Comment on Post at Effect Measure
I was going to say "who needs their credibility?", but maybe we do need it. Action is affected by beliefs.
Maybe this blog will be more trusted when the time comes? Or the blogosphere as a whole?
Trust ... pretty elusive.
At some point, individual scientists are going to have to put it on the line. The pablum and inconsistent statements put out by the WHO have probably actually damaged pandemic preparedness. If scientists at the WHO don't publically indicate their belief that we are at stage 4, then they are morally responsible for the consequences. At a certain point, they can't say: "We were just following orders."
If you think WHO is scared now, watch what happens in the first week of August.
The key movers of polymorhisms (via recombination) are the migratory birds.
They are locked and loaded and getting ready to do some damage.
You know I had a nightmare last night that I was trapped in my kitchen as a hoarde of killer ducks milled around outside my house.
It's all your fault, Niman..
;)
Were they all wearing eye patches, Lisa? The ducks in my nightmares all have eye patches. They all have little Mao outfits on, too. And they all cluck in Mandarin Chinese.
No, the only Maoist animals here is my cat who believes everything I own is his and that I am his slave.
(the reason there's no evolutionary pressure on house cats to have thumbs is that house cats can get humans to do anything that requires them.)
As for Mandarin Chinese--no, these ducks sounded more like the Penguin in Batman.
I'm sorry Revere, I do have a silly streak, especially when there is little else to smile about.
Lisa,
Perhaps we need a "jokes" page at the Flu Wiki. I'm finding it damn hard to find much to smile about these days.
I've read humor is related to the way our brain works. They tell us a story and at the end there's something that makes us see the story in a different light. This in turn takes us by surprise and changes the rhythm of our breath: we laugh.
All extremely serious stuff, of course.
We do need to "see things differently" if we want to find new ways to cope with this fractal beast.
I find Edward de Bono's "lateral thinking" helpful but others may use different ... hmmm ... well, whatever works for you.
In the US at least, we are haunted by the ghost of swine flu...
lurker123: What you say is true, but not that many people remember it very well and the vaccine side-effects may not have been as hought then and certainly not as likely with modern versions of the vaccine.
Swine flu was almos 30 years ago and the curent crop of publi health workers doesn't have a vivid memory of it (it's just us old geezers).
Melanie, a joke page at the Flu Wiki is a great idea! Maybe it would help avert the reaction one of my commenters had after visiting the wiki: "I went over to Wiki and then spent the rest of the afternoon yesterday with my fingers in my ears screaming 'la la la la la la la.'"
The fly aint no joke!.. be careful out there
Commenting by HaloScan
