going on in Yemen. The USS Cole bombers are free. My good friend, the journalist al-Khaiwani, is on trial in terrorism court. Sentencing is May 21.

Who should MDs let die in a pandemic? Report offers answers

Feel good, happy answers. And people are complaining that this report is too hard, too cruel?

Wikipedia on the last pandemic, the Spanish flu

The Spanish flu lasted from March 1918 to June 1920,[1] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It is estimated that anywhere from 20 to 100 million people were killed worldwide,[2][3] more than double the number killed in World War I.[4] This extraordinary toll resulted from the extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms.

and

The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks (in contrast, AIDS killed 25 million in its first 25 years). Older estimates say it killed 40-50 million people[8] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed.[9] This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed more people than the Black Death.[10]

San Diego County has 3 million people now. 20% is 600,000 in this county alone. Roughly seven and a half million sick people in California, sixty million in the United States, 1.3 billionworldwide. If it's anything like past epidemics, the medical professions will be among the hardest hit. And they're proposing to limit triage to

"_People older than 85.

_Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings.

_Severely burned patients older than 60.

_Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease.

_Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.

Furthermore, the closer packed and more mobile a population is, the faster such a disease will spread. Maybe such tactics would be effective if an immediate quarantine clamped down on all travel and all shipments, but in these days of the global economy, I'm more than a little skeptical of that happening. My guess is that by the time quarantines are ordered, the reach of any such disease will already be global, and humanitarian impulses will insure that it goes global if our leaders do react in time.

You tell me if such measures are likely to be enough in such a case. Remember, it would probably hit basically everywhere at once, which means there isn't anywhere with resources to spare to help other areas.

Public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the report an important initiative but also "a political minefield and a legal minefield."

Yep. I imagine the medical profession in the US will be greatly reviled in the aftermath. It won't be just, and it won't be fair, but the (remaining) lawyers would clean up in that aftermath. But I would like for there to be an aftermath, something that's far less likely if our medical professionals and political class aren't mentally ready for what is only a matter of time. The Spanish Flu was a fairly weak pandemic, despite having killed at least twice as many people as World War I. Black Death of the 1340s killed at least thirty percent, and was far slower to spread. I don't think our society could withstand 25% losses basically, and even 15 percent would be questionable.

McCain castigates Obama on judges

Republican John McCain criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for voting against John Roberts as U.S. chief justice

This is a good way to campaign against Obama: on his record. Things that he has done. Not as good as campaigning on the good things John McCain has done and intends to do, but who are we kidding? There hasn't been a Presidential campaign in my lifetime that didn't go negative. Given that it's going negative (and Obama has previously launched salvos at John McCain) I'd like for the negative stuff to be focused on what the opponent has actually done.

The AP article says that this is reaching out to the Christian Right. Maybe so, but I'm emphatically not a Christian, and I approve of Chief Justice Roberts, and Samuel Alito as well. I'd much rather have another justice in the mold of those two than a Ginsberg or Stevens, and the next presidential term is probably going to see three new justices selected. Were Obama elected, I expect that his choices would be disastrous for the economy, as a Ginsberg would be about the least harmful he might nominate.

The USA Today article on the same speech is a little more neutral:

The Republican presidential candidate said Roberts and Alito would be his models for judicial nominations, contrasting them with "activist judges" who would rather make laws than interpret them.

"With a presumption that would have amazed the framers of our Constitution, and legal reasoning that would have mystified them, federal judges today issue rulings and opinions on policy questions that should be decided democratically," McCain said during a speech in Winston-Salem, N.C.

While I'm on an elections kick, Wizbang has an article on Obama's associates, and his judgment (or lack thereof) in choosing them.

I am not making this up: Study shows breast-fed children are smarter

Zimbabwe observers question presidential results

The opposition says Tsvangirai won the election outright and has ended Mugabe's 28 year rule over the once prosperous country whose economy is now in ruins.

ZESN accused ruling party members of beating observers and called on police to stop the attacks.

Mugabe wants to fabricate the need for a run off, which will give him the opportunity to fabricate enough supporters (and intimidate enough opponents) to stay in power.

Official results confirm Bolivian province's autonomy win

With 34 percent of ballots counted Monday, the autonomy statute claimed the support of 84.1 percent of voters, while 15.7 percent opposed it, Santa Cruz's electoral court announced. Exit polls released Sunday night showed the autonomy statute winning as much as 85 percent of the province's nearly 570,000 valid votes.

Eighty-five percent?! That's right at the limits for believability.

Shows if you want your people united, act like a communist nutjob and befriend other communist nutjobs. Works every time. Unfortunately for your agenda, it works against you.