CDC Issues Guidelines For Battling Flu Pandemic - washingtonpost.com

We just went over this at work...I still think the lack of planning for travel restrictions shows a overly optimistic streak on the part of the CDC. If this goes pandemic the last place I would want to be is in the cabin of an airline with a few hundred unknown people from who knows where for an hour or three. And if it goes pandemic and still has the ability to be carried by birds... 

ATLANTA, Feb. 1 -- States should be prepared to keep children out of school for three months, businesses should be prepared to operate with skeleton workforces, children should be prepared to play mostly with their siblings, and parents should be prepared to lose income as they skip work and cobble together rickety child-care arrangements.

That was the picture sketched Thursday by federal officials in a guidance for communities on how to fight pandemic influenza in the months before a vaccine becomes available -- if one ever does.

The one thing I carried away from our session at work is it's time for the entire country to have a hurricane kit. Canned foods, water, medicines and fuel to cook and stay warm for weeks should the economy go into slowdown mode. Think Katrina only nationwide.

Right now the government thinking appears to be that outbreaks will be regional and it will be business as usual in other parts of the country while the affected region is quarantined. All I have to say about that is lots of luck. They can't keep millions of people from crossing the border and spreading out throughout the country now. What makes them think they will be able to do it under adverse conditions?

For me...I'll make the rudimentary plans add some stock into my hurricane/camping gear. Pick up a few more cans of vegetables and canned meats (and I hate spam).  And then I'll go on with my life. If this is coming, I can't do anything to stop it and worrying about it will just make me crazy. This doesn't mean I'll ostrich up, I'll follow they news and keep track of the latest "thinking" but I wont let it keep me from living life now...

Source: CDC Issues Guidelines For Battling Flu Pandemic - washingtonpost.com

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

This just hit the wires...

Syndicated political columnist Molly Ivins died of breast cancer Wednesday evening at her home in Austin. She was 62 years old, and had much, much more to give this world. She remained cheerful despite Texas politics. She emphasized the more hilarious aspects of both state and national government, and consequently never had to write fiction. She said, "Good thing we've still got politics -- finest form of free entertainment ever invented."

As a Texan and a progressive/liberal the passing of Molly Ivins will be noted not in what is said but in what won't be said in the final years of the Shrub's residency in the White House. My one regret is that Molly cut Bush so much slack in the past five years that we will never get to read her cutting him to shreds. Not that the resident in chief would understand the venom that was beginning to show up in her columns...Molly you will be missed.

Source: AlterNet: Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

Asked once whether she saw herself as courageous for speaking out for progressive causes and against the tide of Republican leadership, Ivins said no. "I've always been surprised that sometimes people think that. I'm convinced that can you stand up and say what — whatever you think.

"What happens is that people are afraid to do it. And what happens when you do it, when you stand up and you say something that the majority doesn't agree with or that everybody's going to be shocked and outraged by, you stand up and say it, and you find out an incredible number of people agree with you."

Lord, take that fear of speaking out away from me and let me try, I say, try to speak out in her memory.

Source: Molly Ivins, queen of liberal commentary, dies