What is it with the Murdoch media pointing guns at an American president?
Automated but assassination-obsessed coders?
Can a piece of software be charged with threatening the president?
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Start With The Koalas
An appropriate logo has now been located for the anti-nature resistance, Humans Against The Rest (HATeR) :
More on the unlikely source of the above image in a photo essay, later.
An appropriate logo has now been located for the anti-nature resistance, Humans Against The Rest (HATeR) :
More on the unlikely source of the above image in a photo essay, later.
The Anzac War Memorial, Hyde Park Sydney, May 4
Directly below them, a Japanese youth wielding a long sword lept off the stairs of the memorial again and again, for a photo shoot for some Asian martial arts movie, until an elderly passer-by explained why doing this around any Australian war memorial was a really, really bad idea.
But in front of the statues of the memorial, the Pool of Remembrance shimmered in the afternoon light, and a dog (centre) was preparing for some essential ball chasing action.
Photos By Darryl Mason
Directly below them, a Japanese youth wielding a long sword lept off the stairs of the memorial again and again, for a photo shoot for some Asian martial arts movie, until an elderly passer-by explained why doing this around any Australian war memorial was a really, really bad idea.
But in front of the statues of the memorial, the Pool of Remembrance shimmered in the afternoon light, and a dog (centre) was preparing for some essential ball chasing action.
Photos By Darryl Mason
You Won't Want To Be Throwing That Shrimp On Your Barbie
A new Australian supernatural splatterfest, Primal, heads for Cannnes. Below is a supremely gruesome trailer, fast and full of "what in all fuck was that?" glimpses of the action. Kids go looking for Aboriginal rock art in the bush, get lost, carnage, ancient evil and what appears to be some prawn-related mayhem follows..
Primal will probably be only one of the few Australian movies that finds international buyers at Cannes this year.
More on Primal here
A new Australian supernatural splatterfest, Primal, heads for Cannnes. Below is a supremely gruesome trailer, fast and full of "what in all fuck was that?" glimpses of the action. Kids go looking for Aboriginal rock art in the bush, get lost, carnage, ancient evil and what appears to be some prawn-related mayhem follows..
Primal will probably be only one of the few Australian movies that finds international buyers at Cannes this year.
More on Primal here
Monday, May 04, 2009
That's Good. Can I Borrow Your Pen?
The brilliant Hollowmen wins a due award for Most Outstanding Comedy at the Logies.
Apparently Kevin Rudd is confused about the category in which the Hollowmen won. Rudd thought Hollowmen was a tense, riveting drama series, filled with real-world office life challenges and triumphs.
The ABC News website takes the opportunity to laddle upon itself some hearty praise, via the speeches of two Logie winners.
From the Hollowmen acceptance speech :
The brilliant Hollowmen wins a due award for Most Outstanding Comedy at the Logies.
Apparently Kevin Rudd is confused about the category in which the Hollowmen won. Rudd thought Hollowmen was a tense, riveting drama series, filled with real-world office life challenges and triumphs.
The ABC News website takes the opportunity to laddle upon itself some hearty praise, via the speeches of two Logie winners.
From the Hollowmen acceptance speech :
"[The producers would like to] thank the ABC for their undying support of comedy, and also in particular a few people - one Mark Scott, Courtney Gibson and there would be Kim Dalton..." Watts said.
ABC reporter Stephen McDonell who won for Most Oustanding News Coverage (the Sichuan earthquake aftermath) :
'See The World Through Australian Eyes'....The Hollowmen would be all over that phrase. It'd be trialed as a campaign slogan, or station ID."Thank you very much for this. What do I say? Sometimes you're in the right place, and the right but good thing I suppose with the ABC - unlike I suppose anyone else - is that we've got correspondents all over the world and it's what you get from local knowledg..."
"So if you want to see the world through Australian eyes, I suppose the ABC's still the place to do it."
Is This Real World, Or Just An Exercise?
