bird flu from asia?
 

...whoops - everybody looking the wrong way, at the wrong animal. looks like it could be swine flu that scythes its way through the human race...:(

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

I just hope this Swine Flu has got personality...


...for as the good book says...
[VINCENT]
You want some bacon?

[JULES]
No, man, I don't eat pork.

[VINCENT]
Are you Jewish ?

[JULES]
No, I ain't Jewish, i just don't dig on swine, that's all.

[VINCENT]
Why not?

[JULES]
Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.

[VINCENT]
But bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good...

[JULES]
Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie,
But I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfuckers.
Pigs sleep and root in shit, that's a filthy animal.
I don't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces.

[VINCENT]
How about a dog? A dog eats its own feces

[JULES]
I don't eat dog either

[VINCENT]
Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?

[JULES]
I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy, but it's definately dirty.
But, dogs got personality, personality goes a long way.

[VINCENT]
So by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filty animal. Is that true?

[JULES]
We' have to be talkin' 'bout one charmin' motherfuckin' pig.
I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

its an H1N1 strain so it might not be as bad as the media are scaring us with. H1N1 strains have been around for a long time and caused the 1918 pandemic which killed millions. a fair number of the population may have some immunity like me - i've had real influenza twice. Hopefully it won't be as bad as it could be....but the american virologists don't know whether there's any genetic mutations to make it more virulent yet.......

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Sure The Daily Mail will ease our fears.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

FREE!

IN THIS WEDNESDAYS DAILY MAIL......GET YOUR FREE SWINE FLU SAMPLE!


ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

FREE!

DONT WAIT FOR THE VIRUS TO COME TO YOU
THE BEST DEFENCE IS A GOOD OFFENCE!!!

FREE!

ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Each free sample costs £0.50 and loss of life

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

...and next weekend, we're giving away this GLORIOUS wallchart tracing Britain's MAGNIFICENT historic battle against bird flu, a tribute which you and your WHOLE (decidedly white-looking) FAMILY can enjoy...

And the following day: the GREAT SARS PANDEMIC of 2003. How the nation pulled together and did us all PROUD.

In FULL COLOUR.

FREE. Yes.... FREE.

Don't miss it.
In next weekend's Daily Mail.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Has Madagascar closed its port yet?

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Well the governor of Texas needs to make up his mind. First he brought up secession talk on April 15 when talking to the tea-baggers, and now he is requesting help from the feds.

http://www.sanmarcosrecord.com/local...115145845.html

"Gov. Rick Perry today in a precautionary measure requested the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide 37,430 courses of antiviral medications from the Strategic National Stockpile to Texas to prevent the spread of swine flu. Currently, three cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Texas."

-Jason

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Why let the facts get in the way of the good story?

Especially if it means the Mail can print 'Killer Flu on its way to Britain' in inch high letters on its front page and then have a dig inside at how the Government's lack of preparation could leave millions to die.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

It's the media hysteria that's insane - the TV news here in NZ led with a whole bunch of whizz-bang statistics, about numbers of exposed people, who had been where, when they had been there - flight numbers, the number of people being tracked down by health and immigration, the fact that the Ministry of Health was operating at CODE YELLOW- you know the level where "something, somewhere might be being done by someone, and we need to maybe do something about that potentially explosive somewhat" - to paraphrase American Dad - and OMG - there's more planes landing from LAX that have people who may have been somewhere near Mexico - and we cut now to 4 different reporters doing live crosses from outside a. a school, b. the airport, c. a hospital, d. an imposing looking structure - because that sort of conduct is PROFESSIONAL REPORTING -AND THE PUBLIC HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW! RIGHT NOW!! ALL THE TIME!!

WHERE'S THE GRAPHICS GUY WITH THE SCROLLING UPDATE - OF EVERYTHING I'VE JUST SAID!!

And I want the graphics exploding across the screen, in a fireball - you know, like the guys at FOX do theirs - because FFS!! That's real mofo news.

Oh. and 5 minutes into the bulletin - we point out, very briefly and quietly, and the graphic is in the smallest font we can get away with - because it might make us a look a little silly if people actually notice the small fact that....

Not one single person has been diagnosed with swine flu.


It's not just the TV though - here's a headline from the business section of the NZ Herald.

Currency: Swine flu forces dollar lower


Which is outstanding - except that when you read down to the 5th paragraph - you get this - the actual money quote.

you know- the squeeze that happened before the swine flu news broke.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

my current favourite charlie brooker quote is about news graphics - ''it's like watching tron through a kaleidoscope'' :D

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

It's REAL MAN'S news, that's what it is.

Btw, I'm hearing the only way to stop the spread of this outbreak is by plunging a metal spike into the inner cortex of one of the infected. Otherwise, do not approach, I repeat: do NOT approach.

A hanky will also be useful.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

LOL! spot on:D

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Stop everyone from leaving/entering mexico might work..........:p

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

I was told it a "wet" hanky was more effective.

Back during the SARS/bird flu outbreak - there was a run on those 3M paper masks - for people flying to Asia from NZ - chemists were cleaning up.

