With the flurry of activity we are seeing lately at I Called It, I decided to upgrade the forums. You may have noticed the 10 minute downtime. You may not have. If you missed it, well lets just say you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the “upgrade message.”

So is the H5N1 Avian Bird Flu real or just a media hoax ala Y2K?

Mr. Pink thinks so.

Mr. Pink’s Prediction

Bloggers around the net think the blogosphere will have to take part in helping prevent the pandemic from happening by educating the public and keeping communication lines open and free. Bloggers can do this safely from the comfort of their homes thus keeping you (assuming you are reading said blogs in your chair in front of your computer) out of harms way. Just wait till you need to purchase toilet paper.

A slightly smaller crisis, but not less important, will be when the entire blogger community and the readers on the net finally unstick their butts from their computer chairs and get up at the same time to purchase toilet paper at the store. Can you imagine the long “bread lines,” except this will be for TP.

Some bloggers are predicting that a major economic crisis will happen if the bird flu materializes, setting us back to the stone age. If this is true, we will all be wiping our asses with leaves.

bird flu, bird flu hoax, media hoax, toilet paper, bloggers, H5N1

I just read an excellent post on why a Bird Flu Pandemic will kill newspapers.

Xarker says:

In the midst of a pandemic, you’re going to turn to the web — and increasingly to topic-expert bloggers, not journalists — for the important information. Newspapers? Hell, who wants to pick up a potentially germ-covered physical object that some stranger just threw at your porch?

Xark is making several predictions in this post. Here is another one.

Once the pandemic comes to call, once the schools shut down and the travel restrictions pop up and the stores close and the recession begins, you’re going to see the same people who can’t be bothered to read about “some flu in Asia” today transformed into H5N1 experts.

So why is the Bird Flu Pandemic now hitting the news with intense fury?
Bird Flu samples found in Romanian Duck turd
Indonesian teenager cleared of bird flu dies
Australia Giving 10million to Jakarta

Kevin Sites better stay away from the Bird Flu zones.

USAToday has something to say on this:

Katrina hit just days after Bush finished John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History during his August vacation on his ranch, White House spokesman Scott McClellan says.

Apparently motivated by the frightening tale of the 1918 epidemic, which killed an estimated 150,000 people in the USA and 50 million worldwide, Bush said last week that the military might be needed to enforce quarantines.

Sounds like it was homework assigned by Mr Cheney :).

Scientific reports released on the heels of Bush’s statement increased the nation’s anxiety. In one, Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and his team said in the journal Nature that the 1918 pandemic began when the virus leapt from birds to humans, a scenario that mirrors what is happening in Asia today.

In a bid to contain the current epidemic, officials in Southeast Asia have slaughtered 140 million birds. That has not stopped the virus from spreading.

Bush met last week with the chief executives of four vaccine companies to determine how he can help them boost production enough to safeguard the population. The State Department on Friday convened a meeting of health officials from 80 countries to map out plans to arrest the flu’s spread.

The predictions for disaster of A/H5N1 are very dire. The death rate for the bird flu mutation that has jumped to humans is 50%. 117 infected worldwide with 60 deaths.

Its like a legitimate version of podcasting journalism taken to an extreme level.

Mission:

To cover every armed conflict* in the world within one year, and in doing so to provide a clear idea of the combatants, victims, causes, and costs of each of these struggles - and their global impact. With honest, thoughtful reporting we’ll strive to establish Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone as a forum for information and involvement. Users will not only learn about the scope of world conflict, but will find ways to be part of the solutions- through dialogue, debate, and avenues for action.

How they are going to do it:

Veteran war correspondent Kevin Sites will travel solo to these conflict zones, aided by a U.S.-based “mission control” team: Producer Robert Padavick (NBC News, CNN) and Researcher Lisa Liu (Radio Free Asia, International Medical Corps).

Using the latest technology, including high-definition digital cameras and satellite modems, Kevin will deliver stories via a five-fingered multimedia platform of text, photography, video, audio, and interactive chat.

