Curbing the Public Nuisance (Part 2)

Written by David Leonhardt


Curbingrepparttar Public Nuisance (Part 2) By David Leonhardt

Yes, that pillar of society that has been with us since that slithery dude threw humanity for a curve inrepparttar 132304 Garden of Eden – that cornerstone of society has been automated.

I am speaking, of course, ofrepparttar 132305 public nuisance ( I wrote about him in Part 1 at http://www.thehappyguy.com/nuisance1.html . )

No longer do pests have to come around in restaurants and train stations and villages singing loudly and playing their harpsichords. We now have machines to do that for us – machines like televisions and radios and elevator muzak and backfiring Mustangs.

Inrepparttar 132306 olden days, you could just throw a brick at a public nuisance, and that would usually shut him up for two minutes – five ifrepparttar 132307 brick hit its mark.

But it's harder to throw a brick at a TV, because bar owners send bloodthirsty lawyers after you, somethingrepparttar 132308 old-fashioned public nuisances knew nothing about. And how can you throw a brick atrepparttar 132309 shadowy creature producing elevator muzak?

So it was inevitable that some guy named Mitch Altman would invent a high-tech way to neutralize those high-tech public nuisances. It's an infrared keychain called TV-B-Gone that shuts off intrusive TVs remotely.

"Hey I was watching that show," calls outrepparttar 132310 six-foot-four, burly guy atrepparttar 132311 bar. "Whoever zapped my show has five second to unzap it., or I'll get off this stool." Oh, well. I suppose there are still a few technical adjustments to tinker with.

But I was thinking, "Hey. I could invent something useful like that. I could invent a high-tech brick to shut down those high-tech public nuisances for at least five minutes." So I did.

First, I set out to defeat muzak. I invented a device calledrepparttar 132312 Automated Elevator Hostage Taker. I was so excited, I decided to take it for a test drive. I found a really high building and headed straight forrepparttar 132313 elevator.

Half way up, I activated my Automated Elevator Hostage Taker. "Aha!" I called out. "We have your elevator hostage. If you shutrepparttar 132314 muzak off, we will release it unharmed."

The other passengers looked at me like I had a purple horn growing out of one ear.

"I said, turn offrepparttar 132315 muzak and your elevator won't be harmed."

One passenger was starting to get interested. "Whatrepparttar 132316 *$&% do you think you're doing?"

AIDS - Europe's New Plague

Written by Sam Vaknin


The region which brought yourepparttar Black Death, communism and all-pervasive kleptocracy now presents: AIDS. The process of enlargement torepparttar 132302 east may, unwittingly, openrepparttar 132303 European Union's doors torepparttar 132304 two scourges of inordinately brutal organized crime and exceptionally lethal disease. As Newsweek noted,repparttar 132305 threat is greater and nearer than any hysterically conjured act of terrorism.

The effective measure of quarantiningrepparttar 132306 HIV-positive inhabitants ofrepparttar 132307 blighted region to prevent a calamity of medieval proportions is proscribed byrepparttar 132308 latest vintage of politically correct liberalism. The West can only help them improve detection and treatment. But this is a tall order.

East European medicine harbors fantastic pretensions to west European standards of quality and service. But it is encumbered with African financing, German bureaucracy and Vietnamese infrastructure. Sincerepparttar 132309 implosion of communism in 1989, deteriorating incomes, widespread unemployment and social disintegration plunged people into abject poverty, making it impossible to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

A report published in September byrepparttar 132310 European regional office ofrepparttar 132311 World Health Organization (WHO) pegs at 46repparttar 132312 percentage ofrepparttar 132313 general population inrepparttar 132314 countries ofrepparttar 132315 former communist bloc living on less than $4 a day - close to 170 million people. Crumbling and desperately underfunded healthcare systems, ridden by corruption and cronyism, ceased to provide evenrepparttar 132316 appearance of rudimentary health services.

The number of women who die at - ever rarer - childbirth skyrocketed. Transition has trimmed Russian life expectancy by well over a decade to 59, lower than in India. People lead brutish and nasty lives only to expire in their prime, often inebriated. Inrepparttar 132317 republics of former Yugoslavia, respiratory and digestive tract diseases run amok. Stress and pollution conspire to reap a grim harvest throughoutrepparttar 132318 wastelands of eastern Europe. The rate of Tuberculosis in Romania exceeds that of sub-Saharan Africa.

