pigs flying tuesday

[click image for the rest of the posts on this subject]

Moved up from 11am, PDT... and again at 4:45.
I made the mistake of turning on the Alex Jones stream late last night to see what kind of hysteria is flying around with the pig virus, and, well, I need a lot more coffee before I can even begin to express the extent of that [but a tiny sample]. Suffice it to say he seems convinced this is the final clampdown of the "globalists".... I'm on it with the coffee, but, meanwhile, there's been a spray of media pieces that serve to deny the genesis of this outbreak. It may not be the genesis of it, but there is, or was, strong evidence to suspect it, very strong evidence, 60% of the local population sickened around that pig farm in Mexico. They can deny it till hell freezes over, but that can't make false the reports coming out before anyone even heard of this new flu. Don't forget that.

So, again, this will be where I park the links I come across, or dig up, or get left here for me.

Three cases confirmed in Sacramento, nine others tested....

Ann reminds us of the deadly SLOPS pandemic....

Yes, in goddamdeedidoo....

The last great swine flu epidemic that never happened....

Container of swine flu samples explodes on a train....

Gee, what's wrong with all these bozos who think you can catch swine flu from swine? Are they nuts? Or are we a bunch of lying and denying sacks? Which, honestly now, sounds more reasonable to you?

Two more possible cases in L.A.....

LET'S JUST CALL IT THE SMITHFIELD LA GLORIA FLU....

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US flu deaths seen as likely as outbreak spreads
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago

WASHINGTON – More fell ill with swine flu in the U.S. and deaths seem likely as governments around the world on Tuesday intensified steps to battle the outbreak that has killed scores in Mexico.

President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to fight the fast-spreading disease. Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where public life is being altered dramatically by illness.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office was investigating the recent deaths of two men for links to swine flu. So far, no deaths linked to the disease have been reported outside Mexico. And the number of students who have fallen ill at a New York City school hit by the outbreak climbed to several hundred, officials said.

"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection," Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta.

Besser said the U.S. has 64 confirmed cases across five states, with 45 in New York, one in Ohio, two in Kansas, six in Texas and 10 in California.

But states are reporting more illnesses that could be linked to the flu.

New York has the largest number of swine flu cases, with a heavy concentration at a Catholic school in Queens section of New York City, where students recently went on a spring break trip to Mexico.

Several hundred students have fallen ill at that school, city officials said Tuesday.

There also were indications that the outbreak may have spread beyond the school, with two people hospitalized and officials closing a school for autistic kids down the street. Those two hospitalizations are in addition to the five hospitalizations announced by the CDC, including three in California and two in Texas.

"It is here and it is spreading," New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said. "We do not know whether it will continue to spread."

Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where swine flu is believed to have killed more than 150 people. Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities, cracked down even further on public life, closing gyms, swimming pools and pool halls and ordering restaurants to limit service to takeout. Earlier, the city shut down schools, state-run theaters and other public places.

But for all the government intervention, health officials around the world suggested the flu virus strain was spreading so fast that efforts to contain it might prove ineffective.

"Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work," World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global economy.

Obama's request for $1.5 billion in emergency funds would help build drug stockpiles and monitor future cases as well as help international efforts. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the flu outbreak requires "prudent planning" and not panic.

Cuba was the first country to impose an outright travel ban. But the United States and a number of other countries, including Canada, Israel, France and the European Union's disease control agency have warned against nonessential travel to Mexico.

The swine flu already has spread to at least six countries besides Mexico, prompting WHO to raise its alert level on Monday but not call for travel bans or border closings.

Around the world, officials hoped the outbreak would not turn into a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that spreads across a wide geographical area.

"It's a very serious possibility, but it is still too early to say that this is inevitable," the WHO's flu chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, told a telephone news conference.

Flu deaths are nothing new in the United States or elsewhere. The CDC estimates that about 36,000 people died of flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the United States.

But the new flu strain is a combination of pig, bird and human viruses for which humans may have no natural immunity.

New Zealand reported that 11 people who recently returned from Mexico had contracted the virus. Tests conducted at a WHO laboratory in Australia confirmed three cases of swine flu among 11 members of the group who were showing symptoms, New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall said.

Israel's Health Ministry confirmed two swine flu cases in men who recently returned from Mexico. One has recovered and the other was not believed to be in serious danger, health officials said.

Meanwhile, a second case was confirmed Tuesday in Spain, Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez said, a day after the country reported its first case. The 23-year-old student, one of 26 patients under observation, was not in serious condition, Jimenez said.

With the virus spreading, the U.S. stepped up checks of people entering the country and warned Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.

"We anticipate that there will be confirmed cases in more states as we go through the coming days," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday.

On Capitol Hill, a Senate panel held an emergency meeting on the disease.

"Based on the pattern of illness we're seeing, we don't think this virus can be contained. ... But we do think we can reduce the impact of its spread, and reduce its impact on health," Rear. Adm. Anne Schuchat, the CDC interim science and public health deputy director, told a Senate Appropriations health subcommittee.

"There's a lot of anxiety right now across the country," subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said.

"It's important for people to know there's a lot that we can do," Schuchat told Harkin. "The investments that have been made in preparedness are making a difference."

Still, she warned, not only might the disease get worse, "it might get much worse."

"We don't have all the answers today," she added.

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And, in fact, the guy looks beat to shit. He always looks miserable, but he definitely doesn't appear to be a happy camper and probably hasn't slept in a few weeks....


Wayne Madsen goes on Russia Today and talks out his ass just as he's starting to sound lucid.... Somebody should alert the Russians that he has this very serious reliability problem. I love that they are seeking out bloggers for their news, but they are babes in the woods when it comes to identifying reliable sources here. The one point he makes that is cogent is the weird blend of DNAs in this virus. Very hard to figure how that could come about naturally, but the shit about the pigs not being ill with it is just that. A lie, bullshit, horseshit, pigshit, shit. Too many kinds of reasons to lie about that, all of which Madsen's aware of, and too much evidence that it came from pigs, at least in Mexico, to assert that, ahem, again, shit.

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Darling BB2 just sent me this link. It's the main swine-flu page for the Telegraph, and I found it appallingly bereft of anything useful.

This must be getting to me because I shot back:

They're putting out so much SHIT about this now I'm wondering if I should keep going. They've made it impossible to wade through the lies, paranoia, conspiracy theories, insufficient information, half-truths, equivocations, hysteria and failure to define terms that I want to go on a killing spree with my light sword.

FUCK. As I've said before, no reason they should bother clamping down on the internet because they can flood it with so much horseshit we can't tell up from down. The Obama administration VERY seriously appears to grok this concept completely.

That Veratect biosurveillance information was about the most lucid and trustworthy I could find. It comported with reports from Dave and with other accounts on the net pre-dating the alarm bells. Since that is a startup trying to get contracts with the government, they quickly tried to qualify everything so as not to conflict with official reports.

LET'S MOVE TO ICELAND!
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So, well, maybe I'm going to stop amassing links here on this.... I don't know because it kind of took me by surprise how pissed I am about this trainwreck. I'll have to do some jet cooling and see what's left, I guess.