Tracking Avian Where There Are No Roads

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   First this may be a two cups of coffee post. It has been on my mind for several days. 

Sometimes when I post things that are controversial fur begins to fly. It can be low key, it can get a little more heated, and once in a awhile, I get subtle nudges on and offline to back off. This is not to say that I am anything, anyone special, or know or are any more able than any of you to search the net and dig up data. It is simply things have changed in our world and I would like to sit down, one on one with you and talk about it. 

First of all, you have my promise this post will come together into a cohesive conclusion at the end bringing us back to the name of the topic, and the content posted has a connection and relation to conveying a very important idea. This idea, is so frightening to some groups, so uncontrollable, so out of the box, that "it is possible" efforts, serious efforts are in place in many countries, to contain what it portends. 

Okay - enough intro. If you were watching a video or whatever pan to a small Russian village about  15-20 years ago - newscast - guy who snuck in the country with a camera crew, made it past the censors and KGB and with some heavy bribes talked to the locals on camera -and the question was - What do you think of our current adminstration and America? 

Wrapping up a lot of comments. "Scared to death, thought America's leader was a cowboy who was going to bomb all of Russia with nuclear missiles and kill everyone. Lived in constant fear. Envied our toilet paper and not having to buy off the black market off trucks and just going in a store and buying what you needed. This, is what broke the Soviet Union- toilet paper and salt and commodities. People wanted buy toilet paper without standing in a three hour line to get it. 

Well, there is a point to the this story. I can get on my cell phone, dial a number and be anywhere. I don't need a Visa, I don't need clearance to cross borders, I don't have to tell why I am going there, and some news event can be happening and I can get a description of what is happening. Bombs falling in some country - we won't get specific - or - and here is where there are no roads - the Internet. 

Now you may say, sure, but stop and think. Pause. Do you know how much freedom you have here? Sure they are logging your IP, but still once you enter in that great sea that flows around the globe and you get beyond the search engines which are heavily monitored, you are in uncharted country.  

No news media can tell you fibs and until a page disappears, you might get quite an eyeful and information. Or you can talk to a person looking out their window watching an event. We are not going to get real specific here. But bloggers, and they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and especially ability to be accuracte; people on the phone that can take you almost anywhere you want to go and finally (gasp) you get the priviledge of unflitered, uncensored, information. 

That means I can talk to Dr. ........ in Vietnam or Nurse whatever standing next to an Avian patient real time and ask - and believe I have - and I am not a reporter - tell me what you see - first hand. Understand when CNN comes bumbling like a Bull into  an oriental export shop, "Mr Official" is drug out from somewhere. Mr. Official then makes a "statement." As it says as you enter the Chamber of Horrors in London in the wax museum "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.". 

So, sometimes on my posts, you are getting not just a link to some website, you are right next to me, right by that bedside, watching that patient coughing up blood, dying, language being translated by a nurse, and getting "the real deal" - no censorship - no media control - you are researching Avian in the land with no roads and I deal in a rare commidity in these times - the truth. 

I am not on salary. I am not a reporter. My work here, like yours,  is free. And I must stress that I am not alone here. Friendships, the unusual ones that spring up as we post back and forth have sprung up. But here we have power, working together, gathering information, cutting through all the lies and "expert interpretation so we can undestand the concept of" so many dead from what appears to be Avian, or other nasty diseases. We can monitor what does not make it through the media and official statement filter. And we can consider, but not totally swallow like some trusting infant, how the data should be perceived as dictated by "experts." 

Never in history have people, had so much power or access to information which spurts through  cracks of data control. I "talked to" via email people in Nepal. So did Albert and many other users. What happened?

Then  we had people posting from the city itself? No newspaper, but first hand eyewitness, you cannot cover this one up, information.

Suddenly a thread about an unknown disease outbreak focused on something that was embarrassing, like a big spotlight from nowhere. Like opening a kitchen cabinet and all the roaches dart for cover.

Conclusion : 

1) We do have people that post and live in an alarmist world. Personally, although sometime they are "upbraided" for not using more common sense and noting obviously a source is pretty shaky and there are many patterns which we all see a lot and some people having read thousands of posts (like Albert) might get that excited. Opinion, let's not be too hard on people who read something and it messes up their day and they start worrying and buying more water and soup, before reading the fine, and sometimes inaccurated print. 
2) This forum is VALUABLE. We have had our growls and nips, we have had professional snarls on our qualifications to make certain statements or conclusions. I say, if there is an error or something is not as bad as it looks lets look at this in two viewpoints -
   a) There are some who post consistently inaccurate and will soon destroy their credibility. If they get too intense and start attacking others, then their stay here is within the confines of the head of this forum. This is, not the free speech channel. (My opinion) This is  a MODERATED place to post news and events and then, like adults discuss our opinions. 
   b) There are others, and I am developing some serious fondness and respect for a whole lot of people here, not just a few, who really are like a family. Yea, I know, I have this corny part which some find non-scientific and irrelevant to introducting humanity into the sterile world of genetic printouts of sequences. I try, in my humble capacity, and without some agenda or making a cent, to decode all the techie med geek double speak to something even a younger person or not specialized person or lay person can understand. It is a learning process. I am not teaching. We are learning together. I make mistakes. I take my whaps when I miss a stroke or quote, but the truth is the truth. 

I do get snarls from various sources. Most times they are very subtle, but nonetheless in our stomp across borders, through the media, through government official statements, sometimes things leak out. 

Personal thought here - and I have worked with government people and sometimes do even now - be careful how long you hold information in limbo and how long you take to show some trust for Americans and release the "real deal."  No matter what the short term economic or social consequences, a plunge in "surprise - we have Pandemic" will not give people the time or mental space to deal with it. You MUST trust Americans to be grown ups; even children to be grown ups. It is their world, their lives too, are involved here. 

Michigan was an attempt. It was an intelligent move and represents what I see as an evolving inner governement to be more open and keeping the public informed. We have data pouring in now from 48 more states. We have results. People know the score on many things. Yet, we are still not getting the whole picture. Correct me if I am wrong - Michigan, August 14th - its been more than two weeks. 

But this does not make us "alarmists" or "consipiracy nuts" for commenting on the obvious and logical. Let's admit plainly that contigency plans are plans. They are not plots. They are plans and large parts of those "plans" the general public may not like and will not be informed about and it will take a big shovel to dig their way out of it.  

Thanks - those of you who have survived the mini-novel - and even those who got so far and quit and still it made you think. 

It has been said that China hates the Internet. Recent guy talking about illegal steriliztions and so forth was 100% right on track about his allegations. He is in jail now. Red faces. You can only keep people in the dark so long. 

I thought to myself the other day on the one thread Sands put up on the mysterious deaths, it was a taste of things to come. Maybe not that thread, but you and I are making history here. It's true you know. The whole idea that whatever massive official data that is is flooded into the internet, and whether you have to go to search engine dogpile #9 and look at entry 436 - you can find things you would not believe and share them with others here. 

Nothing has stopped. News is just a lot tougher to find. 

Take care all. We are  in this together. As to my byline - I mean that. My efforts to dig for data are sincere and free. We all have X number of seconds in our lives (ever think of that) I mean an exact number of seconds - and then that's it. You have shared with me and we share together sometimes a sizabe number of those seconds.. and I don't think our time and efforts here are wasted. 

So, like in Back to the Future, remember that inventor guy, as the wheels lifted up, he said "Where we're going there are no roads." And how very true that is here. 

Tracking Avian Where There Are No Roads

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