When caught out, the repubs are like Nemo; “….look, over there, something shiny…”

The fact is, fuck you.

According to a linky in the advertising side-bar,
Studies: Adult Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk but Not Sexual Pleasure

I just thought I’d throw that out there.

If Michelle has shown us anything, it’s one can live with swine flu for years and still kinda function as an almost human being and no, I am not talking about living with Jessie.

Snarl! Aroo! I drag feces through his flesh with my teeth! Shriek! Squeal!

Needs more illustrations of rabid weasels from The Medieval Bestiary.

Could we maybe get a three headed Surberus, you know, guarding something?

Schumer and Collins could easily co-sponsor a bill that fixes the problem. Did that idea ever pop up?

If they did, I bet we would get to hear(again) about what a horrible SupercomifasocialisticexpandingObamaspower nightmare it is from MM and the Choir.

Few human influenza virus infection in pigs. But in recent years also found a number of human cases of swine flu infection, most of them with direct contact with sick pigs have been people.

Flu affecting speech centers. Can’t use pronouns or articles. Had direct contact with Shatner.

Where will America be in ten years if your Obamessiah is allowed to [clang clang clang burp florp zoom whoop flippity-doo hubbita-hubbita-hubbita clonk flang waboo]?

Michelle ain’t very good at what she does. For a year running up to Aught-Eight McCain Takedown, she was trying to set up the Stolen Election narrative via ACORN and shady Chicago power brokers. (That didn’t work, by the way — same as her push for Wrath-based immigration reform.)

These new tenuous connections among Schumer, Stimulus, and Swine Flu are going to fizzle fabulously, as well.

But she can haz huge know-nothing readership, so that’s cool.

Wait — Susan Collins and the right didn’t start flipping out about the inclusion of pandemic flu funding out of any rational calculus.

They didn’t send Karl Fucking Rove out to the talk shows to soberly debate how the pandemic flu funding should be addressed but instead via non-existent Bill X which might pass someday.

This was more of the right wing, clowning anti-intellectualism which was presented as if putting a billion dollars in the economic stimulus to avert possible pandemics was akin to having the government pay to give little pink hats and tutus to all rabbits to make them cuter.

They went on TV and mocked pandemic flu funding, and they might as well have been doing it with the Homer-Simpson-mocking-someone-in-a-little-girl’s-voice and holding their hands up high and twiddling their fingers and shoutin’ “WELL LAAAA DEEE DAH, AIN’T WE SO FINE WIF OUR DAMN ‘O NO I DON’T WANT NO DAMN FLU’, BLAR HAR HAR!!!”

Schumer was an ass for going along, but, hey, imagine that — it was a bad idea for Democrats to stupidly go along with yet another idiot Republican hissy fit. We’ve never seen that before.

If this had just been about moving the funding around, that might have been the ‘no big deal’ people want it to be.

But, no: this was another excuse for Republicans to saunter around and do their little anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-rationalism dance again. And that is why I think busting on the Collins anti-pandemic-flu-preparedness is a propos.

Wait – so the right-bloggers are now for Porkulus?

Hey you know what? Schumer should take some heavy heat for cutting pandemic funding and calling it “porky”. I’m all for that. But if the pantless screaming howler monkeys are trying to go all “where’s the consistency?” – well then – here is my response:

BWAHAHAHAAHHAHAHA!111!! BWAHAHAHAHHHHAAHAH!!elventy-bwahaha!

Oh, and also PENIS.

It seems like the kind of thing that would be funny once or twice, then not funny the next three or four times, but then funny again for infinity times.

I know this chain of events. It’s all in how they’re spread out. Long term timing involved.

And nice Don Martin sound effects from “Answer THIS!”

According to a linky in the advertising side-bar,
Studies: Adult Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk but Not Sexual Pleasure

I just thought I’d throw that out there.

They can have my foreskin when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

we’re curious as to how funny it would be if every Malkin appearance had her screaming nonsense, breaking things, and attacking people.

As a casual Malkinologist, I would venture that every Malkin appearance already has her screaming nonsense and attacking people.

