Ever notice that when Obama and Company want to pull a fast one, that:

IT'S AN EMERGENCY!!!!!!

Wonder what Rahm has in mind.

(Edit: Spam cleaning in progress)

Cleanup on aisle 2 - a PETA rep barfed up his bean sprouts...

Too late for me. I already had it, and it wasn't that bad. I slept for 4 days, coughed some, and hallucinated with a fever for a bit. No big deal. This is the same thing as the SARS scare. All you need is some Sudafed, chicken soup, and Sprite.

hsr0601:"I think the most dangerous food is meat as it destroys humanity and leads to wars and destroys all ultimately."

Funny, the most dangerous food in the US last year (number of people sickened and killed) was uncooked sprouts and greens...

Never let a crisis go to waste.

As far as the 'national emergency' goes, I'd almost think that Obama will call for a temporary suspension of the elections in November - after all, people don't need to be exposing themselves to conditions where the flu might be spread easily.

No, we need to all stay home and have our 'betters' look out for us. And we ought to stay off computers, also - no telling what viruses and worms might be going around!

Microbial Katrina? The flu's a virus, dipwad.

Dipwads take note:

President Obama Saturday declared the H1N1 flu a national emergency, clearing the way for legal waivers to allow hospitals and doctors offices to better handle a surge of new patients.

It's an administrative step.

Given the way many of you clowns defended Bush's disastrous handling of Katrina it is obvious why you wouldn't appreciate this action (or in the case of the author - have a basic understanding of the facts) but it's just another step needed to prepare the nation for the coming H1N1 pandemic.

Now go kiss a pig.

Vic

More for the dipwad squad:

U.S. President Barack Obama has declared 2009 H1N1 swine flu a national emergency, the White House said on Saturday.

The declaration will make it easier for U.S. medical facilities to handle a surge in flu patients by allowing the waiver of some requirements of Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs as needed, the White House said in a statement.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that swine flu has become widespread in 46 of the 50 U.S. states, a level comparable to the peak of ordinary flu seasons but far earlier and with more waves of infection expected.

Obama signed the statement on Friday night.

The White House statement said the declaration was intended to prepare the country in case of "a rapid increase in illness that may overburden health care resources." It was similar to disaster declarations issued before hurricanes hit coastal areas.

"It's important to note that this is a proactive measure -- not a response to a new development," an administration official said.

Preemptive. Can't have that. Let's wait until afterwards then declare it an emergency - BUSH-STYLE.

Was this post anything more than a childish attempt to stir up more hate?

Vic

"Was this post anything more than a childish attempt to stir up more hate?"

Hey DIPWAD, to use your phrase. Go back AND LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. Do the CURRENT NUMBERS look like they WARRANT a NATIONAL EMERGENCY? More than 5,000 DIE EACH YEAR at the hands of drunk drivers. HAS THAT BEEN DECLARED A NATIONAL EMERGENCY?

Or has Barry got something else up his sleeve? Oh, look..........a rabbit!

Never let a crisis You manufacture when Your poll #s plunge like the Hindenburg go to waste.

Dipwads take note -

"Go back AND LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. Do the CURRENT NUMBERS look like they WARRANT a NATIONAL EMERGENCY?"

Yes, the situation warrants the delcaration of an emergency.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that swine flu has become widespread in 46 of the 50 U.S. states, a level comparable to the peak of ordinary flu seasons but far earlier and with more waves of infection expected.

And this is no different that declaring a National Emergency around a hurricane or flood. It's not unusual to declare a national emergency before the event if he event is predictable -- this is predictable.

Sometimes I wonder why my fellow liberals call conservatives "stupid"...

Sometimes I don't.

Vic

Steve, I to hallucinated while having the pig flu. I thought an inexperienced socialist was attempting to push healthcare down our throats while pushing phoney climate change legislation that would destroy our economy, and ultimately elevate him to receive the Nobel Peace prize.

btw, still at home with the dreaded disease and still haven't woke up.

Hey Victory is Maos, don't you have an encounter group meeting you're late for?

VIC,

Read it one more time.

The headline reads "President Obama declares H1N1 flu a national emergency," not "Red tape will be waved in treatment of H1N1."

