No Rest for the Wicked...

And I suppose Captain Snarky has contributed his share of wickedness in his lifetime. The real meaning here is that the Avian Flu and news of the same are both very fast-paced. Developments and information in the last four days include:

• The United Nations released this information graphic and it has been widely re-published:
  
  
  

• An interesting article co-authored by the inventor of the flat bed scanner, OCR technology and a pioneer in music and voice synthesizers [among other things] Ray Kurzweil, and the brains behind UNIX and Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy. In 'Recipe for Destruction' they object to the US publishing the full genome for the 1918 flu:
  
  This is extremely foolish. The genome is essentially the design of a weapon of mass destruction. No responsible scientist would advocate publishing precise designs for an atomic bomb, and in two ways revealing the sequence for the flu virus is even more dangerous.

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness Stewart Simonson [breathe] is under fire as not having the background and knowledge required to be 'the guy' responsible for dealing with a major outbreak of bird flu. I think 'Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job' is still ringing in people's ears... An excerpt from the article published in the Boston Herald:
  
  U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) recently released a ``fact sheet'' blasting Simonson, Brown and other public safety officials.
  
  ``The Bush Administration has repeatedly appointed inexperienced individuals with political connections to important government posts, including positions with key responsibilities for public health and safety,'' the fact sheet read. ``Mr. Simonson is a lawyer, not a medical expert.''