The Sydney Morning Herald :
The Sydney Morning Herald :
Surely, they're not using the term 'dress rehearsal' as Webster's defines it?Pandemic or a dress rehearsal?
Whether swine flu is the pandemic the world has been dreading should be known within the next few days.
"a practice exercise for something to come".
Sunday, May 03, 2009
August, 2007 : Bird Flu-Infected Chickens Fed To Pigs In Bali
Is This Where HumanBirdPig Flu Began?
By Darryl Mason
The World Health Organisation rejected a hopeless campaign by The Orstrahyun to have the new swine flu virus officially titled Pork Throat. Instead, the WHO has gone with Influenza A H1N1 as its official reference term for the new influenza virus, which contains the genes of human, bird and pig flu strains.
This retitling has led to an immediate downturn of interest amongst the public in the pandemic potential of the virus, which may have been part of the intention of giving this bizarre influenza such an academic, book lurnin' name.
But, to shift into serious news mode, how did strains of pig, human and bird flu first meet up, and start swapping genes in order to mutate into Influenza A H1N1?
There are theories, but nothing solid. Yet.
A possible source, or at least a scenario where such an unlikely blending of influenza viruses could have taken place, can be found in this report on two human deaths from the H5N1 (bird flu) virus back in September, 2007 :
You'll probably see this story in next week's Sunday Telegraph as well.
Is This Where HumanBirdPig Flu Began?
By Darryl Mason
The World Health Organisation rejected a hopeless campaign by The Orstrahyun to have the new swine flu virus officially titled Pork Throat. Instead, the WHO has gone with Influenza A H1N1 as its official reference term for the new influenza virus, which contains the genes of human, bird and pig flu strains.
This retitling has led to an immediate downturn of interest amongst the public in the pandemic potential of the virus, which may have been part of the intention of giving this bizarre influenza such an academic, book lurnin' name.
But, to shift into serious news mode, how did strains of pig, human and bird flu first meet up, and start swapping genes in order to mutate into Influenza A H1N1?
There are theories, but nothing solid. Yet.
A possible source, or at least a scenario where such an unlikely blending of influenza viruses could have taken place, can be found in this report on two human deaths from the H5N1 (bird flu) virus back in September, 2007 :
Human to human transmission of the bird flu virus was believed to be occuring in Bali, by August 2007, though it did not prove to be highly transmissible, and further infections were usually contained within Balinese families living amongst bird-flu infected poultry, or those caring for bird-flu infected relatives.Suyono said there had been sick chickens around the woman's house and many had died suddenly in recent weeks.
"The villagers didn't burn the carcasses. Instead they buried them or fed them to pigs," Suyono added.
Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the H5N1 virus.
You'll probably see this story in next week's Sunday Telegraph as well.
The Orstrahyun Reports, The Health Department Acts
The Ostrahyun, Sunday April 26 :
Thanks to Viro for that one week earlier news tip.
The Last Time We Were On The Brink Of A Pandemic, Flu Killed 150 In Sydney In Less Than Three Weeks
The Ostrahyun, Sunday April 26 :
...the Australian government stockpiles of Tamiflu are believed to have reached their expiration dates late last year.The Sunday Telegraph, May 3 :
Responding to questions from The Sunday Telegraph, a spokesman for Health Minister Nicola Roxon revealed 1.6 million packs (of Tamiflu) were removed from the Commonwealth's stockpile this month because they had passed their use-by date.The difference here is that the Sunday Telegraph gets calls or e-mails back from the Health Department when contacted for comment about expired anti-virals stockpiles.
Thanks to Viro for that one week earlier news tip.
The Last Time We Were On The Brink Of A Pandemic, Flu Killed 150 In Sydney In Less Than Three Weeks
Yes, I'm Ready To Panic....But There's So Many Potential Panic Pandemics To Choose From
The Geek :
H1N1/Pork Throat/Bacon Lung/Porky's Revenge II/Probably China's Fault Virus/Swine Flu/the Hamdemic/The Aporkalypse/Non-Semitically-Offensive-Related Descriptor Fever/North American Flu
...inspired the creation of this site :
Is It Time To Panic?
