Leslie's Omnibus: Drive-Bys

Between the zombie swine flu and this latest -- a zombie pub crawl -- it appears I've managed to scare Shovel Boy right out of the country!
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Ear Worm of the Day:

(Via Jimbo.) Right catchy, that.
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William A. Jacobson once more gives me the giggles:

It's quite a start for Specter's career in Democratic politics, isn't it? In the four whole days he's been a Democrat, Specter has voted against the Democratic budget, rejected a Democratic measure to help prevent mortgage foreclosures and preserve home values, announced his opposition to the president's OLC nominee, and this morning rejected a key centerpiece of the Democratic health care plan.

For years, Republicans criticized Specter as a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. As is turns out, at this point, Specter appears intent on literally being nothing more than a DINO -- Democrat In Name Only. Specter doesn't want to do any of the actual work involved in being a valuable member of his new team, preferring to vote exactly as he used to, only now with a different letter after his name in parentheses.

You get what you pay for. Heh.
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Paul Vallas has quietly been exploring a run against the Toddler for Chairman of the Cook County Board. This would be great news for those of us who live here.

Vallas is a git 'er done kind of guy, and has a great reputation in the Chicago area. If anyone could break Stroger's stranglehold on the county, it would be Vallas.

"Clearly, county government is broken, and you just can't do a patchwork approach. I really think that you've got to dismantle and reinvent county government. You've got to deconstruct it before you can reconstruct it," Vallas said on WGN-AM 720.

Makes a girl all tingly at the thought.
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Looks like Google's going to have some BIG competition:

Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts.

The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.

How cool is that?
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Think I'm the only one who's worried about our Chicken Little president?

We take a lot of things for granted in this country. Our health and wealth are, in comparison to the rest of the world, very high. But it ain't forever. Nothing is. A movement towards a new stoicism would not be out of order in a country running scared from a few folks with scratchy throats from an exotic flu bug.

If you cry wolf enough, you not only alienate those looking to come to your aid, you fool yourself into thinking you have been confronted with a real danger. Then, when a true threat presents itself, not only do you have no one at your back, you yourself are not prepared.

Is America prepared for real danger? After a week or so of swine flu hysteria, the prospects do not look promising.

Exactly.

And it's not just the president. I kind of get the feeling that the World Health Organization has been preparing for a pandemic for so long that it'll do just about anything to be able to put its plans into action -- including creating a pandemic panic where none should exist.
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Giggle of the Day: