News Blog @ i66.com

Bird Flu: Found in Canada

H/T to Dan Riehl at Riehl World View - USAToday reports via AP that Canada may have its first cases of bird flu as found in wild geese, but it is a possibility it's not the same strain, or might be a mutated strain of the H5N1 birds experienced overseas.

There must be something to this sense of urgency officials in most countries are portraying; Bush is speaking tomorrow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and will be unveiling the government's strategy for dealing with a pandemic:

WASHINGTON - Vaccine improvement is expected to take center stage in the Bush administration's preparations for a worldwide flu outbreak, with a potential travel ban and restrictions on global commerce part of the contingency planning.

President Bush on Tuesday will announce his strategy on how to prepare for the next flu pandemic - preparations expected to cost at least $6.5 billion - whether it is caused by the worrisome Asian bird flu or some other super-strain of influenza.

A key element: States and cities will get their first specific instructions from federal health officials on such things as who should get limited doses of vaccines and the antiviral medications Tamiflu or Relenza

First on the list, of course, to get the vaccine will be health care professionals and emergency workers. It's serious enough of a concern that $8 billion in emergency funding championed by Democrats passed on Thursday.

There are detractors to the level of hype being given the planning and funding of a pandemic possibility, but we submit we'd rather ante up for this than some of the other efforts our government funds. Even if it doesn't pan out that this particular strain crosses to humans this time, it's far better to plan for the health of the Nation's people than to be caught flat-footed as they did in 1918.

If you don't know the history about the 1918 flu pandemic, get educated . Viruses are nothing to be screwing around with.

Bird Flu: Weekend Update, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam Affected

Thailand has their 20th victim since 2003 diagnosed with bird flu, a woman who was cleaning chicken coops:

BANGKOK, Thailand - A woman in a northern suburb of Bangkok has been diagnosed with bird flu, Thailand's 20th victim of the disease since 2003, a health official said Monday.

The 50-year-old woman is in stable condition in Bangkok's Siriraj hospital, Deputy Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said.

The woman fell ill a day after helping clean a chicken coop, said Thawat Suntarajarn, director-general of Thailand's Department of Communicable Disease Control.

Apparently Vietnam is dropping the ball on WHO testing procedures - 2 people there who were ill with something we buried without tests. Vietnam officials are also saying they need an infusion of the dollar to both comply with WHO regulations, and also just prevent the disease from spreading; 40 people in that country have perished, making it the most bird flu affected country. Vietnam only has enough anti-viral drugs to treat 60K people, not very many when you consider there are approximately 8.2 million in that country alone.

Sunday, bird flu may have appeared again in Japan. Officials there are planning to kill 82K chickens as a result:

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Authorities have detected signs of bird flu at a farm in northern Japan and plan to kill 82,000 chickens, local officials have said.

The farm in Ibaraki prefecture, just northeast of Tokyo, was already inside a quarantined area because of past outbreaks, Kyodo News agency reported on Monday.

CBS is also carrying the quirky bird flu report of perhaps the era with a Hong Kong lawyer proposing allowing Joe Hong Kong person on the street to carry guns and shoot whatever birds they suspect of having the disease:

In Hong Kong, lawmaker Tommy Cheung proposed allowing the public to carry guns and shoot migratory birds suspected of carrying the virus. "Perhaps what we should do is give each person a gun," said Cheung, who has a reputation for making unusual proposals, "and when we see a migrating bird, we can just shoot it down, so Hong Kong would be a much safer place."

Heh. And they thought we were the Old West gunslingers in this country. Besides, shooting those birds means they fall down, right? So if they are infected, someone handling them could get the disease.

Daylight Savings: Fall Back

We haven't seen it in the media anywhere just yet, and we're thinking that in lieu of all the bad Bush news like Harriet Miers and Scooter Libby along with terrorist activities in Iraq and India, they've forgotten to remind us that we have to change our clocks this weekend:

Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.

In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.

