Swine Flu & H5N1:

I warned any number of persons about this coming paradigm shift in our country:

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

And here, way back in 2005.

Update: US swine flu cases now total 8 – CDC

From an official source the likes of which you won’t have common access:

Today: According to the World Health Organisation on April, 24 2009:

The United States Government has reported seven confirmed human cases of Swine Influenza A/H1N1 in the USA (five in California and two in Texas) and nine suspect cases. All seven confirmed cases had mild Influenza-Like Illness (ILI), with only one requiring brief hospitalization. No deaths have been reported. All seven U.S. victims recovered from a strain of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before. The virus was first detected in two children in southern California — a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County.

The CDC described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen in people or pigs before. The virus seems to contain human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. Mixes of bird, pig and human virus have been seen before, but such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix is highly unusual.

Testing indicates some common antiviral medications seem to work against the virus. The CDC believes the new strain can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus. The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed U.S. cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

The U.S. cases are a growing medical mystery because it’s unclear how they caught the virus. The CDC said none of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

The Government of Mexico has reported three separate events.

In the Federal District of Mexico, surveillance began picking up cases of ILI starting 18 March.

The number of cases has risen steadily through April and as of 23 April there are now more than 854 cases of pneumonia from the capital. Of those, 59 have died.

The Mexican government closed the schools across the Mexico City area and kept 6.1 million students home from day care centers, high schools, colleges and universities.

In San Luis Potosi, in central Mexico, 24 cases of ILI, with three deaths, have been reported.

And from Mexicali, near the border with the United States, four cases of ILI, with no deaths, have been reported.

Of the Mexican cases, 18 have been laboratory confirmed in Canada as Swine Influenza A/H1N1, while 12 of those are genetically identical to the Swine Influenza A/H1N1 viruses from California.

The majority of these cases have occurred in otherwise healthy young adults. Influenza normally affects the very young and the very old, but these age groups have not been heavily affected in Mexico.

16 of the deaths have been confirmed to have been caused by the new strain, through testing at government laboratories. Samples from 44 other people who died were still being tested.

The Mexican health department put the total number of people sickened at around 943 nationwide. Samples also were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to determine whether it’s the same virus infecting seven people in Texas and California. As of now, tests show the flu is a “new, different strain … that originally came from pigs.

“Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern according to the WHO.”

The Swine Influenza A/H1N1 viruses characterized in this outbreak have not been previously detected in pigs or humans. The viruses so far characterized have been sensitive to oseltamivir, but resistant to both amantadine and rimantadine.

The World Health Organization has been in constant contact with the health authorities in the United States, Mexico and Canada in order to better understand the risk which these ILI events pose. WHO (and PAHO) is sending missions of experts to Mexico to work with health authorities there. It is helping its Member States to increase field epidemiology activities, laboratory diagnosis and clinical management. Moreover, WHO’s partners in the Global Alert and Response Network have been alerted and are ready to assist as requested by the Member States.

WHO acknowledges the United States and Mexico for their proactive reporting and their collaboration with WHO and will continue to work with Member States to further characterize the outbreak.

You read it here FIRST on Bloviating Zeppelin.

PLUS:

H5N1 May Have Made The Transition From Animal To Human:

A strain of bird flu infecting children in Egypt could be a sign of person-to-person transmission, the World Health Organization said. Of 11 infections in the past few weeks, almost all were in children under age 3. Experts said that could mean adults are acting as carriers without falling ill, giving the virus a chance to mutate.

“I hope to hell they are wrong,” said bird flu expert Dr Robert Webster of St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee.

Earlier strains of bird blu in Asia killed most victims so quickly that the virus didn’t have time to mutate into a contagious strain.

Let’s just do the math here:

Leftists, Liberals, Socialists, the Religious Left want to squeeze you into populist blocks where the footprint is small and the vertical rise is incredulous. The more people they can squeeze into a given acre the happier they are.

And the faster you, in any derisive or negative scenario, die, directly due to immediacy of contact.

Perhaps that’s what they, ideally, want?

BZ

Reconciling God and Reality

Unfortunately, I’ll likely lose a number of you as readers due to the following post, but I must be true to my personal philosophy:

For years and years I’d been, at best, an Agnostic. I’d left the option open for a Supreme Being. I’d never moved into the hard and fast Atheist lane.