UNAIDS and WHO have just published their AIDS Epidemic Update. It states unequivocally: "In Eastern Europe and Central Asia,repparttar 132319 number of people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus - HIV - in 2002 stood at 1.2 million. HIV/AIDS is expanding rapidly inrepparttar 132320 Baltic States,repparttar 132321 Russian Federation and several Central Asian republics."

The figures are grossly understated - and distorting. The epidemic in eastern Europe and central Asia - virtually onrepparttar 132322 European Union's doorstep - is accelerating and its growth rate has surpassed sub-Saharan Africa's. One fifth of all people in this region infected by HIV contractedrepparttar 132323 virus inrepparttar 132324 preceding 12 months. UNAIDS says: "The unfortunate distinction of havingrepparttar 132325 world’s fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic still belongs to Eastern Europe and Central Asia."

Inrepparttar 132326 past eight years, AIDS has been suddenly "discovered" in 30 large Russian cities and in 86 of its 89 regions. Four fifth of all infections inrepparttar 132327 Commonwealth of Independent States -repparttar 132328 debris left byrepparttar 132329 collapse ofrepparttar 132330 USSR - are among people younger than 29. By July this year, new HIV cases surged to 200,000 - up from 11,000 in December 1998.

In St. Petersburg, their numbers multiplied a staggering 250-fold since 1996 to 10,000 new instances diagnosed in 2001. Most of these cases are attributed to intravenous drug use. But, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 400 infected women gave birth in a single hospital in St. Petersburg inrepparttar 132331 first nine months of 2002 - compared to 149 throughout last year. About one third ofrepparttar 132332 neonates test HIV-positive within 24 months. The disease has broken loose.

How misleading even these dire data are is revealed by an in-depth study of a single city in Russia, Togliatti. Fully 56 percent of all drug users proved to be HIV-positive, most of them infected inrepparttar 132333 last 2 years. Three quarters of them were unaware of their predicament. One quarter of all prostitutes did not require their customers to use condoms. Two fifths of all "female sex workers" then proceeded to have unsafe intercourse with their mates, husbands, or partners. Studies conducted in Donetsk, Moscow and St. Petersburg found that one seventh of all prostitutes are already infected.

An evidently shocked compiler ofrepparttar 132334 results states: "The study lends further credence to concerns thatrepparttar 132335 HIV/AIDS epidemic in Russian cities could be considerably more severe thanrepparttar 132336 already-high official statistics indicate." The region's governments claim that 1 percent ofrepparttar 132337 population of countries in transition - still a hefty 4 million people - use drugs. But this, too, is a wild underestimate. UNAIDS itself cites a study that concluded that "among Moscow secondary-school students ... 4% had injected drugs".

Quoted in Pravda.ru, The Director ofrepparttar 132338 Federal Scientific Center for AIDS at Russia's Ministry of Health, Vadim Pokrovsky, warns that Russia is likely to followrepparttar 132339 "African model" with up to an 80 percent infection rate in some parts. Kaliningrad, with a 4 percent prevalence ofrepparttar 132340 syndrome, he muses, can serve as a blueprint forrepparttar 132341 short-term development ofrepparttar 132342 AIDS epidemic in Russia.

Or, take Uzbekistan. New infections registered inrepparttar 132343 first six months of 2002 surpassedrepparttar 132344 entire caseload ofrepparttar 132345 previous decade. Followingrepparttar 132346 war in Afghanistan, heroin routes have shifted to central Asia, spreading its abuse amongrepparttar 132347 destitute and despondent populations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In many of these countries and, to some extent, in Russia and Ukraine, some grades of heroine are cheaper than vodka.

Ominously, reportsrepparttar 132348 European enter forrepparttar 132349 Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS, as HIV cases among drug users decline, they increase exponentially among heterosexuals. This, for instance, isrepparttar 132350 case in Belarus and Ukraine. The prevalence of HIV among all Ukrainians is 1 percent.

Even relative prosperity and good governance can no longer stemrepparttar 132351 tide. Estonia's infection rate is 50 percent higher than Russia's, even ifrepparttar 132352 AIDS cesspool that isrepparttar 132353 exclave of Kaliningrad is included inrepparttar 132354 statistics. Latvia is not far behind. One of every seven prisoners in Lithuania has fallen prey torepparttar 132355 virus. All three countries will accede torepparttar 132356 European Union in 2004. Pursuant to an agreement signed recently between Russia andrepparttar 132357 EU, Kaliningrad's denizens will travel to all European destinations unencumbered by a visa regime.

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