The greatest killer of all time was the so called Spanish Flu,(started from a pig farm in Iowa) I think it killed about one third of the population. Even without Terrorist, there is still a high risl that it will returm.

Of course, we monitor swine the world over to prevent an outbreak, but if someone wanted to do harm in a big way, this could spread to the entire earth in only days.

The downside is that those people who suffer poverty the most are the ones most affected by the illness.

pat..i think all the talk about it because one of the cultures is here...one in the former soviet union. there has been some great concern that some of the soviet union's has ended up in the wrong hands over time. mostly, from what i understand, there is, and has been for a while, some assumption that the wonderful friend of ours in iraq has some. the fact that some of his people spent some time meeting with mohammed atta, before mohammed got the bright idea that running a plane into the WTC was a ticket to paradise, seems to be a tad worrisome.

Anyone re-introducing smallpox into the biosphere had better consider it Mutually Assured Destruction. In fact, Islam would almost certainly lose that one.

-Z

i didn't catch the source other than "wbbm radio", but someone announced yesterday that the govt had been planning to have 40 million smallpox vaccinations available by late next year, and that number has been changed to over 300 million. i think they said 380 million.

i agree, zowie. unfortunately, it seems as if some of the same people that might do that, don't care all that much about mutually assured destruction. on the contrary, they welcome it. i'd like to say to each their own on that matter, but since it tends to involve people that aren't in a hurry to be destroyed, it's hard to say that.

star...that would be good. i want my shot...now, kid!

they are hitting you with so many lefts, that you are going to forget about their right.

sweep the whole field of vision...

we scurry to react to the biological..
while they prepare the chemical..
or nuclear.

i have enough proper antibiotics to fend off
anthrax..had them stored before these events.

whom among you has atropine to fend off nerve agents?

what would you use against a blood agent?

they got you tapdancing!! i think we need to turn off the televisions!! i'm just gonna sit here and watch TMI's cooling towers...that oughta give me a head start to hell!!!

you're right, of course, todd. if we protect against one thing the people that want to destroy us will just move onto something else. i don't know what the answers are and, frankly, i don't think tommy (i'm not a doctor nor do i play one on tv, but let me assure you we have it under control) thompson does either. i'm not quite sure he even understands the questions...

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Thanks, Todd. I'll sleep better tonight, dreamin' of nerve gas. Ah, well, our generation has one advantage. We're pretty surprised that the human race hasn't blown itself up yet and we never really, fully expected to be here now. The rest is just gravy. Of course, we don't really feel that way about our kids lives. That's a vulnerability, all right.

(This is Wyld on Wayne's 'Puter)

One thing that is really bothering me since yesterday...

I heard that anthrax spores were found in Gov. Pataki's Manhattan office in an area used by NYS Troopers... and the Gov is now taking Cipro as a precautionary measure, although he publicly stated that he has not been tested...

What about all those warnings the Health Service has been giving NOT to take cipro unless it is indicated...

Either he (and/or his health advisers) are doing the exact thing they said was not necessary, or they are lying to us about his exposure to the organism...

What do you think?

~Wyld


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i was thinking that was pretty odd, also. although, it does seem as if they're putting people on meds if they've been exposed, even if they're testing negative for now...but it didn't appear from what i read that he had even been exposed. maybe you and i both missed something there..

The reason they put people on the meds if they have been exposed, even if they test negative, is simple. By the time they test positive, if the strain is one that is virulent enough, it may be too late for the antibiotics to do any good. That's what happened in the case of the first guy that died.

We probably haven't even seen close to what panic about this may be coming our way.....flu season is just around the corner.

well, that makes sense if they've been exposed, kim. i just got the feeling from what was said that pataki wasn't really exposed...but i'm sure i could be wrong about what i read.

i agree about flu season..

I read this and found it interesting, this guys book seems to be a how to guide to bio-terrorist.

In an eerie prelude to the current anthrax hysteria, an American microbiologist was captured by the FBI in Ohio during the late 1990s with vials of bacterium that causes the bubonic plague. He also told a major magazine he had "recovered" anthrax.
For his role in purchasing the bubonic samples, microbiologist Larry Wayne Harris was eventually convicted of wire fraud. He was arrested at his Lancaster, Ohio, home with three vials of Yersinia pestis stashed in the glove compartment of his Subaru. He supposedly bought the inert samples by mail for $240 from a Maryland lab.

Harris had belonged to the Aryan Nations and allegedly participated in the racist Christian Identity Church activities.

For now, speculation about the recent anthrax scare centers on Muslim extremists. But white supremacists cannot be ignored, especially as abortion clinics around the country report receiving letters containing suspicious powder. Some of these letters reference domestic terrorists like the Army of God.

Harris, 44, said that his self-published book Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America was designed to help people survive a biological attack and that he never intended to harm anyone. But, according to Intelligence Report, a nonprofit outfit that tracks far-right activities, "the scope and depth of information in the book also make it an effective do-it-yourself manual for mass destruction through biological terrorism."

interesting, becky...and wouldn't this be the perfect time for groups like that to act...figuring the finger of blame would be pointing elsewhere?

A couple of years back, L.A. had an anthrax panic. One whole street was closed for several days, and a local post office for a day. Both times, the cause was just one nut case waving a paper saying, "This is anthrax! You're all infected!" No anthrax. No nothing. Just a big mouth.

The news, of course, covered it as if the whole world had ended. Every other nut job around here, and in L.A. that's a lot of nut jobs, started phoning up with anthrax threats. Nobody had any, of course, but it really did a number on this place.

This was two years ago. A strong lesson was sent to the whackos of the world. Here's how to do a real job on the country with minimum danger to one's own people, provided there's one guy around who took upper division microbiology in college.

Terrorism is the ultimate street theater. I didn't make this idea up. Some terrorist did. The current anthrax plan we see executing around us happens to be a perfect drama.

Act 1: hit the media so it's sure to be covered. Kill somebody. Draw the enemy out. Todd's ambush.

Act 2: Go after the real targets, like the government. That's where we are now.

Act 3 is for America to beat itself with its own paranoia. That's why it's called terrorism, folks.

It's not too late to rewrite act 3.

To do so let's turn off CNN and think outside the box for a second.

Who's doing it? Bin Laden? Good probability. Domestic creeps? Even better probability. Multiple conspiracies unaware of one another? REALLY good probability. All of the above.

After all, there are a LOT of them out there, folks. We tolerated too much REALLY whacked-out behavior in this country for too long, running around like soldiers waiting for the Black Helicopters to come, reading codes on the backs of road signs, and now all this nonsense is doing us in.

It's because nobody expected the Dogs Of War to be turned loose back here inside the US, but situations change, and they were. When those beasts get out, they bite anyone they please.


-Z
edited for coherence.

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