What next… 25 April 2009
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, Border Issues, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Mexico.trackback
A man covers his head with a plastic bag amid a sandstorm in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region April 23, 2009. A strong sandstorm hit the region on Thursday, local media reported. [REUTERS/Stringer]
Of course sand storms are as old as… the shifting sands – and the wind.
Things do seem a little extra unstable just now. Who;’s in charge?
***
[W]illiam Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., told Bloomberg that the investigation of the outbreak “has a sense of urgency about it. They are asking us who work in hospitals to go to our emergency rooms and our pediatric wards to gather specimens and start testing them.”
Officials are concerned because of the apparent novel form of virus that is implicated in the outbreak. The “Spanish Flu” of 1918 may have killed as many as 50 million people worldwide. Smaller, but very deadly, outbreaks of flu also occurred globally in 1957 and 1968.
However, Bloomberg reports that Anne Schuchat, director of respiratory diseases at the CDC, told reporters on a conference call on Friday that “We don’t think this is a time for major concern.”
A minor pandemic of no great concern.
Marisacat 
My evening news also identifies Minnesota… with swine flu or suspected sf outbreak.
The children are expected to survive, but we just had a report of two (no update is THREE) children, 1 and 4 and 14, shot at an intersection in the East Bay.
It’s just going to bubble along. Bubble and boil.
No one in the U.S. seems to be horrendously ill, yet in Mexico they continue to die. Mexican govt now says 81 dead, 1300+ ill.
Might be something to it.
Typically, We’re so…. so…. impervious.
How can such a virus make it in to the American orifice against the torrent of secretion normally making its exit?
Surely no ill will befall us.
HUGE cat says hi
Mine eyes are upon you! BIIIG black kitty….
Is that one one of yours?
Yup. He’s just a huge baby. Almost 9 yrs old.
Obaminamiable Feline of yes we meow! fame?
You got it! 🙂
hmm this report was filed this morning. Seems more than “mild”.
I know the AP report was linked to last thread but here it is from Politco’s Whiteboard, Gibbs. Can you imagine the panic at the WH when his personal guide thru the museum DIED.
Whoa Nellie. Call the SG, stat!
people would have freaked the fuck out had obama caught that flu, seemingly out of nowhere. it’s amazing solis died the next day.
EXCEPT there are now three stories, no tilt that I can determine between them, except don’t you think the WH should have the right one?
AP says he died a week later and Mexican news sources say he died of a heart attack….
I say we profess our trust in Gibbs and go with the first story. next day, face down, Schwine Flue.
NYT has a round up piece on the Flew… leaves out all sorts of tidbits that are in regional or smaller venue reporting. During the night, there were reports that NZ has quarantined about 25 people, a school group returning from Mexico …
Another report to the BBC from a local…
Sheer candy, for those partial.
Squirrel nut zippers? Are those like chipmunk ball buttons?
My gustatory recollection is that they’re hell on fillings.
Gotta love the band, though, right? As I used to say to a dog or two I’ve known . . . SQUIRRELS!
Oops, meant to say gotta love the name of the candy AND the band.
Hand it to the old white Tories:
“UK on Alert for Killer Mexican Swine Flu”
Way down the article those lying thieving scurrilous Mexicans are trying to say WE gave it to them. How dare they.
He [Angel Luis Cordova, Mexico Health Sec] said the genetic code showed the virus had originated in Eurasia and could have entered Mexico via Texas or California.
***
It barely got mentioned but once or twice, but up here in the killing of the child in Tracy, the Mexican farm workers who notified the authorities of the suitcase in the drainage ditch were offered the 26K that had been collected as a reward, and turned it down.
too busy living high on the hog with all of that welfare money they take, or something … /channeling Glen Beck fan>
All Sunday masses in Mexico have been cancelled.
wait, I thought prayer was supposed to help?!?!
It’s worked so well in the past …
I can’t believe I live in a country where “serious” people are openly arguing that torture “works” … for weeks/months now.
this is a barbarous nation.
If people want to know why politics is broken and corrupt, they need only look at this “debate” over torture, over whether people SHOULD be tortured, or even if we should TALK about it.
My favorite argument is that “publicizing” it will create more terrorism. Jeebus.
Great minds think a like. Just woke up and getting ready to write a post about “The Debate Americans Shouldn’t be Having”.
Police fire baton rounds at Kent State rioters
The chilluns tested +
Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:
Eight N.Y. High School Students Test Positive for Swine Flu, N.Y. Mayor Says
For more on this and other breaking news go to ABCNews.com: http://abcnews.go.com
***
there was a report (not a blog entry) around during the night that 200 students in NYC/Queens had reported ill with flu symptoms.
they gotta get their stories straight. How many reporting sources are there on contagion? Public Health Service, school authorities, CDC, WHO…
Press conference about the flu on CNN right now ( 9:30 PST)
Wapo:
the subtitle is that the Canadians knew of hte rare strain before we did.
whoops.
Well you just know Napolitano is going to Blame Canada! 😉
You have geese that overfly us and go directly to Mexico and pick up the info.
It has to be stopped. They use our air space. How dare they. Who do the geese think they are.
I think we can charge them as freeloading illegal migrants.
Everybody knows our geese prefer Florida. 😉
amazing what a little socialized healthcare will do.
Heh, my Internet provider (Time Warner) had a total Northeastern outage this morning. It felt like pre-Internet days again! I’m almost sorry it’s back…
As for swine flu, the latest is that the CDC is recommending that U.S. officials plan for school closures. I think they want to put the hammer down whenever it appears.
I think they want to put the hammer down whenever it appears.
I wouldn’t blame them for that at all.. because some of the unofficial admittedly anecdotal from Mexico is very worrisome.
But we waffle about in the dark…
HA! I laughed when I read this. We have no clue what is going on.
There was just a radio news on the hour update that we have ONE case in CA. Last night we had 7… maybe 8. All recovered of course.
There was a CDN news conference today that reminded people that 4,000 people die annually here from the good old-fashioned type of flu. Not to worry (much).
They also said that the US had to declare an “emergency” to tap into resources while we don’t have to do that here to make sure anti-virals can be distributed.
That just reminded me of this: Who Owns the Rights on Tamiflu: Rumsfeld To Profit From Bird Flu Hoax (2005)
northern cal school (nr sacto) closing down this week due to ”fears”… i figured something was coming as for 48 hrs they have assured us here that, ”should anything happen”, we are ready!
Medical Director: Swine Flu Was “Cultured In A Laboratory”
OTOH, one CDN expert described flu strains as being “promiscuous”. They’ll basically mate with anything, according to him.
I was wondering about that, since it seemed like the levels of illness were different depending on region, like it was a test run /tin foil hat>
Don’t be barkers, Madman! Everyone knows that bio-labs are all secure and all their scientists are perfectly ethical, not to mention sane.
World animal health organization is noting that this strain of “swine flu” has never actually been observed in swine, hence they say calling it “swine flu” is incorrect.
Let’s just call it The Plague. What’s a world civilizational collapse without a plague?
Earmarks of a designer virus. Do people think there are not scientists working on this right now? Targeting certain genetic groups….
Oh educate your dumb ass before you shoot your mouth off. Influenza viruses are constantly mutating.
This is utter nonsense. Pigs have receptors in the cell lining of their gut that accommmodate both avian and human strains of flu. That is why the constant migration and intermixing of viruses between all three results in new strains all the time.
The 1918 outbreak affected millions of pigs, but never succeeded in mutating into a real swine virus.
Look to the sewage ponds with thousands of birds nearby.
No pigs have died from this flu. None. That doesn’t mean it was cooked up in a lab. You are engaging in the most irresponsible sort of conspiracy theorizing.
I stand by what I said.
Barking in moderation, I think?
I was at a Mardi Gras Festival today, believe it or not. A charity thing, and funnily enough more people show up and drink more Hurricanes and listen to music outdoors when it ISN’T February here.
It got to 88 in Albany yesterday. Broke a record from 1915 or so.
Thanks!
I also learned a family member attended a tea party and plans to go to a bigger one on July 4!
can you ask him/her to say hello to the Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat for me?
Oh, wait … not THAT tea party?
Well, we were able to share a good snicker about (a) the bipartisan decades involved in the policies being protested and (b) the hats.
There was a massively distracting subplot involving an ex-spouse and its new lover, so,
Sure! Will pass along your greetings!
PS – All of the above also prevented me from quizzing FM about what, in particular, the outrage concerned.
Will report further intelligence, if and as received.
if you’re looking for intelligence, that won’t be the place!