But breaking things, yeah, can see that would add some flava. Being rebellious etc, you can sort of visualize her breaking, say, teabags as an act of cathartic, wanton violence.

Take that, Teabag!!! And that… Mmmm, I love the smell of Assam in the morning.

Oh, I was gonna say… Gee, if I didn’t know better, I’d think they were going into “offensive CYA mode”.

I wonder how many roosting chickens they can juggle before the whole frightwhinge noise machine starts to resemble the WKRP turkey drop parking lot. As God as my witness… and all that.

Could we maybe get a three headed Surberus, you know, guarding something?

Do you reckon that people in the Medieval era got together at conventions conclaves to dress up in costumes as allegorical beasties? Because that would make them metafurrical.
If you sense that I’m leading up to a joke about a BonnaCon, you’d be right.

OT, but it’s nice to see more ads in the right column. Looks like that secret Soros stimulus payment that *should* have gone to the pandemic fund has found a good home. Sooo-Eeee!

So, when Schumer attempted actual bipartisanship, he’s now the fall guy for the Republican screwup.

This will tempt others, how?

Sorry, Chuck, you’re one of the people who was was told all the cool kids will be wearing clown makeup next Friday.

They are taking advice from the thirteen year old at CPAC. Next up, threaten the Cabinet with having their underwear hauled up the flagpole.

The fact is, fuck you.

Not even with K-Lo’s unwashed dildo.

I shouldn’t post at 4am. That made no sense. Still, I wouldn’t touch Gary with the aforementioned item.

Studies: Adult Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk but Not Sexual Pleasure

I just thought I’d throw that out there.

Throwing foreskins is quite dangerous unless you’re wearing rubber gloves and the special “dick-proof” safety goggles.

So, when Schumer attempted actual bipartisanship, he’s now the fall guy for the Republican screwup.

I think it’s even worse than that: Republicans are blaming Chuck Schumer because he was stupid enough to go along with the stupid Republicans.

And you know what? They’re right, but it’s odd that they are making the case of their own opposition.

It’s the Otter defense:

You fucked up! You trusted us!

Schumer is a total political beast. The R’s will pay for this in some way. The only power the R’s have is in the Senate, and that’s hanging by a thread I expect to snap in 2010.

The lesson of “you were a fool to work with us” will resonate.

Repubs to Schumer:You fucked up, you trusted us!

Damn..beaten to the punch. OY!

If Michelle has shown us anything, it’s one can live with swine flu for years and still kinda function as an almost human being

Change that to “live as a swine” instead and I’m right on board wit’ ya.

BTW, Glenn Blecch was going on yesturd-day about how Dubya was the one to get together all the stocks of Tamiflu©(oseltamivir phosphate)* and so should be the new hero of the world but we’re all still suffering from BDS and hatehatehate and we’ll never give him the credit he should have for having been so insightful and prophetic – and all I can think of is how even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

*It’s a pharmacy thing.

The “swine flu” is obviously the greatest current threat to mankind, ever and begorrah. Or something.

Just like the avian H5N1 virus. Scary name.

Or SARS. That’s Severe. Acute. Respiratory. Syndrome. Eleven.

We’re. Clearly. All. Gonna. Die. Eleven.

Or maybe not. Maybe, just maybe these 24/7/365/666 news networks just use the threat of imminent 1918 Plague in the face of all current medical knowledge that says NO WAY are we ever going to face a similar threat to the 1918 Plague again to increase sales and ratings because it unites us all: left and right, leftard and wingnut.

Yes! America unites behind a total non-threat threat because no one could possibly politicize the spectre of plagular disease killing us all! Eleven!

Or maybe not. Apparently these gigantic wingnut intellectual black holes can even politicize disease. Amazing.

For further reading on why this “swine flu” is no more threat to the general public than NASCAR wrecks, please visit the following link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/bird-flu-shabina-begum-and-others-755988.html

I wrote this about the bird flu over four years ago, but it still applies.

As for wingfucktards politicizing disease, I have no answer. They’re just wingfucktards. They could politicize bread.