And you'd see people lining up to check in and boarding the flights wearing said masks. Thing is - if you read the fine print, the masks were only effective at repelling air-borne bacteria/dust/KILLERVIRUSES!!!! for approximately 3 hours.

Which doesn't make much sense - when these potential victims were getting on board a 10 hour flight to Bangkok.

Also - all these potential victims would of course lift the soul-protecting paper mask to their head when their tray of highly ionized food was brought to their seat.

KILLER VIRUS!!! FLYING PIGS!!! HYSTERIA!!

ARMEGGEDON IT.

Where's that one-armed drummer when I really need one?

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/swine_flu.png


http://xkcd.com/574/

In a similar vein - I cooked fajitas tonight - and drank a Corona - will that mean I get sick soon?

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Don't worry, everything will be just swine.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

I notice several cartoonists - such as Martin Rowson and Morten Morland below - are making the link between sick pigs and the sick state of capitalism/fat bankers:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/.../27/rowson.jpg
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...on_530539a.jpg


And hot on the heels of anguished-looking traders, I now give you: anguished members of public with masks.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...ap226longx.jpghttp://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl...k/img/laun.jpghttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...lu_530780a.jpghttp://www.independent.co.uk/multime...co_167862c.jpg

Fajitas and Corona, eh?

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

I'm sure the boy in photo #2 is saying "Fk this".

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Oh dear

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

So .... let me get this straight...

..dont call it swine flu so as not to refer to an animal they already consider unclean...

...instead lets call it Mexican Flu and refer to a whole nation of millions directly.... and effectively call them unclean?

...hmmmm that doesnt insult anybody at all at all!

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

call it "death-ray oogie-boogie monster flu"

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

1000+ cases, population of 25 million. Do the maths kidz.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

If they actually called it this, I would kind of hope I die from it just so that "death-ray oogie-boogie monster flu" could be written as cause of death in my obituary.

The whole swine flu thing is a mountain out of a mole-hill, period. I simply can't seem to care about it at all let alone be freaked out.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Hey hey now, you could do worse.....

....you could be Sting

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Yup. The media routinely tell us 'X people are infected' or 'X people have died' but they almost always neglect to add '...out of Y population'. Although I guess even quoting the population figure would fail to quell the panic when the gut is being bombarded by images telling a more frightening story.

Sure this could turn into a major catastrophe, but lots of things could happen. Telling us something could happen tells us nothing.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

You think you guys have it bad.

WE NOW HAVE CONFIRMED CASES OF SWINE/MEXICAN FLUE IN NEW ZEALAND!!!!

But apparently - as these students who arrived back from Mexico on the weekend, have had the Tamiflu anti-virus, and have been in quarantine for 5 days - they can all go back to school on Thursday.

Yeah - the day after tomorrow. WTF?

And in other news in which hyperbole gets the better of a reporter and a police officer - apparently NZ's roads are akin to the 'Killing Fields'.

Yes, that's right - 13 people dead in car accidents somehow compares to the execution of approximately 200,000 people and the deaths of a further 1.5million.

I despair, I really do.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Aww man... and the hysteria has even got some of my friends involved. I found this in my e-mail today:

/facepalm
























/endfacepalm

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

That's it. I'm buyin' a gun today and camping out on the roof until armageddon is about wrapped up.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Oh wicked man, I'll bring an acoustic guitar and sing folk songs around the funeral pyre!

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

How about a good book burning?

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

and bras!!!!

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Wait... there are cases in Great Britain...maybe some more in Europe... some in China?

I didnt know pigs could fly!

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

oh man... that WOULD suck....

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Oh wait....did we say 152 deaths worldwide from swine flu? We actually meant 7. Sorry 'bout that. And only just now, after 7 whole confirmed worldwide deaths, is the scourge of swine flu finally starting to taper off. Dodged a bullet there....:rolleyes:

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

http://dynimg.rte.ie/0002417310dr.jpg


Here it is guys... CCTV photo of the swine flu virus entering a Tesco and hurting all but everybody in there.....

.... if you see it...beat the living shit outa it!

ITS DANGEROUS! (i am told)

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

yea - I keep going from being totally paranoid about this... then I stop for a second and realize, I have much bigger things on my plate right now and I really shouldn't waste the mental energy

but what I will say - is that I am generally a bit paranoid about getting sick. Not that I'm afraid of going to the hospital, etc (when I was little my dad (who's a doctor) would take me on rounds) - it's just more about the fact that I ALWAYS seem to get sick

plus it doesn't help that the ENTIRE art department at the University of Iowa now shares one big structure (it's a renovated "Menards" - a hardware,etc type store) ... and guess how many bathrooms there are?

ONE

and there's already been "a bad bug" that went through our printmaking department (which is what I do)

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Daily Show.

Snoutbreak 09

'Nuff said.

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

Ha i love the comment underneath it, as if from behind enemy lines or something

"I"m living in Mexioc City. we are fine"

Re: bird flu from asia?
 

well when i tried to get some information on swine flu by phoning the NHS helpline,............all i got was crackling:p















and apparently one of the swine flu symptoms is that people act rasher............