wash your hands

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[Okay, I moved this up from noon because I added so many links and a couple new paragraphs over the course of the day. If I'd known I was going to fall in, I'd've waited to post it, but... well... sorry if I've made you check too many times. I've lavished a new image on you to compensate for the aggravation. I swear I won't add any more to this post now.]

WE ARE NOW TALKING ABOUT A DECLARED PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY AND THERE ARE A LOT OF LINKS IN THIS POST. MORE AND MORE KEEP COMING, SORRY. SO IF YOU ARE COLORBLIND, LOOK FOR THE UNDERLINES TO FIND THE LINKS, AND IF YOU ARE EARLY TO THIS POST, WHICH YOU AREN'T ANY MORE IF IT'S MONDAY, COME BACK FOR MORE. JUST DON'T PANIC. DON'T PANIC. PANIC IS STUPID AND PANIC MAKES YOU STUPIDER THE LONGER YOU PANIC. JUST KEEP YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES AND COMPLETE STRANGERS INFORMED AND STAY COOL.

If you can't wash your hands thoroughly soon after being in public, like if you work or can't stop playing with everyone, make sure to use waterless hand sanitizer frequently. Flu bugs get on your hands and then into your body when you rub your eyes, pick your nose, suck your thumb, take a pill, eat french fries or chips, screw with yer contacts, etc.

Old Uncle Dave, a darn lucid old hippie who has been a close friend for over thirty years, says he has it on reliable authority that there are FAR more deaths from this in Mexico than are being reported. The figure he heard was at least 200 dead of it in ONE hospital. That might be from someone with hysterical relatives in Mexico, but it might also be from someone with medical professional relatives in Mexico. So bear it in mind. [And see the comments to this post for more information.]

White House Press Briefing on C-SPAN
HHS
DoD
White House Jumping in with Both Feet to Avoid Torture Prosecution Talk
DHS
CDC
Don't Miss the WIDGET!

All of this found while searching for *'s plan to lock us all up and hand the government to Karl Rove in case of pandemic flu....

Download DHS Preparedness, Response and Recovery PDF

Or, if you really want to obsess on it....

Then your bases should be covered. Just don't forget that death in a flu pandemic still doesn't excuse failure to prosecute torturers, war criminals and Constitution shredders.

Just don't freak. Okay? This might be horrible on a massive scale and freaking, losing track of reality and sensibility and morals in your fright, only makes it worse for the whole world. Stay alert and calm.

HR 645, National Emergency Centers Legislation, PDF

Steady.

Dr Cordova said the virus had mutated from a strain that infected pigs. The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

This would seem to indicate to me that either we've been grinding up sick bird and pig and people parts for feed, with absolutely no monitoring to prevent it, viz. *'s non-administration policy, or our laboratories have been screwing up accidentally on purpose, per our worst nightmares, viz. *'s actual administration. Whutever. Global warming can have created new inter-species-mutation-avid viruses that like to pick up DNA everywhere they land. It just isn't going to help if you lose yer cookies over it.

I'm practically perspiring in awe of Obummer's speedy redirect of all links concerning *'s scary pandemic management machinations to the White House Blog. It's dazzling. So, well, you know they've been very hard at work shutting down access to that scare-mongering information about the government being shunted to Rove or Rahmbo for the duration....

They have been hyperventilating about this for years now, in case you haven't noticed, and it's eery how well they rapped down the scenario for us, five years ago.... And they are really capitalizing on our anguish over the knowledge that it was our own anthrax used to kill us shortly after 9/11.... All of which makes it stranger it wasn't mentioned when announcing it is a new flu strain that has never been seen before.... Even weirder, thinks 99, that Texan Dr. Carlo should say it isn't necessarily the same as what's happening in Mexico. Right! Mexicans are in daily contact with swine and we're not? Sheesh. He's a liar and he thinks we're jackasses.

Are we?

Don't be.

