Earlier this afternoon, homeland security hottie Frances Townsend graced our television screens, to outline federal government preparations for a possible outbreak of pandemic flu. We were alerted to this development when our traffic spiked, due to Google searches for “frances townsend” and “frances townsend pics.”

The Times offers this account of the federal plan:

Although the federal government will stockpile 75 million doses of antiviral drugs and 20 million doses of vaccine to combat any outbreak of pandemic flu, local governments and individual communities will have to shoulder most of the burden in battling the disease, the White House said today.

Translation: “Good luck, kids, you’re on your own! This is not going to be another Hurricane Katrina, where the federal government gets blamed for everything. Fault your state and local governments instead.”

After the jump, a few more comments on the federal plan (such as it may be).

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