Nepal - Aftermath of an Earthquake

Pictures are now starting to come out of Nepal of the damage caused by Saturday's earthquake.

One set of pictures around Kathmandu.

This set from Swayambunath, Pashupatinath and Kathmandu

From rural Nepal, pictures and news are starting to arrive.

A journalist reflects on his time in Nepal

And, although the immediate relief effort is just getting started, there is already talk of rebuilding.

Donations are still badly needed.  This site lists Canadian charities that are directly involved in the Nepali disaster relief effort.

[Update] - One week after the quake and more information about the damage is starting to appear, including some CCTV video from Kathmandu.

[Update] - a map of the earthquake-affected areas of Nepal

Nepal - Reaching Out

The news is full of stories coming out of Nepal, and, in the aftermath of the 7.9 earthquake last weekend and the many aftershocks, it's not good.

I had the opportunity to spend 5 weeks in Nepal back in the fall of 2013, 3 weeks trekking in the Manaslu and Annapurna regions and another 2 weeks visiting Pokhara and Kathmandu, both very close to the epicenter of the quake.  I'm quite saddened to hear news of the human tragedy, misery for a people who already had little and who now have nothing, the damage to centuries-old cultural icons, UNESCO World Heritage sites that may be damaged beyond repair.

This source shows some before and after pictures.

One useful source of news is the Nepali Times, as well as the usual Western news outlets.  The sheer scale of the disaster and the difficulty of gaining access to affected areas is hard to imagine for people living in Canada and the USA.  At this time, the scale of the disaster in rural mountain villages is unknown. 

I've been trying to discover the best way to help out in Nepal's time of need and in the future as they try to rebuild.  This is what I've found so far.  I'd be interested in any other suggestions.

First, there is the immediate disaster relief effort.  There are many, many charities and disaster-relief organizations involved in Nepal.  To verify the credibility of any particular charity, prospective donors can get information about any charity from an organization called Charity Navigator.  They also have some general comments about donating to the relief effort in Nepal, as well as a list of some vetted organizations who are involved in the current disaster.  Keep in mind that this is an American organization but some of the organizations they mention are international.

Canada has dispatched the DART, has earmarked $5M for immediate help and has said it will match all donations to the Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund until May 25.  This article from Global News has a number of suggested organizations which have good reputations and will be able to use donations.

However, one easy donation to make which will definitely trigger matching $$ from the Canadian Government is the Canadian Red Cross.  The link to the Red Cross donate page for Nepal is available from here.  So far, I have been unable to determine what other organizations you can donate to and still trigger the matching donation.  I will update as more information becomes available.

[Update] - It appears that donations to Oxfam Canada will also qualify for the matching government money.

There are, obviously, many credible organizations already doing important work in Nepal.  These include Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, and others too numerous to mention here.

After the immediate crisis has been managed will come the next, long-term challenge, that if rebuilding Nepal.  I'm still researching organizations that have been involved in that kind of work in the country and which will be involved in the future needs of the country.  One possible organization is the American Himalayan Foundation.  I would welcome information about any other organizations which do this more long-term work in Nepal.

[Update] - from the National Geographic - what's still standing....

[Update] - Donations to UNICEF Canada will also qualify for matching $$ from the Canadian Government AND also matching donations from UNICEF's corporate donors.

The "War on Terror" - Is There a Better Way?

One of my favourite (or is that "favorite"?) podcasts is Freakonomics.  If you haven't listened to any of their podcasts, you should.  I know it's about economics and economics has been called "the dismal science", but Freakonomics is economics delivered in a whole new way.  As it's creators put it, "The Hidden Side of Everything".  They also have books....

However, given the obsession with terrorism, state sponsored or otherwise, the White House hosted A Summit on Countering Violent Extremism late in February 2015.

There is also the Canadian Government's move to extend our role in Iraq, possibly bombing in Syria and it's own obsession with getting legislation passed such as Bill C-51, which some have dubbed the "Police State Act".

Freakonomics put out a podcast on this very topic earlier in February and it can be found here.  While it does examine some research into the whole issue, it does not just involve the opinions of what some might call "pointy-headed academics" (never mind that such people actually might have valid points to make on the issue).

