Tag: swine flu

Politicians are afraid of pork

Remember swine flu? Well it’s back and it has a new name, the H1N1 influenza virus. This means basically that it has been re-branded, since it needed a serious image change. The problem is, it’s still just as deadly as, well, the regular influezna virus.

Nevertheless, H1N1 has killed three people in Japan, and because of that, no one is taking it more seriously than Denny Tamaki, who is running for, well, something, in Japan. He is no longer shaking hands, he’s probably not even bowing to people within 10 feet of him, but he is still kissing those babies.

Tamaki does not want to get infected because he is not worried about himself, but others. If he himself is infected, he could pass it on to supporters. Good thing not all of the country’s politicians are reacting like that. Oh, wait …

Jesus has swine flu!

BREAKING NEWS: According to top Anglican church officials, Jesus Christ has contracted the H1N1 flu virus, commonly known as the swine flu.

As a precaution, the archbishops of Canterbury and York have urged all Church of England services to stop sharing the chalice containing the little dude from Galilee’s blood during communion.

When asked about His condition, J.C. responded, “This has to be the worst thing I’ve ever gone through … and if you know Me, that says a lot.”

His Father did not return our calls.

Swine Flu? More like Swinging Flu, am I right?

We’re not here to make a big deal of something that shouldn’t be a big deal. Yes, the swine flu has hit Japan, despite all their efforts to block it. The areas of Kobe and Osaka have been hit hardest, according to reports. The Little Island That Could now has over 260 reported cases. It’s a high count, but cases have been mild for Japan, and no one has died from it.

Yet.

In theory, the students could be as cautious as the media and disease control agencies want them to be, but instead, they would rather go out for karaoke. More than 4,400 schools, colleges and kindergartens have closed for the rest of the week to help slow spreading, but these students are enjoying the time off anyway. In Osaka, students have formed long lines in front of karaoke clubs. Being obviously so in tune with the kids these days, we guess that they’re rallying to sing away the disease, probably based off some hippy disease a la “Hands For Peace.”

Of course, some club owners don’t want business from kids from diseased or closed schools. One karaoke joint owner put up a sign saying that students from closed schools were not welcome inside. Someone will take their business, though. And they’ll all sing their flu-y voices into the same microphone.

Pigs: They don’t seem to like us

Swine flu is becoming a big deal, and not just to the news media. The illness is becoming a pandemic, and several people could die. But wait, it gets worse.

Pig farmers are worried that humans may give swine flu to their swines. Yeah, well, didn’t they give it to us in the first place? As it turns out, probably not. Sure they helped create the illness, but pigs don’t have the bug. This obviously means they made it to hurt us.

But now, we have the chance to take the fight back to them. We can try to infect them and watch as swine flu rips through their ranks. We can take this attack and turn it into something that can hurt our enemy instead. Folks, get coughing.

You Missed It: The other white meat edition

Happy May Day, comrade! May is finally here, which means more flowers that give off pollen–ugh. But seriously, if you are celebrating May Day today, the Department of Homeland Security would like to have a word with you. Me? I’m celebrating Bealtaine, the beginning of the Celtic summer. If you were too busy celebrating 100 days at your new job, odds are you missed it.

You’re telling me I can no longer express my love for pigs?
You probably have not heard yet, but there’s an outbreak of swine flu, and apparently people are really upset about it. Right now, over 300 people have it and are at home having chicken noodle soup, assuming there’s no avian flu in it. The illness came from Mexico and is steadily making its way here in the U.S.–as if we didn’t regret coming back from spring break with an itch already.

She’s got the need, the need for a same-sex relationship
Remember Kelly McGillis? She was that super-hot flight instructor that buzzed Tom Cruise’s flight tower in Top Gun? Yeah, turns out she likes the ladies now. Guess someone did not take her to bed, and as such, lost her forever. In a related note, this would have been so much cooler if it had happened 20 years ago.

So long, and thanks for all the opinions
Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced that he is going to step down soon, setting up the debate of who will replace him on the bench. Souter, a Bush Sr. appointee, has been known for his dry wit, his quiet demeanor and …. Sorry, dozed off there for a second. Souter may be the first American to quit his job in months. Ladies and gentlemen, the recession is over.

They’re after our royalty!

Looking to get away from all the swine flu stories and gross overreaction by foreign governments —

(Killing all your pigs? Really, Egypt? And you, Hong Kong, boarding up a hotel so the guests can’t get out? It’s the flu.)