Text messages to the world culled from Twitter will help you decide if it truly is time to panic, or whether you should wait a bit. Thousands of short, sharp, snaps of wit, insight, crap, LOLability, weirdness and WTFery can be your handy guide to not panicking too soon, or too late.
And if you're sick of (not sick from) swine flu, there's a pandicomica of potential panic-worthiness at IITTP to choose from:
Zombie Apocalypse
Asteroid
Robot Uprising
Pirates
Ninjas
Killer Bees
Killer Bees That Shoot Swine Flu Out Of Their Tiny Mouths
Oprah
Something for everyone.
The Geek :
Driving around listening to even the most sombre news radio stations felt like playing a small role in the opening chapters of The Stand...A throwaway comment by The Geek about waiting a week before deciding whether or not to panic over "piggy flu", or as it's otherwise known....
The radio coverage of WHO's Margaret Chan warning, "All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans," had a truly B-Grade thriller feel. It seemed to demand an immediate slam cut to montage-worthy shots of black helicopters landing in shopping malls and disgorging squads of troops in NBC suits to insist at bayonet point on proper hand-washing technique and hanky usage.
H1N1/Pork Throat/Bacon Lung/Porky's Revenge II/Probably China's Fault Virus/Swine Flu/the Hamdemic/The Aporkalypse/Non-Semitically-Offensive-Related Descriptor Fever/North American Flu
...inspired the creation of this site :
Is It Time To Panic?
Text messages to the world culled from Twitter will help you decide if it truly is time to panic, or whether you should wait a bit. Thousands of short, sharp, snaps of wit, insight, crap, LOLability, weirdness and WTFery can be your handy guide to not panicking too soon, or too late.
And if you're sick of (not sick from) swine flu, there's a pandicomica of potential panic-worthiness at IITTP to choose from:
Zombie Apocalypse
Asteroid
Robot Uprising
Pirates
Ninjas
Killer Bees
Killer Bees That Shoot Swine Flu Out Of Their Tiny Mouths
Oprah
Something for everyone.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
(click to enlarge) - photo credit
Lyrics from Poor Ned, by Redgum :
Eighteen hundred and seventy eight
Was the year I remember so well
They put my father in an early grave
Slung my mother in gaol
Now I don't know what's right or wrong
But they hung Christ on nails
Six kids at home and two still on the breast
They wouldn't even give her bail
"It's A Dog Marooned On An Island Story. George Clooney Can Play The Dog"
I wrote back here what an obviously excellent tale for the movies the story of Sophie The Wonder Dog is. Dog falls off boat, dog swims through shark infested waters, dog spends weeks on a tropical island fending for itself, dogs learns to hunt and eat goats, owners never believe Sophie is dead, dog is rescued, reunited with owners, everyone weeps and leaves the cinema feeling great.
Simple.
A great Australian movie about a great Australian dog.
But now Hollywood is getting involved.
This first PR pitch, however, isn't promising :
And if Sophie isn't a Blue Heeler in the movie, with an Australian accent (if she must talk at all) there will be cinema boycotts.
I wrote back here what an obviously excellent tale for the movies the story of Sophie The Wonder Dog is. Dog falls off boat, dog swims through shark infested waters, dog spends weeks on a tropical island fending for itself, dogs learns to hunt and eat goats, owners never believe Sophie is dead, dog is rescued, reunited with owners, everyone weeps and leaves the cinema feeling great.
Simple.
A great Australian movie about a great Australian dog.
But now Hollywood is getting involved.
This first PR pitch, however, isn't promising :
"...it's Castaway meets Survivor except it's a dog. Americans love uplifting stories about animals."So does the rest of the world. So don't turn Sophie's Story into loud, moist American schlock.
And if Sophie isn't a Blue Heeler in the movie, with an Australian accent (if she must talk at all) there will be cinema boycotts.
