I recommend the CDC and wikipedia links. At the Wiki site you can find a link to the 1918 "Spanish Flu" which killed more than died in WWW-I. An interesting and scary bit of history.

I have been reading two great books: "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan, and "The Long Emergency" by James H. Kunstler.

Sagan was a giant in the world of astromony, here are two references for more information about him: Wikipedia and Planetary Soc.

Sagan's book covers many topics, but I would say the main theme is the lack of objective thinking by the public, the news media, and the schools. He discusses many of the myths about such things as: UFO's, Witchcraft, Hallucinations, "Scientists Know Sin", supernatural phenomenon, and skeptical thinking. Here are a few quotes from the book: Maybe I should move Sagan's quotes to a seperate page? Even better: you may want to get the book.

• Burning witches is a feature of Western civilization that has, with occasional political exceptions, declined since the sixteenth century. - - - exorcism of demons is still practiced by the Roman Catholic and other churches, and proponents of one could still denounce as sorcery the cultic practices of another. p.123. . .
• More than a third of American Adults believe that on some level they've made contact with the dead. The numbers seems to have jumped by 15 percent between 1977 and 1988. A quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation. p.203
• We tell children about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy for reasons we think emotionally sound, but then disabuse them of these myths before they're grown. Why retract? Because their well-being as adults depends on them knowing the world as it really is. We worry, and for good reason, about adults who still believe in Santa Claus. p.207
• History generally is written by the victors to justify their actions, to arouse patriotic fervor, and to suppress the legitimate claims of the vanquished. p.252 . . . 255
• Does prayer work at all? Which ones? p.276. . .
• The Roman Catholic Church did in its 1992 acknowledgment that Galileo was right after all, that the Earth does revolve around the sun: three centuries late, but courageous and most welcome nonetheless. p.277
• If you accept the literal truth of every word of the Bible, then the Earth must be flat. The same is true for the Qu'ran. Pronouncing the Earth round then means you're an atheist. p.325
• plainly stated at every Rosh Hashonah and every Jewish wedding ceremony, the Universe is less than 6000 years old. p.325
• A major electronics company reports that 80% of its job applicants can't pass a fifth-grade mathematics test. p.328
• Whatever the problem, the quick fix is to shave a little freedom of the Bill of Rights. Yes, in 1942, Japanese-Americans were protected by the Bill of Rights, but we locked them up anyway--after all, there was a war on. p.406 - - 419 is scary.

Kunstler's book is about: what happens and when the world runs out of petroleum.

Modern Medicine's effect on the Human Animal

For about the last two hundred years technology has allowed man to defeat the "Survival of the Fittest" law of nature in the human animal. Modern Medicine allows us to keep severe physical and mental deficiencies in the human gene pool. No farmer would keep such defects in his breading stock. He knows the effect would be devastating to the well being of his entire heard of cattle. Adding to the problem is the human desire to help the less fortunate, which has led to welfare programs. But, these programs serve to keep those not capable of competing in our "breading stock". Frequently, we see the largest families in those who are living off welfare. What we are effectively doing is using the less capable as our breading stock! The more affluent, and those who pay the highest taxes, generally have smaller families.

We complain about our schools and are all aware of the "dumbing down" of America. The problems is not the schools or the tools of teaching. The problem is: we are breading kids less capable of learning.

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