$575,000 Skycar for sale on UK website..with 8 videos!!

I'll wait for the cupholder that's big enough for my supersized coke. but it doesn come with a tapedeck and bose audio.

wonder what the folks over at pimp my ride will do.

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Mystery behind numbers in "Lost" solved?

here ya go! now you don't have to go and watch the show anymore. everyone is just on vacation. it all makes sense now.

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AN EPIDEMIC

OF THE LIKES

WE HAVE NEVER

SEEN

MAY HIT THE ONES

WE LOVE!!!!

and what i mean by the ones we love is, of course, our dogs...(you like the News at 11 type urgency in the headline!!! scared you for a moment, didn't i? i mean, i totally put a spin on that...making it seem like i was talking about people, but when i was really talking about us dog owners...hence "the ones we love", as in "man's best friend"...whom we love...man, i can't believe you fell for that. i totally thought i couldn't get that one by you. but i did.)



alright, well here's a little diddy about doggy flu...



Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

September 22, 2005 Thursday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Column 1; National Desk; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 869 words

HEADLINE: New Dog Flu Virus, Deadly and Contagious, Is Detected in 7
States

BYLINE: By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. and CARIN RUBENSTEIN

BODY:


A new, highly contagious and sometimes deadly canine flu is
spreading in kennels and at dog tracks around the country,
veterinarians said yesterday.

The virus, which scientists say mutated from an influenza strain
that affects horses, has killed racing greyhounds in seven states
and has been found in shelters and pet shops in many places,
including the New York suburbs, though the extent of its spread is
unknown.

Dr. Cynda Crawford, an immunologist at the University of Florida's
College of Veterinary Medicine who is studying the virus, said that
it spread most easily where dogs were housed together but that it
could also be passed on the street, in dog runs or even by a human
transferring it from one dog to another. Kennel workers have carried
the virus home with them, she said.

How many dogs die from the virus is unclear, but scientists said the
fatality rate is more than 1 percent and could be as high as 10
percent among puppies and older dogs.

Dr. Crawford first began investigating greyhound deaths in January
2004 at a racetrack in Jacksonville, Fla., where 8 of the 24
greyhounds who contracted the virus died.

''This is a newly emerging pathogen,'' she said, ''and we have very
little information to make predictions about it. But I think the
fatality rate is between 1 and 10 percent.''

She added that because dogs had no natural immunity to the virus,
virtually every animal exposed would be infected. About 80 percent
of dogs that are infected with the virus will develop symptoms, Dr.
Crawford said. She added that the symptoms were often mistaken
for ''kennel cough,'' a common canine illness that is caused by the
bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria.

Both diseases can cause coughing and gagging for up to three weeks,
but dogs with canine flu may spike fevers as high as 106 degrees and
have runny noses. A few will develop pneumonia, and some of those
cases will be fatal. Antibiotics and fluid cut the pneumonia
fatality rate, Dr. Crawford said.

The virus is an H3N8 flu closely related to an equine flu strain. It
is not related to typical human flus or to the H5N1 avian flu that
has killed about 100 people in Asia.

Experts said there were no known cases of the canine flu infecting
humans. ''The risk of that is low, but we are keeping an eye on
it,'' said Dr. Ruben Donis, chief of molecular genetics for the
influenza branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
which is tracking the illness.

But with the approach of the human flu season and fears about bird
flu in Asia, there is much confusion among some dog owners who have
heard about the disease.

Dr. Crawford said she was fielding calls from kennels and
veterinarians across the country worried that they were having
outbreaks.

''The hysteria out there is unbelievable, and the misinformation is
incredible,'' said Dr. Ann E. Hohenhaus, chief of medicine at the
Animal Medical Center in New York.

Dr. Hohenhaus said she had heard of an alert from a Virginia dog
club reporting rumors that 10,000 show dogs had died.

''We don't believe that's true,'' she said, adding that no dogs in
her Manhattan hospital even had coughs.

Dr. Donis of the disease control centers said that there was
currently no vaccine for the canine flu. But he said one would be
relatively easy to develop. The canine flu is less lethal than
parvovirus, which typically kills puppies but can be prevented by
routine vaccination.

Laboratory tests, Dr. Donis said, have shown that the new flu is
susceptible to the two most common antiviral drugs, amantidine and
Tamiflu, but those drugs are not licensed for use in dogs.

The flu has killed greyhounds at tracks in Florida, Massachusetts,
Arizona, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas and Iowa. Tracks and
kennels have been forced to shut down for weeks for disinfection.

In Chestnut Ridge, north of New York City, about 88 dogs became sick
by early September, and 15 percent of those required
hospitalization, said Debra Bennetts, a spokeswoman for Best Friends
Pet Care, a chain of boarding kennels. The kennel was vacated for
decontamination by Sept. 17.

About 17 of the infected dogs were treated at the Oradell Animal
Hospital in Paramus, N.J., where one died and two more were still
hospitalized, a staff veterinarian said.

The Best Friends chain owns 41 other kennels in 18 states, and no
others have had an outbreak, Dr. Larry J. Nieman, the company's
veterinarian, said.

In late July, at Gracelane Kennels in Ossining, N.Y., about 35 dogs
showed symptoms, said the owner, Bob Gatti, and he closed the kennel
for three weeks to disinfect.

About 25 of the dogs were treated by an Ossining veterinarian, Glenn
M. Zeitz, who said two of them had died.

''The dogs came in very sick, with high fevers and very high white
blood cell counts,'' Dr. Zeitz said, making him suspicious that they
had something worse than kennel cough.

A spokesman for the New York City Health Department said that there
were ''a few confirmed cases'' in New York but that the city was not
yet tracking the disease.

Veterinarians voluntarily sent samples to the Animal Health
Diagnostic Center at the Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine,
which was the only laboratory doing blood tests.



URL: http://www.nytimes.com

LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2005

Holy Crap! Family Guy gets 22 more episodes!

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hi de!

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ok, been doing this for about 45 min now...and still on level 3. and i know what it says...but i just don't know what it means

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