Blogging Around ... the Everything Edition - UPDATED

Swine Bird Some New Kinda Flu
Glad to see the media is jumping all over this so as to freak everyone out. Oy. Here are some articles I've liked about it or related subjects:

• 5 Deadliest Pandemics in History from Neatorama, via The Daily Eudemon, beginning of course with he Peloponnesian War pestilence in 430 BC. I know that's the first one I thought of.
• If this turns into a pandemic, created by the U.S. government of course, then I will look like a jackass, but I really think people need to cool out. It's like Rachel Lucas is reading my mind. And I like the pig photo.
• From in Mexico itself comes Wash Your Hands from billieblog
  
• WSJ ... my morning dose of sanity came with several interesting articles about this flu thing: Seeking Past Lessons to Fight Flu, Understanding Swine Flu, Swine Flu Remedies, and How Bush Prepared for the Outbreak. Here's why I tend not to freak out ... I remember the 1976 panic including the sudden withdrawal of the vaccine just after my friends and I had all gotten the first of three shots for it.

  Scientists and governments have wired humanity to expect and fear a contagious new super bug since the Spanish flu of 1918 killed some 50 million world-wide. Each appearance of a unique flu strain inevitably brings the "1918 all over again" cry about a virus with the potential to infect 40% of the planet and kill millions. Those worries were aired during the 1957 and 1968 global flus, the spread of an earlier swine flu in 1976, and earlier this decade during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian flu in Asia. All were killers, but none came close to the toll and reach of the pandemic of 1918.

• Ok, not an article at all but a recommendation to read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis which features pandemic freak-o-mania, both for the right and wrong reasons, and is a heckuva great book.
• UPDATED to include this report from The Daily Show
  
  
  

On a More Cheerful Note ...
The Curt Jester has an exclusive photo of the vehicle Israeli security forces have approved for Pope Benedict to use on his visit to the Holy Land. Seriously, I burst out laughing every time I look at it.

10 Good Reasons to Start Cooking from Scratch
Following the list of good things to not cook from scratch (we, the cooking obsessed thank the author for those) ... comes this list for those of you who can barely boil water.

Yet Another Cheerful Thing ...


Lifted from Reading Copy Book Blog.

I Thought the Government Was Already Faking Most of Their Photos

Just before the workday began on Monday, an airliner and supersonic fighter jet zoomed past the lower Manhattan skyline. Within minutes, startled financial workers streamed out of their offices, fearing a nightmarish replay of Sept. 11.

For a half-hour, the Boeing 747 and F-16 jet circled the Statue of Liberty and the Financial District near the World Trade Center site. Offices evacuated. Dispatchers were inundated with calls. Witnesses thought the planes were flying dangerously low.

But the flyover was nothing but a photo op, apparently one of a series of flights to get pictures of the plane in front of national landmarks. (read story here)

Seriously? Do they need a copy of Photoshop? We might have an extra around here they can use. Because the carbon footprint for buying a copy has got to be less than all the gas for those planes.