Because there are so many abandoned web logs, it is often difficult to know when a blogger dies. Do specific hosts have policies? What are the wishes of a family? Wired News explores.

Computer Worm exploits SARS

Coronex is just the latest in a string of worms and viruses that use widespread interest in current events or celebrities as a subtle enticement to open infected attachments that e-mail recipients would otherwise be wary of.

It’s a mass mailer that uses Outlook and comes under a variety of headings….SARS virus, death virus, I need your help…. The attachments contain Sars.exe, HongKong.exe. deaths.exe. etc.

China

The few HIV information campaigns in China have usually painted the picture that as long as one is not homosexual, an intravenous drug user or a prostitute, one is not at risk for HIV. Today many Chinese believe that if someone feels and looks fine, they could not have HIV because the only pictures they see of HIV/AIDS patients are images of people in very advanced stages of AIDS that are designed to shock the viewer. Last year in a Chinese poll of university students, far fewer than half of those polled knew how HIV was transmitted. Most of the people in Henan’s AIDS villages had not heard the word “AIDS” until the past couple of years. It is this countrywide lack of information that makes a nationwide spread of HIV all too likely.

This Asia Times article takes a very hard look at the Chinese governments policy of covering up and minimizing relevant information to aid this countries economic growth. It is currently believed that about .08% of the population is HIV positive.
If China does not change it’s policies 10 million people could be infected by the year 2010.
The article goes on to look at SARS.

It seems apparent from the government’s reaction to either epidemic that the economy is its top priority. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that Beijing will do little to protect China’s impoverished hinterland. This makes it quite plausible that SARS could kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people in China alone. The majority of these deaths would likely be either elderly people who succumb to SARS more readily than young, previously healthy SARS patients - and China’s AIDS sufferers. The world may find out just how serious China’s AIDS situation really is as a result of the SARS epidemic.

Connexions has a facinating post on who is the real Dr. Who and our cultural conditioning. And a point is made that has been made here at Bene Diction Blogs On many times…..and it bears repeating, especially this well.

There are many disagreements which Christians find it much harder to tolerate. Baptism, eucharist and ministry. The place of the scriptures. All sorts of stuff. We find ourselves getting “hot under the collar”, questioning the other’s faith, resorting to sarcasm and stereotype to belittle someone we perceive as an enemy who we ought to be embracing as a brother (or sister). We are often too ready to be blinded by our certainties and so miss the good gifts that God offers to us through the various branches of the Church.

None of this means that the there are no “wrong answers”. Don’t start portraying me as some sort of “who cares” relativist.

But I’m convinced that the way we tolerate disagreement and learn to work together anyway is a major test of the reality of our discipleship.
You, of course, may disagree.

The Family

The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family’s leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.”

An under-cover, inside look at theocracy from Harper’s Magazine, titled Jesus Plus Nothing.

Hello Reuters. Do you have a bureau in Canada? If WHO wishes to issue a travel advisory to Toronto, that’s fine. But we don’t have an ‘Ottawa province.’ LoL.

Reuters Canada is in Toronto, Ontario. They don’t have an email address that I can find, but here is their switchboard number. 941-8000.
Someone in the 416 area code might want to ring them up and suggest a fix.