Some take-away points made in the podcast:

• What should we expect from this summit?  Alas, very little.
• Many people might think we couldn't make the problem worse.  Oh yes, we can make it much worse, very quickly, as we saw with Iraq.
• Many think terrorism has something to do with religion.  Examining the data over several decades shows that most have very little to do with religion.  Instead, almost all terrorism and extremism shares a specific strategic objective - to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory the terrorists see as their homeland.  This idea of occupation could be seen as the root (but not the only) cause of suicide terrorism. 
• In Iraq, for example, "we" (as in "the West", or, more specifically, the Americans), decided to go into Iraq to "wring the Islamic fundamentalism out of the country by introducing democracy to the region".  So before the invasion, there were about 50 suicide attacks per year (with none in Iraq), and almost none were specifically anti-American.  A few years after the invasion, there were over 500 a year, with over 300 in Iraq.  And we have seen very clearly how anti-American those have been.

There is much more, including a few comments about young people fro the West and the supposed allure of joining the jihad.

Listen to the podcast.  It makes some very good points.

Waking Up the Masses?

Yesterday I had a first on Facebook.  I got booted out of a group.

The group was "Canada: Waking Up the Masses".

I joined originally because the group seemed dedicated to being a rallying point for unseating Harper and his cronies in the next election.  Listed were many reasons for such a move.  They resonated with my views on the current government.

The other day, however, there was a post complaining about how BC's water was being sold at give-away prices to a bottled water company.  Good point.  Then there were responses claiming that access to water should be a right (fine), should be free (really?) and then one where the poster claimed not to have drunk tap water for decades, supporting the bottled water industry.  (Huh?)  I pointed out that water was a commodity and that it's value wasn't being recognized by sensible pricing and that it seems a bit odd to complain about water being sold on the cheap to big corporations while supporting the bottled water industry through one's own purchasing practices.  A mini-debate ensued.  Tap water bad.  Bottled water good.  Bottled water should be banned.  And so on.

Then there was a typical anti-GMO post or two with comments claiming that you'd have to be "stupid" to not be against GMOs.  I responded in my usual way - some GMOs could be beneficial; no evidence of harm....

I then wondered, aloud, how such posts were related to unseating the Harper government and had this group become just another soapbox for anti-GMO and anti-vaccine hysteria.  One response to me wondered if I was a troll for corporate interests.  Obviously that person didn't bother to know me very well....  :-)

By later in the day, I had been removed from the group and I noted that the group had been changed to "closed", meaning that it was no longer possible to even see the discussions, let alone participate.

So, I guess I got my answer.

It's Election Time in Alberta

Yes, Alberta is in election mode.  Will it be more of the same, or is it time for something different?

Watch this and decide: 

The Anti-Anti-Vax - Part 7 - Glyphosphate

If endless arm-waving and shouting about mercury and aluminum wasn't enough, now we have glyphosphate, the active ingredient in a herbicide called Roundup.  One article claimed to "know" that aluminum (especially the aluminum in vaccines) became especially toxic when combined with glyphosphate.

This supposed link is being made because of the current hysteria over GMOs and now the attempt is being made to link that with vaccines.

Here is a reasonable response to all of that.

The Anti-Anti-Vax - Part 6 - Aluminum (Again)

A couple of weeks ago, there was an article trying, once again, to "expose the skyrocketing cases of autism" and link that with various things supposedly in vaccines.

One response went as follows:

According to the FDA & AAP Aluminum can build up in the brain and bones & is toxic to the body and it's organs. They also state that Aluminum can cause neurological harm.Per FDA, the maximum level of Al. allowed for 8 lb. healthy baby is approx 11-18 mcg.So how much Aluminum is in the vaccines routinely given to babies and children? 

• HepB (at birth) 250 mcg
• Hib 225 mcg
• DTaP 170 to 625 mcg
• HepA 250 mcg
• HPV 225 mcg
• Pentacel 330 mcg
• Pediarix 850 mcg

These amounts of Al. are not even safe for a 350 lb. adult, let alone a child who weighs less than 25 lbs. The neurotoxicity is made far more dangerous when mixed with another neurotoxin, thimerosal (mercury), which is STILL in many vaccines.  Dr Seneff is correct...add glyphosate to the mix, and we will continue to see the AutismEPIDEMIC numbers grow.

