This pleasant reminder from our friend Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey writing in Pravda, who gives us this from East Asia about the United Nation’s World Health Organization telling us that avian flu jumping over to humans is now at an emergency state. For those wondering, the last time something like that happened on a grand scale (right after World War I), something like 20 to 30 million people died (let’s just say that given the then smaller world population at the time, a comparable pandemic would kill over 100,000,000 people these days… and since a lot of them would be White Americans… ) Well, I suppose our media will concern itself with this after it’s under way, and some super-model or professional athlete succumbs… Until then…
We, of course, can go back to sleep, and worry about more likely things, like a North Korean ICBM strike that we might be able to thwart with an expensive anti-missile system, or terrorists launching a small-pox plague, or…. LOOK OVER THERE!!!…
The thing with any new strain of flu is… no one is immune to it. The Spanish flu of 1918-19 killed millions of otherwise healthy adults, rather quickly and nastily. Like other flus, we can develop vaccines, but of course, the way we know develop vaccines (one dose per chicken egg, for example) is cumbersome. Worse, as we know, we are down to two, sometimes one, provider of the vaccine (at least here, stateside).
In short, we could probably immunize less than 10% of the world’s population right now, and that with an all out effort, based on our current technology and procurement systems. I tend to think almost certain plague is actually something that should be taken with the deadliest of seriousness, because of its… deadliness. As, however, I don’t necessarily see the mass profit available in vaccine development, I won’t hold my breath that efforts will be made to stave off the eventual pandemic until it’s well under way, and millions are already dead.
Bid’ness is bid’ness, after all. We want the government off our backs and not wasting our money (for which we would have to maybe raise taxes) caring about these sorts of low profit things like public health…
Yee ha.
tdog
It has been calculated to a high degree of statistical probability the reaction resultant to the intersection of offal and the oscillating unit.
TD, I’ve been following this blog for some time. To get to the point quickly, it’s just too darn sad. Jiminy Crickets, why don’t you just inject a happy article every now and then? My job’s hard enough. I read your posts, and sometimes I head straight for the Drano. I suggest repeated viewings of Annie.
Hey, it was great hearing from TO the other day. Gee, that should be a daily feature. What a great guy, and now, a wounded warrior. Whatever endorsements that guy lands, I’ll be buying some product. For sure.
Wowwwwwwwwwwww,,,, oneeeeee hourrr afterbeing ont his site, and two fifths of scccccccohttch later, I’mmmmmmmmm getting happppppppppy again.
If you want happy, I suggest you go to some of our older posts and try some of the pharmaceuticals that the spammers are trying to sell.
If you ask me, Americans are too freaking obsessed with their OWN MOMENTARY HAPPINESS as it is… we could use to be knocked on our asses and realize there’s a God damned world out there that doesn’t give two s***’s about us and our solipsistic disregard of THE REST OF IT.
Apparently, as I greatly feared, not only did 9-11 change nothing, it made us (well, many of us… a slight majority of Americans, anyway) a burlesque… maybe even a grotesque of that which our detractors and enemies accused us of… far more arrogant and irritating than we ever were (and we were pretty damned arrogant and irritating.) Now, of course, we don’t even obey OUR OWN laws, let alone anyone else’s. NOt that anyone cares, of course. The Chinese are still lending.
So go get happy again, if you like, and ignore me.
I like to think of myself as a pretty happy guy, but there is much to be troubled about. Maybe those willing to blithely ignore it all are right; or maybe when the hurricane is coming, getting to shelter from it is a good idea. Who knows? Ah, the hell with it. Is there any scotch left in that bottle, MMMrrrrrrr. Happpy?
Eerie, that (p3).
Kinda’ like someone walkin’ on our grave.
Hey TO:
Now you have plenty of time to rest that ankle. Is that what you and Donovan were doing in the late 4th Quarter? Speaking of Donovan, TD, instead of Mr. Happy, you are more like the 60’s Donovan. “Tell me, over and over again my friend…..”
Hey TO:
Now you have plenty of time to rest that ankle. Is that what you and Donovan were doing in the late 4th Quarter? Speaking of Donovan, TD, instead of Mr. Happy, you are more like the 60’s Donovan. “Tell me, over and over again my friend…..”
Hey TO:
Now you have plenty of time to rest that ankle. Is that what you and Donovan were doing in the late 4th Quarter? Speaking of Donovan, TD, instead of Mr. Happy, you are getting more and more like the 60’s Donovan. “Tell me, over and over again my friend…..”
Ya v serpe i neebet2. sdf4fdena!
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