Friday, May 01, 2009
When Washing Your Hands Is Caving In To A Rudd Fear Campaign
By Darryl Mason
The Professional Idiot yesterday thought this is good advice to lessen the chance of becoming infected with the new ManBirdPig flu virus, or Influenza A H1N1 :
This whip-lashing about face by The Professional Idiot on simple hygiene took less than 12 hours. A brain scan may be needed.
Do you think The Professional Idiot told his family to stop washing their hands to prove that he's right and PM Rudd is a crazed fearmongerist?
Any doctor will tell you washing your hands regularly, a few times a day, will lessen your chances of becoming infected with ANY flu virus, and people should be reminded of that simple fact at the start of every flu season, not just when the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert to threat level 5 out of 6.
This incomprehensible fuckwit is leading his more gullible readers down a very, very dangerous path of anti-Rudd irrationality.
UPDATE : A prediction from The Professional Idiot, for the ages :
By Darryl Mason
The Professional Idiot yesterday thought this is good advice to lessen the chance of becoming infected with the new ManBirdPig flu virus, or Influenza A H1N1 :
1: Don’t go to Mexico. Step 2: Wash your hands.He thinks this is good advice, and it is, but it's NOT when Prime Minister Rudd thinks so :
...there is no fear so ill-founded that Kevin “Do Something” Rudd isn’t on hand to offer totally unnecessary advice designed to make you worry more, not less:Wash Your Hands = Totally Unnecessary Advice.Wash your hands, PM says
This whip-lashing about face by The Professional Idiot on simple hygiene took less than 12 hours. A brain scan may be needed.
Do you think The Professional Idiot told his family to stop washing their hands to prove that he's right and PM Rudd is a crazed fearmongerist?
Any doctor will tell you washing your hands regularly, a few times a day, will lessen your chances of becoming infected with ANY flu virus, and people should be reminded of that simple fact at the start of every flu season, not just when the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert to threat level 5 out of 6.
This incomprehensible fuckwit is leading his more gullible readers down a very, very dangerous path of anti-Rudd irrationality.
UPDATE : A prediction from The Professional Idiot, for the ages :
Australians are more likely to be eaten by mice than to die of swine flu.That sound you hear is thousands of pandemic-briefed health professionals laughing, in horror.
To Stockpile Or Not To Stockpile
By Darryl Mason
A "run on the shops" to stock up on enough food and water to last your household for two weeks of voluntary home isolation is exactly what's needed to pump those $900 bonuses straight back into the economy :
And three litres a water a day is the minimum you need per day, it doesn't include water for washing clothes, or bathing.
If you had to take the family off to a central coast holiday house for two weeks, and the house had nothing but the kitchen basics, what would you take with you if you thought you wouldn't be able to get to the shops? And the place might run out of running water? And electricity?
Here's a story from 2006 detailing just how extensively Australian businesses were preparing back then for an influenza pandemic. The public fear then was of a bird flu pandemic, but Australian and American government response plans were always for the "inevitable" influenza pandemic, not a pandemic of just one type of influenza :
But how prepared are you?
Just in case.
.
By Darryl Mason
A "run on the shops" to stock up on enough food and water to last your household for two weeks of voluntary home isolation is exactly what's needed to pump those $900 bonuses straight back into the economy :
The Federal Government's pandemic plan, a 132-page manual issued to medics, media and the public, insists that once the world reaches phase five, Australians should stock their pantries with food and bottled water to last 14 days, check on elderly neighbours and put emergency numbers by the phone.
But yesterday a spokesman for the Department of Health and Ageing called for calm, saying the Government did not want to spark panic buying - ignoring its own plan, already issued to hospitals across the nation.
"I agree that is it confusing," the spokesman said, admitting he had not read the pandemic plan despite being employed to answer questions about it from national media. "The manual may say people should be preparing but we don't want a run at the shops," he said.
It doesn't matter what the government wants. The people will do whatever they think they have to do to ensure their loved ones are going to get through whatever is coming next.
