snuffy

Good article. As for the debate concerning the efficacy of the vaccine, there has been work done to demonstrate it. However, when it comes to public health, you can't prove a positive. If everyone gets vaccinated and noone dies, the perception will be that the threat was overhyped. We run up against a uniquely modern mindset: whoever heard of young, healthy people getting sick and dying? It's unthinkable in our modern age. But 100 years ago, smallpox running through the village and wiping out half the population was not uncommon. Hell, my Dad spent time in the polio wards in Edmonton a mere 50 years ago and has been bilaterally paralysed by post-polio syndrome starting in middle age. Now that there's no wards, we have people running around concocting dangers for the Salc vaccine and warning parents about them! I love to arrange a trade.

I used to do that, but then I found that anytime a hooked fish jumped, the weight would get thrown around and turn the whole thing into a bird's nest. Lately I've been cutting my leader about a foot above the point (heavier) fly and tying it back on with a surgeon's knot. This way I can add lead as required above the knot without having to worry about it slipping down against the point fly. Thought it was rather clever, but I'm probably not the first to think of this.

SundanceFisher, I work in the pathogenesis department at the University and we all see the media hype about H1N1 as something to fill in the news drought. However, to some extent the cynicism built up after SARS, etc is misplaced. It's like asking a skinny person why they're always exercising; confusing the goal for the outcome. To some degree, the fact that we haven't seen another Spanish Flu is because of these measures, not an argument for relaxing them. The vaccine isn't a government experiment; it's something from the bug that'll evoke an immune response from you, thereby protecting you should you be exposed to the real thing in the future. Usually, this is a peptide cloned from a surface-exposed protein mated to a larger protein to enhance the effect. However, there is always a VERY, VERY slight chance that you'll have a severe reaction, and for that reason they are usually only administered to those in higher risk groups. Remember that bee stings kill people and it's more or less the same process. They'll have you hang out for a bit just to make sure. You have kids, which is the best way out there to get any disease, including this one, so I'd recommend you get it. Immunity is immunity, regardless of how you got it. The problem with our increasingly sanitized lives is that if you're never exposed to anything, you're not immune to anything either, meaning that anything can make you sick. Don't go too crazy with the stuff. This bug does seem to have more severe effects on the young, particularly young women, and even more particularly young, pregnant women. This is odd, since it's usually the old that are hit hardest for reasons I won't trouble you with. That said, it won't be a walk in the park for anybody. The death rate may be low because not many people have been exposed yet.

Double the cost of a license and it'll still be cheap. In some limited circumstances, it may be prohibitive for casual fishermen and famililies, but this is not illiberal. For one, young children are already exempted, so a structure already exists to mitigate the effect on economically marginalized families. From the many horror stories we review in this forum and my own experience, it appears to me that our major problem is not one of regulation, but of abuse and lack of enforcement. In 30 years of fishing in Alberta, I've had my license checked once, and that was in Fish Creek Park. Were I of a different frame of mind, I could easily do without one and have no fear of getting caught. What is the real problem: the fisherman in the pool below you interrupting your solace, or the trio of bait chucking louts on the cliff above tossing their beer cans about and hitting you up for weed? In the past, our population density was low enough that these people would not have a catastrophic impact. But with our economic growth and the influx that came with it, I fear that this is no longer the case. Therefore, I believe that we should pay more to use this resource, that being the only way to conserve it. At the end of the day, if you're trying to convince someone to conserve something, the real problem is that it is too cheap.

If it ain't punk, it's crap: Tiger Army Social D Knucklehead Face to Face Blood for Blood Gogol Bordello Voodoo Glowskulls Planet Smashers Rancid Leftover Crack etc, etc

Perhaps if you did something about your dissolute lifestyle, or even your degenerate fishing companions, you would have the presence of mind to not lose them in the first place.