Bird flu breaches E.U.... kind of.
A parrot with avian influenza, which I call "bird flu" for short, died in Great Britain on Thursday, according to CNN.
British officials are declaring the U.K. still "disease free," since the bird apparently got the disease in Suriname, from whence it came, and was in quarantine the whole time it was in Europe. Let's not split hairs. Europe's got the bird flu.
Bird flu is just the latest barbarian at the gate, and it's more ammunition for the "deeper not wider" Europeanists who do not want any more states permitted into the Union. The E.U. doesn't have bird flu yet, though, or at least it didn't until the U.K. got it.
Think about where the bird flu is:
Several Asian countries - none of which, of course, are in the E.U.
Russia - that's the reason they're not in the club.
Romania - an E.U. applicant country... it's on the path to acceptance.
Croatia - ditto!
Turkey - oh man, this doesn't help their attempt to join the E.U.
Speaking of Turkey, a turkey (not a Turk) was suspected of dying of bird flu in E.U. member-state Greece, but the AP has reported that the latest tests do not show bird flu.
So what is the E.U. to do, to keep the bird flu at bay?
The solution, as Pat Roberts would have us believe, is a bird-proof wall around the current E.U. states, and to not allow new members. Furthermore, suspicious member states such as Greece (which was found to have altered some of its financial standings to earn its membership status), might need to be kicked out of the club, as some have long argued anyway.
Another note: Great Britain doesn't use the Euro. So perhaps only the monetary union is flu-proof??
###
On another note, at the top of the afforementioned CNN.com story is another great CNN photo, apparently via the AFP:
Caption: It is believed migratory birds are spreading the flu. Here they appear in Milan.
Well, hmm. The article doesn't mention migratory birds too much. It discusses poultry and parrots, neither of which really flies transcontinentally, except as cargo. And Milan? Not even in the article. You mean CNN, or the AP or AFP, doesn't have anyone in the U.K. who can take a picture of a bird?
It looks more like a dirty ski slope, anyway. And what's with the window frame or whatever on the left side? Crop? They should have just had one of their loopy graphic artists do a parrot/radioactive symbol/EU flag image.
But that's easy media criticism, and not substantive writing.
British officials are declaring the U.K. still "disease free," since the bird apparently got the disease in Suriname, from whence it came, and was in quarantine the whole time it was in Europe. Let's not split hairs. Europe's got the bird flu.
Bird flu is just the latest barbarian at the gate, and it's more ammunition for the "deeper not wider" Europeanists who do not want any more states permitted into the Union. The E.U. doesn't have bird flu yet, though, or at least it didn't until the U.K. got it.
Think about where the bird flu is:
Several Asian countries - none of which, of course, are in the E.U.
Russia - that's the reason they're not in the club.
Romania - an E.U. applicant country... it's on the path to acceptance.
Croatia - ditto!
Turkey - oh man, this doesn't help their attempt to join the E.U.
Speaking of Turkey, a turkey (not a Turk) was suspected of dying of bird flu in E.U. member-state Greece, but the AP has reported that the latest tests do not show bird flu.
So what is the E.U. to do, to keep the bird flu at bay?
The solution, as Pat Roberts would have us believe, is a bird-proof wall around the current E.U. states, and to not allow new members. Furthermore, suspicious member states such as Greece (which was found to have altered some of its financial standings to earn its membership status), might need to be kicked out of the club, as some have long argued anyway.
Another note: Great Britain doesn't use the Euro. So perhaps only the monetary union is flu-proof??
###
On another note, at the top of the afforementioned CNN.com story is another great CNN photo, apparently via the AFP:
Caption: It is believed migratory birds are spreading the flu. Here they appear in Milan.
Well, hmm. The article doesn't mention migratory birds too much. It discusses poultry and parrots, neither of which really flies transcontinentally, except as cargo. And Milan? Not even in the article. You mean CNN, or the AP or AFP, doesn't have anyone in the U.K. who can take a picture of a bird?
It looks more like a dirty ski slope, anyway. And what's with the window frame or whatever on the left side? Crop? They should have just had one of their loopy graphic artists do a parrot/radioactive symbol/EU flag image.
But that's easy media criticism, and not substantive writing.
posted by bp at
2:52 PM
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