Day: October 14, 2005

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) announced today that tests conducted by the organization have confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in samples taken from domestic birds in Turkey.

In Romania, investigations into recent poultry deaths have identified the H5 subtype of avian influenza virus. Additional testing is expected to determine the strain and whether the virus is highly pathogenic. Authorities in both countries have undertaken control measures.

The WHO said the spread of H5N1 to poultry in new geographic areas is cause for concern, as it increases the likelihood of additional human cases. But to date, evidence indicates that the H5N1 virus does not spread easily from birds to humans.

WHO has not changed the level of pandemic alert from Phase
3, which means a virus new to humans is causing infections, but is not easily spread from person to person.

WHO recommends that travelers to areas experiencing outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry should avoid contact with live animal markets and poultry farms, and with dead migratory birds or wild birds showing signs of disease.

Direct contact with infected poultry or surfaces and objects contaminated by their droppings is considered the main route of human infection. Exposure risk is highest during slaughter, defeathering, butchering and preparation of poultry for cooking. There is no evidence that properly cooked poultry or poultry products can be a source of infection.

Countries located along avian migratory routes should be vigilant for signs of disease in wild and domestic birds, according to WHO. Migratory birds have been directly implicated in the spread of the H5N1 virus in its highly pathogenic form.

Next Vice President: It is becoming increasingly likely that Vice President Dick Cheney will be forced to resign, either because he is indicted in the CIA Leak probe or because the super secret cabal of Old White Men who actually run the GOP – the ones who installed him as George Bush Jr.’s minder – have grown tired of his ruthless incompetence and will move to replace him before he and Bush squander what little hope remains for their party in 2008.

If Cheney goes, we’d be willing to wager that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will be appointed as vice president. This will be a bitter pill for Team Bush, who have had a contentious relationship with the maverick senator dating back to McCain’s run against them in 2000 presidential primaries. But party loyalty trumps all, and it is more important for the GOP to ensure that McCain is position to become president if Bush is forced to resign, or – if Bush somehow hangs on to the end of his term – to give McCain the power of vice presidential incumbency when he runs for the big chair in 2008.

Farfetched, you say? A similar scenario played out during President Nixon’s scandals in the early 1970’s. In the midst of the Watergate investigations, Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign, on October 10, 1973, over unrelated charges of bribery and tax evasion in his past life as govenor of Maryland. Nixon quickly appointed the squeaky clean House Minority Leader Gerald Ford as vice president. Ford, of course, became president when Nixon resigned in August 1974.

In July, Sen. McCain worked against the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who takes marching orders from the White House, to prevent a fillibuster of Bush’s judicial nominees by forming the “Gang of 14.” More recently, McCain staged an end-run around Frist and Bush by attaching an anti-torture amendment to a military appropriations bill. Bush has threatened to veto the bill – which would put him in the politically awkward position of signing his first-ever veto to in order quash restrictions on torture.

As the scandals around the CIA Leak and sleazy GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff come down on the heads of Bush, Cheney, Rove and the rest over the next weeks and months, John McCain – the leading anti-Bush rightwinger – will be the player to watch.

Unspun Americans: We would nominate African American voters, collectively, to be known hence forward as America’s Smartest Voting Block. Apparently, they are impervious to the Bush Administration’s patented Smear ‘N Spin techniques for controlling the minds of the public:

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that just 2 percent of African-Americans approve of his leadership. NBC’s Tim Russert — who called the number “a dramatic setback” — looked into it, and he could not “find a pollster who can remember any President ever getting just 2 percent approval from African-Americans.”

To be fair, the margin of error on the poll is 3.4 percent. So Bush’s actual approval among African Americans could be anywhere from -1.4 percent to 5.4 percent.