Flu: The Book and some thoughts

Last night I *finally* finished reading this book: Flu; The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. The last third of the book was less interesting to me than the first part. It followed the stories of many assorted researchers who were trying to recover live virus from bits of frozen bodies that had been buried in the permafrost layer of the northern tundra, or bits of viral genes from samples of lung tissue that had been saved in blocks of parafin by military doctors.
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CNN has lost what was left of my respect

I caught the 2nd half of the Republican presidential debate tonight. I could not believe the way that Ron Paul was treated by the questioners. They offered him no respect whatsoever, cutting him off before he could get half a reply out, and didn't even offer him the opportunity to speak much of the time. CNN was showcasing the McCain & Romney show, and a show it was. McCain was sitting there smug in the knowledge that those incumbent scoundrels are scheming to get him in next. His smug grin started to irk me just as bad as Shrub's leer does. I'm starting to get really scared that McCain will be our next president. Romney is a pretty boy and did really well with the Reagan question, but otherwise he's a loser. And imagine the races----McCain against a woman, or McCain against a black----plus the advantage of alliance with the cheaters running the voting machines----McCain's a shoo-in. Holy SHIT. It's going to take a revolution to turn this train around, and I am certain it won't be bloodless. The only plus note on this debate: Ron Paul got the biggest applause of the night when he brought the Iraq war duration question back around to the more fundamental question of when and how we go to war, with or without a declaration, and with or without justification? Whatever happened to real foreign policy debate? I want to think that there's hope, but tonight it appears to me that true debate is dead. Not happening. Not going to happen. CNN be damned. Politics is just a TV show.