< giggle >
Well, I’ve been to Wyoming for a convention and tourism, and I’ve never been to Louisiana. That was pre-West Nile, though.
We have reports of West Nile Virus up here too. I’m not too worried about it, but I could be in de Nile.
Sheesh, you guys are tough. 
Can I be on the food committee? Here’s a recipe for cookies on the biting-edge (thanks to Larry Clifford of Arkansas):
Mosquito Chunk Cookies
In a sauce pan, boil 1/4 cup molasses, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, and 1/4 cup freshly netted mosquitoes for 90 seconds. Pour into a greased cookie pan, let cool. When hardened, break into pieces and add to your favorite cookie dough (Toll House is a nice recipe). Bake as usual.
Yum, insecty goodness!
Coda to memo:
Nix him from the refreshment committe also. :eek:
[mind boggles at visualizing kind of place where one would go to net mosquitos in measurable quantities]
Memo to samclem: brachy is a “her”, not a “him” 
Here’s some beer, a LOT of it for samclem.
Oh and some teriaki shrimp on a skewer.
Brachy? Are you married? Ya wanna be? Oh hell, let’s just shack up- anyone who can make such a cross-discipline joke is incredibly sexy in MY book, no matter what these low-brows say.
What the hell was THAT? I’m up WAY too late, obviously.
We’ve been instructed not to call the Health Department if any dead birds have been found in a zip code that is already listed. I’m in one of those zip codes. We’ve been told to scoop 'em up in a bag and dispose of them ourselves. They said they wouldn’t even come out for at least a week or so even if it’s not a listed zip, so those people are still to scoop 'em up and save 'em.
(you definitely don’t call animal control!)
Oh, I’m sick too, by the way. Flu-like symptoms: high fever, feeling sorta wheezy and achy. My daughter had a rash about a week ago, then a fever blister popped up on her lip. I’m guessing we had something else, but who knows? I’m not too worried about it since I’m already feeling better.
I know West Nile virus has been around a while, but I’ve read about the yellow fever epidemics. They seemed pretty mild the first few years, but then suddenly one year killed so many people. I wonder if that could happen now. And I wonder what happened with yellow fever…what happened to it anyway? What was it, malaria? Eh, you see I’ve read, but didn’t retain much. :smack:
As far as I can tell, the flu kills more people every year. I’m also fairly certain that I’ve had WN. At the time, quite a few cases were reported in my area. One day, I came across a bird that appeared to have fallen out of the nest before it was quite ready to fly. My heart went out to it, and I took it home.* I picked up a fine cage at a thrift store and supplied it with food and water. It died in under 48 hours. Then, I got the flu-or something with very similiar symptoms.
I was going to make a "I Had The West Nile Virus And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt" shirt. But, then the Anthrax scare started and it seemed to be in poor taste.
Brachyrynchos- I would also like to ask for your hand in marriage. Brainy women drive me wild.Allow me to quote one of the world’s great love poems
"Elipse of bliss, converge o kiss divine!
The Cyberiad draws nigh,
And the skew mind cuts capers like a happy haversine
I can see the eigenvalue in thine eye.
I can hear the tender tensor in your sigh.
Bernouli would have been content to die,
Had he but known such cos A[sup]2[/sup] 2 phi !"
- My research on caring for the bird revealed that my action was unnecessary and illegal. Many birds go through a developmental stage in which they leave the nest before they can fully fly. State and/or federal laws may prohibit you from interfering with local wildlife.
Dear Ms. brachyrynchos,
It has recently come to our attention that you are not a man(but you probably already knew that). We accessed your homepage and, if the picture is truly yours, we further declare that you ain’t too hard to look at.
Should you tire of all these brainy types in this thread who are wooing you, feel free to e-mail me. I am seriously considering putting you back on various lists for a dopefest, compromising my principles.
I remain, with an achy-brachy heart,
Yours,
Sam
Well gosh. Lightnin’, DocCathode, and samclem, you guys are making me blush! Fourier flutters of the heart aside, I’m just a low-brow biologist (even worse, an ornithologist yoicks! ). You have me speechless.
Almost.
Rushgeekgirl, the problem of non-reporting has been pretty distressing to a number of us. Some of the decisions to not report dead birds come from local authorities. It seems to come from a “head-in-the-sands” approach that if you don’t find dead birds in an area, then you don’t have virus. The best way of not finding dead birds is not to turn them in. The problem with this is, of course, you either have virus in an area or not regardless of whether birds are tested or not. The larger problem is that some mosquito control agencies base their control on the reports of dead, positive birds. CDC’s recommendation on mosquito control in light of positive birds was based on a perimeter around the dead bird site and the likelihood that crows would be dying on territory.
The other reason why state public health doesn’t test more than a certain number of birds in an area is cost. I believe the cost here in New Jersey is $15 a sample (I could be wrong, but that is the cost for mosquito samples). Public Health tests both birds and mosquito pools, which will run into the thousands of samples. At some point in the season, just about every crow that is turned in was found to be positive. (But that’s here in New Jersey where we’ve found virus throughout the state - the situation may be different in other states.)
I’m not very familiar with yellow fever, but malaria was the reason why mosquito control was state-mandated here in New Jersey at the beginning of the 20th century. Mosquito bed nets were actually required by law in Newark. The Meadowlands are a big mosquito breeding site - hell, all of New Jersey is. Like my grandma used to say (about Minnesota): “There’s not a single mosquito here. They’re all married with BIG families.”
<crickets chirp>