So now it’s clear to everybody: the swine flu, aka H1N1, was just a joke.  It was slated as a dangerous pandemic that could kill many people and therefore deserved urgent large-scale vaccination.  Of course, following a suggestion that came directly from World Health Organization (no less) all industrialized nations ordered massive amounts of vaccine doses.  The small club of producers (Novartis, Glaxosmith and Baxter), collected a huge amount of money.  Was it worthwhile?  Was it rational?

First of all let’s compare the aggressiveness of the different kinds of flu.  A normal seasonal flu strain, the one that we see every winter, usually infects 340-1000M humans per year, killing 250-500K of them.  In other words, every day we have on average 1000 deaths from seasonal flu and we don’t see the need to say something about that on national TV.  On the other hand H1N1 so far infected approximately 700M humans killing less than 15K.  This means H1N1 is 20 times less dangerous than normal flu!  By comparison, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed more than 20 million people (1000 times more than H1N1).

Now, one could say this is thanks to the vaccination program, right?  So let’s see what happened to the vaccines.  Distribution officially started in early October and the US so far declared to have distributed approximately 100 million doses.  Still, most Americans declared they will not get their children vaccinated.  In Italy the National Health Ministry bough 24 million doses but so far only one million was used. 184M€ were thrown out of the window.  Many European states are in the same boat with Italy and now are trying to sell-off the doses to the African countries.  So no, it’s not thanks to the vaccine.

But then why did we buy so many doses?  Of course, because the pharmaceutical industry raised a lot of money and they know very well how to use part of that money for political “contributions” and lobbying.   Not all countries are subject to this lobby action.  Some of them are still capable of rational reasoning and to save their taxpayer’s money.

Also, Associate Press on May 20 wrote:

In any case, mass producing a pandemic vaccine would be a gamble, as it would take away manufacturing capacity for the seasonal flu vaccine for the flu that kills up to 500,000 people each year. Some experts have wondered whether the world really needs a vaccine for an illness that so far appears mild.

And think about it: the same happened few years ago with avian flu and SARS and swine flu of 1976.  About the latter, wikipedia says:

The 1976 swine flu outbreak, also known as the swine flu fiasco, or the swine flu debacle, was a strain of H1N1 influenza virus that appeared in 1976. Infections were only detected from January 19 to February 9, and were not found outside Fort Dix. The outbreak is most remembered for the mass immunization that it prompted in the United States. The strain itself killed one person and hospitalized 13. However, side-effects from the vaccine caused five hundred cases of Guillain–Barré syndrome and 25 deaths.

Emphasis is in the original.

Google led the creation of Open Handset Alliance, a consortium involving a number of telco and manufacturers . As its first act the Alliance released Android, an open source operating system for mobiles complete of SDK and API. The SDK includes a working emulator and half a dozen example applications. The idea to establish an open platform for mobile developers is very good but not particularly new: project Openmoko has been working to a similar concept for several months and went as far as to release a developer version of the handset.

Currently there are several competing platforms with a significant presence on the market: Symbian OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone, Motorola MotoMAGX, Qualcomm BREW and RIM Blackberry to name a few. Trying to build a business on top of mobile applications is very difficult because you have to make several different versions of your application and the market is very fluid. Now, with the huge money and pressure that Google can inject into the field there’s a chance they can impose a common platform.

They chose to build on top of several open source technologies: Linux, OpenGL, SQLite and Webkit. The latter is particularly interesting because it’s a rendering engine derived from the KDE project (and going to be merged back into konqueror) and already powers the iPhone, s60 and Safari. This could become the rendering engine widely used both on the web and on mobile handsets.

To bootstrap the project and quickly build a critical mass of third party developers, Google issued a contest with a 10 million dollar prize for the best applications that will be developed in the next few months. There are a few countries not allowed to participate to the contest. As usual there are countries forbidden by US laws (Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Myanmar) and on top of that there are countries excluded because of local restrictions: Quebec and… Italy!