Woolworth's getting emptied in a weekend of fevered stockpile shopping is the least of their problems if an influenza pandemic is on the verge of being declared (if it hasn't already inside the government).
The pandemic response plans made back in 2005 and 2006 were deadly serious, very detailed. Most didn't read them. It's not too late to get some of the highlights of how prepared you are expected to be for something most didn't even know was coming this time last Friday morning :
14 days.Residents are advised to stock their pantries with drinks, including three litres of water for each person each day, dried and long-life food such as canned meals, toilet paper, batteries, candles, matches, manual can openers and water sterilising tablets. Analgesics, masks, gloves, a thermometer, disinfectant and prescription medications should also be stockpiled and people should have enough supplies to stay in their homes for 14 days.
Householders should also have plenty of tissues, alcohol-based hand-wash dispensers in kitchens and bathrooms, and soap and disposable towels near all sinks, the manual says.
And three litres a water a day is the minimum you need per day, it doesn't include water for washing clothes, or bathing.
If you had to take the family off to a central coast holiday house for two weeks, and the house had nothing but the kitchen basics, what would you take with you if you thought you wouldn't be able to get to the shops? And the place might run out of running water? And electricity?
Here's a story from 2006 detailing just how extensively Australian businesses were preparing back then for an influenza pandemic. The public fear then was of a bird flu pandemic, but Australian and American government response plans were always for the "inevitable" influenza pandemic, not a pandemic of just one type of influenza :
Mounting fears of an avian flu outbreak amongst humans has caused Australian businesses to stockpile anti-viral drugs and face masks and make definitive plans for how they will continue to operate when almost half of their workers may be off work, either ill or looking after someone who is.Don't worry, Australia's biggest businesses are well prepared if the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic threat level to 6 (its highest) over the weekend, or if the Rudd government officially announces we may all have to think about taking a 10 day long 'home-cation" sometime soon.
Pandemic risk committees already exist within major companies such as Bluescope Steel and Telstra while the Commonwealth Bank has appointed a pandemic planning project manager.
Expanded computer networks to enable staff to work from home in the event of an outbreak have been included in the preparations against bird flu.
Through its relationship with medical support agency International SOS, BHP Billiton, has stockpiles of anti-viral drugs in regional offices considered at high risk.
The Bank of Queensland has proposed to implement basic hygiene education for staff. According to immunologists this measure would help to reduce the spread of disease if a pandemic develops.
Businesses have been advised to plan for up to half their staff being absent due to illness, or caring for sick family members or children because of school being closed.
As immunologist Ron Penny said," There's no strong recommendation that people who have a seriously infectious disease should stay at home. I think we need to educate people".
Federal Government advisers have warn that economically, Queensland would be the hardest hit of any Australian state with even a modest level pandemic causing a loss of about $11 billion, off the Gross State Product (GSP) in the first year alone.
According to Telstra's network services managing director Michael Lawrey preparations for the likelihood of a pandemic were slightly higher in intensity than planning for other business risks such as fires, cyclones and floods.
But how prepared are you?
Just in case.
.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Some Things Are More Important Than A Pandemic
By Darryl Mason
The biggest story in the United States today is the "imminent" pandemic of Swine Flu/Pork Fever/Frankenstein Flu/H1N1/Bacon Lung. Right?
Wrong.
At least, it's not at KFSN-TV in Fresno California :
The very popular video of a 61 year old Californian cannabis grower standing out front of a courthouse, unpacking, weighing and then repacking the twelve pounds of medicine (to check it was all there) that has just been returned to him by police, by order of a judge, can be viewed here.
More on that story and America's news obsession with cannabis stories here.
As I mentioned yesterday, while Bacon Lung, or Pork Throat (it is an upper respiratory virus) is at the top of the evening news, as the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert level from 5 to 6, the Australian media is having a hard time selling this story to a mostly skeptical public. There are still no deaths in Australia from it, there is no celebrity connection to it, yet, and outside of colourful heat scans of airport arrivees, and I Am Legend-like projections of what life will be like during and after a full-blown influenza pandemic, the rest of the visual story of what's actually going on is not very exciting to watch.