I will agree that the legitimate body of this is to lessen bureaucratic obstruction, so you can push the "administrative step" crap all you like. However, the actual post focuses on how a declaration of "national emergency" will be perceived, and will ultimately be disseminated by the media to the public.

24 hours before the Sunday talk-show blitz should gin up some hysterical coverage.

"Was this post anything more than a childish attempt to stir up more hate?"

Your entire existence here consists of stirring hate.

Dunderheads who live in glass houses...

vic:

It is very different than declaring a State of Emergency around a flood or hurricane.

In both of those incidents, you have major damage to structural systems such as power, transportation and water.

No such physical threat to infrastructure exists in this case. So you're analogy is inoperative.

The numbers of infections do not warrant this response. And I have personal experience with this flu as both my wife and both daughters are currently recovering.

If you do not have an underlying
medical condition such as asthma, MS, etc. (and for the purpose of this discussion, pregancy is such a condition), the relative threat to your life is minor.

Likely a greater risk in rush hour or walking alone in Chicago.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but other than the early arrival of this strain isn't the H1N1 a milder form of flu than normal varieties? I believe I have seen data (sorry it's from memory, no cite) that says roughly 30,000 die in an average year from flu complications. Not to minimize the suffering of any illness but what makes this strain so special?

VIC "this is predictable."

Yeah, like the "prediction" made in 2005 during the Bush presidency. He was castigated for the planning/lack of planning. A "pandemic" was imminent.......and NOTHING happened.

If NOTHING happens this year, will Barry be castigated as well, or get a Nobel Prize for advanced planning?

Sorry VIC, given your Messiah's past actions on ALLEGED EMERGENCIES!, I'll pass. You can have my glass of KoolAid.

"Not to minimize the suffering of any illness but what makes this strain so special"

Its special ability to be used to further socialized healthcare via Obamascare.

So far in Texas...

233 hospitalizations and 69 deaths out of a population of 24.9 million. By comparison, in 2007, 3363 people were killed in car accidents in Texas.

Tell me again how this represents an emergency?

Ahhh, here is one:http://www.flufacts.com/impact/statistics.aspx
"In the U.S., an estimated 25-50 million cases of the flu are currently reported each year -- leading to 150,000 hospitalizations and 30,000-40,000 deaths"

Gary's figures of 233 hospitalization and 69 deaths is a little worse than 150,000/35,000, but doesn't sound too out of the ordinary.

I also read (not at flu url above) where the use of aspirin to treat symptoms of the 1918 outbreak may have contributed to the abnormally high death rate.

"Was this post anything more than a childish
attempt to stir up more hate?"

Vic, was your post anything more than a childish attempt to stir up more hate?

Never let a crisis go to waste. If you don't have an actual crisis to take advantage of, make up an imaginary one, like man-made global warming.

Manbearpig flu.

Excelsior!

The aspirin/death rumor is hogwash and keeps getting repeated. Don't.

The death rate overall hasn't been high, but the ones dying are different = young and healthy otherwise much more common.

Schools and business are getting hit hard by absenteeism.

Supplies of regular Flu vaccine are expended and H1N1 (my father decided this should be called the "Hiney" Flu) aren't available even though its pandemic.

I must agree however, the public health response shows what a poor system we have.

Like in ANIMAL FARM the pigs like OBAMA are consited more equale and he appears to the UN sty to oink to his fellow UN pigs and receive the UNOBLE BOBBYPRIZE

epador,

you must have missed this earlier in the month. Aspirin is suspected of having made the Spanish Flu epidemic more deadly. Not exactly hogwash.

Also, the healthy are not dying. Patients with underlying respiratory illnesses, MS, or under the stress of pregancy are dying.

The healthy get sick, feel like crud and get well (slowly, as this turkey seems to linger).

While the majority of severe H1N1 swine flu cases are in people with conditions that put them at risk of flu complications, not all these conditions are severe. Well-treated asthma, for example, is common. And pregnancy isn't an illnesses at all. Yet the risk is there.

Absenteeism is up. In the flu season? Who'da believed it?

We should import more vaccine from Europe or Canada but wait - they don't have any because their research sucks! But of course we need their system here.

1. The White House is milking this for anything and everything that it is worth.

2. People are making light of the situation and reactivly taking the position that this is not a big deal simply because Obama is a douchebag.

