My girly is a vet student (just about to finish) and as you could imagine the Bird Flu is a hot topic. She says that the flu was transmitted to humans in Asia where people were raring cocks for cock fighting. Now these people were advised to suck the mucous from the bird nose and that would remove the illness from the cock and it would fight better, eg no longer suffer from lathergy associated with flu like symptoms. That is how close you need to be to contract it. So far it has been transmissable only from bird to human but if it mutates to go from human to human then things will most likely go pear shaped for people of the world and then probably the travel industry.
Some local council fool in Sydney suggested the only way to protect the public from the thousands of pidgeons was to round them up to make pies like they did back in the war. Idiots, the country is neing run by idiots.
As for the Asio alert threat, it is all a matter of good timing for political gain, they all do it.
Wonder what this nonsense is gonna do to QF recruitment. Bird flu scare, security scares and A380 delays? The guys that got in this last year could be the last for a while maybe?