The World Can't Wait Kicks Off in DC

Thanks! I have to get up at 6AM but was waiting up for this.

Offtopic, but ...
Bird bird bird, bird is the word...

Experts dismiss scare over bird flu

By DIANE CHUN
Gainesville Sun staff writer

At a time when headlines trumpet the potential dangers of "bird flu," Gary Butcher is the man of the hour.

Butcher has been an extension veterinarian at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine since 1988. He was trained as a veterinarian specializing in avian diseases, and has a Ph.D. in poultry virology.

As the only poultry veterinarian in the state, Butcher fields phone calls and e-mails about avian flu every day.

Lately, he's been traveling the world, speaking to alarmed government officials and industry groups dispelling the myths and reinforcing the realities of avian influenza or so-called "bird flu."

Gary Butcher begins his presentation with a slide that shows a "news flash" from the British press agency Reuters reporting that avian flu "poses the single biggest threat to the world right now."

The H5N1 avian flu virus has led to the death of 150 million birds, either through infection or culling to prevent the virus from spreading. So far, however, the number of people who have become infected remains small, with 121 confirmed illnesses and 62 reported fatalities as of Monday. No one has yet been proven to have given avian influenza to someone else.

The World Health Organization continues to warn that a human pandemic may occur and has advised national governments to make contingency plans. President Bush is expected to announce today the White House strategy for handling a potential pandemic during a visit to the National Institutes of Health.

"The emphasis of all my work has changed to dealing with this madness," Butcher said Friday, while briefly back at his office on the UF campus in Gainesville. "Realistically, avian influenza is not a threat to people, but everywhere you go, it has turned into a circus."

He's been to Indonesia and Thailand, Hong Kong and Mexico, and a few days from now, he will be in Russia.

The poultry industries in those countries have been greatly disrupted because of the public's flu fear. In countries where poultry consumption has dropped by 75 percent, it's a real crisis, Butcher said. So from an economic perspective, bird flu is a big issue.

Millions of chickens and waterfowl have been slaughtered in Asia in an attempt to halt the spread of the bird virus known as H5N1, but Butcher said that of the billions of people who have probably been exposed, only about 120 have been reported to have fallen ill with avian flu. They were people who worked closely with chickens and came into contact with the birds' blood and feces.

Butcher also said that there has yet to be a proven case in which one person is known to have passed the illness on to another.

Bird flu viruses have been around throughout history, he said. What is unique about the H5N1 strain is that, on rare occasions, it has shown the ability to infect humans.

"It is very inefficient, but it does manage," Butcher said.

That same inefficiency makes it much more likely that the virus can't replicate itself rapidly enough to spread from that first infected human to another, he said. Could happen, but not likely. That's his view.

But the virus can go from poultry to the wild bird population, which will carry it to other locales along their migration routes.

If and when it comes to this part of the world, Butcher predicts, it will get here via migratory shorebirds or waterfowl coming from Russia, through Siberia, across the Bering Strait, down through Alaska and Canada.

"That's how it is probably going to come in, and it is of very little relevance," he said, because the poultry industry in this part of the world is so different than in the parts of the world that have been affected so far.

Not all health officials are sounding a warning about avian influenza, either.

Dr. Marc Siegel, a practicing internist and associate professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, is one physician who isn't buying into the scare scenario.

"If anything is contagious right now, it's judgment clouded by fear," Siegel said.

And if Americans are scared of avian flu now, Siegel continues, "imagine what will happen if a single scrawny, flu-ridden migratory bird somehow manages to reach our shores."

That, he maintains, is how the fear epidemic - as opposed to a flu pandemic - spreads.

Back to the unlikely scenario of those migratory birds carrying avian flu to a poultry house somewhere in Kansas.

"Only once in every blue moon do you get infection in a poultry house, and the government has a system of monitoring and eradication that means it is quickly wiped out," Butcher said. "So it can happen, but it is rare and it is not allowed to spread."

Because the United States exports about one-third of the 9 billion poultry produced, if potentially dangerous disease turns up, there is a policy of zero tolerance.

"Other countries would not accept poultry from anywhere in the United States if there was any question of infection," Butcher said.

He said that although there is a potential that the virus could mutate, as it exists, it could not become an important disease in humans.

"For it to become dangerous to humans, it has to go through a pretty significant genetic change. If you put this in perspective, it's not going to happen. For a person to be infected now, it appears that the exposure level has to be astronomical," Butcher said.