I have a number of theories flying out of my head and dancing around the room over this, and I have to now mention that they all rock: evil climate crisis solution [aka depopulation] and fascism institution conspiracy; mad scientist; failed attempt to cap Obama in Mexico, or Obama's failed attempt to cap Calderon; mad terrorist; sadistic Texan; and natural anomalies... or, the military has finally had it with civilian government... and, frankly, who could blame them at this point...? It doesn't so much matter what did it... if it's even done... at this juncture, where the cat is already out of the bag, the horses already out of the barn, right now. Right now, what matters is washing your hands frequently, getting in the habit.

People suffocate to death from plastic sheeting and duct tape, okay? So use yer head: wash your hands.

A very good resource for this mess....

23 April

Veratect issues notification to additional public health authorities in two states. Veratect reaches out to the Pan American Health Organization emergency operations team but is unable to establish contact. Veratect notes no publicly available English language reporting from ProMED, HealthMap, FluNET, CDC, ECDC, or WHO about the unfolding events in Mexico. Many of Veratect’s clients, including Canadian, ask why an alert has not been issued by the US to sensitize their healthcare community.

From a very informative timeline of events back a few posts at the Biosurveillance blog, which you might want to read. This startup biosurveillance firm, Veratect, seems to think the outbreak started near La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico... from a pig farm operated by a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods... a global operation....

So. Well. Maybe you should think about cooling it with the canned ham. I mean, that really could be why people who haven't been near pigs or Mexico are coming down with this new flu strain. I know the fascists will be extremely reluctant to mention this possibility, but the pigs that seem to have made the local Mexicans ill were slaughtered, butchered, canned and shipped off all over the world, maybe all from right there in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico. That very seriously could have something to do with it....

Carroll's Foods, wholly owned by Smithfield, owns that Mexican pig farm.

Well, and, if I could come up with this thought, so late into the game, don't tell me no one in the administration thought of the possibility.... I'm not hearing them mention this information at all. Which could mean they are avid for a big flare-up of hysteria, and we all know why they'd be that avid, or they are dumb as posts, or I am. They say they can't understand why it's so much worse in Mexico than everywhere else. Well, if flies from the infected entrails and manure are the vectors, the locals would be getting a much stronger hit than someone hundreds or thousands of miles away who might be getting it from specks of La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico pig dirt in their canned ham. I'm talking the sanitation or lack thereof in the canning of these hams, which likely is done on or near site, not the cooked ham itself. They are saying you can't get the swine flu from eating pork, and that seems reasonable, so long as it's cooked, but it doesn't cover the canning of it... which almost certainly is not being monitored carefully, anywhere, let alone in Mexico, given the known and now long habituated disinclination of our FDA and USDA to actually test these sorts of things.

Okay, let me be graphic, here. What if the guys shoveling diseased pig entrails or dung, were swatting away the flies hatched from it, wiping them off their sweaty brows and going home and kissing their wives, or going out and laughing and scratching with their buddies at the bar after work, and those are the 200 dead bodies in ONE hospital that poor doctor was emailing his relatives about? What if the flies born from these awful things are all over the canning factory? All over the equipment and cans, inside or out? A La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico fly speck on a can of ham could very easily get on the hands of a woman making deviled ham sandwiches for a bunch of kids in New York. It's not a strong enough viral load to kill them like back at the farm and its environs, and everybody coming into contact with those people, but it could be strong enough to give you the sniffles, make you feel like crap.

I could be completely off down one of my garden paths and it is * on a post-presidential bender, run amok with phials and phials of bioterror he just thinks is tequila. You know no virus will EVER kill him. They've laid down so many firewalls against biohazards in him and, besides, what self-respecting virus could bear it in his veins?

After listening to the press briefing, I am reminded of a big distinction between myself and almost everyone I know. Where their information conflicts with that which I've already found elsewhere, I am certain our government is lying. I do not believe anything they tell me anymore, even about a damn public health issue. And, you know what? You're crazy if you do.

But, wonder of wonders, somebody at groupthink is giving you some sound advice.

Wash your hands.