I canceled 2 replies mocking my own current dearth thereof and/or expressing gratitude for any source of immediate, mid, or long-term receipt.
Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
catnip – OTOH, one CDN expert described flu strains as being “promiscuous”. They’ll basically mate with anything, according to him.
Some time back I settled on promiscuous as an apt description of my overweening (more like never weaned) sense of curiosity.
Does that make me viral?
Never mind. Don’t answer that!
Special to ms_xeno – you continue to stand out as Zen lifestyle guru.
Comics are the way to go.
NorCal update… the Sacramento area student who is ill, or was the start case, went home ill a week agp, on Monday. By Friday, 7 were out. (It’s a Catholic school as well… )
Good idea to shut the school.
On Pelosi’s Duplicity and Apparent Sandbagging of Elizabeth Warren
I have been doing escapist things all day.. just silly dumb stuff. And discovered in a google fest that my old law firm dissolved Dec 1 2008. years late is all I can say.
I have been enjoying the months old enmity (naming of asshole partners, still names I know, GAH) and bitterness and truthtelling in the legal blogs. And laughing a lot:
Dishing all the big firms, too. I am so oout of date, reading an old thread, probably the firms dished are gone, or major practice groups are gone or offices are shuttered.
SF is back where it was in ’91, ’92 drowning in empty office space. I sat by a window and was in Facilities, I would peer out over my blooming hyacinths and count the empty floors I could see. Little pair of binoculars at the ready…
These firms shot themselves then they strangled themselves…. then they jumped. After they bled themselves dry of course.
sad how shameless he is … Cramer is on Morning Joe mocking Krugman and Roubini, saying they should stay on the island with Maryanne (ha ha … they’re professors) and that they’re never right.
Wow, it’s pathetic.
he really is a mess. He must be spedning his life pretending Jon Stewart never laid him open.
Next Case: State vs. Federal Power. Justices to Rule if U.S. Treasury Can Shield National Banks From New York Laws.
Sorry IB, out now… apologies for how long it was stuck..
😳
One reason I think there was a hit on Spitzer.
WSJ on NYS appeal to the US Supremes re bank regulations in the mod pod, I think.
BBC’s “Have Your Say” continues to inform…
Too much quoting of official sources on this stuff, not enough on-the-ground reporting.
Too much quoting of official sources on this stuff, not enough on-the-ground reporting.
Precisely…
Crikey – also from the WSJ:
I heard the plane was a replica of Air Force One or something.
How incredibly stupid.
I hope someone got some good video of skyscraper workers fleeing their buildings.
Circling the Goldman Sachs Tower in NJ was an especially poetic touch, no?
LOL…
Photos and witness reactions at the NYT City Room blog.
Mexican health officials having press conference now. 2,000 cases of “serious pneumonia,” more than 1,000 released from hospitals, mroe than 770 still hospitalized… (so…does that mean approximately 230 people have died?)
This hit my in box just now…
But that first doctor from the BBC on the scene comments that you posted a couple days ago, said 200 (+) then. There were also comments from non medical that TV then was saying in Mexico, ”200” but that they were disbelieving, feeling it was higher…
Just heard an update on the radio for USA, they now admit to 40 cases in the USA! USA!
Mexico City just had an earthquake 5.8 on the Richter.
Anyone for re reading Camus?
from a couple of hours ago, as I slept…
Earthquake wasn’t epicentered in Mexico City, thank God. Closer to Acapulco.
That’s all Mexico (and the world) needs, millions of people too afraid to stay in their homes and a flu epidemic going on. Oy!
Bloomberg now saying 45 cases in the Queens incident.
Now they’re reporting a “strong” earthquake has just hit Mexico City. WTF?
magnitude 5.8 to 6.0. What a disaster. Nobody will want to stay indoors in their homes now. Poor Mexico.
it was in guerrero, a fair amount south of mexico city (145 miles), and a 5.8-6 is scary but isn’t end of the world stuff. the big mexico city quake in 1985 was an 8.1, by comparison. something like that would be horrifically bad right now.
Not that it will be up to date, based ont eh BBC page…. but the front page of the NYT has swine flue info… EU has issued a travel adivory to the “US and or Mexico”… (that must chap some hides over here.)
Bizarro pic of the day: looking for fevers
Love this pic.
gnu post
LINK
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