Who needs Michael Crichton when we've got Avian Flu Epidemics?

From Wednesday's NYT:

Tests performed in Japan have identified that country's first human case of avian influenza and four other cases that are almost certainly the same ailment, a World Health Organization official said yesterday.
The organization, a United Nations agency, has said it is deeply concerned about the possibility of the virus, A(H5N1) , mutating into a lethal new virus and causing an epidemic that, at worst, could rapidly sweep the world.

Speaking of Michael Crichton, George Will had a really ludicrous op-ed about his latest book in WAPO a few days back. Will appeared to be using Mr. Crichton's novel as evidence that global warming is a complete myth. I wonder if he is aware that novels are, um, fictional, and that Michael Crichton, though bright, is not a climatologist (or a paleontologist, or a virologist, or a primatologist). Will points out that Crichton has "lots of real scientific graphs, and footnotes citing journals such as Progress in Physical Geography and Transactions -- American Geophysical Union." Well then, whatever he says must be true, right? Cause footnotes and graphs couldn't be used as a literary device in the service of verisimilitude, right?

Even more hilariously, Will goes on to write that "Crichton's subject is also how conventional wisdom is manufactured in a credulous and media-drenched society. Various factions have interests -- monetary, political, even emotional -- in cultivating fears. The fears invariably seem to require more government subservience to environmentalists and more government supervision of our lives." Of course. That's exactly what is happening in government today. Environmentalists are terrifying us with stories of global warming, all for financial, emotional, and political gain. Which, of course, they are reaping, in spades.

Finally, my goodness, Will compares the book to one by Ayn Rand, and it's meant to be a compliment. Poor Michael Crichton. With friends like these, who needs enemies?