[crossposted, but with followups to sci.electronics.design - go
there if you want to follow the thread. ;-) -- TSC]

All of this hysteria about a pandemic and stuff is based on a
mistranslation! There's no such thing as "bird flu".

What happened was, this little old rural Chinese chicken farmer had a
batch of particularly skinny chickens, with exceptionally long wing
feathers, and one of the roosters, strutting his stuff, flapped his
wings and actually left the ground! Now, everybody knows chickens don't
fly. So, when this Chinese farmer saw his flying rooster, he was really
excited - A flying chicken! It's a miracle! So, he grabs this chicken,
and holds it in front of him on outstreched arms, like an offering, runs
into the village to announce his wonderful discovery, and proclaims, "Bird
flew! Bird flew!" The local missionary/doctor comes out of his hut to see
what all the ruckus is about, the farmer says, "Bird flew!" The missionary
says, "Bird flu? That's going to be a horrible epidemic!" and the rest,
as we all know, is history. ;-)

--
Cheers!
Rich
------
"Stockmayer's Theorem: If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough,
it's damn well impossible."