What the hell are we afraid of?

On the way home from Austin, yesterday, I stopped in at my mother's house. While there, I had lunch with my brother and his girlfriend. After we ate, my brother was goofing around, pretending to let one of the cats outside. His girlfriend flipped out and actually said, "Bird flu is on its way!"

What the hell are we afraid of, here? The reported number of deaths as a result of the recent avian flu 'pandemic', worldwide, is 80. Let me repeat that:

80
Eighty
8 * 10

That volume as a rate of the estimated, current global population, represents 0.0000012%. Not even a whole percent.

This is not an epidemic. More people have died from AIDS in the first quarter of 2006 than this silly media hyped frenzy. We survived bubonic plague, for crying out loud. Which, might I add, killed more than eighty people daily.

Birds have always been known carriers for disease and other infirmities. But, because some overwraught publisher, somewhere, seeks to make an easy buck off the gullible masses, 'avian flu' is now the greatest worry on the media-planet.

Anyone remember SARS? Neither do I. Shut up and go outside, dammit. If you're gonna die, you're gonna die. It's your time. Make peace with what you do, whenever you do it. Because there's one thing that's certain in life:

You can't beat mother nature.

SQL> Select * From GlobalPopulation Where ImNotDeadYet <> StupidHype;