So Telecom Italia is one of the members of Open Handset Alliance, but Italians can’t participate to the challenge. Great. How is this possible? Simple: in Italy contests are regulated by a very strict law requiring that issuers create accurate documentation, put the prize in a protected guarantee fund and seek permission of the Ministry of Economy. Google probably found that going through all of this was not worthwhile. Italian bureaucracy and over-legislation at work. Do you remember my last post on this topic?

Apple started to sell iPhone in Europe. In Germany the price is €399 for the handset, that is $586! Either they don’t get currency exchange or they think ripping off Europeans is OK. Moreover, on top of that you need a mandatory 24-month subscription plan at €49 a month (100 min/month voice calls). In total it’s €1575 ($2316!).

By comparison, at the same price I can buy a Blackberry Curve 8310 (more feature rich with GPS receiver, SD memory, MMS) and a subscription plan with flat data and 400 min/month voice included. And there’s no 24-month term: I can stop this contract after one month if I don’t like it, and pay just for that.

No wonder few people cared when Apple stores opened in Germany last night…

Last night I wanted to go to the movies, even if unfortunately in August you take what is available. The only open-air theater in town ran Borat. I knew I wasn’t going to like it, but I thought I had to see in order to better criticize…

The plot of this movie is very simple. Borat is a Kazakh reporter. He lives in a poor village where ignorance, racism, sexism, prostitution and lack of hygiene are the standard. He is hired by local goverment to fly to the US and make a documentary about American customs and culture. There, he does lots of mistakes due to his cultural difference, creating embarrassing situations.

How this movie managed to get an Oscar nomination is beyond me. The way it denigrates Kazakhstan, expecially in the first 20 minutes, is outrageous. It does heavy use of stereotypes about poverty, ignorance, sex promiscuity, sexism, religion, attitude toward mental handicaps and everything else. It depicts Kazakh people as if they lived like animals and hated Jews and Christians. What tries to be humorous, ends up being sad.

In the second half the movie tries to criticize American culture by building an implicit parallel, showing neo-nazis, creationists, people with prejudices against homosexuals and prostitutes, sexist students, war supporters and so on. Unfortunately, the critique against US hypocrisy is way weaker than what was shown for Kazakhstan.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
USA, 2006, by Larry Charles, Comedy
IMDB 443453

In 2004 a new European Commission had to be nominated. José Manuel Barroso was going to be the President while Italian Government (back then ruled by President Berlusconi) proposed Rocco Buttiglione for the Justice, Freedom and Security portfolio. Unfortunately, Buttiglione’s view on sex, family and homosexuality was so fundamentalist conservative that after just a couple hearings the Parliament was totally upset with him and the entire Commission was at risk of a rejection (something unheard of). Among others, a remarkable quote:

The family exists in order to allow women to have children and to have the protection of a male who takes care of them.

Italy had to repair the problem, so Buttiglione’s nomination was withdrawn and eventually changed with Franco Frattini.

Now, in three years of being Commissioner, this man:

• asked for a European ban on the “Rule of Rose” adult videogame and was backfired by Commissioner Viviane Reding;
• bowed to the US, authorizing them to gather personal data of European Citizens through SWIFT, a private company based in Belgium, and to retain that data for fifteen years;
• is planning to make illegal every website that contains material useful to terrorists, to make Internet providers responsible for the traffic they convey, and eventually to build a China-like pan-european censorship firewall.

and that’s just what came out after googling 10 minutes.

Guys, as an Italian I am very sorry. Europe deserved a decent Commissioner. Please accept my apologies.

After reading this post I went further investigating this matter and discovered there are western countries that declare themselves secular and yet fail to stick to it, to the point that in some cases religion is more or less mandated by law! I found the following examples for the US:

Constitution of Arkansas in article 19.1 says:

19. 1. Atheists disqualified from holding office or testifying as witness.
No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.