"While we are putting all our attention on this avian influenza, another virus is going to come up and bite us in the bottom," he said.

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LOCAL/51101021/1078/news

p.s. Rumsfeld own's boocoo stock in Tamiflu.

Student protesters attack Iraq war
James Walsh, Star Tribune
November 3, 2005

Like many area high school students Wednesday, Andrew Worrall, 17, asked his parents if he could attend an anti-war rally and march at the University of Minnesota. His parents said, "No."

Worrall, a Roseville Area High School student who was snapping digital pictures for the school newspaper, decided to go anyway and risk a grounding.

"It's important to be part of something that will make a difference," he said from the plaza at Coffman Memorial Union. "Even if people don't think it's going to make a difference."

More than 1,000 students, many of them from 40 Twin Cities-area high schools, joined Worrall -- some risking parental punishment or school discipline -- to protest the war in Iraq and the presence of military recruiters on campus. Organized by Youth Against War and Racism and the larger Socialist Alternative, the rally began at Coffman before weaving through campus and stopping traffic along several blocks of Washington Avenue before ending up in front of the Army and Navy recruiting offices on Washington at Oak Street.

University Police Chief Greg Hestness estimated the crowd at a little more than 1,000 people. Protest organizer Ty Moore of Socialist Alternative put the number closer to 1,500.

Hundreds of people stood to the side and gawked as sign-bearing, slogan-chanting students marched past. Onlookers took photographs or made cell phone calls to friends. Some applauded.

About 25 counter-demonstrators followed along, before parking across from the recruiting station and blaring "Stars and Stripes Forever" from a pickup truck.

Will Marean, a University of Minnesota student, carried a sign that read: "Get your [behind] Back to Class!" He said he suspects that much of the group's youthful zeal had to do with taking a day off from school rather than concern about the war.

"We're here today to offer a diversity of opinion on campus," Marean said of his group, which stated its support for U.S. troops in Iraq and for the mission there.

But Megan Martinson, a 10th-grader at Roseville, said she has been active politically for years. She attended her first rally in seventh grade, she said. And she, too, said protesting the war is important enough to risk discipline.

"I'm cutting class," she said, noting that her grades will probably be reduced from A's to A-minuses as a result.

As the crowd cheered, chanted and listened to speakers at Coffman, University of Minnesota student Jeff Bjorlin walked past. A freshman and member of the Army ROTC, Bjorlin said he doesn't mind the protests. "It's what I've signed up to defend," he said. But he added that he believes the students' opposition to recruiters' activities at high schools and colleges is misplaced.

"The recruiters are just doing their jobs," he said, pointing out that recruiting makes it possible to avoid a military draft. "They should be able to do their jobs."

Police mostly watched from the sidelines. While the group didn't have permission to block off streets, Hestness said, university police went ahead of the marchers to divert traffic for several blocks. Hestness said the event was peaceful.

The walkout is part of a nationwide protest, said Socialist Alternative's Moore.

School turnout varied widely

In general, schools reported by organizers to be hotbeds of support for the walkout had only modest defections. Only about 20 students from Bloomington Kennedy and 10 from Bloomington Jefferson walked out. Each school has about 1,700 students.

Andrew O'Brien, 17, a Kennedy senior and one of the walkout organizers, was disappointed that more students weren't participating. He said the timing of the protest, during end-of-quarter tests, was a problem. And, he said, "A lot of kids are pretty apathetic about the war, and about politics in general."

One exception was South High School in Minneapolis, where Principal Linda Nelson guessed 200 to 300 students left. She said she won't know until students bring in notes from parents how many of those absences were excused. Those students can make up any work missed, including quarter-ending finals that fell this week.

South students Emily Kastrul, 16, and Esther Kearney, 17, joined their friend Becca Miner, 17, of St. Louis Park High School at the rally.

"I'm missing two classes," Kastrul said, adding that her parents called the school ahead of time. "It's just one day out of the school year," she said.

Added Miner: "I feel like having opinions is useless unless you're willing to act on them."

http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/mobile_story.php?story=5704363

U.S. denies U.N. group access to detainees
By The Associated Press and Reuters

WASHINGTON — Spurning a request by U.N. human rights investigators, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday the United States will not allow them to meet with detainees at the Guantánamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects.

Rumsfeld also told a Pentagon news conference that prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, were staging a hunger strike that began in early August as a successful ploy to attract media attention.

