The Government warns us to wash our hands when we sneeze but not about a much more dangerous hazard.
News Flash! Epidemic sweeps the nation — 25% of people in New Hampshire have tested positive for this disease, 30% in Alaska, 27% in Ohio. In fact, almost every state in the nation has a quarter of its population testing positive for this deadly disease. Deaths attributed to this epidemic are staggering: heart attacks, strokes and even cancers are stemming from this epidemic, there is no realistic end in site. Why is this not reported to us on the news? Why are we not issued alerts on each news update on how to protect ourselves from this worldwide killer?…
Article comments
26 - Lumpy
Why is it any of Maureen's business or the governments if I want to eat twinkies and sit and watch TV until I die of a heart attack?
Shouldn't I have the frewdom to live and die as I choose? I pay a shitload for health insurance, I'm not going to be a burden on anyone so get the fuck away from the minifridge by my barcalounger.
27 - Clavos
Clavos--it is more than labeling etc. It is so much more than that.
So are you saying you want to legislate against eating certain foods?
I think we tried a similar idea once in the past, it was called Prohibition. It didn't stop people drinking, but it did make a lot of people rich smuggling and selling illicit liquor, including JFK's father, Joseph P. Kennedy.
And we certainly have had a lot of success legislating recreational drugs out of the schools and out of the hands of children.
I have no problem with keeping Mickey D's and the like out of the schools, or with educating people better, but trying to legislate the problem away is just plain foolish, and will only create far more problems than it will solve.
And it would probably be deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
Your seat belt analogy doesn't work, because while it's true that the inclusion of seat belts in cars was successfully legislated, their use, as a practical matter, despite laws mandating their use, still remains a matter of choice, and many don't use them.
Oh, and BTW: I think you meant extinct, not instinct.
28 - Baronius
Maureen, I've got no problem with food labels, and with healthy school lunch programs. If that's all you're proposing, fine.
29 - zingzing
ruvy: "zing, I have no desire to be anywhere near the United States - it will be hard hit by the pig flu, very hard hit, and your contemptuous attitude will disappear as you start to fear for your life. So enjoy your contemptuous attitude while you can."
the flu kills more people daily than this thing has killed. i'll worry about the good ol regular flu rather than this, until i know different. right now, it's just a news story.
"Oh, by the way, since you are an "anonymous" commenter here - you never post a blog site, or post articles - if you do drop dead for some reason or other, there will be no "RIP" for you here, like there is for "Mr. Real Estate" the late John Rudd."
[Edited] i have no idea where you get the balls to say such a thing. and, since you know so much, go ahead and look up my name on here. i do post articles, but you're too fuckin far up your own ass to even check before you spew out your hateful bile. seriously, you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself how you ended up this way.
ever heard of karma? ever heard of being a decent person to other people? ever heard of the golden rule? get help, before your hatred eats you alive.
30 - zingzing
yeah, edit what's OBVIOUSLY true.
31 - Christopher Rose
Sorry, zinger, truthiness doesn't carry an exemption, no matter how obvious.
32 - Dr Dreadful
What escapes Ruvy, in his eagerness for the Apocalypse, is that a pandemic doesn't have to be deadly. Aside from Mexico, where there seem to have been a number of exacerbating factors, this H1N1 outbreak has so far been quite embarrassingly mild.
Yes, it is the same virus that caused the 1918-20 Spanish flu pandemic (which Ruvy would doubtless have found great fun), but then again this particular pathogen has caused dozens of other outbreaks in the intervening time, some deadly, some not.
What is of concern is that a lot of serious flu pandemics started out in the spring as mild outbreaks before disappearing and returning the following fall and winter in a much filthier mood. Then again, others didn't. I just can't be as confident as Ruvy is that this particular one is the one that does for us. Recall that he had high hopes for the bird flu as well, and look how that turned out.
All we can do is be vigilant and, if necessary, quarantine that bridge when we come to it.
33 - Clavos
All we can do is be vigilant and, if necessary, quarantine that bridge when we come to it.
Chris, in the interests of maintaining our standards for humor, would you delete that, please? :>)
34 - Dr Dreadful
Chris, in the interests of maintaining our standards for humor, would you delete that, please? :>)
I'm sorry, was my quip of too high a standard?
;-D
35 - Clavos
Touché, Doc.
36 - Bliffle
You win, DD.
37 - STM
We have a great low-carb beer ad in Australia, where half a dozen Aussie air force transports fly over a US town and drop our carbs crated up on parachutes to "people who really appreciate them ... Americans!"
It's must-see viewing :)
This ad has recently been on prime time TV Down Under.
