Devious Politics? You Bet.
Excuse me for being cynical, but I am considering the possibility that a lot the president’s recent friction with the Right is part of a political ploy by the Bush administration, or AT THE VERY LEAST a political opportunity for the Right to distance themselves from the president, appear to be super strong on defense/security, and thereby secure enough votes in the midterm elections to retain control of Congress. I realize this whole idea is a little serpentine in its complexity, perhaps very Machiavellian, and somewhat paranoid, but would anyone really put a scheme like this beyond someone like Karl Rove? The president is so unpopular that if anyone allies themselves with him they run the risk of also becoming unpopular. So, how better to look good than by standing up against an unpopular president? Sounds like a strategy to me. Of course, after the November election things can get back to normal with GOP teamwork and the rubber stamp Congress. In the meantime, the idea is to get as many votes as possible. Even Rick Santorum has come out against the port deal. According to my theory, that means he’s in trouble in his upcoming election, and being against the deal will bolster his poll numbers. Can you see him taking sides with Hillary Clinton unless there was something really big at stake? It’s all about politics folks, and power, and who can fool most of the people most of the time. They've done it for the past six years, but we cannot let them get away with it this time. The Republicans are what is wrong with this country, and we have simply GOT to vote them out of office this year.

Watch out for sharks
Hillary Clinton visited Florida over the weekend. I view that state, or another one like it, as absolutely essential if she is going to win the presidency in 2008. Of course nothing says she would carry all the blue states. But she would have to carry at least one red state to be elected. Looks like Florida is the target, and rightly so, mainly because it is a potential swing state.

Iraq
Read this about the god-awful situation in Iraq.

The Tao of Politics Anthology
I’m kind of excited. My copies of my new book arrived by UPS yesterday, and they look real good. Of course I’ve seen the proofs online, and all that, but there’s nothing any better than holding the actual book in your hand and glancing through it. I hope you all have that opportunity soon when you buy a copy for yourself.

Tags: Republicans, 2006, Bush, Rove, Iraq, Iraq War, Hillary Clinton, politics,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
27. Birds and bird flu are opposite in many ways:
One sings, the other is silent;
One has wings, the other has none;
One lives in light, the other lives in darkness;
One builds families which the other destroys;
One flies, and dies, killed by the other.


Bird Flu Notes
There are preliminary reports that three people have died of bird flu in the past three days in the Indonesian city of Bandung. Also in Indonesia, the Agriculture Minister says that his country is experiencing a bird flu emergency, but the Health Minister disagrees. Indonesia seems to be a hotbed for bird flu right now. One might want to choose a different vacation destination until all this blows over.

Whenever a country is hit by something like bird flu, a lot of people are afraid, and a lot of theories begin circulating. In India there is a theory that bird flu will die in the summer. Good luck with that.

There is some speculation that bird flu could be a byproduct of Soviet experimentation with biological warfare. That could be true, I suppose, but at this point who cares? Let’s just do something about it.

Meanwhile, here are poll results concerning America attitudes toward bird flu; in Yakima, Washington the virus is thought to be closer than some might think; and here is a fairly good article on recent developments in bird flu.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

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Political Notes
You think we might actually get a chance to impeach the president? Don’t get my hopes up unless you think there’s a real possibility.

Well, it’s unanimous. All fifty state governors oppose reductions in the National Guard. (Firedoglake also has some comments on this.) It’s great to have such bipartisan unanimity, and really just points out how out of step with the rest of the country the Bush administration is.

I guess it’s a bad day when even members of his own party are critiquing an incumbent president.

MyDD offers evidence that George W. Bush has placed more of a tax burden on some of our citizens. And of course we all know what he has done for the richest among us.

And Talking Points Memo has an interesting talking point.

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The Tao of Bird Flu
26. In battling bird flu, the world must strike a decisive blow, with overwhelming force. Anything less, and bird flu might win.

Bird Flu Notes
Coincidentally, Laurie Garrett says in International Herald Tribune that unless we act now, bird flu might win. She has some good suggestions, but she’s talking about dealing with the whole world, with all the differing attitudes that exist toward bird flu, and all the political dynamics involved. We can put a lot of money and energy into the effort to combat bird flu, but I’m afraid in the end it will be like most things: we will have to depend a great deal on luck to enable ourselves to dodge the catastrophic effects of a pandemic.