Given some real numbers to work with, I spent some time searching around to see if there was some basis for these numbers.  My response was:

Thanks for posting some actual numbers because at least numbers can be discussed. So let's see what the numbers say. 

First, just so everyone is on the same page and for those who aren't all that familiar with the metric system.... There are about 29 grams in one ounce. A milligram is 1/1000 of a gram ( 1 mg = 0.001 g). A microgram is 1/1000000 (one millionth) of a gram. It's usually abbreviated as ug but some people use mcg. One ug = 0.0000001 g.Yes, vaccines DO contain aluminum. Many "products" for babies contain aluminum, including: breast milk (0.04 mg/litre or 40 ug/litre), infant formula (0.225 mg/litre or 225 ug/litre), soy-based formula (0.46 to 0.93 mg/l or 460 to 930 ug/litre) and so on. 

If you give your baby a buffered aspirin, you will be giving them 10-20 mg of aluminum per tablet. That's 10000 to 20000 ug per tablet. Antacids, which you probably would not be giving to a baby, contain even more: 100 to 200 mg/tablet. 

The numbers you quote for aluminum in vaccines are correct and seem to vary from about 0.17 mg/dose to 0.85 mg/dose. That's 170 ug to 850 ug/dose. As you put it, 170 mcg to 850 mcg per dose. 

To put some numbers together - one dose of a vaccine, let's say 400 ug, to take an average, compared to 225 ug for every litre of infant formula (not soy-based because so many people are concerned about GMO soy) which an infant will drink probably every day or so. 

You can see that very quickly, a baby's infant formula will give him/her much more aluminum than a vaccine. 

People are generally more worried about newborns. According to one source, in the first 6 months, a baby will receive about 4 mg of aluminum from vaccines, about 10 mg from breast milk, about 40 mg from infant formula and over 120 mg from soy-based formula.According to your post's questionable logic, all of us would be receiving massive overdoses of aluminum from everything we eat and drink. It's a wonder we haven't turned into aluminum pots by now. 

Fortunately, your FDA reference isn't correct, for the following reason. The 11-18 ug of aluminum is referring to people receiving Total Patient Nutrition (TPN) which means they are being "fed" completely by an intravenous fluid. Multiple litres of fluid every day for weeks, months or years. The concern is about dissolved aluminum here. The FDA guidelines have nothing to do with vaccines. 

In vaccines, the aluminum is in the form of an insoluble solid and is not injected into the blood stream but into muscular or other subcutaneous tissue. Any aluminum salt that does not dissolve is excreted the same way as other solids are. 

There is much experience with aluminum in vaccines. Hundreds of millions of doses containing aluminum have been given since the 1920s when their use as adjuvants was developed. Not as much is known about aluminum build-up in people receiving TPN because the numbers of people involved are very small. But we're talking about two VERY different things here. 

This is why the amounts of aluminum in vaccines and breast milk and formula ARE safe for babies as well as that 350 lb adult you mention. 

Also, please stop saying that mercury is "STILL in many vaccines". It isn't, and hasn't for many years, nearly 2 decades. In Canada, the ONLY vaccines still containing thimerosal (ethyl mercury) is the HepB and multi-dose flu vaccines. Single-dose flu vaccines without thimerosal are available for children. And, despite removing thimerosal from vaccines, the autism rate has not changed. That, and the hundreds of studies done on the subject, show clearly that there is NO link between mercury and autism.

 Not that information will convince these people.  It's still mercury, aluminum, other toxins....and so on.  <sigh>

Why is Canada at War?

It's unlikely that we'll get a sensible answer from our "Fearless Leader", but Michael's introduction to this morning's program did raise the question.

Someone is Wrong on the Internet

An Experiment in Social Media....

Several months ago, noticing a fair number of "political" posts on the local community Facebook Page, I decided to set up a page for just such political discussions, and so Kootenay Debates was born.

We never had many "members" and it is difficult to know how many other random views we were getting, but, over the past months, arguments covered a wide range of topics, from vaccines (to be or not to be), government, climate change, science, GMOs, chemtrails, "Big Pharma", society (whether it existed or not), individualism, more government, American politics, Canadian politics and the voting system.