But I always asked in my youth: if there really were a Supreme Being, a God, why did He allow so much killing and death and hate and oppression in His name?

Stemming from that, I was a hater of any Organized Religion. Today, even, I hold Organized Religions at arms’ length. I am not an attendant of any particular church nor do I hold to any specific level other than that of “Christian.” As opposed to Buddhist or Muslim or Hindi or Jew.

I believe that any religion is best held close by the individual. I believe that, when Man becomes involved at an overarching level, there can be amounts of corruption, immorality, misunderstanding. Specifically because Man is involved.

I also have to examine the base tenets of religions. What does the religion SAY and ESPOUSE vs its actual practice?

That question led me to more completely focus on, say, Islam. Due, obviously, to events occurring in the past 20 years. And Islam, I realized, has been corrupted and hijacked and twisted to the point that anything done or completed in its name is likely false and dangerous.

And I finally realized — as with most any other issue in Humanity — it doesn’t much matter what you say or write; it matters what you DO.

I distilled this down to: DEEDS, not WORDS.

How many people have been killed and injured at the behest of Islam recently vs the number of persons killed and injured by Christianity?

There is no comparison.

However, further, if I were suffering at the point of a disease that could be cured by certain specific-type stem cells I would not differentiate. I would want that cure. I would want my wife, my father, my mother, my brothers to have that cure.
And here I will leave a number of you behind.

I believe in a benevolent God. Not a strictly linear God.

I’ve gotten to this point because I, myself, have had to deal with my own mortality quite a number of times. In my job, off duty, with my health.

I believe in Goodness, to a degree.

I also believe in Evil. True Evil. True, unexpurgated, raw, filthy, unchecked, naked Evil. I’ve had it shoot at me and I’ve shot back at it. I’ve literally had to fight it, arrest it, see the results of its actions laying in pools of blood and shredded tissue. Time and again.

And I do NOT believe that Man is innately “good,” on most any level. Man is constantly challenged. Man has to fight. Man has to struggle against the base animalistic elements of his past.

Evil exists for any number of reasons, not the least of which include 1) It is easy; 2) It is fun; 3) It carries psychological weight and 4) It is mostly unopposed due to the naivete of Man.

There are base tenets by which Man should live. I would include The Ten Commandments.

They are a logical and fundamental way by which every individual should conduct their lives, whether they are adherents to religion or not.

Religion?

I hold my religion closely within my own breast. In my own head. I don’t share it with anyone. I don’t attend congregations or churches because I don’t trust Man. I don’t make mention of it publicly. I wear a metal cross over my own chest, around my neck, on a chain, presented to me by a man the likes of which I won’t question his duty or diligence because I know from whence he originates. He presented me, in passing one day, with a metal cross blessed by Pope John Paul II in 2004. You know who you are.

I wear it every day. Under every shirt. Few know it’s there. But I know. That’s all that matters.

It was probably one of the greatest gifts that could have been given to me in a quarter century.

Because I believe in the ultimate posture:

The individual semblance of Man, yes. . .
And the belief in a greater system, a greater power, a greater design.
God.
Because, without God, everything else is just transitory and meaningless.
And there are simply too many wonders, too many glories, too much in the Universe, too many coincidences, too many points of grace to otherwise explain.

BZ

This Sunday:

Is the day that the United States federal budget ceases to run on straight revenues for the budget year. The rest of the year will be running on debt.

This is the earliest date in the history of the United States that revenues have run short.

Simply frightening.

BZ

McCain Does A “Napolitano”

Does John McCain not read my blog?

Does he not read the news?

Has he not followed the dust-up over Janet Napolitano?

Does he not understand historical truth?

Arizona Sen. John McCain made the dubious claim Friday that Sept. 11 hijackers entered the United States through Canada — just days after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, said the same thing.

Napolitano retracted her claim on Thursday after Canadian officials chided her for the remark, calling it an unfortunate misconception. Napolitano admitted Thursday that she made a mistake — since the 9/11 Commission concluded that the hijackers entered the U.S. from overseas. But when asked about the gaffe on FOX News Friday, McCain said: “Well, some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada, as you know.”

I respect John McCain for the service to his country when he was younger but, now, he’d be best served by either retiring or, preferably, moving his (R) to a (D). He and John Murtha could have offices next to one another in DC.

BZ