Wow. That's encouraging. But he has a point...after all we've seen of this government's ability to handle crisis...maybe I should start stockpiling bottled water and tuna.

It is disconcerting to read that from a government official, but, otherwise, it's good advice in general. Any disaster could hit. Where I live it's snow storms we try to be prepared for.

You've stockpiled 6 months of food, water and ammo. You've built an impregnable perimeter. You've got a concrete hole in the ground with a door you'd need a tank to blow.

But the apocalpyse never came. This time though, you're ready for anything, Hazmat suits, flamethrowers, Cipro, anything those undead brain eating zombies can throw at you.

Okay, his advice to start stockpiling makes a lot more sense than me waiting for the Federal government to drop sandwiches on my house but I can't ever recall being told to hide food under my bed before. Clearly the man doesn't have any pets, or pests either, for that matter. (To my Irish Setters anything on the floor, including under the bed, belongs to them -- if it's not edible, it's a toy. If it's a can of tuna, it's a doggie hockey puck.)

Well I guess all of us pet owners will just have to remember not to eat everything in our cupboards. And if you have a problem with ants you should probably find a better hiding place for that extra bag of sugar.

I saw Leavitt -- I think it was Leavitt -- on CSPAN a couple months ago on this same topic, and what he said was basically that there will be many Superdomes, in every city in the US, and that the Federal Gov't isn't prepared to deal with all of those situations on a rolling basis.

This implies, to me at least, that there's some kind of quarantine plan if/when bird flu hits.

With a 50% mortality rate, you can't expect people to live long under Superdome-condition. So one would expect the army would be required to keep people sealed in at the collection points.

My guess is that the Bush administration will declare an epidemic even if one doesn't exist. But I've been saying that for the last four years.

Tuna under the bed won't help against the flu.

It might help when Iran retaliates for our next illegal war against a muslim nation, though.

Remeber the Reaganoid who said we could survive a nuclear war by digging holes in the back yard? This must be the equivalent for a pandemic. Actually, I do stockpile food every summer for the Florida hurricane season, buying an extra box of non-refrigerated items in June and using them after November. But I'll be damned if I can figure out how cans of tuna - or any other groceries - are supposed to be a substitute for antiviral drugs, hospital facilities or effective measures to contral contagion.

Maybe what he meant was that we should be stockpiling cans of chicken soup.

Mercury poisoning in the tuna! Yummm. Just what I wanted to stave off the flu. Rats under the bed fighting with the ants and roaches for the powdered milk, oatmeal, and sugar? How appetizing. What, no duct tape to fasten the cache to the floor? Our venerable secretary is slipping. Surely, he might have thought of duct tape, since we all have so much of it left over from the orange and red alerts.

It's not surprising to see incompetence again, but it is surprising to see it presented so brazenly, only a short week after the Dubai Ports World debacle. Is the entire cabinet in a competition to see who can look the most incompetent?

Being a native of Utah, it doesn't surprice me one bit that Mr. Leavitt would suggest this plan. It is a mainstay of Mormon life here that people stockpile food. Kinda gives you a weird insight into the mindset here. Also makes me wonder just how capable ol' Mikey is at handling his current job. Just imagine the results if Mitt Romney were elected.

Tuna and powdered milk aren't options for me, so as a vegan it hurts to see I am being completely ignored by the government's detailed emergency planning. Ah well, at least I still have some duct tape left.

That's not surprising, Erik, now that we know that the FBI has been investigating vegans. And apartment dwellers can't take that Reaganaut's advice to dig a hole in the ground. In either case, the disaster would eliminate the surplus of people who aren't "real" Americans.

I also see an attempt to spin the health crisis the way David Brooks tried to spin the government's non-response to Hurricane Katrina: government can't help you anyway, so why not let us drown it in a bathtub?

So, buy more tuna and powdered milk becasue of [insert latest fear:] avian flu threat. Key Bush Admninistration officials and friends must have taken advantageous tuna and powdered milk investment positions.

...doesn't it make more sense to stockpile NyQuil or something?

Given that a flu is a virus and we already know there are seriously insufficient supplies of antivirals to treat a pandemic, and regular antibiotics do not affect a virus, I say keep yourself alive by treating the hell out of your symptoms. Stockpile your Sudafed (you're gonna need to anyway, the government now only lets you buy a little at a time), your expectorants, your chicken broth, your bottled ginger ale (when you're too sick to keep any solid food down, that stuff really does work to keep you hydrated and with a minimal amount of energy)... but don't waste time on cough suppressants because they don't work. Get liquid adult Tylenol to soothe your throat for when you've ripped it up coughing too much. Stockpile ibuprofen for your muscle aches. And so on. If you live in a city it would probably help to line up a place to go that isn't in a city and a plan for getting there -- pandemics will spread much faster in a city. Even the burbs will be better, and rural areas are the best, assuming you're not already sick (don't go anywhere if you are, you already have it and you'll just spread it.) A mutual help pact with friends would also be good -- even if you're married, you can't necessarily guarantee that you and your spouse won't be sick at the same time and unable to care for each other, so agreeing with friends that in the event of pandemic you guys take care of each other when sick, if needed, would probably help.

Relying on over-the-counter meds to help you survive a pandemic sounds ridiculous, but I can guarantee you your odds of survival that way are better than if you rely on the Bush Administration to save you.