The Zombies Are Coming! The Zombies Are Coming!

The Centers for Disease Control has denied the existence of a “zombie virus” that can reanimate the dead. Or did it?

“CDC silent on zombie-inducing parasites that live in human brains,” Josh Peterson, Daily Caller via Yahoo News

More:

“The Tweet That Begins the Zombie Apocalypse,” Alexis Madrigal, The Atlantic

“Your guide to zombie parasite journalism,” Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine blog

“Zombies!” Gregory McNamee, Britannica blog

“Pick Your Apocalypse: Zombie Edition,” Michael Ray, Britannica blog

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GOP Catches the Flu

H1N1, the virus popularly called “Swine Flu,” is all anyone can talk about. Anyone but Republicans.

When the economic stimulus package was first before Congress, explains John Nichols in The Nation, the bill included $900 million for flu pandemic preparedness and additional funding for the Centers for Disease Control. Karl Rove attacked these items as waste in the Wall Street Journal, and Senator Susan Collins (R, ME) bragged about killing the health provisions in Congress. Critics stripped all medical and research provisions from the proposal, leaving only $50 million to improve IT services at HHS. State and local public health officials were concerned.

“Everybody …  is concerned about a pandemic flu,” Collins said at the time. “But does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? No, we should not.”

The argument that anti-pandemic measures have no economic ramifications was a bad diagnosis.  The new flu has caused panic on Wall Street as well as Main Street, with more to come. Emergency measures are costing Mexico City’s economy at least $57 million a day and direct costs are unknown. Expect similar local losses across the USA. 

Collins has pulled her flu fulminations off her web site and issued a defensive denial.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

 

Deep-Fried Fuel

The US Department of Agriculture’s Biodiesel-powered shuttle bus strayed near NotionsCapital headquarters last week. We were disappointed to learn that the bus is powered by 80 percent “Petrodiesel” and 20 percent soybean oil, one reason soya oil prices are up 92% and Indonesia, Austria, Hungary, Mexico, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Yemen, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan had food riots. Putting food products in car gas tanks in a starving world is a uniquely 21st century sin.

FDA Menu du Jour

Today: Tomatoes good; jalapeños bad.

Yesterday:  Jalapeños good; tomatoes bad.

Tomorrow: Will the media help us realize that the current Salmonella saintpaul mini-outbreak does not necessarily have a single-point source?

Nah.