I try not to think about stuff like this

the plague is not extinct. ... In 1995, a woman in California came down with the plague after she ran over a squirrel with her power mower.

From this weeks issue of The New Yorker.

I know much more than is good for me.

Why does this bother you?

is the mower ok?

where are PETA and the Humane Society when you need them? that evil woman killed a helpless squirrel. i'll bet she was a republican so the plague is too good for her.

All I keep thinking about is Lawnmower Man...

refresh my memory. wasn't Jeff Fahey in that? i don't remember anything but his forever spooky eyes.

I wouldn't know, the movie was crap and completely unrelated to the short story. The short story was maybe a dozen pages and literally had to do with this crazy guy who was mowing a lawn. It had none of that virtual reality bullshit in it.

all that aside, are you concerned about the plague, dar?

yeah.. back to the original topic... the plague is very much alive and well... west of here there are whole colonies of prarie dogs that have the plague...seems they breed fast enough to not all die out. yeah, not so good eh?

maybe we could have a hazmat team relocate them to a suitable location. i have a few major cities i could suggest...

Do you have a link to that story? :confused:

mrnoodle wrote:

all that aside, are you concerned about the plague, dar?

Not in the sense of life altering fear. But I will think about it now, whenever I see a squirrel. In general, I'm a pretty logical kind of guy. So I understand that the chances of my being affected by something like this are so small as to be infinitesimal.

But that won't stop me from thinking about it.

Clodfobble wrote:

I wouldn't know, the movie was crap and completely unrelated to the short story. The short story was maybe a dozen pages and literally had to do with this crazy guy who was mowing a lawn. It had none of that virtual reality bullshit in it.

Right on! I hadn't been so ripped off by a movie in my life. Story was pretty good, but .... short. no where feature movie material. hosed again...

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

Do you have a link to that story? :confused:

I don't see it online, Bruce. It's in the Mar 21, 2005 edition of The New Yorker. The article is entitled The End of the World. It's a review of two books on the Black Death.

OK, thanks. :)

I wouldn't worry about the Plague. I'd worry about bird flu.

It contains eight genes, and the fear is that it will reassemble, swapping one of its bird-infecting genes for a human-infecting gene....

Scientists predict that [avian flu] could be the beginning of a pandemic that could kill millions of people, rivaling the 1918 epidemic that killed 40 million people.

cowhead wrote:

yeah.. back to the original topic... the plague is very much alive and well... west of here there are whole colonies of prarie dogs that have the plague...seems they breed fast enough to not all die out. yeah, not so good eh?

I'm going to more Weapons of Mass Destruction training in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know if there's anything new (or old) and icky to be worried about.

No, I don't actually sleep. Why were you thinking about asking?

Beestie wrote:

I wouldn't worry about the Plague. I'd worry about bird flu.

That link contains a link to this scary story. :eek:

Before you have a heart attack, let me assure you that, two months later, it looks like the nightmare of weaponized super-flu did not happen this time. But the scenario that played out is probably pretty close to what might unfold in a genuine bioterrorism incident, and it reveals critical weaknesses in our global security system--or lack thereof.

New Yorker. Good short stories. The rest well?

New Yorker = cartoons. ;)