At all.
And readers of online daily newspapers in Australia couldn't be less interested. For now.
(click to enlarge)
Outside of The Australian, not one pre-pandemic or H1N1 influenza-related story makes the Most Popular Stories lists in the Murdoch online tabloids. In Sydney's Daily Telegraph, what may be one of the biggest story in a generation doesn't even rate in the Top Ten most viewed :
Readers of the Fairfax online newspapers are only slightly more interested, and only because Hugh Jackman's cancelled a premiere for his new movie in Mexico :
(click to enlarge)
All the Australian media would get more readers clicking on swine flu headlines if they called it Pork Throat. Or Bacon Lung. Or Year Long Sex Celebrity Weight Loss Alien Flu.
Public disinterest will change if an 'Oh, Fuck! Pandemic!' leads to the cancellation of the State Of Origin, of course, or if any of the following becomes reality :
* Belinda Neil returns from Mexico with Mad Pig Brain Fever, causing her to rant about "demon babies" and the poor service of wine bar restuarants in Mexico.
* International cricket players wind up on a slab.
* Long dead Osama Bin Laden announces in a "new video" that Al Qaeda bioweapons specialists released the virus to end the Allah-insulting American lust for deep-fried bacon.
* Barry Hall goes into 'voluntary' home isolation, coughing blood.
* The entire casts of Neighbours and Home & Away decide to do some "location shooting" on a remote, uninhabited island in the WhitSundays for the next six months.
* Mel & Kochie start broadcasting their morning show from the top of a 100 foot tower, surrounded by a moat of fire, in a remote Queensland rain forest.
* The Footy Show hosts appear in biosuits, or in glass bubbles.
* Federal parliament decides to "temporarily relocate" to a huge sealed plastic dome on top of Uluru.
* It turns out that 10% of all H1N1 victims are likely to turn into brain-hungry zombies.
US Vice President Says New Flu So Dangerous He's Already Warned His Family To Stay Out Of Planes, Trains And Automobiles - But When Did He Warn Them?
.
By Darryl Mason
The biggest story in the United States today is the "imminent" pandemic of Swine Flu/Pork Fever/Frankenstein Flu/H1N1/Bacon Lung. Right?
Wrong.
At least, it's not at KFSN-TV in Fresno California :
The very popular video of a 61 year old Californian cannabis grower standing out front of a courthouse, unpacking, weighing and then repacking the twelve pounds of medicine (to check it was all there) that has just been returned to him by police, by order of a judge, can be viewed here.
More on that story and America's news obsession with cannabis stories here.
As I mentioned yesterday, while Bacon Lung, or Pork Throat (it is an upper respiratory virus) is at the top of the evening news, as the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert level from 5 to 6, the Australian media is having a hard time selling this story to a mostly skeptical public. There are still no deaths in Australia from it, there is no celebrity connection to it, yet, and outside of colourful heat scans of airport arrivees, and I Am Legend-like projections of what life will be like during and after a full-blown influenza pandemic, the rest of the visual story of what's actually going on is not very exciting to watch.
At all.
And readers of online daily newspapers in Australia couldn't be less interested. For now.
(click to enlarge)
Outside of The Australian, not one pre-pandemic or H1N1 influenza-related story makes the Most Popular Stories lists in the Murdoch online tabloids. In Sydney's Daily Telegraph, what may be one of the biggest story in a generation doesn't even rate in the Top Ten most viewed :
Readers of the Fairfax online newspapers are only slightly more interested, and only because Hugh Jackman's cancelled a premiere for his new movie in Mexico :
(click to enlarge)
All the Australian media would get more readers clicking on swine flu headlines if they called it Pork Throat. Or Bacon Lung. Or Year Long Sex Celebrity Weight Loss Alien Flu.