Shorter Ross Asshat in the NYT:

Hello… is this thing on? Hey wow, it is. So, like, now I can just say whatever stupid thing comes into my head and folks will read it? Cool! Well then, *ahem*: cheneyshouldhaverunisteadofjohnmccainbecauseeventhoughhewouldhavelostandlostbigitstillwouldbeGOODNEWSFORTHEREPUBLICANPARTY.
That was fun, when do I get paid? What? It’ll take six to eight weeks for you guys to process my invoice?

According to a linky in the advertising side-bar,
Studies: Adult Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk but Not Sexual Pleasure

I just thought I’d throw that out there.

Good lord, Smut Clyde, are you trying to inflame the Foreskin Fundamentalists?

For further reading on why this “swine flu” is no more threat to the general public than NASCAR wrecks, please visit the following link:

Haven’t read the link yet but…just because what’s shown up in the US so far seems to be less virulent it doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. In 1918, the initial outbreak in Kansas started out pretty nasty, quickly settled down to being more or less non-lethal, and then somewhere along the line over the course of the next 3 or 4 months, mutated into the killer virus that killed some 50 – 100 million. Maybe it infected someone who had a human strain of flu and the virus jiggered up its genetics – no one really knows. The bottom line is that the fewer people infected, the better off everyone will be.

Chuck Scummer is a socialist swine just like Comrade Obama. These leftists are sowing the seeds of their own eventual demise. Their marxist policies of trying to spend their way out of this recession will force the American people to wake up and boot out the leftists in 2010.

I for one hope Obama and the Democrats fail and ruin our economy. It will guarantee the wrath of the American taxpayers, and ensure that the Democrat party becomes permanently irrelevent and liberalism as a political philosophy will be discredited.

Bring it on libs, continue your tax and spend policies. Do so at your own risk.

are you trying to inflame the Foreskin Fundamentalists?

Or ‘Foreskamentalists’.

Jindal mocks Volcano monitoring and WOOOSHH! Colins attacks pandemic readiness and COUGH, HACK, BARF. So what other disaster can we discern from repubs efforts to cut spending?

Jennifer–

To paraphrase the link, several dozen diseases poorly understood by an ignorant medical establishment that had not yet discovered penicillin were in 1918 lumped in under a Hearst-defined category of “Spanish Flu” because a shit-scared public demanded a source of the diseases that were killing them in droves because soldiers from the most disease-ridden filth in human history were returning to places affected by extreme poverty and malnutrition that had never seen these exotic infections so people without innate or acquired immunity died by the millions without any assistance from the “modern medicine” of the time which had none to offer.

The book “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History” by John M. Barry which idenitifies the singular “killer virus” as having originated in Kansas, where I must assume you are getting your argument, is written by an historian which is akin to Jonas Salk writing a book about the First World War.

The first US soldiers returning en masse from the trenches were based at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The consequences, as I said in the link, were predictable

Epidemiology is far more complex than history.

Please read the link next time. Thank you.

When it comes to this (or any) new flu bug, I’m not really inclined to shrug it off – a brand-new mutation is a potential headshot for a lot of us, especially with an aging population.

Turning a disease outbreak into a political football … such is the Tao Of Wingnut. Major style points for using that cunning “how DARE you be as bipartisan as you promised & give in to our dangerous retarded hissy-fit” strategy – I bet Obama never saw THAT coming!

Talk about grasping at the straw that broke the camel’s back before trying to shove it through the eye of a needle.

comsympinko – No one is arguing that epidemiology is not more complex than history.

No one, even John M. Barry, has argued that opportunistic infections such as pnemonia did not also affect a lot of the victims of the flu.

Please read the book next time. Thank you – for being a pompous ass.

Jennifer–

No pompous-asshood here–just a modern understanding of modern nutrition, immunity and epidemiology. By a doctor. Just thought I’d pompously point that out

Here’s an exercise for you to verify:

Ask your grandparents how many of their classmates died of infectious disease while they were children. You’ll get an answer in the teens.

Ask your parents how many of their classmates died of infectious disease while they were children. You’ll get an answer of maybe one or two, five at the most.

Now ask yourself how many of your classmates died of infectious disease. I’m guessing zero.