I guess they’ll be using the Yahoo Messenger with Voice when they can. I can’t say enough how cool I think this project is. Big applause for Yahoo for putting this together and basically making big news networks look a little bit smaller.

Yahoo Hot Zone

A successful launch of an unmanned test aircraft, dubbed
The National Experimental Supersonic Transport (NEXST1) aircraft, was launched from the Woomera Test Range in Southern Australia.

The aircraft is built and developed by Japanese National Aerospace Laboratory. Eventually the JNAL will build the supersonic jet to carry 300 passengers (twice as large as the concorde) and make flight time between New York and Tokyo in under 6 hours.

On 4-27-2003 solo posted: How about Flash memory…
Instead of hard drives? This would be a boon, especially for laptops, because of the significant weight savings; not to mention the speed over a mechanical device. It seems that the price of flash memory is artificially high right now, but the technology seems to be just about ready for hard drive capacities.

Anyway… That’s my prediction (say; within 5 years, or so) and I’m sticking to it

solo Called It

Link

The world’s largest retailer announced Oct. 6 the birth of Metro 7, its new brand of urban women’s apparel that has started rolling out in 500 stores in an around urban areas.

Source

The FBI has warned New York officials of a specific terrorist threat to New York and/or its subway.

I don’t think anyone called it, but the stock market has been selling off hard the last two days and it may be related.

New York City’s subway system was put under heightened alert Thursday after officials received information from the FBI about a “specific threat,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

A well-placed U.S. military official told CNN on Thursday that the same intelligence also led to a raid against suspected al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.

There were indications that a terrorist attack on New York’s subway system is possible “in the coming days,” said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Source

Harriett Miers was nominated the next Supreme Court Judge to replace Sandra Day O’Connor around 8:30 am this morning.

Some tidbits:
Born in Dallas, Texas (shocker)
Graduated from Southern Methodist University and went to law school there.

Experience:
2004-present, White House counsel
2003-2004, White House deputy chief of staff for policy
2001-2003, White House staff secretary

Apparently Democrats are “happy” with the decision so far, because Bush’s right wing base was demanding a nomination that would cater to their beliefs. It is unclear so far if Miers, will ride the same path as the right wing, that might be due to her lack of experience in being a judge (ie none).

However, we can assume that since she agress with the President on law and policy, went to a religious school(?), that she will probably have views that are good for the right base. Another slap on the back for the good ole boys Republican politics.

Jonathan Turley, an NBC analyst and law professor at George Washington University said:

Miers’ resume is not as impressive as some of her predecessors nominated from non-judiciary positions.

There have been people who have gone to the court who have not been judges. The difference is that William Rehnquist (the last such justice to be nominated without having been a judge) had served in various high-level positions within the administration

Someone like Abe Fortus, who was the personal attorney to President Johnson had handled an election dispute for Johnson, was one of the most renowned lawyers of his age and had taught at Yale Law School.

When you look at people like that - even thought they hadn’t been on the bench - they were without question on everyone’s top list. They were highly qualified.

You don’t want to be cruel, but these are frank times. We have to be frank over whether this is the person who should be on the court. No one that I know of would have put Harriet Miers on any list for the Court. She just doesn’t have the resume to justify such a decision. Being on the Texas Lottery Commission or the Dallas City Council are not the things you look to for a Supreme Court Justice nominee.

Source

Hispanics are pissed off with the decision too. If you are Hispanic and voted for Bush, are you pissed off or don’t care?

Harriet Miers, President Bush, Supreme Court

Google and San Francisco sitting in a tree. K I SS I NG. First comes love, then comes marriage, then Wi Fi access all over the Bay Area.

Google, your love for San Francisco is undeniable.

It seems like a nice pro-bono/marketing thing, but why not do this in place where Google is not the most used brand already? Say, California, Missouri, ok I kid, but seriously, how about another joint?

Should Google create a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco or where you live instead?