Attack of the Bird (Flu)

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Just when I thought my world was falling apart, W. informed me that birds are pooping on it, too. Yesterday, he outlined a $7.1 billion plan (is the Canadian dollar worth more than the American dollar yet?) to prepare for a pandemic influenza outbreak, via the bird flu. I thought storks delivered babies, not pandemics.

All kidding aside, this is serious shit. Kudos to W. for allocating this money as a precaution.

Ripping off the AP story, Bush's plan details:

  • $1.2 billion for the government to buy enough doses of the vaccine against the current strain of bird flu to protect 20 million Americans; the administration wants to have sufficient vaccine for front-line emergency personnel and at-risk populations, including military personnel;
  • $1 billion to stockpile more anti-viral drugs that lessen the severity of the flu symptoms;
  • $2.8 billion to speed the development of vaccines as new strains emerge, a process that now takes months. The goal is to have the manufacturing capability by 2010 to brew enough vaccine for every American within six months' of a pandemic's start.
  • $583 million for states and local governments to prepare emergency plans to respond to an outbreak.

"In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics, and viruses from birds contributed to all of them," W. said. "The 1918 pandemic killed over a half million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe. One-third of the U.S. population was infected, and life expectancy in our country was reduced by 13 years."

Scary.

Although I'm a bit confused because Congress claims this money was already allocated last week. Certainly, W.'s announcement was strategically launched (we've known about the pandemic for a while now) to coincide with the Alito nomination. Last week was devastating for W. between Miers' withdrawal and Scooter's indictment. But this week, W. is looking good. He's proactively addressing a forseeable national threat (note: contrast to hurricane treatment) and the Alito nomination is setting Democrats back on their heels.

The Dems responded with their own political theatre by calling for a rare, closed Senate session yesterday to discuss the questionable reasons for going to Iraq (WMDs, unintelligent intelligence). Isn't this, like, two years too late? They're looking a little desperate. After such a successful, W.-damaging week last week, all of the recent actions by W. this week (and Karl Rove safe from indictments) are hitting the Dems like bird poop on a windshield. Splat!

Girls Like Playboy: A Week in Review

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New pictures are posted. The first group of pictures is basically drunk Shelter girls on Thursday night. The other pictures are from Halloween festivities via Mike/Cody's house party and the State Street Depot. The week in review:

  • Courtney came to Bellingham and suprised Scott on Thursday. She suprised me, too. I was standing in my boxers. Upon seeing me, Courtney temporarily forgot she was dating Scott -- until he gave her a Tiffany's bracelet.
  • Katrine and Kenna were in town for concerts and Halloween activities, respectively.
  • I saw Lyrics Born at the Nightlight Wednesday. I give the concern an A. I loved the live band.
  • I saw KRS-One and Common Market at the Nightlight Friday. I give the concert an A-. I got in VIP and felt like a VIP, but there were too many microphone problems and KRS-One kept complaining about it. Common Market was great, though. The CD is hot. Sabzi's production never disappoints.
  • Scott and I created amazing Star Wars costumes. We're also nerds for wearing them.

Wal-Mart is Going After the Kids

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I recall reading a few days ago about Wal-Mart saving the environment and offering employees better benefits and thinking, "This is too good to be true." I was right. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, constantly faces criticism for low wages, sub-par health insurance coverage and an overall poor treatment of workers. The company took a big step in the right direction by announcing this week a cheaper health insurance plan, with monthly premiums as low as $11. Employees can now enroll for the new plan, which starts in 2006. Currently, less than half of the company's 1.2 million domestic employees cannot afford the current plan (perhaps because of low wages?).

Wal-Mart also announced Tuesday "a set of sweeping, specific environmental goals to reduce energy use in its stores, double its trucks' fuel efficiency, minimize its use of packaging and pressure thousands of companies in its worldwide supply chain to follow its lead," according to a NY Times article. Basically, they're going to improve their environmental standards, too. Good stuff.

But oh, how the momentum stopped. An internal memo was uncovered by Wal-Mart Watch, a group that lives to hate Wal-Mart, and has been broadcast by major media outlets. It reveals a list of ways Wal-Mart intends to reduce healthcare spending. In the memo, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, makes the following recommendations:

  • recruit younger, healthier workers with fewer dependents.
  • discourage unhealthy job applicants by including physical activities for all jobs.
  • reduce 401(k) contributions.
  • decrease cross-subsidization through higher premiums.

The document of recommendations is 27 pages long and ironically commits itself to reducing harm to the company's reputation. That obviously didn't work out.

The bottom line: When Wal-Mart occupies Fircrest, it'll need employees, and it's coming after Sergio.

We Catholics Are on the Decline

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I think solution to the Catholic Church’s problems sounds something like this:

“Do you, Father Mike, take this woman in holy matrimony?”

Unfortunately, the powers that be (the Pope and bishops, not God) disagree. As a progressive Catholic, I am saddened to hear that after three weeks of debates, which ended Saturday, Catholic bishops have rejected proposals to ordain married priests. This comes at a time when the Church needs priests more than ever. Consider these facts I found in an AP article:

“Since 1965, the number of annual ordinations has dropped by more than half to 454 this year. Enrollment in graduate-level seminaries has dropped from 8,325 to 3,308 in the same period. Thousands more parishes are without a resident priest and the average age of Catholic clergy is climbing.”

The Church’s audience is socially progressing too fast. Catholicism and its priesthood are becoming unattractive to younger generations. This young Catholic thinks the Church has been stubborn by continuing to disapprove the use of contraceptives. Most Catholics I know use contraceptives (see cartoon). More importantly, contraceptive use should be encouraged in an AIDs-infected Africa.

Ordaining women could be a way to combat decreasing ordinations, but maybe I’m just trying to create a different Church entirely here. These restrictions define Catholicism.

So why won’t the Church let married men become priests? It’s reinforcing a restriction: the celibacy policy. That means no marriage and no sex, people.

Celibacy, which has little theological justification, allows the Church to avoid addressing homosexuality in the Church. Because after all, if priests remains celibate and loyal, why does their sexual orientation matter?

Sexual orientation does matter, and the backlash of celibacy has surfaced in the form of sex scandals. According to the AP, in September, “Vatican-directed evaluators have started visiting all 229 American seminaries, looking for lapses in teaching about celibacy that contributed to the scandal.”

I echo my Dad’s opinion: Recent sex scandals are a direct result of guilt-ridden, gay Catholic men trying to resolve their sexual preference by committing themselves to the Church. The Church can argue that homosexuality is unnatural, but I argue that celibacy is unnatural, as those sex scandals have proven. Homosexuals are no more likely to commit sex crimes than heterosexuals, by the way. I’m inferring that celibacy is the problem here. Abandoning celibacy will result in fewer sexually abused children.

I don’t expect and I’m not suggesting the Church should abandon the core ideology that defines it, but the Church ought to adapt. It should admit married men into priesthood. There’s no point in the Church debating about its ideology if there’s no one at the alter to spread the word.