The modern, well-nourished human exposed to the global bazaar of pathogens does not succumb to any but the most horrid, virulent viruses such as HIV, Ebola and Hanta.

All else is mere nuisance to the modern human immune system that has twelve fully-formed, ass-kicking factors tha combine to destroy utterly all but the rarest, most virulent pathogens.

We might get sick, but we won’t die.

Pompous? Nope. But far better informed than you by thirteen years of treating human disease.

This is not a faithful Shorter, but we’re curious as to how funny it would be if every Malkin appearance had her screaming nonsense, breaking things, and attacking people. It seems like the kind of thing that would be funny once or twice, then not funny the next three or four times, but then funny again for infinity times.

Beyond a certain point, it almost becomes performance art. I wonder if she could get funding from the NEA?

Good lord, Smut Clyde, are you trying to inflame the Foreskin Fundamentalists?

He’s a troublemaker (the best sort) so I think he’d be happy with either side of that debate taking his bait. Me too. People who just can’t let go of shit are so funny.

Chuck Schumer said “porky things” once, so that absolves the entire GOP anti-science, anti-health apparatus.

Just thought I’d pompously point that out

You know, you can be right, I can agree with you, and it’s still possible for you be a pompous ass.

There’s a cure for it – it’s called courtesy.

We might get sick, but we won’t die.

So you think the slackers are faking being dead?

It seems like the kind of thing that would be funny once or twice, then not funny the next three or four times, but then funny again for infinity times.

This is known as the Python Principle (stated in 1969). It was later followed by [Robert] Rankin’s corollary: “The secret is knowing when to stop.”

Clyde–

“Studies: Adult Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk but Not Sexual Pleasure”

Jeez, I’ve never tried to derive sexual pleasure from giving an adult a circumcision, but if studies show…Once a philosopher, after all.

g–

I agree.

Yet it is she who that introduced the element of pomposity by ascribing pomposity to someone who disagreed with her premise based on her not having read the premise upon which she disagreed and to whom she ascribed pomposity.

I’d hardly ascribe the pomposity to the originality of that which was ascribed pomposity due to the fact that it was in disagreement with the declaration of pomposity regardless of the pomposity’s authenticity.

Even though the pomposity’s authenticity is irrevocably truthfully.

After which your call for courtesy is merely jackassery.

You see?

Cheers!!!!

owlbear1–

“So you think the slackers are faking being dead?”

Point me out a person dead in Europe or the United States.

The strength of the immunity based on nutrition and global interaction has rendered the disease non-fatal in those regions.

Dead people in Mexico, etc. are primarily the elderly and children, and are stilll fewer than 10% of those infected have been killed, which makes it about as virulent as any common inflluenza infection over the last 90 years.

We. Don’t. Die. From. Disease.

Just wait and see…

I’ve never tried to derive sexual pleasure from giving an adult a circumcision, but if studies show…Once a philosopher, after all

*crossing legs tightly*

The modern, well-nourished human exposed to the global bazaar of pathogens does not succumb to any but the most horrid, virulent viruses such as HIV, Ebola and Hanta.

Ever have the swine or avian-like flus?

I have. No, I didn’t die, but a lot of people did even in America, and you’re right to think that modern medicine and in particular nutrition will prevent a lot of deaths.

But it’s not a guarantee. That’s the part that the media are playing on. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a back-up plan to a head of lettuce.

actor212–

“But it’s not a guarantee. That’s the part that the media are playing on. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a back-up plan to a head of lettuce.”

Indeed. It’s MRSA, e.coli or some other industrial vegan bug that’s fucked our head of lettuce..

In which case no matter what we eat we’re fucked unless we grow it ourselves..

It’s all bad. We need a system that eliminates the element of chance.

That’s not going to happen. So what’s the future???

You know, just because the virus doesn’t kill the patient doesn’t mean it’s harmless.

80 to 100 million needing medical attention is if nothing else, Expensive.

I agree that high death tolls are not likely but that is really all we can say about this latest round.

According to a linky in the advertising side-bar,
Studies: Adult Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk but Not Sexual Pleasure

I just thought I’d throw that out there.

Again with the veiled penis talk?