— Americans have returned their focus to what they really love: European royalty.

Yes, only 233 years after we told our own reigning monarch to go … govern himself, we’re caught up in the drama of an attempted car attack on the Dutch royal family on Queen Day. The driver, Karst Tates, had lost his job as a security guard and just turned in the key to the apartment he could no afford the rent for when he decided to ram the Queen with his Suzuki.

Now, we’re not saying he was justified, but maintaining a royal family with tax dollars — even a modest one — in an economic crisis? We’re not saying Tates was right, but we understand.

Swine Flu Madness!

Either way, the tummy ache is worth it.

Just a reminder: while only one person in the U.S. has died of swine flu, over 13,000 died from the regular-ass flu this year.

This message is brought to you by Purell.

UPDATE:
Ice cream cured patient zero, a little boy in Mexico.

This message is brought to you by Ben and Jerry’s Neato-Burrito flavored ice cream, now approved by the AMA.

It’s like the right hand and the left hand don’t know what either is doing

Yesterday, SeriouslyGuy’s very own Bryan McBournie stated that swine flu is exactly what the economy needs.

Global economic analysts would have you thinking otherwise.

We’ll stick with our guy, thank you. He’s more reliable — after all, he doesn’t have any pretentious abbreviations for spelling his name.

The McBournie Minute: Swine flu could be just what economy needs

We got tired of worrying about Iraq, mostly because it was messy and a lot of people just got tired of the protesters screaming about this and that all the time. Luckily, we got to jump on the green bandwagon, so we could worry about global warming/climate change instead. This was especially fun during the election season, because it enabled us to see where the candidates stood on an issue that they can do very little to affect in the first place.

But let’s face it, thinking about the world ending, Asian countries ceasing to exist, crops ruined, lack of oxygen, the increase of stronger hurricanes, snow in Las Vegas, heat waves in April, etc. can get downright depressing. It’s enough to make you want to go out and drive around with the air conditioning cranked until you can finally clear your head. Once again, we were provided with a new topic to scream about: the economy. Turns out we were in a recession for a year and never knew it. Cue the layoffs, bailouts and general concern about how people will be able to pay for their iPhone plans.

That got really old. A couple months ago pretty much everyone got tired of hearing about how a population equal to that of Wisconsin lost their jobs, so we asked our media to change its tune. That’s why we get stuff about being frugal now. (Did you know you can read newspapers online for free? 101 money-saving tips inside!) But there was a void. You felt it, didn’t you? It was the void of not having something to constantly worry about, aside from who is getting voted off American Idol. Luckily, we now have something: swine flu apparently happened over the weekend, because the news media are all over this story and why you should be very, very afraid. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Swine flu could be just what economy needs

You Missed It: Take my kid, please edition

Not that we are watching the clock or anything, but it appears to be Friday and nearing 5 pm–that is unless you don’t live on Eastern Daylight Time, in which case, tough cookies. I am certainly itching to get out of here and I am sure I am not the only one. If you were busy contracting swine flu this week, odds are you missed it.

Bollywood has its scandals, too
This week, Indian police investigated allegations that the father of Slumdog Millionare star Rubina Ali had once tried to put her up for adoption for $400,000. The initial accusation came from the girl’s estranged mother, and took off when the press got wind of it. The police cleared Rafiq Qureshi of any wrongdoing. Qureshi said, “Of course I didn’t sell her back then, and it’s a good thing, too, because she’s worth a lot more now.”

Clearly, this is not a good time to be a pirate
One of the Swedish judges who convicted torrent site The Pirate Bay last week admitted this week that he had been part of a copyright protection group, which, as they say in Sweden, is probably an example of bias on the judge’s part and therefor the case should be retried. Well, that’s what the lawyers are saying anyway. I have a question, why are the Swedes so hard on piracy? Aren’t they known for invading the territory of others, taking whatever they want, then making a profit off of it?

‘What? Hacking? Noooooo, not us!’
Somebody hacked into park of the plans for the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter program–the most expensive military aerospace project in U.S. history. They didn’t get much, but they got something, and the U.S. Department of Defense is looking at China. China flatly denies hacking any U.S. stuff, even though their military has a corps of hackers and they are suspected of causing the Northeast Blackout of 2003. China also denied rumors that the Olympics were held in Beijing last summer.