04.27.09
Swine Flue
From xkcd:
And then here’s an interesting take on how to determine the seriousness of the new Sine Flu from Paul Wilmott, the celebrity death test:
It is almost impossible for the layperson to rationally determine the seriousness of any new disease and whether it has the potential to be the next Black Death. I’m thinking of the new Swine ‘Flu…
So I have my own way of determining the seriousness of any new threat to human life, it’s called the Celebrity Death Test, and I hope you find it useful. The way it works is simple, if a Celebrity dies from the Threat then it is to be taken Seriously, if they don’t then it’s probably nothing to worry about. Bird ‘Flu, fine. AIDS, not fine. I can remember when Rock Hudson died, that was the moment when AIDS became real for me. (I’m also a fan of Doris Day, read into that what you will!) You see how it works? It’s just a statistics thing. If a Celeb suffers from it (and assuming it’s not something that has a natural correlation with Celebrity or is self inflicted) then it is statistically significant for the rest of us.