China is warning that we may see a massive outbreak of bird flu in that country. That is interesting. I hate to be cynical, but it almost seems like China is trying to prepare the world for something that it already knows is coming. I get the impression that China has not been extremely open in its reporting about bird flu. For example there have been rumors of hundreds of deaths, instead of the relatively few that have actually been reported. These new warnings may signal a change in their policy, and also may be an attempt to save face in light of revelations to come. I hope I am wrong about this. We shall see.

And now Russia is warning that a major outbreak of bird flu may be on its way. Interesting that these warnings are coming now. Do they know something that we don't know?


Can you imagine testing 90,000 people for bird flu? Either there are a lot of sick people in India or there are a lot of frightened people.

If bird flu strikes North America, will it come through Alaska? It's possible. This article has a good discussion of all that.

Other Notes
The H5N1 virus may be killed by cooking, but if you’re going to eat a bird, someone has to prepare it, and preparing a bird to be eaten is one way that the virus can be transmitted to a human being.

What I can’t understand is why the birds eat bird shit. That is one way the H5N1 virus is transmitted. If they just wouldn’t eat the shit, then we wouldn’t have as much of a problem. Of course you can’t keep them from eating it, but I’m just saying . . . .

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Political Notes
If the Republicans and the country could get all bent out of shape when we supposedly gave away the Panama Canal in the late 1970s, we can certainly question the advisability of letting a group of Arabs operate our ports.


Washington insists Iraq is making progress. So why am I not encouraged by that? Some say the insurgency is still growing. It may take 20 to 25 years before Iraq gets its act together. The current situation (and a complicated situation it is) makes it extremely difficult to develop an exit strategy.

I don’t know. There are plenty of exit strategies out there. What we seems to be lacking is the will to implement one.


As we head into the 2006 elections, only about 33 seats in the US House appear to be competitive. The good news is that the Supreme Court will hear a case to decide the legality of some recent redistricting. The bad news is that George W. Bush just appointed two of the justices who will hear that case. I am going to really be sad, disappointed, and angry if the outcome of the 2006 elections doesn’t reflect the real mood and wishes of the people.


They’re partying in New Orleans today, presumably so they don’t have to face some grim realities.

Tags: New Orleans, Mardi Gras, Katrina, 2006, UAE, Iraq War, Iraq, politics,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
25. Would that bird flu left no trace when it passed, but there are dead birds, men with masks, people in hospitals, countries in crisis. Bird flu may be invisible, but its effects certainly are not.

Pandemic Alert ?
The Irish Independent, February 25, notes that “We are now in phase 3 of a pandemic.” From the newspaper:

*The World Health Organisation (WHO) is operating an ascending code for the level of pandemic alert for human Avian Flu which started at Phase One. It currently stands at Phase Three.
*Phase Three: The virus is causing infection in humans but no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
*Phase Four: The first human-to-human transmissions are identified, probably in a local cluster in south-east Asia.
*Phase Five: Widespread human-to-human infection.
*Phase Six: Pandemic.

Of course this is not big news. I mean, we have been in phase 3 for several months now. I’m not even really sure what this does except add a sense of drama to the situation, much as the color-coded terror alert system added drama to our daily lives for several years in this country. But I present this to you for your information, lest we start thinking this is all a hoax or something. After all, the World Health Organisation is taking it pretty seriously.


Has anyone heard of Flu Wiki, a website for extensive information about bird flu, etc? I checked it out and wasn’t too impressed. Here is an article about it for those who are interested.

Just for the record, bird flu continues spreading (it has now reached Switzerland) and it continues killing, so we are not out of the wood on this yet.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
24. Heaven is great, earth is great, and men are great, but something as tiny as a bird flu virus could lay waste to much that is great.

