The title of my opening blog won’t be about the song of the same name. No. This blog will be about H5N1 (or bird flu), hurricane season and the ongoing war in Iraq. Let’s start with the bird flu. If you happened to grow up during the 70’s and early eighties you should remember the “Killer bee” reports that used to pepper the nightly news. I vaguely remember John Chancellor reporting on the location of those death dealing honey makers as they crept towards the United States. I sat staring at the floor model television imagining hordes of unstoppable mutant bees killing everyone I loved in sight. To my relief the bees didn’t reach the US until 1990 and with that they headed west. My Yellowhammer state dodged the brunt of their rampage. I went on that rant to say that the Bird Flu has not transmuted into an unstoppable man killing virus. As such if you are a bird, your poultry ass is good as dead. As of the 8 of May there have only been 115 human deaths from Bird Flu since 2003. 115 deaths however tragic do not a pandemic make. Anyone remember the West Nile Virus?
What is of some concern of mine is the impending hurricane season. If you have been watching the standard news channels lately you can tell that most of the commentators are bristling with excitement with the up coming season. Do you know why? (If you said ratings slap yourself for being a moron). The correct answer is he of she who plays next in the seething rain gets the most face time. You would think after the last hurricane season, there would be a consensus to store fuel and ready the masses for another year. But the truth is we haven’t recovered from the last season. My chief concern however is the five dollar gas prices that those storms will bring. If fuel prices are undulating like a fat girl on a beach ball now, what will hurricanes Alberto, Chris or Rafael or a combination of thereof do to the prices later? Sweet mother Mayhem! We will all be walking or suddenly turned into scooter trash.
Last but not least is the war in Iraq. Our nation has turned its attention from blaming each other for whatever reason to the act of removing the pretentious black and white “W’s” from the back of their SUV’s. Let’s face it; support is dwindling for our war. No matter how much spin our political leadership places on the situation. One dead soldier is one too many. Now don’t begin to prejudge me, I believe in opening up a nice frosty can of whoop ass every now and then. Sometimes you have to create an atmosphere of fear in order to have peace. If you have ever been at gun point you know that. The problem I have is no one admits to faulty intelligence. And for that we or at least I have become extremely suspicious of any thing that comes from on high. Every day we have remote controlled explosives killing our soldiers, suicide bombers, and ambushes. There are fanatical terrorist that behead their captured on film and an Iraqi government that is far from being sovereign. The Shiites and Sunnis are killing each other during a live fire civil war and during their breaks killing our soldiers. And somehow we think we have a handle on the situation. Not to mention the misinformed that rally against our troops and the hyper-patriotic who rally for the troops but are too scared to enlist.
~Vale~
Here are some important links:
Copy and paste into your browser.
http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1010
http://www.gaspricewatch.com/new/
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/professional/han081304.htm
http://www.hurricane-watchers.com/
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