Well, let’s unpack this a bit then:
Haven’t read the link yet but…just because what’s shown up in the US so far seems to be less virulent it doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods.
Now that I have read the linked letter, can I just say, oh how nice for the good doctor to point out that none of us should care about a new flu strain since we live in countries with good nutrition and sanitation? I guess this means we shouldn’t trouble ourselves over the prospect of the billions of people who don’t and are therefore at risk from new pathogens. That’s an interesting perspective for a doctor to take. And it doesn’t alter the fact that the more people in any country that are infected, the better chance any new bug has in getting to those populations who are most at risk for severe illness. But let’s move on:

In 1918, the initial outbreak in Kansas started out pretty nasty, quickly settled down to being more or less non-lethal, and then somewhere along the line over the course of the next 3 or 4 months, mutated into the killer virus that killed some 50 – 100 million.
As John Barry said himself, no one will ever be able to predict with absolute certainty exactly where and how the 1918 virus emerged. But he’s not alone – by a long shot – in pinpointing Kansas as the place where it emerged. As for your assumption that a non-doctor can’t write an accurate history of an epidemic, yes, that is the type of assertion I would expect from a pompous ass.

Maybe it infected someone who had a human strain of flu and the virus jiggered up its genetics – no one really knows.
No one really knows. It’s quite a leap from that to a claim that “Hearst papers” lumped a lot of other diseases under the same heading. Surely some cases of other illnesses with similar symptoms might have been included – medical infrastructure world-wide was much more primitive and under incredible stress at the time, so it’s probable that some of that could have happened – but to jump from that to “several dozen diseases poorly understood by an ignorant medical establishment that had not yet discovered penicillin were in 1918 lumped in under a Hearst-defined category of “Spanish Flu” because a shit-scared public demanded a source of the diseases that were killing them in droves ” – a claim not even made in the doctor-written letter you linked to – is asinine, and if you really believe that this is what occured and there was no deadly flu pandemic, well then, you’d be pretty much on your own in that belief – you’ll find few collegues, epidemiologists or pathologists to agree with your conclusion. 13 years more experience doesn’t mean you can’t be wrong.

The bottom line is that the fewer people infected, the better off everyone will be.
Again, it’s an interesting perspective for a doctor to take that it really doesn’t matter how many people get infected by a new pathogen. I really have nothing more to say about that.

If you were merely trying to make the point that we are these days much better equipped, both immunologically and from a standpoint of medical knowledge and practice, to face down a dangerous new pathogen, well then duh. You could have simply said that rather than going into pompous doctor mode.

Why do we blame Republicans for the swine flu?

Well, they are the swines, after all.

The strength of the immunity based on nutrition and global interaction has rendered the disease non-fatal in those regions.

Dead people in Mexico, etc. are primarily the elderly and children, and are stilll fewer than 10% of those infected have been killed, which makes it about as virulent as any common inflluenza infection over the last 90 years.

Ummm… perhaps the news has changed since yesterday about who was dying in Mexico. Reports I read yesterday had the young and healthy dying, much like in 1918. I think recent research has the flu 1918 strain killing via cytokine storm, in which case, your good nutrition and healthy immune system are not a net positive for you. The more your immune system can react, the faster it will fuck you up.

I also don’t think 10% is an average mortality rate for the flu, but perhaps I missed something else you said earlier.

Just sayin’.

Doctor Missus – thanks for unpacking the bits I didn’t get to. You’re correct – the Mexican strain has been killing people in their prime more than the young or elderly.

Ooh, ooh, socialist cat-fight!

Ooh, ooh, socialist cat-fight!

I’m not fighting, I’m commenting.

And when I do engage in fighting, I skip the cat fight stage and go straight for bar brawl. Which I doubt would happen with anyone here, because I like and respect the regulars.

That is all.

Frankly, I think you all have missed the most serious aspect of the “swine flu”

(brought to you by Wingnuts Worldwide)

To say that a historian can’t write a history of an epidemic is, well, myopic at best. That’s all I’m gonna say on that.

