After yesterday's US presidential announcements, it is now officially butt kissing time. So, everyone bend over and kiss your butt goodbye just in case you can't reach it later because you are too sick from the Bird Flu. Oh, excuse me, did you notice they are now calling it the Avian Flu. The Bird Flu is too common and is a poor man's disease. They changed the name to Avian Flu so that, when the rich start dying from it, they will die with class. :-)

I realize that many of you don't remember squat from US civics class in Junior High School or you would know that the President saying they will use the US military to effect and control quarantines for the Avian Flu is in violation of states' rights. That is, unless one of two things occur. First, the Fed's have to wait until they have been invited in by the local governor before they can respond to a crisis which is why our governors declare significant disasters to be national disasters. This is why I got so mad at the liberal media for lying about the New Orleans human crisis being the President's fault. It is against the US Constitution and Federal Law for the President to step in on a local crisis like that without being requested by the mayor and governor, therefore, it could not possibly be the President's fault and the media either know it or forgot about the US Constitution or were just flat out lying.

Second, if the event poses a threat to national security, then the President can declare a national emergency and intervene without permission from local politicians. These are the only two conditions under which the President of the US can use US troops for locally based problems.

This should tell you something. First, the President was declaring a national emergency but was trying to do it in a manner which would not cause a panic. That means that this country is in a state of national emergency, will remain there until the President declares the emergency to have ended, and is one step away from martial law.

Second, you KNOW the President has already obtained the approval of every governor in the US to intervene with US troops because of the Avian Flu. After Katrina, there isn't a governor in the US who would dare want to be the one who refused prior permission to the President to help quickly quarantine the Avian Flu when it breaks out in their state. It would be an end to their career. Therefore, the deal has been made and they are waiting to go into action.

Third, every top official in the US is terrified to death by this bug!!! Proof? The President, himself, admitted that from a few million to over 150 million people in the US will die from the Avian Flu when it breaks out. Hold it!!! The President said that as many as more than half the people in the US could die from this organism in the next one to two years??? Yep! Are they terrified or what?

Here is a little food for thought. Can the Avian Flu be contracted by a human from bird droppings? Probably because all other flu's can be contracted from bird droppings. That is a very important thing because you don't have to come in contact with any birds to get the disease. If they nest anywhere near your yard, the crap in their nest gets blown into your yard, and you come in contact with the waste material, you are infected!!!

Second, which birds are you most likely to get the disease from? To answer this, you have to remember what I taught you about epidemics and population density in an earlier essay. Basically, the greater the population density, the greater the potential for the spread of the disease and the faster it will spread. Therefore, look in your yard and you will see that the birds you are most likely to get the disease from are sparrows, finches, pigeons, and such common birds OR from their droppings.

Now let's have some fun with some interesting predictions based on science and human behavior. First, all you bird watchers out there, those feathery little critters you love so much are about to kill you by sharing their virus with you. You have been spending hundreds of millions each year for bird feed growing their populations around your houses endangering your family and the families in your neighborhood. How ironic can you get?

Second, over the next few years, most of you will trade in those bird feeders and baths you have been using to bring the critters into your yard for house cats and tall weeds and grass to keep those feathery little critters out of your yard. The irony here is that the primary cause for us now not permitting cats to run wild in neighborhoods is because the bird watchers and their clubs wanting to protect the birds from cats. Having succeeded in ridding most neighborhoods of cats, the bird populations in most neighborhoods have grown to epidemic proportions.

Why the tall weeds and grass? Because birds hate to land near tall weeds and grass especially if there are cats in the neighborhood because the cats can get much closer in tall weeds and grass without being seen making escaping tougher for the birds. I recently permitted my weeds to grow tall enough to hide my cats and put out bird food to see what would happen. I couldn't get the birds to land in my yard no matter how much food I put out. I cut the weeds and the birds swarmed my yard within days because they could see the cats far enough away to escape.

Third, the businesses which will make money from this disaster are companies which make and sell surgical masks, latex gloves, caskets, embalming fluid, flowers, and greeting cards which say, "sorry to hear some one croaked". Now you know where to invest your money knowing that, if you survive this bug, you will be rich. If not, you will get a really great funeral. :-)

An irony here is that the plague which killed the greatest percentage of the global population before this flu was the Black Plague. It is the only disaster in the history of the world in which the global population for humans actually declined and the human population declined by 25% during that plague. This plague is expected to be even more devastating with it being possible for as much as 50% to over 75% of the global population to die within one to two years. The irony here is that the first plague was largely caused by killing off house cats because they were used by witches for some spells and everyone though this meant all house cats were demon possessed, which, of course, they are not. This killing off of house cats permitted the rodent population across Europe and even around the world to explode to epidemic proportions.

Introduce into this horrendous rodent population fleas carrying the Bubonic Plague and you get the worst plague or disaster in human history. Not we have a case where bird lovers have been working to rid neighborhoods of house cats by having animal control kill them off so the bird populations can grow so the bird lovers can see more cute little birdies. Introduce into this horrendous population of birds the Avian Flu and you potentially get the worst pandemic in human history. Will we humans every learn? Nope, we humans are kind of stupid that way! :-)

In order to break the Black Plague, the Europeans made it a crime to kill a house cat and, in some communities, resulting in the death penalty. This plus the high rodent population caused the cat population to quickly grow, which caused the drop in the rodent population, and which caused the plague to die off. Therefore, it is easy to predict that many of you will throw out those bird feeders and get a yard full of cats and weeds to keep those cute feathery critters and their Avian Flu out of your yard, house, and family. But first, millions of you will have to die or burry family members.

My fourth prediction is that many of you will start to cheer for that "bad ole putty tat, Sylvester, to get Tweety before Tweety gives Granny the Avian Flu. :-)

Based on current predictions, if this thing gets even just a little out of hand, we are going to see entire cities and many suburbs turn into ghost towns. If 150 million people die in just the US, every other house will be empty. The larger cities will be most at risk but, if this gets into any small town or village, it could wipe it out before they know what is killing them. You know that entire families will cease to exist.

If only 10% of the US population is killed, that will be 30 million people and one in every ten houses will be empty. Entire suburbs will become ghost towns and be bulldozed with mass graves of cremated bodies to prevent the spread years later in the event that some disaster such as a flood or earthquake should open the graves. They may even burn houses down before bulldozing them. The stench will be terrible everywhere. The government will have to go house-to-house to find the bodies of people who died and were forgotten. They may end up setting entire neighborhoods on fire and watching them burn to the ground before bulldozing them.

Economy? What economy? Think barter.

Then, because we have the best medicine in the world, you should know that it will get much worse in other countries, especially the third world countries which are so poor and have such limited medicine. I expect entire cities to return to nature and even some of the smaller countries to cease to have any known population; much less government. Some continents could lose as much as 90% of their populations, such as Africa, South America, and parts of Asia. This is not going to be pleasant and could be worse for many.

Finally, you should have realized by now that they are not telling us everything if they are so scared. This thing has to be much more advanced and ready to pop globally or they wouldn't be admitting what they have already said and taking the actions they are presently taking. You can bet they are down playing this disaster and it could easily get worse than they are saying it will be. This will get very nasty, no one will enjoy it, kiss your butt goodbye, and hang on because this will be one terrible ride. Personally, I hope I get it early while there are still doctors left alive to treat me and increase my chances of survival. If you wait until most of the doctors and nurses have died, you will be on your own and will be less likely to survive the pandemic. Think about it.