Political Note
Bill Clinton says that global warming is the biggest threat facing the world. That’s interesting. This is the second time in about a month that I can remember him saying something like that. I don’t disagree with him, but I just think it is interesting that he has chosen to beat that drum. And I guess I question his motivation. The environment is a subject that has played very well for Al Gore, and while the former vice president has no monopoly on the subject, it is his main focus in many ways. So one might wonder why Bill Clinton is making speeches about it. I have my theories. Mr. Clinton is intensely political. He wants to get his wife elected president. He probably views Al Gore as a potential rival for the presidency, perhaps even the main rival. By making speeches on the environment Mr. Clinton may counter and defuse some of Al Gore’s appeal and effectiveness. At least that could be the plan. But the thing is, Al Gore is not a one dimensional person. And you’re not going to preempt his effectiveness on the environment by making a few speeches here and there. Besides, the main thing Al Gore has going for him is that he didn’t vote for the Iraq war like Hillary, Kerry, et al, did. Some politicians may try to change the subject away from the Iraq war, but in 2008 that will be the subject, along with others. I think Al Gore would be the perfect candidate to get us out of Iraq and get our country back on the right track again.

Health Note
Is there a virus link to prostate cancer? Check this out.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Clinton, cancer, 2008

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The Tao of Bird Flu
23. Bird flu has a form, a name, and we know it changes, so it’s not undefined. And it may seem remote to us now, but it doesn’t seem that way to people in Europe.

Bird Flu Notes
Bird Flu (Vogelgrippe) has landed on eBay. Have we heard it all yet? Probably not. Somebody always comes up with something new. This is just the latest brilliant idea. Stay tuned, there’s undoubtedly more to come. Oh, and be careful next time you bid on something at eBay. It’s contagious.





Today is another big day in Bird Flu news. We have new outbreaks in Georgia, Cambodia, and Germany. Doesn’t sound to me like we are getting a grip on the dreaded Vogelgrippe.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health,

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Heckuva Job, Bushie
You can say what you want, but if we were not in Iraq, I think the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam, would probably still be standing. And President Bush’s intention to help rebuild it seems to me to be a tacit admission of that.

Average family income fell 2.3% in 2004. So, let’s see, the economy is getting better, right?

The blog A Logical Voice has a laundry list of things today that seem to confirm that our President is indeed doing a heckuva job. Check it out.

Tags: irony, Bush, politics,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
22. Seeing dead birds on TV is bad. Seeing dead birds in your neighborhood is worse.

Political Notes
A new poll says 70% of those surveyed do not believe Hillary will win in 2008. I tend to agree with that, unless of course she could win a Red State like Florida. Thing is, you know, I’m not sure she could carry all the Blue States. There are a lot of people out there who are not ready for a woman in the Oval Office, especially Hillary. By the way, if you want to meet Hillary Clinton it will cost you $1000. She is attending a Florida political event this Saturday, and tickets may be purchased here.

Al Gore seems to be getting a lot of attention in the news and in the blogs these days. Much of it is angry, mean, and despicable. In some ways I think that if Al can generate that kind of reaction among the Right, then he must be doing something correct. And if he can generate that kind of ire from the Right, maybe they are worried that he is a real threat in 2008. In the final analysis it doesn’t matter what the Right Wing blogs say, just as it hasn’t mattered what the Left Wing blogs have been saying about George W. Bush for five years. Bush still got re-elected didn’t he? If Al Gore is elected or not in 2008 it won’t be because of the blogs, so let them just have their fun, and vent their spleen, or whatever. All he’s got to do is carry one Red State, and I think he stands a much better chance of doing that than Hillary Clinton does.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, Bush, politics, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, 2008,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
21. Every new case of suspected bird flu is loudly reported in the media. This says more about the media than it says about bird flu.

Bird Flu Notes
The people of the United Kingdom seem worried that bird flu will arrive in their country soon, but the truth of the matter seems to be that H5N1 originated in the UK to begin with, not in China as has often been supposed. It first showed up in Scotland in 1959 and then in England in 1991. I’m not sure what to do with that piece of information. I don’t think there is anything to conclude from that really except perhaps just that bird flu happens. In any event, if H5N1 “arrives” in the UK anytime soon, I guess it will just be returning home.

Malaysia had been “disease free” for more than a year. Of course that all ended when forty chickens died in that country last week. This is one reason why I take the story yesterday about Vietnam being disease free with a grain of salt.

China seems to be doing a lot now to prevent the spread of bird flu, banning imports from stricken countries, etc. I wonder if they were this conscientious about banning exports when bird flu was raging in China.

Why worry about bird flu? 6600 Africans die of AIDS every day. 3000 die of malaria, and 24,000 die of hunger. Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

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Heckuva Job, Bushie
Car bomb kills 21 in Baghdad.

Let’s sell control of our ports to the UAE.

