The Bird Flu is a Joke

Man, the ridiculous overhype around this Avian Flu "scare" is out of control. Get a grip, already, media.

From Google News:
News Results 1 - 10 of about 22,000 for avian flu.

22,000 news hits for a disease that's killed less than 200 people in the last 3 years.

WHO: Human flu pandemic inevitable
CNN International - 2 hours ago
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- A deadly new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be "incalculable" unless the world is ready, the ...

"Inevitable"??? That's the headline? Talk about misleading. It's not even close to inevitable. It will take all kinds of things going completely and utterly wrong for this stupid bird flu to actually become a pandemic. Cases thus far have been traced to repeated human contact with fowl or ingesting insufficiently cooked chicken products, and human-to-human communicability has not been confirmed in a single case, as Stratfor has accrurately reported.


Prensa LatinaWorld Bank warns of $950B cost of flu pandemic
CTV.ca, Canada - 5 hours ago
... billion in a single year, a World Bank economist cautioned ... and world officials from around the world that if ... Canada, the costs of an avian flu pandemic could ...

"$950 billion"? That's the headline? Read on, of course, and that number gets a big "if" qualifier. As in," if bird flu takes hold across the planet".

Look, the politicians need to give us a McGuffin to worry about and to make sure that we know that they're doing "the right thing" especially after the way they handled something that really did matter -- Hurricane Katrina.

The whole of the mainstream media's stupid focus on this disease that is worthy of concern, but certainly not something that the average American should even have on their radar is exactly why the movement of democratizing media is so important.

Here's to keeping sensationalism to a minimum and reality to a maximum. Here's to blogging.