October 05, 2005

The threat -- avian flu. The Bush response. Reaction to the Bush response.
posted by HawthorneWingo 18 years ago
  • The guy is absolutely out to lunch. The use of 'science' doesn't seem to occur to him.
  • Can't we...nuke the bird flu? I mean, think about it. Check out that photo in the last article. The poor baby doesn't like to look stupid in front of the whole fucking world. It's ok, just keep your fucking mouth shut for the next 3 years and no one will laugh at you anymore.
  • He's more than out to lunch! I hope chimpy hasn't been watching too many movies lately...
  • To be fair, the avian flu broke out in Asia. And the only Asian bird Chimpy knows is General Tso Chicken, so it was entirely natural for him to suggest a military reaction. (That's the furthest I've ever had to stretch for a joke, I think.) But seriously, though, of course he wants to direct attention away from the sorry state of the U.S. health system, and having to import vaccines from places like France... assuming that he knows enough to avoid that altogether. I'm guessing gunsguns blamblam is pretty much his natural response to a lot of things.
  • Here's what kills me about this whole situation. For some time a flu pandemic has ranked right up there with a major hurricane as one of the top domestic threats to to the US. And much like the situation with FEMA, the current administration is preparing to GUT the agency that would be most suited to dealing with the a flu pandemic situation- the CDC. The Republican Study Committee, a group of 86 Republican House members, has compiled a list of massive budget cuts designed to provide offsets for the anticipated multi-hundred billion dollar cost of Hurricane Katrina cleanup and reconstruction. They've produced a 24 page document outlining their recommended cuts, available here. After you scan past the raping and pillaging of student loan, environmental and public broadcasting programs, you'll see that they are suggesting a $1.8 billion cut to the Centers for Disease Control in 2006, which will accrue to a total of $25 billion in cuts to the CDC over the next 10 years. You'll also note that there are no cuts to military spending. Which is why it makes sense for George to use military power to surround Gary Indiana when the flu hits in order to "protect" the rest of the country. You know, rather than having the CDC working overtime to get some flu vaccines cooked up and other precautionary medical measures taken that might prevent the disaster in the first place.
  • Bush simply has no idea how to deal with any crisis, that is a fact. When asked to actually come up with an idea on his own, his face takes on the exact appearance of the TILT integer flashing on a fscking 1960s pinball machine. He is just a painfully clueless human being, and I can have no respect for anyone who ever thought he was anything but a numbskull. I tell you something, I watched that fucking painful press conference (because Chimpy's press conferences are as rare as total eclipses) he gave to explain the Miers choice etc, and I have to agree with my wife that Bush is having a fucking breakdown. He was stammering, umming and ahing and grinding his jaw even more than usual, as if that were even possible. He was muttering and carrying on. I was literally thinking, my god, this guy is going to collapse emotionally any second now and they'll have to lead him away. I saw the phrase somewhere, so apt, 'the incredible shrinking president'. The guy appears so weak and visibly crumpled. I could almost believe these rumours that he is drinking again. And also, where the fuck is Rove? He has been awol from events he would never have missed before. He wasn't around at the press conference, which is unheard of for him. Speculation is that the White House knows an indictment is coming down and they're keeping him out of the limelight. Oh, little baby jesus, please be good to me, mother mary & Joseph make it true!
  • well this is fucking scary. 150 Million people world wide. Wow. The fact that Bush is using this to try to convince congress to give up more of our rights is horrible, but right now I am more worried about that whole 150 million dead people thing.
  • Christ, he's just chomping at the bit to do something like this. Once he does, he'll find a million excuses to keep it going. He's incredibly power-hungry, isn't he. BTW, my in-laws are headed to southern Asia for a month of travel, not the brightest people on the block, don't know just how careful they'll be. So, a word of warning to those in the CA desert (La Quinta to be exact), they'll be back around the second week of November. You have time to pack up now.(;> I keed)
  • Some interesting information on martial law.
  • The WHO says influenza pandemics can be expected to occur three or four times each century Wow, is there anything that Townshend doesn't know?
  • How to keep his name out of the FBI childpr0n registry.