Let’s make military retirees pay more for health care.

Let’s play politics with energy research.


Tags: Bush, politics,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
20. Bird flu will run its course. A pandemic will either result or it won’t. It is interesting to note that today man has little control over that process.

Bird Flu Notes
I guess India has a hard time believing that bird flu has been carried into their country by birds, so now they are investigating bird feed that was imported illegally from Indonesia and China, both of which are hotbeds for the H5N1 virus. Look, if something is called bird feed, it doesn’t mean that it ever came into contact with birds. Geez, sometimes people can’t accept their own shortcomings and have to play the blame game. And some countries think that other countries are out to get them or something. India has bird flu. Deal with it.

Another group also claims that migrating birds did not bring H5N1 to India, although at least they don’t claim it was bird seed. But their arguments do sound reasonable. Maybe this will all be sorted out eventually.

Vietnam is said to have successfully contained bird flu. With no new cases in at least the last three weeks, Vietnam is now officially disease free. The same is true of Thailand. I’m glad that Vietnam and Thailand are free of bird flu. I wish the rest of the world was, but it’s not. Indonesia certainly is not. And bird flu is spreading like wildfire through parts of Africa and Europe, not to mention the recent outbreaks in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, etc. So the rest of the world has not contained bird flu. Some people wonder if it ever will. So far there have been no human deaths outside Asia. Let us hope that remains true. Vietnam may have contained bird flu, but they and other Asian countries basically gave it to the rest of the world. Let us also hope that the rest of the world can contain this deadly virus the same way that Vietnam has.

Here are two articles that theorize that our current strategies of dealing with bird flu will not prevent a pandemic in the long run but will delay one instead. (MSNBC, Ontario News)

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health

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Where to fly?
Since bird flu germs seem to be flying around Southeast Asia, fewer people seem to want to fly into such a potentially dangerous situation. Online searches for destinations such as Bangkok are down, signaling a potential drop in tourism to that part of the world. Only problem is, bird flu is now rapidly spreading to many other popular tourist destinations, making the decision about where to vacation particularly difficult this year. But our inconvience seems minor when compared to the situation facing the people who actually live in those vacation spots.



Look here for much more on bird flu.

bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza,

Setback
With the arrival of bird flu on the Indian subcontinent, such an event is bound to have economic consequences. Looks like a severe setback may be in store. Seems as if emerging economies have more and more difficulty emerging.


Check here for much more on bird flu.

bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza,

The Tao of Bird Flu
19. Someone can just be living their life, with things proceeding normally, like you and I. Then something like bird flu can come along and end it all.

Bird Flu Notes
My good friend Bird Man at The Bird Flew has some VERY INTERESTING POSTS, including a map of the East Atlantic Flyway for birds (zoom in and scroll around to get a better look) and the Black Sea/Mediterranean flyway. It is easy to see from this map where the birds are coming from, where they are going, and consequently how and where bird flu is spreading.

Some people are questioning how bird flu got into India. Once again illegal bird trade surfaces as a possibility (as well as illegal vaccines?) Additionally, some people wonder if bird flu was deliberately introduced. Some people are just perplexed and don’t mind admitting it.

More diseases are jumping from animals to humans. Bird flu is just the latest example. Keep this in mind the next time someone starts talking about transplanting body parts from pigs to humans. I'm serious.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
18. In today’s modern world, some aspects of a pandemic are increased, and some are diminished.

Bird Flu Notes
Earlier reports that an Indian man had died from bird flu have apparently proved incorrect. Here are two stories. (Deepikaglobal, Channel News Asia) They both seem to be about the same man, although there is still some confusion about that since the spelling of the man’s name is different in both stories. Read them and see if you can make any sense of them.

Carl at Simply Left Behind points out that Indonesia had its nineteenth human bird flu death Saturday. Good point. Most of the publicity recently has been about the spread of bird flu to various countries in Europe, and fears that it will spread even further. In the meantime we should not lose sight of the fact that people are actually dying. And a death in Indonesia is not insignificant. Think about all the Westerners who travel to and from the Orient, carrying germs back and forth.

Experts in England are trying to predict where migratory paths will take bird flu next.

And some in England expect bird flu to hit that country soon, even as early as this week.