The three U.N. investigators, including one who focuses on torture, said Monday they would turn down an invitation extended by the Pentagon Friday to visit Guantánamo unless they were permitted to interview the detainees. The invitation came nearly four years after the visits were first requested.

Rumsfeld said the U.S. government will not change its policy of giving such access to detainees only to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a neutral body that keeps its findings confidential.

"There's got to be a limit to how one does that," Rumsfeld said of providing access.

"And the ICRC has been doing it for a great many years and has had complete and total access ever since Guantánamo was opened."

Invitations went to Austria's Manfred Nowak, special investigator on torture, Pakistan's Asma Jahangir, who focuses on religious freedom, and Algeria's Leila Zerrougui, who looks into arbitrary detention.

Human rights activists have criticized the United States for the indefinite detention of the roughly 505 detainees held at Guantánamo. Former prisoners have stated they were tortured there, and the ICRC last year accused the U.S. military of using tactics "tantamount to torture." The military has denied torture has occurred.

The military said Tuesday 27 detainees currently were engaging in the hunger strike, including 24 receiving forced-feedings. Detainees' lawyers estimated that about 200 are taking part.

Asked about the motivation of the hunger strikers, Rumsfeld said, "Well, I suppose that what they're trying to do is to capture press attention, obviously, and they've succeeded."

He added, "There are a number of people who go on a diet where they don't eat for a period and then go off of it at some point. And then they rotate and other people do that."

U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler last week ordered the government to provide medical records on Guantánamo prisoners who are being force-fed and to notify their lawyers about forced feedings.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Received this morning from Teresa Heinz Kerry:

A year ago today, many of us were hoping that we would begin to change the course that America was on by electing my husband President of the United States. While we fell short of that goal, I wanted to use this occasion to thank you again.

Words alone cannot express my sincere gratitude for everything you did for John and me. Our campaign was fueled by the energy and enthusiasm of people like you all across America. Your hope and tenacity reaffirmed my belief in this great country of ours.

As I campaigned across the country, I learned so much from each and every person I met. My life was, and forever will be, enriched with the knowledge, resolve and affection that I gained through that experience. And that journey could not have begun or continued without you and others like you--Americans who believe in a better America and a better world.

Your generosity, principle and faith are qualities that I will always cherish, and I will never forget how hard you worked for John and for our country.

Thank you for being part of our lives, and remember, our journey continues. Let’s continue to be the saints and keep marching on.

With warm personal regards,

Teresa a/k/a Mamma T.

morning all...

please recommend this diary at kos ASAP

thanks

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/3/82532/9392

URGENT ACTION NEEDED TODAY!!!

SENATORS KERRY AND CANTWELL ARE MAKING ONE LAST PUSH TO SAVE ANWR

THERE WILL BE A VOTE IN THE SENATE TODAY (11/3)

http://www.millionphonemarch.com/anwr.htm (Save ANWR)

It's now or never if we want to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the White House and Republican leaders in Congress are stacking the odds against us. They're using underhanded procedural tactics to sneak through legislation to destroy the Arctic Refuge. The vote will occur this week in the Senate and next week in the House of Representatives.

These votes will decide the fate of the Refuge. It's no time to be sitting on the sidelines. We have to make our voice heard in this debate on Capitol Hill, and if we lose the vote there, we have to make sure we don't lose the debate across America.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are currently rising one percent a year, while the ice caps melt and we see unprecedented hurricane violence already. The insanity of putting every atom of carbon since prehistoric times back into the atmosphere must stop!. Instead we must get serious about conservation and have a crash program to develop renewable energy sources.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

The World Can't Wait has a small contingency in Dallas, Texas @ City Hall on November 2. When I arrived at City Hall @ 10:00 AM, there were five students, a husband and wife and their child that had just moved to Dallas from DC (wooo, were they surprised at the lack of participation in Dallas), two highschool students and a community college student and me ... guess I was like their "mom" showing support and getting them revved up. First of all, I told them they need to stand on the street corner ... not up by the doors of City Hall. No one knew they were there. Secondly, they had to hold their signs, make their statement known. Thirdly, one sign must read "Honk for Peace" so that we would know how much support we were receiving. Well, by George ... Dallas spoke. The "honks" were numerous to say the least. Ok, so most folks and students couldn't or chose not to be physically present on this beginning of the end of W day, but the people let it be known that George is not liked nor wanted even in his home state and possible home of his presidential library, the conservative, non-participatory city of Dallas, Texas.