we don’t want no birds

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From BBC news: New measures to tackle bird flu.

Do such measures make you feel safer, that the government is doing all it can to minimise the potential of an outbreak? Or is it scaremongering gone crazy? After the SARS outbreak, no governing body wants to be seen as lacking. After the BSE beef-to-human transmission palaver, nobody wants to be told they lacked foresight/prudence. But are they taking it a bit far, and causing more unease than necessary? As was pointed out not too long ago, more people die annually from the “vanilla”-flavour flu than all the H5N1 cases together.

torture in mind

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There’s been some discussion on the use of torture in the blogosphere. (No, not using torture on bloggers although that’s not a bad idea.)

And on tonight’s episode of Commander in Chief, we hear from the President in response to a terrorist threat: “I don’t want to hear that he was tortured.” And from her security advisor: “Understood.”

This ambiguous statement, of course, comes back to haunt her later in the episode. And I’ll stop there before we move into spoiler territory, which may give people cause to pull out my toenails.

eggcellent scare story

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From the Scotsman: EU warns of bird flu danger in chicken and eggs.

Ah ha ha ha. I laugh in the face of danger and will have a soft-boiled egg for my supper tonight. Take that, Mr/Ms Scaremonger Media. (The key question is: how will this affect spiceone’s and cooksister’s EoMEoTE?)

Useless piece of science trivia for the day: the annual vaccine for “regular” flu is harvested from vast quantities of deliberately infected fertilised poultry eggs, the supply of which is now under threat from the new strain of avian flu. Oh the irony!

hurrah! d discovers bbcamerica

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Rebus is in Furryboot town, where there are hoors aplenty. We’re also given a right good tour of Edinburgh’s skyline, “genteel” Fairmilehead, and I get to feel homesick everytime they show Lothian and Border’s headquarters at Fettes… 😦

As much as I like John Hannah and think he makes a fine Rebus, I feel the TV show leads the viewer too much without letting the story develop the way it does in the novels. Then again, I always think that about book/TV, book/film adaptations.

Ach, though I’ve nevir developed much of an accent, it does me gud to hear some proper talk, like.

Another mall for Princes St

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From BBC news: [Edinburgh] City centre revamp plan unveiled.

What Princes St needs is not a facelift but a face transplant. There’s nothing to distinguish it as a unique high street; it’s chockablock with the standard, national high street chains. Apart from Jenners, there’s nothing to set it apart from any other British city’s shopping street. And unlike Glasgow’s Buchannan St and environs, it’s not shopper-friendly and could do with being “pedestrianised”. Unfortunately, it is still a major East-West artery road and the North-South main roads also cross it at some point. A solution may not exist (unless all traffic is routed around the city centre and delivery trucks are restricted to early/late hours only). That said, it’d be nice to get rid of some of those concrete monstrosities. Although I suspect any replacement buildings will be equally hated in a decade or so.

Oof!

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From theguardian: What can women actually do?

Gordon Ramsay has declared that women can’t cook: “Seriously,” he cried in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, “there are huge numbers of young women out there who know how to mix cocktails but can’t cook to save their lives, whereas men are finding their way into the kitchen in ever-growing numbers. Trust me: I am only telling you what I’ve discovered.”
[snip]
At the dewier end of this year, the president of Harvard University, Larry Summers, claimed women can’t do science.

Pow! And Pow again!

And for the lesson in how to give your new TV show instant high ratings, see the original article here.