CallumM

Wow. Thank you for posting this, i'm going to post this on my forum too - I hope you don't mind This is rediculous and quite... strange, perhaps even scary. I personally haven't heard such things said with so much passion which maybe makes it even more bonechilling. I myself am white - my best friend is actually black - we (obviously) have no problems with each other's backgrounds and I have to say I don't even think, "oh look, that man is black".. I just kinda accept it. I agree that it all boils down to natural instinct of when we were living in trees, if we study apes, we find they kill and are basically rivals with other groups and will kill each other - I am not saying we should follow our instinct, i'm saying we should be able to overcome them to find peace and a better life. My philosophy is, if you don't harm me, I wont harm you - I think that's the way forward.

I personally feel that political correctness is the response of a phobia regarding insulting somebody and therefore ruining a reputation. I would personally agree with political correctness being erradicated completely from at least England, where I live; I think it is causing more problems than it is solving and is generally making living or speaking very difficult as there is huge potential for insulting someone - most likely extreme hypersensitivity. Colloqialisms such as using "gay" as a derogatory term in the place of "silly", or "stupid", are being challenged more and more now, especially where users and persons are not used to such usages: This leads to more challenges of intention, more arguments insuing from those, and generally more upset. What we could "get away with" a few years ago, we cannot now. I think the world has started to tiptoe around the issues that are so important in the world today leading to the problems not being properly addressed, or in the most appropriate manner, especially if a hard-line approach is desperately needed. That's my take on it anyway

I was wondering what you guys think about the current situation of the Bird Flu threat - it has been a while since the media was wrife with worry and it seems to have subsided slightly. Do you think we are doing enough to prepare, do you think we can prepare? My answer is: Yes, to a certain extent I do think that we should prepare, however there are some fundimental problems with this: When is it going to hit? Where is it going to start? What will be the main carrier? What will the new strain be? How much money can we afford to spend? Are we putting all of our eggs in one basket by "relying" in a BirdFlu pandemic? I feel the first two questions should be easy to narrow down if we just keep a look out, if you remember that dead swan which had AvianFlu and the quick response we had to that. We must assimilate that the areas most at risk will be innercities, in particular Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, and London. There are huge amounts of Pigeons and a huge amount of droppings; these are all present in the major areas of pedestrian traffic and are attracted to people due to the food and litter being dropped. If there was a couple of these Pigeons that had an AvianFlu, whether this was HN51 or any other, it would spread very, very rapidly - droppings coming into contact with people, people cleaning up dead birds outside or even inside people's offices, fluids coming into contact with man, contaminated water supplies from dead Pigeons falling into precipitation roof collectors (our science labs use roof water). This would therefore mean we'd have to erradicate the birds with a mass cull. How would we do this? We cannot catch the birds, they can fly, we cannot. Shooting isn't an appropriate option as there are too many birds. Poisoning their food as potential for an environmental misfire which kills other creatures (such as the small numbers of Parakeet in London and the South of England). We should tackle the Pigeon problem right now! What though, if there isn't a pandemic of BirdFlu, what if it is Measles (this is just as bigger problem as parents have been stupidly refusing the MMR vaccine due to Autism scares) outbreak? Measles is just as bigger killer, and nastier in most cases. Tuberculosis is certainly a disease you don't want to get - it is on the increase. How are we supposed to know what chain of BirdFlu will hit - of course with the warning of other countries (particularly the Far East) - but this still will not leave time for new drugs to be developed, trialed, and certificated. That's my take on it anyhow