Change it during Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update - that's what we do. We're freaky like that.

CIA Leak Investigation: Is Karl Rove Next?

After today's press conference with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, we did some digging about what Karl Rove 's lawyer could possibly have presented to the investigators which would warrent more attention to the decision whether or not to bring the possibilties of Scooter Libby - like indictment Rove's way. Fitzgerald kept referring in his press conference to the "why" anyone in the administration or otherwise would leak Valerie Plame 's name as a CIA operative; indeed, this is the key question of this investigation.

It's entirely possible Rove staged a last minute (the grand jury and investigation have been going on for 2 years) disclosure which either further implicated Libby and others, or admitted to something which could have later brought him trouble. Note this from the Washington Post:

Rove provided new information to Fitzgerald during eleventh-hour negotiations that "gave Fitzgerald pause" about charging Bush's senior strategist, said a source close to Rove. "The prosecutor has to resolve those issues before he decides what to do"

According to Rove's friends, he was (and perhaps still is) more concerned with a false statement indictment:

Rove has told friends he is most concerned about being charged with providing false statements because he did not initially tell the grand jury about a conversation he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame and her CIA employment before her identity was publicly disclosed

Rove's been adamant that he didn't leak Plame's name to Robert Novak, syndicated columnist to the Washington Post. In fact, Rove is able per the current perjury statutes to do just that:

d) Where, in the same continuous court or grand jury proceeding in which a declaration is made, the person making the declaration admits such declaration to be false, such admission shall bar prosecution under this section if, at the time the admission is made, the declaration has not substantially affected the proceeding, or it has not become manifest that such falsity has been or will be exposed.

Hence, if Rove and his lawyers knew this might be a sticking point for them, perhaps they ante'd up. There is a flip side to that equasion though, specific to a report from Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame's husband and former ambassador:

Wilson said another reporter called him on July 21 and said he had just hung up with Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove. The reporter quoted Rove as describing Wilson's wife as "fair game," Wilson said. Newsweek has identified that reporter as MSNBC television host Chris Matthews. Spokespeople said Matthews was unavailable for comment.

It may cause more investigation to validate the "why." Especially if Rove did call "Wilson's wife fair game" and in fact, he tried to skirt the law by implying the administration would condone treating her, even if he ONLY called her "Wilson's wife" and not by her given name, as "fair game." She's not: she was/is a covert CIA operative. And bets are, Rove knew that.

Speak of Fitzgerald, is anyone else as impressed with him as we are? He makes Kenneth Starr look like a hack.

Libby RESIGNS

Breaking News from CNN that Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, has resigned in light of the CIA leak indictment annouced this morning:

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, resigned on Friday after a federal grand jury voted to indict him on charges related to the CIA leak investigation.

Libby was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements, court documents show.

The indictments were not related to the actual leak of operative Valerie Plame's name.

Yep. Indicted for making false statements, which is the politically correct phrase for "lying."

22 page indictment on The Smoking Gun

Scooter Libby Indicted, Obstruction of Justice, False Statements, Perjury

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, indicted by grand jury on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in CIA leak probe.

Libby To Be Indicted, Rove Ok..For Now

According to the Washington Post, Scooter Libby is going to be indicted for his role in the Valerie Plame - CIA Leak case today, according to the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation. Insofar as Karl Rove's role in this debacle, here's what the prosecutor had to say:

"The Special Counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he has made no decision about whether or not to bring charges and that Mr. Rove's status has not changed," said Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, in a statement released this morning. "Mr. Rove will continue to cooperate fully with the Special Counsel's efforts to complete the investigation. We are confident that when the Special Counsel finishes his work, he will conclude that Mr. Rove has done nothing wrong."

Secretive VP Dick Cheney must be just beside himself, as Libby is his Chief of Staff.

Apparently, Rove and Libby are perceived to be more concerned about being charged with making false statements to the grand jury and that's what Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald appears to be focused upon.