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The Tao of Bird Flu
17. China, on the surface at least, has seemed hypocritical at times, talking about the need to take measures against bird flu, while refusing to share samples of the virus.

50,000 birds are dead as H5N1 hits India.


Political Notes
So what do you think about the fact that Lynn Swann didn’t vote in all those elections? Pretty revealing, huh?

It’s interesting to me how someone who has displayed no interest in politics (or government) for a long time suddenly comes up and thinks he can be a politician. (And I’m not just talking about Lynn Swann here.) It makes me think that politics is often more about personality and less about actual qualifications. And I have not studied this or anything, but I have the impression that this is particularly true of the Republican Party.

I guess we all heard discussion about the Dubai port deal last night on Hardball. Now Hillary Clinton has come out in opposition to the deal.

Bush will not support removing the mortgage deduction? OK.

And I guess we have more nuclear energy in our future if President Bush has his way.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics, Hillary Clinton, Bush,

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Health Notes
Here is a vegan suing McDonald’s because she didn’t know their French fries contained dairy and wheat products. I’d like to know why she was eating at McDonald’s to begin with. Did she mistake them for a veggie restaurant? Well they clearly are not. I would caution anyone who walked in the door of McDonald’s, vegan or not-vegan, to beware. There are many other restaurants with more healthy menus. One has to wonder about the naïveté and judgment of a vegan who chooses to eat at McDonald’s.

Here is a brief wrap-up of the week’s news with regard to bird flu.

This is an interesting article, and good news to smokers, about vitamin C, vitamin E, and lung cancer.

Confused about what to do with fiber in your diet now that high fiber intake has been shown not to reduce colon cancer? This article doesn’t do much to clear up that question.

Tags: bird flu, diet, cancer, health, politics,

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Bird Flu Vaccine
Bird Man at The Bird Flew reports that there are conflicting accounts of the effectiveness of a new bird flu vaccine. Two articles say it is not effective, and another article says it is. Puzzling.

bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza,

Political notes
I find it interesting that Al Gore, who has said he is not running for president in 2008, scored 13% in a new Gallup poll, just behind John Kerry, who has been running for years. Gore is still my choice for 2008. I haven’t gotten over 2000, and I haven’t gotten over five years (so far) of George W. Bush. Gore’s election would go a long way toward helping me, and the nation, get over both of those.

In a Harris poll, 59% of Americans feel we are on the wrong track. Bushie, you’re doing a heckuva job.

Sometimes I don’t know what is real news and what is fake news. Since no major news organization has reported this, I am reluctant to report it myself, but I thought I would bring it to your attention, for what it’s worth: Richard Dreyfuss is said to have given a speech before the National Press Club Thursday in which he spoke about impeachment and President Bush.


More Bird Flu
Governor Jeb Bush says that Florida would be a likely entry point for bird flu if a pandemic developed. That may be true, but there are many other likely entry points: New York, Washington, Boston, etc; and since bird flu is huge in Asia, we can’t forget the west coast points of entry: LA, San Francisco, Seattle, etc. I believe that Florida is no more likely an entry point for human transmission from abroad than any of these others that I have mentioned. Bird transmission, however, is something else. And although there have been no outbreaks yet, Florida is testing its birds for bird flu, I suppose as a precaution.

Bird flu outbreak for the first time in Egypt. It’s spreading, folks. H5 strain in France. (Also, 400 dead birds in Niger. Bird flu? Don’t know yet. Birds in Denmark tested negative, but two dead swans found in Netherlands.) I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that the current situation with bird flu is like watching a volcano as it erupts, and it ain’t pretty, but it is interesting.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics, Al Gore, Bush, 2008,

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The Tao of Bird Flu
16. The leaders of all the countries around the world need to take bird flu seriously, those of the Orient, of course, because that is where it is coming from; but also those of the West, because that is where it is headed.

Bird Flu Notes
There was an interesting piece yesterday afternoon on NPR about bird flu. You can read a rough transcript, and listen to the piece. It has to do with our old question about migrating birds.

Here are three theories about how H5N1 ended up in Europe ahead of the normal spring migration of birds. I tend to agree with theory number three, that bird flu has been in Europe for some time.

The bird flu outbreak in Nigeria went unreported for four weeks. That’s really too bad. A reaction like that is just one more thing that makes a pandemic possible.

