US president George Bush has issued an executive order allowing the forced quarantine for SARS and allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary to decide when a such a quarantine is needed.

The executive order allows for the….

“apprehension, detention or conditional release of individuals to prevent the introduction, transmission or spread of suspected communicable diseases.”

SARS is included with other communicable illnesses such as cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, Lassa and Marburg.

Canadians Stand
Canadians gathered in freezing rain in downtown Toronto today to send a message to Americans. The rally organizers said the rally was not formed to champion the U.S.-led war in Iraq but to show friendship and goodwill between the two countries.

Rally organizer Ray Heard said Thursday that “the silent majority of Canadians” wants to overcome high-profile insults such as a recent aside to reporters by Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, who said, “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards.”

“This rally is to show our friendship for the American people after the insulting language of Carolyn Parrish and the insulting behaviour of certain hockey fans down in Montreal,” Heard said, referring to the recent booing of the U.S. national anthem at a hockey game.

Relapsed Catholic was front and center.