38 - STM
Here's another one in the series that's been running
Don't be offended America, it's just a bit of fun at your expense.
We take the piss out of ourselves too.
39 - Jordan Richardson
People overeat because it's pleasurable, and label packaging won't change that.
Incredible oversimplification. Nobody here is arguing that label packaging will change obesity and nobody is arguing that it is the ONE solution to unlock these thing once and for all.
This is the same logic that had people jumping all over Obama for suggesting that people ensure their tires were properly inflated (rawr, how dare he tell me what to do!! rawr, rawr, rawr!). It is ONE step out of many. Creating awareness about what's really in the food we eat is neither objectionable nor a violation of anyone's freedom to get fat. It is, however, a perfectly good way to provide information to people who might want it and, in some cases, people who might need it.
Cigarette packages have had warnings for decades -- and people still smoke.
People do, like me for instance. But you know what? Less people smoke because people began to find out how bad for them it really was. Again, information is power.
When UHC kicks in, refuse to pay for treatment for illnesses like diabetes.
I would never be that cruel. I would, however, begin to suggest spreading more information about options, exercise, and the like. Sometimes all it takes is for people to be informed and to be given the tools to act properly.
Beyond your natural cynicism, Clavos, I'm wondering if you actually do oppose such labeling on food and beverage products? If so, why? After all, you state it makes no difference so it really shouldn't matter either way.
Why is it any of Maureen's business or the governments if I want to eat twinkies and sit and watch TV until I die of a heart attack?
Who exactly is suggesting that you won't or can't have the opportunity to do so?
I pay a shitload for health insurance, I'm not going to be a burden on anyone so get the fuck away from the minifridge by my barcalounger.
Same repetitive, fear-based nonsense. NOTHING in this article suggests that there's a reason to hold the position you do. Nobody "from the government" is going to come and take away your Twinkies.
Honestly, all this article suggests is giving people the option to have healthier choices in food and learn what exactly goes into their foods with comprehensive information and education.
Why is this being treated like a loss of freedom or some sort of objectionable idea?
40 - STM
Gotta love Americans. Couldn't resist ... here's another one, (my favourite)
41 - STM
How Australia sends its carbs to the U.S. as a gift to Americans from their mates Down Under.
42 - Jordan Richardson
That last one is great! It's like a carb terror attack!
43 - mar k
Forget about government involvement; the question is, why are our entrepreneurs pushing poison?
Must be part of that 500,000,000 or bust thing, I guess.
44 - STM
Jordan: "That last one is great! It's like a carb terror attack".
Speaking of which, the Aussie Not-So-Big Mac story finally got a run yesterday.
I'll try to get a PDF and shoot it over.
It might well have been on our website on Saturday (it's now early Sunday here), but I'm not sure.
I'll have a check tonight when I'm done and keep you posted.
45 - Baronius
Since we're talking about food in Australia...
Pardon the digression, but a friend of mine was in Australia recently and saw that they have Outback Steakhouses. How is that possible? Don't you guys consider the chain an insult?
46 - Clavos
Re #44:
Here's the Big Mac story...
47 - Ruvy
you never post articles
My apologies, zing. I checked the writers' list and lo and behold, you were listed with a series you seem to have dropped, "The Other Listening Room", the last article of 8 having been published in 2008.
So you have posted articles here. Live and learn.
I take back what I said and apologize, at least about not getting an RIP here. You will, if the site lasts so long.
Obviously, I was wrong, and ought to have checked the writers' list before making the assertion I did.
Please forgive me my oversight.
48 - Ruvy
What escapes Ruvy, in his eagerness for the Apocalypse, is that a pandemic doesn't have to be deadly. Aside from Mexico, where there seem to have been a number of exacerbating factors, this H1N1 outbreak has so far been quite embarrassingly mild.
I'm not dying to see the Apocalypse (pun intended). That's a Christian concept that you can all stuff in whatever dark hole you desire - so long as it's far away from me.
What doesn't escape me is two points. The Spanish Flu presented itself just as this one has - in the spring, with a very "mild" phase. In that deceptively mild first phase, few died, though many were infected. It was the second two phases that killed about 50 million people in just a few months, starting in October, 1918.
While I do not desire to actually see such a plague strike the planet, a believer in G-d cannot escape from the idea that He holds us to account for our behavior. Plagues are one way to hold people to account. There are others.
The other thing that does not escape me, is that the declining moral standards of the United States, the leading "culture" on the planet, is bound to bring retribution from an angry G-d seeing His basic concepts mocked and thrown into the trash by the population of Europe, and much of the United States, led by sick bastards who poison their own populations for profit. Maureen Johnson has covered one aspect of that poisoning, the systematic poisoning of food.