  • oh crap, La Quintas are everywhere!
  • I for one welcome our... nah nah too easy
  • They've produced a 24 page document outlining their recommended cuts, available here. Looks like they'd like the old folks to hurry up and die, too. 'Course, it seems that with all the pandemics, natural disasters in the low-income/retirements areas, cutting the CDC budget, etc....all the right people are dying. Things are moving right along, just as planned.
  • Did I come in halfway through this movie? Where does the 150 million dead come from (and believe me, I would worry--I am in one of the traditionally high-risk demographics). I read "Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in four Asian nations since late 2003 and has been found in birds in Russia and Europe." Fuck. I bet 60 people die each day in car accidents, or damn close. We need the military for this, why? To give them a task they can succeed at? And I'm not ripping on the military here--I never thought that they had a chance of success in Iraq the way that Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld et al prosecuted the peace action. And most of all, what kimdog said.
  • Well, there's this...
  • Bush responds to avian flu threat:
  • Nice! Did you make that?
  • War on flu!...uh... War on bird flu!...uh... No, wait -- War on birds!
  • The 150 million figure was a bit of an overstatement by yer boy Nabarro there. It was his first day in the job, to be fair. The WHO walked it back the next day - the more reasonable estimates are between 2 and 7 million. Which would, you know, still suck.
  • I wouldn't be surprised if Quonsar made that, fish tick, because I seem to remember I nicked it from everlasting blort, which I think is his site, or he's heavily involved with it.
  • I first saw it on You Forgot Poland!
  • By the way, did y'all see the news this week about Spanish flu? Researchers have made some pretty big strides of late in studying the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu epidemic.
  • Great line on the Daily: Stewart mentioned the Spanish Flu reconstruction thing, and then added: "Scientists added that, 28 days from now, all people should remember to shoot zombies in the *head*."
  • heheh... damn, have missed it for the last few nights
  • oh goddammit Lara already linked to those findings. sorry for the redundancy
  • Actually, after I linked to that, I realized it was one of the links in the FPP that I missed clicking on. And dammit, I fell asleep before The Daily Show last night! Also, we're doomed.
  • On the other hand, overall human mortality, over the long term, remains steady at 100%. Not that there's any reason to rush things, but nevertheless.
  • More info on what US Health and Human Services is doing. Seems like they're working on a plan, so why the rush to get the military involved?
  • You know what the most horribly ironic part of this all is? We need eggs to produce vaccines. Millions of chickens will need to be raised to get enough vaccine to protect us against the virus we caught by raising millions of chickens. Fuck.
  • My husband called this morning just to tell me this one: This morning, Cheney called up Bush and told him three Brazilians had been killed. Bush says, "oh, that's horrible, that's just tragic, I can't believe this. Wait... how many is a "brazillian"?"
  • Very depressing thought, caution live frogs. Maybe we could use millions of swine instead.
  • Also, we're doomed. Harris, come here. Fuck the doomed, Harris. Fuck the doomed.
  • I've started refering to my parrots as "my darling disease vectors".
  • Aha! My poorly-photoshopped chicken can end any thread! *gleefully goes off to see what havoc other giant animals can wreak*
  • I thought it was real.
  • I told my in-laws to try and stay away from live chickens while they are traveling Southern Asia and they asked me "Why?". This is after several discussions on the 'flu' subject. Did I mention they are from La Quinta. You SoCal-ers have been warned.
  • bugmenot got no logins for that article that work, it seems.
  • I'm telling you, man, it's time to get into funeral-home stocks.
  • Uh oh.
  • Sylvester is totally screwed.
  • But if cats suddenly started acting erratic and biting people . . . how would we know?? /theremin
  • This seemed sadly typical of the attitude here in the US: "...people in the United States should realize the disease is not there, so there is no reason at this moment to be concerned at all."
  • So by that logic, we didn't have to worry about Saddam Hussein, either...
  • Ahh! *kicks back, opens beer, thinks about sex*
  • Yup, that's our Bush. Don't know the difference between a vaccine and a virus. yuck, yuck, yuck