Glad to know our government is finally starting to pay attention to those darn birds

It looks as if the U.S. is slowly taking steps to prepare for a bird flu outbreak:

President Bush signed an executive order on Friday authorizing the government to impose a quarantine to deal with any outbreak of a particularly lethal variation of influenza now found in Southeast Asia.

The power is pretty narrow, but it seems to be a step in the right direction:

Mr. Bush's order added pandemic influenza to the government's list of communicable diseases for which a quarantine is authorized. It gives the government authority to detain or isolate a passenger arriving in the United States to prevent an infection from spreading. The authority would be used only if the passenger posed a threat to public health and refused to cooperate with a voluntary request, the Department of Health and Human Services said.