From what I read yesterday, a 5% mortality rate from the flu is considered high, so 10% is worrisome. OTOH, this early in an epidemic it’s possible that the only officially counted cases so far are those people who were sick enough to require hospitalization, with milder cases being left out of the total. We will see. And yes, it’s people in their 20s and 30s who are being hit hardest.

Also, re: “Spanish Flu” – my understanding was that there’s more to it than a Hearst-supplied label: symptoms presented by those who died were consistent across epidemic clusters, and contemporary pathologists have isolated flu pathogens (traces?) from 1918 tissue samples.

Again with the veiled penis talk?

♪ Oh, my penis has a burqua, it’s f-o-r-e-skin… ♫

Michelle Malkin yelling nonsense and breaking stuff is funny, but nothing will top the image of an angry conservative “stand(ing) in the bathroom yelling ‘DER!” all day, barely bothering anybody.” It was so unexpected, but just so right.

As a Mainer who did not, in fact, vote for Susan F. Collins, I still feel compelled to say “our bad.”

BTW, if our hosts could please nuke the URL in the spambot comment, that would be great… Thanx!

It is nuked!

Or better yet, link the comment spam to Jordan’s non-profit.

Eh, th-the- eh, th-the, eh-th-the, eh…
That’s All, Folks!

The projected funny growth curve might look like?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

it seems like the kind of thing that would be funny once or twice, then not funny the next three or four times, but then funny again for infinity times.

what you are describing is a theorum known by comedy scholars as the gilligan effect.

It’s quite a leap from that to a claim that “Hearst papers” lumped a lot of other diseases under the same heading. Surely some cases of other illnesses with similar symptoms might have been included… but to jump from that to “several dozen diseases poorly understood by an ignorant medical establishment that had not yet discovered penicillin were in 1918 lumped in under a Hearst-defined category of “Spanish Flu” because a shit-scared public demanded a source of the diseases that were killing them in droves ” … is asinine

You know, if I were doing research for the purpose of discovering a conspiracy or just a categorization error on the part of Hearst papers in publicizing what came to be known as the Spanish Flu epidemic, then I would be acting as an historian, not as an epidemiologist. A strong layman’s understanding of the disease(s) would be necessary, but the research would be historical, mostly consisting of reading the papers and comparing them to records in governments and hospitals. You know, primary source study, aka, history.

The book “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History” by John M. Barry which idenitifies the singular “killer virus” as having originated in Kansas, where I must assume you are getting your argument, is written by an historian which is akin to Jonas Salk writing a book about the First World War.

So what’s your point? If Jonas Salk had done thorough research and cited his sources, why couldn’t he have written a book about the war? If Barry’s book is wrong, I’m guessing you have done or seen historical research, and not assumptions based on what you think you know about the period, that contradicts his conclusions?

See, history and historiography may be one of those liberal arts/humanities fields you sciencey types love to sneer at, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t peer-reviewed study. Go ahead and challenge his book if you’ve got factual grounds on which to do so. Just keep in mind that if you do so, you’re no longer acting as a doctor but as an historian.

FWIW, I’ve not read Barry’s book so maybe you’re right and he’s wrong, and I know jack about epidemiology. But if I wanted to learn about a specific epidemic in the early 20th century, I’d turn to an historian who’d studied it, not to experts in epidemiology. Just like if I wanted to know about, say, the US-Mexican War, I wouldn’t expect a current active-duty Army officer to know more about it than an historian who specializes in that period; even if the modern officer did have knowlege of that war, I’d expect it to be focused on the military aspects but not necessarily the political, social, and economic aspects.

Also, your assertion that epidemiology is more complex than history shows a gaping hole in your understanding of what is history. It is no less than the study of the human experience in all its aspects, places, and periods. There’s a whole lot more to life than disease, you know.

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That’s an interesting perspective for a doctor to take. And it doesn’t alter the fact that the more people in any country that are infected, the better chance any new bug has in getting to those populations who are most at risk for severe illness.

Because they function as professionals (lawyer and dentist), I needed them to be able to live in daylight hours, though they have to protect their skin with sunscreen and their eyes with UV protection. My vampires can morph to bat form, and they don’t have reflections in mirrors, which are both traditional vampire characteristics. Of course, they’ve ultra-strong and very sexy.