The United States is now nakedly exposed to contingent events for another 3.5 years, until Bush leaves office.  Mediocre Republican minds and a philosophical antipathy to government intervention underpin this situation. Intelligence and planning will not be applied to anticipate and ameliorate future diasters; we just have to sit back and absorb them.

What will be next?  My sense is a pandemic, possibly involving the much-talked-about bird flu virus or a variation.  The flu vaccination fuck-ups last winter and the general Republican hostility to science and good government point to this.

We’ve still got 3.5 years to go.