There should be a formal release of information at noon today about the grand jury and also a press conference at 2pm. This just highlights the last week or so the Bush administration seemingly downward spiral into a bottomless pit just just plan old bad performance and political missteps.

As premier gossip columnist Cindy Adams says on her fabulous column today: FLASH! President Bush finally did locate those weapons of mass destruction. They're in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's hands.

Moore: Just Do As I Say

Twice in one week we've had to place some gossip rag reports on a blog other than our Tabloid Digest blog, but this was worthy of more than just rumor and speculation.

Page Six led today with a report about a new book written by Peter Schweizer about none other than hypocritcal liberals, among them Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Ralph Nader. Entitled Do as I Say, Not As I Do: Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, the author calls out some of these folks pretty blatantly:

PAGE SIX: Schweizer calls Al Franken a "habitual liar, mean-spirited partisan and racial discriminator" for his frequent fabrications to make conservatives look bad, and the fact that he hired only one black person out of 112 who worked on his various projects.

* Ted Kennedyis labeled an "environmental rapist, tax cheat and oil profiteer" for his moves to defeat environmentally friendly projects, the various Kennedy family trusts designed to dodge taxes from which he benefits, and his family's lucrative oil holdings.

* Hillary Clinton is depicted as a "corporate shill and petty tax avoider" while ultra-liberal < strong>Barbra Streisand is exposed as a "civil liberties violator, outsourcer and war profiteer."

* Liberal icon Ralph Nader is labeled a "bourgeois materialist, stock manipulator and tyrannical sweatshop boss," while left-wing deep-thinker Noam Chomsky is seen to be a "social parasite, economic protectionist [and] amoral defense contractor." Who knew?

The article goes on to say that Moore specifically pontificates about the evils of Halliburton, yet (gasp) he has Halliburton stock in the portfolio of his private foundation. Apparently according to Schweizer, Moore has professed he doesn't even own any stock as yet again as his next movie targets pharmecutical companies - and yeah, Schweizer points out that Moore has invested in them. Regarding one of Moore pet rants about racism, Schweizer did some homework: of the 134 employees engaged by Moore, only 3 were black.

Woo. Book just came out on October 25th :) Thus far, no comment from Moore on his website. Stay tuned - fireworks shortly. You just know he can't shut his mouth (hand).

Jeb Bush: Our Fault, Our Bad

MSNBC and AP are reporting that in a quirky twist of accountability, Florida governor Jeb Bush is reminding his constituents affected by Hurricane Wilma that hey, it ain't FEMA's fault that some relief centers are out of stuff:

MSNBC/AP - “Don’t blame FEMA. This is our responsibility,” Bush said at a news conference in Tallahassee with federal Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees the agency.

Many Floridians were still struggling to find food, water, ice and gas on the third day of recovery from Wilma, waiting in line for hours — sometimes in vain. Miami-Dade’s mayor called the distribution system flawed and said at least one relief site of 11 in his county ran out of supplies.

Jeb also reminds those complaining that they had ample time and notice to prepare or leave before the storm, and we have to say, that's a fact. The truly astonishing part of this is that unlike New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, Jeb actually takes responsibility (look it up and learn to spell that word, Blanco, it's sorely lacking in your vocabulary) for what his state has admittedly faltered. We guess that when your brother is the President, you can't really let FEMA take the rap and not say anything. Nope, that wouldn't look too good, now would it?

EU advises against eating raw eggs

Fully cook chicken and avoid the raw eggs are the latest warnings from the EU over bird flu.

FT.com / International economy / Bird flu - EU bird flu alert as outbreak spreads to Croatia Zagreb on Wednesday confirmed the existence of the lethal H5N1 bird flu virus strain amid a precautionary warning by the European food safety authority (Efsa), advising Europeans to avoid eating raw eggs and cook chicken carefully to cut down any risk of contracting bird flu.

The results of the British tests on wild swans found dead in eastern Croatia last week, follows recent outbreaks across eastern Europe. More.....