There are many others - sexual tourism, rampant exploitation, pornography, terrorism, the attempt to split the Holy Land, to mention just a few.
So, there will be an accounting. Those responsible will be forced to pay - and those who allowed those responsible to gain power (however that is meant, political, corporate, media) will also pay.
So, DD, you can laugh your ass off all you want. An accounting is coming. The accounting may not come this October, with the arrival of the flu season. But come it will.
49 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy,
Your two points don't escape me either. In fact I noted the first one in my own comment. The thing with viruses is that they're weird little bastards and the great likelihood is that this one - which is the same strain that caused the Spanish flu - will return in the fall but won't do anything much. It could, of course.
Probably, though, nothing will happen. Probably. It would be equally likely that another, completely unrelated virus comes sneaking in from left field, decides it would be fun to undergo a lethal mutation and steal the swine flu's thunder.
Your second point about the accounting is well taken, too - although your hypothesized motive power is a bit different than mine. We know that a reckoning is coming - much as the climate change skeptics wish that it wasn't - we just don't know the scale of it.
Too many in the 'Western' world go about their lives as if time was standing still and the Earth was bottomless. I'm trying to start living without that assumption, but it takes a lot of thinking about, so deeply ingrained is our material, disposable culture.
So I'm not scoffing. But neither do I pretend to know any more about the future than science can reliably predict. I am somewhat amused, therefore, notwithstanding your protestations to the contrary, at your seizing on every promising crisis as a herald of Our Doom.
50 - Political Common Sense
Obesity's strain on health care is only a valid argument if you believe health care is a right. Health care has never been a right. Healthcare for my family and myself is my responsibility. Others health care is theirs, and they have no right to my income for care due to accident, illness, or self induced diabetes. That is waht personal responsibility is really all about.
51 - Dr Dreadful
Obesity's strain on health care is only a valid argument if you believe health care is a right.
Why?
Is the number of cars and their strain on the road network only a valid argument if you believe driving is a right?
52 - Ruvy
Probably, though, nothing will happen.
Where do you get your data to make such claims, DD? Mine comes from Recombinomics Corp. Curious Jews want to know....
53 - STM
I had two comments lost last night answering Baron's query about the Outback Steakhouse. I reckon your mate is telling porkies (pork pies = lies = little fibs).
I've never seen one here, mate, and never advertised on TV and this city id the Big Apple of Oz so this is where they'd be if they were here ... but I reckon any fake Aussie stuff (especially from America :) would be strung up by the proverbials, horsewhipped and then run out of town.
We DO have steakhouses though (some of which actually ARE in the Outback), although they don't serve the kind of carb nightmares the Outback chain does.
However, next time I'm on the other side of the very big ditch, I'm up for it.
Of particular interest to me is Outback's "Bloomin' Onion", which a mate in NYC reckons you have to try ... at least once.
Also, thanks Clav for posting that Maccas story for the boys to see.
Came up all right in the end, and actually got a decent run in the paper.
Once again, thanks for your help, everyone.
54 - Ruvy
The Outback Steakhouse is a second rate joint, Stan. I've eaten there with the wife and kids when we lived in St. Paul.
I asked the wife about the place; "Wasn't that sort of an Australian place?" she asked uncertainly. Reminded of it, she remembered the Bloomin' Onion and she had a big smile on her face. My oh so wise 17½ year old said, "they probably just deep fry the onion in a French fry rack". But I wasn't impressed with the place.
Oh well. There is just no accounting for good taste....
Of course, we didn't do the pork pies....
55 - Ruvy
There was one good thing about the place, Stan. It didn't stink from sheep.
56 - zingzing
stm: "Of particular interest to me is Outback's "Bloomin' Onion", which a mate in NYC reckons you have to try ... at least once."
your "mate in nyc" needs to go out to better places. i'm in nyc, and i reckon everyone should try lsd at least once.
well, it's better than a fucking bloomin' onion, i can guarantee that. mmm, visions are tasty.
57 - Ruvy
By the way, DD, this is a commentary from Recombinomics head, Dr. Henry Niman, as of 2 days ago.
From his commentary:
The parallels between the 2009 pandemic and the 1918 pandemic are striking; Both began as a mild infection in the spring and targeted previously healthy young adults. In the fall of 1918, the virus was much more deadly, leading to the death of 20-50 million people, most of which were previously healthy young adults.
......
At this point, there is little that will stop the spread prior to widespread use of an effective vaccine, However, the large reservoir of swine H1N1 in a human population, involving the northern hemisphere where the virus has little completion by seasonal flu, and the southern hemisphere, where the swine virus is displacing seasonal flu, raises concerns that when the new vaccine is ready for the 2009/2010 season, the swine H1N1 will have evolved away from the vaccine, as it adapts to its new host and natural immunity in its new host.