Some Europeans see benefits in all the publicity surrounding bird flu, mainly because it shows that the system is working. Yes, and in the meantime bird flu continues to spread.

Here is a really cool interactive bird flu map, showing countries where outbreaks have occurred, and detailing the circumstances of the outbreak.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

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The Tao of Politics Anthology, now available as e-book (only $6.00), or as paperback.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

The Tao of Bird Flu
15. How can we prepare to fight bird flu when its possible mutations are so unpredictable? Better antivirals would help.

Health Notes
According to this study, people with more education tend to decline faster once they begin to manifest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. This seems strange on the one hand, but it seemed reasonable the way they explained it.

Genetic discrimination is something that I rarely think about. But I am sure it will be more of an issue in the future. So I suppose we do need some good laws to cover it. Of course, a lot of it probably comes down to privacy. We don’t seem to be moving in the direction of having more privacy in this country. That is regrettable.

It is puzzling to me how the United States can throw away billions of dollars on its defense department budgets and its useless wars, and yet it wants to limit the compensation given to nuclear workers who served this country during the Cold War.

I was wondering why so many Pacific islanders have blood diseases and need bone marrow transplants. I still don’t know the answer. I do know that the French performed a lot of nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean during the 1960s and 1970s. Could that be one of the reasons for all the blood diseases? I’ll keep trying to find out.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

COMING TODAY

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

Swan Song II
This article may give some insight as to why so many swans seem to be ending up dead.

Swan song
H5N1 seems to be hitting swans particularly hard. Now there are dead swans in Poland.

Here is a video about the development of a bird flu vaccine. They say that even if the virus mutates, they can quickly respond and produce a vaccine for that new strain. Sounds good. We’ll see.

Here’s another video, this one on the situation in Germany.

And there are 30,000 dead birds in Dagestan. Here is another brief story.


Communications in some parts of the world are not as good as they are in the west. In Zambia a rumor that H5N1 had reached that country caused farmers to slaughter all their chickens and goats.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

The Tao of Bird Flu
14. If there was only one strain of bird flu, that would be bad enough, but there are many strains. They all have the potential to mutate, and they all have the potential to kill.

Bird Flu Notes
I don't like to report individual cases of bird flu, but the pace of infection (or at least its manifestation) seems to be accelerating, and spreading, with cases turning up in Iran, Austria, and Germany, all on the same day. (Also it adds to a growing sense of menace that several dozen dead ducks were found in Belgium, nine dead swans in Denmark, eleven dead swans in Hungary, and now countries like France, indeed countries all over Europe, are taking extraordinary measures to avoid having the disease spread to their free-range birds.) Even so, I'm not particularly worried. So far this is a problem only for the birds. We don't see anything yet like we saw in Turkey where several humans became infected, and some of them died. I do however believe that these new developments warrant closer attention on my part and on the part of others.


An official of the UN says that Europe is at risk of having a lot of bird flu this spring as migrating birds return from Africa. It already looks like Europe is having a lot of bird flu, and it’s not even spring yet, so I guess we can look forward to a lot more bird flu showing up all over Europe in the months to come. Bird flu has had ten years to spread. It looks like this is the year it makes a major leap to Europe.


And David Nabarro is at it again, this time saying that we can’t have a vaccine for a pandemic until we actually have a pandemic. So I guess that means all these vaccines that are being developed now are just a waste of time and money. That makes sense to me. So far all we have is a bird flu. I suppose you can’t make a vaccine for humans until you have a human flu and know what its characteristics will be, although I'm sure that someone somewhere will try and refute that notion.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

Sprayed man has heart irregularity
May be released from hospital soon
So let’s see, Mr. Whittington was shot, but he wasn’t really shot; and he had a heart attack, but it wasn’t really a heart attack. Let us hope he doesn’t die. They just might say he was released from the hospital.

And now, public officials are joking about the spraying incident? Give me a break.


I’m just so sick about everything that’s happening in the country. I can’t wait to put this era behind us so we can begin healing.

Tags: Cheney, Whittington, politics,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

Health Notes
This article helps us try to understand the protein that causes mad cow disease. Apparently it is abundant in human brains, and the problem of mad cow disease arises when the protein becomes malformed. Interesting article about an interesting phenomenon.