Constitution of Maryland in article 36 and 37 of Declaration of Rights says:

Art. 36. That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; [omissis] nor shall any person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness, or juror, on account of his religious belief; provided, he believes in the existence of God, and that under His dispensation such person will be held morally accountable for his acts, and be rewarded or punished therefore either in this world or in the world to come. [omissis]

Art. 37. That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; [omissis]

Constitution of Massachusetts, in article III of Declaration of rights says:

Article III. As the public worship of God and instructions in piety, religion and morality, promote the happiness and prosperity of a people and the security of a republican government; [omissis]

Constitution of North Carolina, in article 6 says:

Sec. 8. Disqualifications for office.
The following persons shall be disqualified for office:
First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

Constitution of Pennsylvania, in Section 4 of Article 1 Declaration of Rights says:

Religion
Section 4.
No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.

Constitution of South Carolina, in Section 2 of Article 4 says:

SECTION 2. Qualifications of Governor.
No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being;

Constitution of Tennessee, in Article 9 says:

Section 2. No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.

Constitution of Texas, in Article 1 Bill of Rights, Section 4 Religious tests, says:

No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

In other words, if you live in one of the above states you either believe in God (whatever this means) or your rights are somehow limited, e.g. you are ineligible to work in a public office. Now, it’s true the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution makes all of the above statements invalid, but then why don’t they clean up this mess? Are they so proud of such relics of the past? Maybe yes, after all they have the words “In God we trust” printed on their dollars.

Guglielmo Oberdan was born in Trieste in 1858. Back then, the Italian nation struggled to reunite under a single kingdom and Guglielmo lived his youth during Garibaldi‘s legendary fights. Garibaldi couldn’t conquer Trieste, so that remained domain of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. People from Trieste strongly felt they had to fight to become part of Italy. The revolting movement was know as irredentism.

Guglielmo moved to Vienna to study engineering, but escaped to Rome – he deserted – when he was called in the Austrian army to go conquer Bosnia-Herzegovina. While in Rome, in 1882 he participated to the funeral ceremony for Garibaldi and quickly decided he had to do something to make Trieste rise and declare independence from Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, even if that needed the sacrifice of his own life. While traveling to Trieste to pursue his plot, he was captured and sentenced to death for allegedly planning to kill the emperor.

Now, the interesting fact is this guy was called a terrorist by Austrian, while he is known as a martyr of freedom in Italy. Sounds pretty similar to what happens nowadays in Palestine or Iraq, doesn’t it? Maybe both sides are biased and the truth is somewhere in the middle, and this story tells us that we should always check both versions.

Say you are a journalist, one working in a famous and heralded newspaper. You have been assigned to write an interview about an hostess who enjoys selling her body as a second job. Now, your article would surely attract more attention if you add a nice picture, wouldn’t it? Too bad you forgot to take a photo of your interviewee and to ask her permission for publishing.

Hell, who cares, Internet is so easy… Let’s try to Google for generic hostess images. You feel lucky and the first hit is this wonderful girl on a Portuguese blog. She’s darn beautiful, she is an hostess on a plane and has this glamorous smile. Can you resist? It looks like the perfect picture!

Ok, you have no right to publish this picture, you don’t even know who she is. As a good journalist you are supposed to ask permission, at the very least, and then maybe pay back some quid. But hell, you have no time. After all, nobody will ever discover where this image comes from, right?

I’m sorry bad journalist, we’re in the 21st century and the Internet is way smarter than you. Blogs connect people and they found the original picture in a matter of days. This innocent Portuguese girl was probably accused of being an whore. She was probably going to sue the newspaper for illegal use of the image. At end of the day the newspaper had to publish apologies and remove your article.

Now, I can understand when similar mistakes are made by unknown bloggers, people who write just for hobby or for fun. But a journalists does it for a living, it’s his profession and he is supposed to be professional. This is the kind of errors that make a journalist deserve to be fired.

The World Bank has interesting data about how many cars we have. It looks like some countries had a huge increase in cars per 1000 people over the last few years.

Now we have 6 countries over the “1 car every 2 people” threshold: New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. The United States decreased their number of cars relative to population. Who is wealthier and who’s behind? Should we conclude that public transportation is a sign of really more advanced economies?

Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact.

This incredible statement comes from this article on Newsweek talking about American beliefs and no, unfortunately it’s not April fools yet.