I suggest you read the entire piece, as well as the supporting evidence from the days and months prior.
Yup: probably, nothing will happen. Yah sure - you betcha!
58 - Clavos
The Outback Steakhouse is a second rate joint...
Hugely successful, however. A few years ago, as they were growing the Tampa-based chain, their stock was one of the hottest on the market.
59 - zingzing
ruvy, what about the numbers 1918 and 2009 do you see? oh, huge amounts of medicinal and scientific breakthroughs? wow. forgot about those.
you keep pointing out that the 1918 outbreak greatly resembles the 2009... thing, but you never point out that those years are so incredibly different in every other way.
how do you think the state of science and medicine will play into all of this? what do we know more about now than we did almost 100 years ago? how have our treatments for these things been updated?
why don't you think about those things instead of gleefully masturbating to your coming imaginary apocalypse? it's kind of off-putting to watch you do that.
60 - zingzing
clavos: "Hugely successful, however. A few years ago, as they were growing the Tampa-based chain, their stock was one of the hottest on the market."
there's no accounting (haha) for taste (hoho).
seriously, that place is disturbingly bad. i went to one years ago and they would only make my steak medium well. no medium. no rare. no nothing.
outback--we'll burn your meat.
61 - Clavos
Remember the words of Mencken, zing...
62 - zingzing
i remember them.
63 - STM
What, you can't get a medium-rare at this joint?
I'm out.
64 - Ruvy
how do you think the state of science and medicine will play into all of this? what do we know more about now than we did almost 100 years ago? how have our treatments for these things been updated?
The rest of your comment is not worth consideration, zing.
We understand a lot about the critter that kills people, and all of his friends and relations. We know how to track the bastard. And we know how he kills folks.
And that's the problem. The only weapons we have against these critters are prayer, cleanliness and vaccines - in that order. The vaccines are effective - but only against specific viruses. If the virus mutates away from the virus it was at time "n" say, when the vaccine was developed and given the quickest testing regimens we have, we're SOL.
That understanding comes with increased knowledge of the virus - an increased understanding of how viruses evolve and recombine.
As for the problems we've seen, a lot can be toted down to bad nutrition. The deaths we are seeing in Mexico - even with this "embarrassingly mild" version of the flu - can probably be traced to the general malnutrition Mexico suffers from (sorry Clavos, I don't mean to be dissing your homeland).
Everywhere else that this flu has struck it has only produced "mild" numbers of fatalities, with all of them but one on the American continents - so far.
There have not been enough cases of swine flu in India, Thailand, Indonesia or Pakistan (places where malnutrition is a problem) for us to see deaths yet.
There have been over 100 cases in Israel (as of Monday's Arutz Sheva reports) and that number will only go up as there are close ties between the Jews in the Americas and Israel. The Americas are exporting this stuff to us along with Kellogg's Cornflakes, Tasters Choice, and Post Toasties.
Looking forward to October, if the piggy flu has the "Spanish" accent it appears to, the number of deaths will be mitigated to a degree by the higher nutrition and cleanliness levels in developed countries in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East and East Asia.
BUT, since the critter kills by using the body's own immune system against it, the higher immunity levels in more devloped countries will take more casualties - if a viable vaccine cannot be developed in time.
That's the catch, zing. The vaccine has to be viable against the critter doing the actual infecting and killing, not the one around a few months earlier. Vaccines are being developed, and damned quickly. But will they be the ones needed a few months down the line?
Only G-d can tell us the answer to that. And my hunch is that He ain't talking.
65 - Bliffle
Clavos states:
#61 - Clavos
Remember the words of Mencken, zing...
Which words? Mencken wrote many words, and many aphorisms, as well.
Perhaps you mean:
"A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers."
"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup."
"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."
"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."
You might want to mull this one over:
"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."
Mencken was quite clever and a very good writer. You might want to actually read his writings someday.
66 - Clavos
So sorry you couldn't figure out to which of Mencken's aphorisms I was referring, bliffle, but my comment was actually addressed to zingzing, not you, and apparently zing DID know, so no harm, no foul.
You might want to actually read his writings someday.
Good idea!!
I never thought of that!
[/sarcasm]
67 - Easy Healthy Recipes
I appreciate the passion you feel in regards to knowing personal tragedy and how it afflicted your close friends.
68 - Willow
Obesity is not caused by overeating; it is caused by salt sensitivity/fluid retention in vulnerable people. These include children.
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