Apparently there is a combination of drugs that has been shown to prevent HIV infection in monkeys. I suppose this is good news on the one hand, but how many people would want to take these drugs on a long term basis to prevent HIV infection? Seems to me there has to be a better way to beat this disease.

As if McDonald’s didn’t have enough problems with their French fries containing a lot of trans fats, now the company has disclosed that they also contain certain allergens.

I’m surprised that you can increase the length of the penis by half an inch. Why you would want to go through all that pain and discomfort is beyond me.

Tags: mad cow, AIDS, diet, health, sex,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

The Tao of Bird Flu
13. Pandemics come and pandemics go, but we will always have viruses and flu.

Bird Flu Notes
This is an important article about bird flu. It makes several points that are worth noting: a generic vaccine against bird flu will probably be ineffective because the virus has been circulating in China and Southeast Asia for ten years and has developed genetic diversity; most remaining doubts about migrating birds carrying the virus have been eliminated; in countries where decisive action was taken against bird flu, H5N1 was stopped; China should have taken such action but didn’t.

Dr. David Nabarro said recently that bird flu was only two mutations away from being transmissible human-to-human. Now the World Health Organization is expected to issue a statement clarifying that view, or retracting it altogether. Dr. Nabarro’s assessment could still be true, but no one can say with any certainty exactly how many mutations would be necessary to trigger a human pandemic.

One thing we need to keep in mind when dealing with bird flu: there is a lot that we know, and there is a lot that we don’t know.


The bird flu outbreak in Greece appears to be spreading, with an infected bird having shown up on the island of Skyros. My question: is it really spreading or are we just now finding out the true extent of the problem. As I mentioned above, H5N1 has had ten years to spread. That’s a lot of time, and a lot of miles covered by migrating birds. In short, that’s a lot of bird poop. Now it appears that the poop is hitting the fan, but I think the poop has been around a while. (Case in point: H5N1 now found in Iran. I don’t think this is something that just happened yesterday. I think it has been brewing for a while.)



Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

Political Notes
As if Big Industry, with their pollution, etc., doesn’t present enough problems for ordinary Americans, Big Government sometimes seems to have its priorities a little mixed up.

The Bush administration wants to eliminate a box lunch program for seniors.

In the wake of last year’s record hurricane season, the National Weather Service wants to make it possible for nearly 31% of its staff at the National Hurricane Center to qualify for early retirement.


And now it seems that you don’t want to be in a hunting party with the Vice President, although having all those doctors around might make one feel more secure on the one hand, and less secure on the other. This from firedoglake seemed to me to be an interesting analysis of the weekend’s shooting incident.

Tags: Cheney, budget, politics,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

The Tao of Bird Flu
12. Is bird flu beyond men’s knowledge and power to adequately respond? Let us hope not.

Health Notes
Effective Measure has this about Dick Cheney and Birds of Mass Destruction.

We have recently been following the story about the EPA’s attempt to ban the chemical PFOA. Apparently this is not a new story, although it is new to us. There was a great article in The Raleigh News and Observer yesterday concerning the DuPont plant in Fayetteville, NC, and the appearance of PFOA in the groundwater near the plant. Of course there are a lot of manmade things in the environment that could kill us. PFOA may be one of them. Every time one of these threats comes to light, it emphasizes how little control we as individuals actually have over our health. Isn’t that just great?

Having said that about the chemicals in the environment, here is some research, for what it's worth, suggesting that broccoli, cabbage, and soy may help cut cancer risk.

And here is Anita Sharpe on putting synthetic chemicals into our bodies.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, politics, environment, pollution, Cheney, diet,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.

The Tao of Bird Flu
11. We cannot see bird flu, and we cannot hear it, but we can see the death it leaves behind, and we hear the grieving it causes. We see the fear in people’s faces when they think about bird flu.

Health Notes
In case you were wondering what to eat now that the low fat diet has been debunked, this website offers tasty alternatives.

This story was so unusual that I could not resist passing it along.

Here is bird flu video from Reuters.

This article, from Great Britain, maintains that childhood vaccines are safe and necessary (what do you expect them to say?) Anyway, some people are not buying it.

Tags: bird flu, avian flu, pandemic, H5N1, flu, influenza, health, diet, vaccine,

COMING SOON

Four books in one volume, including, for the first time in print, The Tao of America. Click here for more information about this volume, including excerpts.

Also check here for The Tao of Love.