Personally, I always referred to it as the "Worst Coast", but I am known for being crazy (but not stupid). I agree with Stretch.

The bird flu has at least 4 more mutations to go before it becomes easily communicable to humans.

We are still supporting peace-keeping efforts in Kosovo and although we never invaded Albania, we did use their port city of Duress to offload military supplies bound for Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

Last but not least,,,, almost all governments are still wagging one dog or another.

I would agree with you on quite a few points regarding how ill conceived quite a bit of government action is, whether on the national, state or local level. However, in the case of the possibility of a pandemic outbreak, all levels of government should do everything possible to spread "best practice" information to keep the nation as a whole as healthy as possible.

And I will apologize for the lack of information in my post, it really should have been followed up by a comment regarding the money that has been dumped into this all over the country and up to the national level.

On this subject, and a few others, I think it's good for the gub'ment to step in with the most current and best possible information (hopefully) available. It's information that I'd rather get from them, possibly unfortunately, than by word of mouth or several different sources with conflicting information and a lack of consensus on the major issues.

And believe me, for me that's really saying something with how little I trust the gub'ment to do the right thing in most cases.

As far as the "the left coast, right coast, red state, blue state" brouhaha goes, I tend to believe any person leaning so far in one direction or the other as to believe a quarter of whatever the leaders and the leader's minions are spewing forth is falling into a trap meant to intentionally keep people polarized so those leaders can hold onto their jobs, make money hand over fist, and fiddle while Rome burns.

Call me a nut-case...

As always, I could be wrong.

Please Mr. Kavanaugh, if my little nutty political rant goes into the realm of a ETS Forum No-No, just delete it.

Thanks!

There was that thing between Trump and O'Donnell that the media thought was news of the day. They'll get back to bird flu when they need another "sky is falling" story to run with.

There are still mass culls. There is a differance between loosing a finger, and loosing your arm, which is why they will happen. You don't take chances.

What is that old saying? Something like, "today's news is tomorrow's fish wrapper" ? It is still an issue, but it doesn't sell papers anymore.

A good site for information is:
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

In the modern world, the job of the news media is simply to scare the public into finding a reputable information source about the topics covered. This applies to bird flu and pretty much every other stinkin' thing that comes out of their mouths/pens.

You could be....but I'd say you're spot on....

As far as I could tell with the Bird Flu, it was a 'what-if'. If certain things happened in a certain order, something could happen. Bird flu has existed for many years, and it hasn't turned into a pandemic. Virtually every death associated with the disease was of people who had heavy contact with dense flocks of birds, from the ones who raised them, the ones who slaughtered them, and the kids who played with the dead bodies.

The things they predicted for it didn't happen. They shrieked that it would follow the bird migration paths. It didn't; it followed the roads, or rather the vehicles that carried the dripping carcasses of the birds down those roads.

Whenever things like this are trumpeted by the media and the government, it's a good idea to pay very, very close attention to what ELSE the government is doing quietly at the same time. It's like watching a magician: if he's showing you one of this hands, keep an eye on the other one.

There hasn't been much about Earth being hit by asteroids lately either, has there?

Sue

I would say it's still a serious issue. I agree that the media has placed it on the back burner, instead opting for better ratings.

Without being paranoid, I'd also say that the government probably knows about more than it's letting on. Can you imagine something akin to the SARS epidemic in Asia, but here on U.S. soil? It would (at least temporarily) choke our economy and cause mass panic and chaos. My guess is it's already here, we just haven't been informed yet.

Much better to let us sleep peacefully at night... <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />