Brad Pitt Narrates PBS Miniseries on Health: "3 billion people live on less than $2 a day... we're doing everything wrong." (Wake up Mr. Pitt!)

"Wake me up Mr. West!"


"Mr. West..."


"Mr. West..."


"Mr. West..."







"Uh-huh, yeah...


Uh-huh, yeah...


Uh-huh, yeah...


Uh-huh, yeah...



Just wanna bling-it, like Ye say,
Ring my celly off the hook,
BOOST my ego, today,
Gettin' greedy 4 pay?
Gettin' greedy 4 say?
Once the needy get speedy,
We be, okay,
So I'm throwin' a par-tay,
4 all, 2 say,
How you wantin' 2 play?
How you wantin' 2 stay?
How much longer, can we stop?
2 feel, this way?
I'm sure, we got dreams,
Forgot, but that means,
We get a chance to remember,
How we felt in our teens,
Not as bad as it seemed,
Thinkin' how we schemed,
Thinkin' how we leaned-on, each other,
When we knew what that meaned,
Now, music alone,
Just helps me, lose it,
Only choose-news,
That makes me feel like I don't, abuse it,
Crews-choose, to feel bad,
Hate how they, confuse it,
Know they wanna lose it,
When they do, it proves it,
See, a Friday nite, means,
A break, from fake dreams,

Thinkin' now's the time to find out...

What rhymin' means...


[chorus]

I heard Kanye say,
Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,
So like Ye, I pray,
And like Jay, I say,
My diamond's gonna shine,
Forever today...


And sometimes the hurt,
Gets me, double-teamin',
Dealin' with my own,
And friends, stopped dreamin',
We all see, the stop-signs,
'Til we stop, for bread-lines,
Gettin' shot, by headlines,
And bought, by deadlines,
Guess that SUV, was a gas, at the time,
So, the colors come and go,
But we still, deceivin',
Thinkin' we ain't goin' slow,
'Til we feel, like thievin',
Forgot who really makes us feel like, believin',
Buy who's sellin' us what's right,
But we ain't relievin',
We all just grievin',
We all just kneelin',
Guess we all, just here,
Until, we leavin',
So, look out, 4 land-mines,
You can find 'em, in prime-rhymes,
The crime, in prime-time,
Ain't truth, like art shine',

I guess we all just payin' our fines...

I know it...


[chorus]

I heard Kanye say,
Nothin's ever promised tomorrow, today,
So like Ye, I pray,
And like Jay, I say,
My diamond's gonna shine,
Forever today...


(And sometimes we forget,
What made us smile, today...
And in forgetting,
We see ourselves, so far, away,
We've got the tools, right here,
To make us, feel, okay...
It helps, if we can stop,
And just press play...)"

- Black Krishna, "Heard 'Em Say" (BKB-Mix)


(...)


BONUS: "Wake up Mr. Pitt!"

This April 2005 photo supplied by WGBH and Nova shows actor Brad Pitt with children in Ethiopia. Pitt narrates the upcoming six-hour PBS miniseries 'RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge.' In the past two years, Pitt has become increasingly involved in fighting poverty in Africa. (AP Photo/WGBH/NOVA,J. Tayloe Emery)

Yahoo! News

Pitt Narrates PBS Miniseries on Health

By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer Mon Oct 31, 9:22 PM ET

NEW YORK - Brad Pitt's voice is usually identified with movies such as "Troy," "Ocean's Eleven" and "Twelve Monkeys" — not a six-hour documentary on global health.

Starting Tuesday night on PBS and ending Thursday (check local listings), Pitt will narrate six hour-long episodes of "RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge," which follows health care workers and researchers struggling to contain disease among the world's poor.

"I've been involved with the issue of poverty — I've been studying it for about a year and half now," Pitt told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday from Calgary, Alberta. "I think one of the major causes of that is health, global health."

Pitt has made several trips to Africa in the past two years, including one in July to Ethiopia, where his "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" co-star Angelina Jolie adopted her daughter, Zahara.

While tabloid coverage of Pitt and Jolie has been extensive, the 41-year-old actor told Diane Sawyer on ABC's "Primetime Live" in June that he wanted to redirect some of that attention to poverty in Africa.

"I think it could be one of the major issues of the century," he told the AP. "There are two things at stake here: one is human interest and the other is self-interest. We're finding out that there's no safe haven from infectious diseases. It's a plane flight away."

"The human interest is enough — the fact that millions are dying from preventable, curable diseases," Pitt said. "But if the human interest isn't enough, then wisdom will tell you that self-preservation is."

He mentioned the Avian bird flu as an example, and said he wondered if AIDS might not have "jumped the pond" if Africa had a proper health infrastructure.

What led Pitt to this interest in poverty?

"I don't know," he said. "To me personally, it goes back to the will to understand and that's what we're lacking most. So I want to educate myself as much as I can to understand the situation, to understand the solutions."

"I've had the luxury of travel and in the luxury of travel, I've seen the detriments of poverty and I've gone on to see how easy the cures can be — cures that cost cents to the richest nation in the world."

___

On the Net:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051101/ap_en_ce/people_brad_pitt









BONUS: "Thanks for the Wake-up Mr. Jones!"


Courtesy of Mr. Alex Jones at infowars.com and his Tyranny Response Team...

CTV News

Dr. David Butler-Jones, Chief Public Health Officer, speaks with Canada AM on Tuesday.

CTV.ca News Staff

One day after officials revealed wild birds carrying the H5 strain of avian flu virus have been found in Canada, the nation's chief public health officer is urging Canadians not to panic.

"The first thing to know is that it's a huge leap for a bird virus to become a human virus that spreads efficiently in people," said Dr. David Butler-Jones, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

"That's just a tremendous leap and very difficult and we likely would actually be able to watch that with the surveillance and have better preparation for it," he said.

In fact, Butler-Jones said that avian flu viruses have been discovered before.

"This really just documents more clearly what we've known for a long time -- that there's a range of avian viruses and that we do see them in all parts of the world, including in North America."

"In terms of the one that most people are worried about, the H5N1 that we see in Southeast Asia, the Americans have been doing surveillance in Alaska -- that's where it would come across."

Meanwhile, a stakeholder is also reassuring that Canada is in a good position to stop an outbreak of avian flu in commercial poultry stocks.

The Canadian Press reported that Chicken Farmers of Canada General Manager Mike Dungate said Canadians learned lessons the hard way last year when testing indicated that the avian flu found on a goose and duck farm near Abbotsford, B.C. was not the H5 variety.

Instead, the 37,000 geese on the Fraser Valley Duck and Goose Ltd. farm were exposed to the H7N3 strain of avian influenza virus. The outbreak caused no major human health problems, but forced the culling of some 16 million poultry.

Dungate noted that the outbreak, which devastated the industry in the Fraser Valley, prompted the tightening of controls on biosecurity and improved communication with federal officials.

On Monday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced that several wild waterfowl in Quebec and Manitoba have tested positive for H5 flu viruses. However, the chance of the strain being the lethal H5N1 type is "likely fairly remote," said Jim Clark of the CFIA.

Health officials in Winnipeg conducting tests on the H5-infected birds won't know whether they have H5N1 until mid-week.

Even if the Canadian birds are carrying the H5N1 virus, it does not mean they are necessarily related to the viruses behind the poultry outbreaks in Southeast Asia.

That strain is behind the avian flu problem growing in Asia, where more than 60 people have died of H5N1 infection transmitted from poultry.

With the strain crawling through Europe as migrating fowl fly westward, there are mounting fears that the virus could mutate into one that can easily spread among humans and thus prompt a global pandemic.

SOURCE - http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051101/poultry_canada_051101/20051101?hub=Health



*** AND ***

CTV News

Sorting fact from fiction about the bird flu

Angela Mulholland, CTV.ca News

Although there's lots of speculation and concern, there's no certainty that the H5N1 bird flu strain will lead to the next human flu pandemic. Angela Mulholland sorts out some of the myths surrounding this frightening possibility.

The bird flu in Asia will soon lead to a flu pandemic

It's impossible to confirm that the H5N1 bird flu strain in Asia and now in Europe will lead to the next human flu pandemic, although it is worrisome. While the World Health Organization says there is no reason yet to panic, they concede that with the virus spreading quickly and its behaviour continually changing, "the probability that a [human] pandemic will occur has increased."

The bird flu has mutated so that it can spread human to human

Although there have been a handful of suspected cases of human-to-human transmission in Asia, they have been rare and require further study to confirm.

According to the WHO, data from these incidents suggest that transmission requires very close contact with an ill person. What's more, none of the cases spread beyond a first generation of close contacts and caused illness in the general community.

If the H5N1 bird flu comes to Canada, a flu pandemic is inevitable

Bird flu has been in Canada before; an outbreak in B.C. in the spring of 2004 caused by the H7N3 strain led to the slaughter of thousands of chickens. It also infected two humans, but they suffered only from mild flu-like symptoms and the eye infection conjunctivitis.

The Asian H5N1 strain has not been found in Canada but even if it arrives, there is still no reason to believe that it will lead to a human flu pandemic. The strain has not mutated to allow widespread human-to-human transmission.

If the bird flu comes to Canada, I should stop eating chicken

The primary way humans can become infected with bird flu is by coming in direct contact with infected poultry and/or surfaces contaminated with their droppings. You cannot get the virus by eating chicken or other poultry or their eggs.

In the very few cases of human-to-human bird flu transmission, the method of transmission cannot be confirmed but likely came by breathing in the contaminated breath droplets from the infected patient, not through food.

Antibiotics will help me avoid bird flu

Antibiotics won't help you avoid contracting either the usual human flu or bird flu. Antibiotics are used to treat infections that are caused by bacteria and are of no use against viruses.

Getting a flu shot now will help me in a flu pandemic

Flu vaccines are reformulated each year to counter one specific virus strain. Since we still don't know which strain will cause the next flu pandemic, it is not yet possible to create a vaccine.

Still, vaccine manufacturers are doing the foundation work to develop a vaccine to H5N1. But even if a vaccine can be developed, it would take many months to mass-produce and distribute. And it seems unlikely that manufacturers will be able to meet demand. That's why more attention is being paid to antivirals as the first line of attack in the event of a pandemic.

As for the flu shot, the regular human flu still kills hundreds of people a year in Canada, so getting the flu shot remians important for those most at risk, such as the elderly.

Taking Tamiflu now will help me avoid bird flu

Tamiflu is an antiviral medication, and while it may reduce the severity and duration of influenza, it is not a vaccination and may not prevent infection.

As well, widespread inappropriate use of antivirals could lead to the development of resistant strains of flu, just as not taking antibiotics properly can lead to more virulent strains of bacteria.

If I can get my hands on it, I should stockpile a supply of Tamiflu

Tamiflu is available only by prescription and is already in short supply. The federal, provincial and territorial governments have stockpiled 35 million Tamiflu pills, says the Public Health Agency of Canada, about enough to treat 3.5 million people. The country's chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Butler-Jones, says some provinces plan to buy an additional five million pills.

Though there have been reports of Canadians buying Tamiflu over the Internet, the federal government wants the top priority for use of the drugs to be the treatment of people hospitalized for flu within 48 hours of the onset of their illness, since the antivirals are not effective after that point. The second priority would be to treat, at first sign of illness, health-care workers and essential or emergency services workers.

What's more, a recent report of a Vietnamese girl with bird flu suggested that Tamiflu may not be the best line of attack against H5N1 in humans. Another drug, zanamivir, sold under the brand name Relenza, may be more effective.

SOURCE - http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051024/bird_flu_myths_feature_051024/20051024?hub=Specials



*** VS. ***

Yahoo! News

Bush Outlines $7.1B Flu-Fighting Strategy

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu.

The president also said the United States must approve liability protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines. He said the number of American vaccine manufacturers has plummeted because the industry has been hit with a flood of lawsuits.

Bush said no one knows when or where a deadly strain of flu will strike but "at some point we are likely to face another pandemic."

The president, in a speech at the National Institutes of Health, said the United States must be prepared to detect outbreaks anywhere in the world, stockpile vaccines and anti-viral drugs and be ready to respond at the federal, state and local levels in the event a pandemic reaches the United States.

Bush outlined a strategy that would cost $7.1 billion including:

_$1.2 billion for the government to buy enough doses of the vaccine against the current strain of bird flu to protect 20 million Americans; the administration wants to have sufficient vaccine for front-line emergency personnel and at-risk populations, including military personnel;

_$1 billion to stockpile more anti-viral drugs that lessen the severity of the flu symptoms;

_$2.8 billion to speed the development of vaccines as new strains emerge, a process that now takes months;

_$583 million for states and local governments to prepare emergency plans to respond to an outbreak.

Bush said a pandemic flu would be far more serious than the seasonal flu that makes hundreds of thousands of people sick ever year and sends people to their doctors for a flu shot. "I had mine," Bush said. Unlike seasonal flu, pandemic flu can kill people who are young and healthy as well as those who are frail and sick, he said.

In asking Congress for money to buy vaccine, Bush said the vaccine "would not be a perfect match to the pandemic flu because the pandemic strain would probably differ somewhat from the avian flu virus it grew from. But a vaccine against the current avian flu virus would likely offer some protection against a pandemic strain and possibly save many lives in the first critical months of an outbreak."

He also said the United States was increasing stockpiles of antiviral drugs, such as Tamiflu and Relenza. Such drugs cannot prevent people from catching the flu, but they can reduce the severity of the illness when taken within 48 hours of getting sick, he said.

"At this moment there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world, but if history is our guide there's reason to be concerned," Bush said. "In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics, and viruses from birds contributed to all of them."

He pointed out that the 1918 pandemic killed over a half million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe. "One-third of the U.S. population was infected, and life expectancy in our country was reduced by 13 years.

"The 1918 pandemic was followed by pandemics in 1957 and 1968, which killed tens of thousands of Americans and millions across the world," Bush said.

Bird flu has been documented in Asia and has spread to Europe but has not reached the United States, the president said. "Our country has been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland and time to prepare," he said.

Bush said the cornerstone of his strategy was to develop new technologies to produce new vaccines quickly. "If a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine online quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain," Bush said.

The principal goal of Bush's plan, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said, "is the capacity for every American to have a vaccine in the case of a pandemic, no matter what the virus is." "There is no reason to believe that in the next day or two or week or month that that's going to occur," Leavitt said on CBS's "The Early Show." But he added that "we do need to be ready in case it begins to mutate into a human transmissable disease."

Pandemics strike when the easy-to-mutate influenza virus shifts to a strain that people have never experienced before, something that has happened three times in the last century. While it is impossible to say when the next super-flu will strike, concern is growing that the bird flu strain known as H5N1 could trigger one if it mutates to start spreading easily among people. Since 2003, at least 62 people in Southeast Asia have died from H5N1; most regularly handled poultry.

The nation's strategy starts with attempting to spot an outbreak abroad early and working to contain it before it reaches the United States.

Today, most of the world's vaccine against regular winter flu, including much of that used by Americans each flu season, is manufactured in factories in Britain and Europe.

The government already has ordered $162.5 million worth of vaccine to be made and stockpiled against the Asian bird flu, more than half to be made in a U.S. factory.

But the administration plan, to be released in more detail on Wednesday, calls for more than stockpiling shots. It will stress a new method of manufacturing flu vaccines — growing the virus to make them in easy-to-handle cell cultures instead of today's cumbersome process that uses millions of chicken eggs — as well as incentives for new U.S.-based vaccine factories to open.

Such steps will take several years to implement, but the hope is that eventually they could allow production of enough vaccine to go around within six months of a pandemic's start.

___

Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051101/ap_on_he_me/bush_flu


(...)


BONUS: "Wake-up Mr. Normal! Would you buy a used-car from this man?"

President Bush speaks Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

(...)


BONUS: "Wake-up Mr. Normal! If you do buy-in, here's how his buddies take your money..."


Monday, October 24, 2005

Back to "Work" - CONFIRMED: Bush Melting Down

SOURCE - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/2005/10/back-to-work-confirmed-bush-melting.html#comments