It's way too early to be blowing this all off. "Normal" flu seasons do not entail my co-workers (that is with an "s", plural) being hospitalized and put on respirators.

Is this some sort of world-ending pandemic? No, of course not, but it is an extra wave of illness that is going to be superimposed upon the regular flu season later. We're still just getting started with this. The main problem isn't the virulence - it's not that much worse than the normal flu - it's that almost no one has any resistance to it. The strain on hospitals is already showing again like it was in the spring, and this is going to make life shitty for everyone else who has to be there.

I can tell you, being in TX, that the figure of "233 hospitalized in the state of Texas" is a fucking joke.

I just finished reading "The Great Influenza" about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic so I think I'm a little paranoid, but flu viruses can be very dangerous. That pandemic was catastrophic.

Flu pandemics can be explosive and, like the commenter above said, we have no immunity to this virus because it is new. It could spread very quickly and, because flu viruses are constantly mutating, could be more dangerous than you think. In the Spring of 1918 an early outbreak of the Spansih Flu was very mild. It returned in the Fall as a deadly killer.

Health organizations are very concerned. You should give it some thought before you just dismiss it as some kind of plot by Obama or something.

IT'S AN ADMINISTRATIVE PLOY with a two-fold objective; to get the public's mind focused on something other than Obama's popularity downswing, and to be able to point to the need for a national health care program. The media, by nature, will ravage this bone.

It sounds like this virus is manmade. Made for population control and to get the politicians who own stock in the vaccine companies richer.

Obama is off on this one.

Remember everyone, that in the late 1970s the government forced the military to take a vaccination, claiming an epidemic was on the way and we found out later it was a lie the government used in order to use up its aging swine flu vaccine. The vaccine proved toxic to some people and killed others, particularly the elderly and the vaccine was also responsible for causing a permanent spinal disorder as well.

How is the new vaccine safer than the old one? Why is the government not forth coming about the risks of the swine flu vaccine?

Also, the focus should be elsewhere, as in natural VS chemicals. Even in the worst plagues that ever reached civilization, such as the bubolic in Europe in 1350 that killed off a third of the population, (nothing like this situation), but worth noting is that there were always a large number of people that were untouched. Not much focus is put on that. Not much money in it is one suspected reason, but it's too bad most people don't learn the natural mechanisms that discourage illness and bring about better health.

http://waterremedy.net

Epador:
If the aspirin thing is junk then so be it. I mentioned this at work today (my weekend in the barrel) and one of the operators said there was something about it in the local paper which is probably where I read it, but I also heard it was from my son who was told not to take aspirin for flu symptoms by a nurse at the clinic.

One last thing I'd like to know is what percentage of "flu" cases are actually bad colds? Wouldn't that go a long way toward making the flu appear to be much milder than normal?

I don't believe the Swine Flu is a 'National Emergency', and I only think this will draw more panic among the public.

Seems more like a distraction to keep attention from all the other problems that don't seem to be on their way to being fixed anytime soon.

If the swine flu is as 'bad' as they say it is, shouldn't we cancel Halloween? They have closed some of the schools in my area due to the flu, they need to do the same with Halloween. Just think about all those children out on a cold night, in groups, meeting hundreds of other children and people. A perfect way to spread the H1N1. If the President doesn't suspend trick or treating, he is being irresponsible.

As mentioned earlier, we need to suspend elections also for the same reason. Or just let the Troy County New York Worker's Party take care of the election through absentee voting.

For a look at a compilation of WHO & CDC data on the number of swine flu cases in the US & the World, check out:
http://www.peterdolph.com/2009/10/how-many-swine-flu-cases-are-there.html

The reason for the declaration of a national emergency is to absolve the vaccine manufacturers of any liability when their untested product causes problems. Look up the PREP Act. Mercola.com has the whole story.

I remember reading about 2 - 3 years ago, an article in a magazine (Popular Science, Discover, Time, or some similar one) that so-called 'scientists' were digging up bodies of flu victims from the great flu that hit back in the early 20th century (don't remember which one) and killed millions. Their aim was to isolate the supposedly extinct virus from corpses of those who had died of the flu, so they could 'revive' it in a lab, supposedly for the greater purpose of making sure that no one could ever get that flu again.

Sounds like something out of a horror movie, but all the comments above make me wonder if there could be a connection...

Anyone else remember reading such an article?