Counted among the page's members was a Libertarian/Anarchist, a couple of died-in-the-wool anti-vaxxers, several climate science deniers, several conspiracy theorists and a number of others who were just "normal".  In short, the page's regular posters came mostly from the ranks of ordinary folk, with a small number of others that I came to see as the lunatic fringe.

I've posted earlier on some of the "discussions" that focused on vaccines, society, conspiracies, Ayn Rand, social goods and so on.

What became obvious fairly quickly was that some people really believed that "government" and "Big Pharma" was out to poison them (vaccines and other pharmaceuticals), and that there were no problems that could not be solved by less (or no) government and less (or no) regulation of any kind.  It mattered not what vaccines had done in the past 70-odd years or that deregulation was one of the causes of the economic meltdown of 2007-8.  It was simply a matter of sticking to same old talking points and re-writing history where necessary (a strategy used by the current Harper Government.... but I digress).

What also became obvious was that these views were supported by information that could easily be shown to be incorrect but that contrary facts made no difference to them at all.  In some examples, the most outrageous posts made completely outlandish assertions.  It was astonishing and rather disturbing to see such entrenched, uninformed beliefs.

Never being one to pass up an argument, I found time spent on Facebook increasing over time.  The research I did to counter some of the most outlandish posts certainly made me better informed, and I suppose no educational experiences should be disparaged, but other than educating me, I wasn't sure what good it all was doing.  I also started to wonder if it was even a good idea giving the lunatic fringe this platform for their viewpoints.

Eventually, I became bored with the same old Libertarian "answers" to everything, the same old misrepresentations of science, vaccines and climate change and decided to close the page down.  As it happened, it was closed on April Fool's Day.  Possibly appropriate.

If anything, this experience has made me much more hard-line in my own beliefs.  Before, when someone happened to mention that they didn't "believe in" vaccines, I pretty much shrugged it off.  As long as herd immunity was high enough, no problem.  After seeing some of the nonsense these people based their "beliefs" on, I'm almost ready to start lobbying government to make vaccinations mandatory for school attendance or start charging parents with neglect if they don't vaccinate their children.

The Libertarians can be mostly written off as a very small subset of neo-liberal, regressive, pseudo-conservative nutters who believe "the market" can solve everything (free market fundamentalists) and that there are no societal issues, only individual issues.  Some of it forms the basis for the wrongheaded direction of the current federal government, and I completely disagree with it.  I have vowed to fight even harder to defeat such small-minded, wrong-headed philosophies when it comes to local, provincial and federal governance, because, IMHO, it's hurting the country.

There is more, but basically, I just grew bored and was spending too much time arguing with people who could not be persuaded that obvious facts were not just tentative opinions.  Hearing the same refrain that "everyone's opinion had to be respected".  I'm not the only one to question that "logic" and I've written about it elsewhere.

So, there it is.  Social media, where every nutter is free to post anything they want and claim the moral and factual high ground.  It's been said that the Internet and it's various sectors has made it easier for people to be informed.  It's also had the opposite effect and I find it concerning.

Minimum Expectations of Elected Representatives

There was a report the other day about one of BC's Members of Parliament, a certain James Lunney, from Nanaimo-Alberni.

Apparently, Mr Lunney is complaining about being "publicly shamed" in social media for comments he made about evolution, among other things.

Here's the thing, Mt Lunney:  for me, as a voter and a taxpayer, I fully support your right to hold whatever nutty ideas you want, but I'm having concerns about those views affecting your ability to do certain jobs that are part of being an elected representative in the HoC.  

Government has to make decisions about investment in science and technology just to keep Canada up to speed with the rest of the world.  With your views, which apparently extend to disparaging vaccines and viewing climate change as a hoax, it is really questionable as to whether you have the education and understanding of science and important social issues to do your job properly and make intelligent decisions for the country.

The political party you once belonged to has muzzled scientists and has moved actively to limit free speech, privacy and the rights of Canadians and has neglected to invest in the country's infrastructure, including education, science and basic research.  These actions are the result of views such as yours.

Obviously, voters need to examine the qualifications and views of prospective elected representatives much more closely.

By the way, Mr Lunney, Evolution is not "just a theory".