Friday, June 12, 2009

2434 Pandemic

Friday, June 12, 2009

Al Capp: "[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered."

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In a Mensa bulletin board, one person noted that the World Health Organization has raised the swine flu pandemic to the highest level. Another commented that it isn't more deadly than the regular seasonal flu, which results in about 30,000 deaths every year.

A third responded, "The significance of a pandemic is not whether it is deadly at first. It is if it mutates into a deadly form at a time when it is global in nature."

I don't understand that comment.

If it's global, and it mutates, it isn't going to all suddenly mutate in the same way everywhere all at once, is it? It'll mutate in one patient somewhere, and then the new strain will spread from there. The original form being global doesn't matter.

I'm amazed that it's a Mensan board, but not one person has yet smacked that third guy upside the head.

Or maybe I'm missing something.
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