Public disinterest will change if an 'Oh, Fuck! Pandemic!' leads to the cancellation of the State Of Origin, of course, or if any of the following becomes reality :
* Belinda Neil returns from Mexico with Mad Pig Brain Fever, causing her to rant about "demon babies" and the poor service of wine bar restuarants in Mexico.
* International cricket players wind up on a slab.
* Long dead Osama Bin Laden announces in a "new video" that Al Qaeda bioweapons specialists released the virus to end the Allah-insulting American lust for deep-fried bacon.
* Barry Hall goes into 'voluntary' home isolation, coughing blood.
* The entire casts of Neighbours and Home & Away decide to do some "location shooting" on a remote, uninhabited island in the WhitSundays for the next six months.
* Mel & Kochie start broadcasting their morning show from the top of a 100 foot tower, surrounded by a moat of fire, in a remote Queensland rain forest.
* The Footy Show hosts appear in biosuits, or in glass bubbles.
* Federal parliament decides to "temporarily relocate" to a huge sealed plastic dome on top of Uluru.
* It turns out that 10% of all H1N1 victims are likely to turn into brain-hungry zombies.
US Vice President Says New Flu So Dangerous He's Already Warned His Family To Stay Out Of Planes, Trains And Automobiles - But When Did He Warn Them?
.
You'll Know It's Serious When They Cancel The State Of Origin
By Darryl Mason
There is talk getting around about the proposed cancellation of State Of Origin matches, as governments in New South Wales and Queensland fire up their pandemic response plans. The pandemic response plans also include, eventually, closing most places where people gather in crowds - cinemas, schools, child care centres, public transport, shopping malls, restaurants, theatres, cafes and pubs, and some of these closures may happen even if we don't have a slab of new flu deaths once the World Health Organisation moves its pandemic alert from 5 to 6, its highest alert status.
But major sporting events are still going on elsewhere in the world, they're just closed to the public, so big crowds don't gather in the stands and potentially share the Frankenstein Flu amongst themselves. The Qld government, however, is apparently considering not having the State of Origin held at all. Not letting crowds come to the games, but still holding the sports event so fans can at least watch it at home, seems almost normal if we are actually in pre-pandemic days. But cancelling these events completely?
If most of the city populations have to, eventually, stay in their homes for a week or two, to lessen the spread and the potential for the H1N1 virus to continue swapping genes and growing stronger, maybe more deadly, people will need those familiar events on the box to go ahead as normal. If a pandemic unfolds.
Life without footy on the TV might please some, but there are millions who will need the big games to still be played, live, if only to distact them for a while from the rest of the chaos.
With or without a pandemic, I'm with the PM on this, Wash Your Hands.
This is a chunk of what I wrote up on Your New Reality last night :
By Darryl Mason
There is talk getting around about the proposed cancellation of State Of Origin matches, as governments in New South Wales and Queensland fire up their pandemic response plans. The pandemic response plans also include, eventually, closing most places where people gather in crowds - cinemas, schools, child care centres, public transport, shopping malls, restaurants, theatres, cafes and pubs, and some of these closures may happen even if we don't have a slab of new flu deaths once the World Health Organisation moves its pandemic alert from 5 to 6, its highest alert status.
But major sporting events are still going on elsewhere in the world, they're just closed to the public, so big crowds don't gather in the stands and potentially share the Frankenstein Flu amongst themselves. The Qld government, however, is apparently considering not having the State of Origin held at all. Not letting crowds come to the games, but still holding the sports event so fans can at least watch it at home, seems almost normal if we are actually in pre-pandemic days. But cancelling these events completely?
If most of the city populations have to, eventually, stay in their homes for a week or two, to lessen the spread and the potential for the H1N1 virus to continue swapping genes and growing stronger, maybe more deadly, people will need those familiar events on the box to go ahead as normal. If a pandemic unfolds.
Life without footy on the TV might please some, but there are millions who will need the big games to still be played, live, if only to distact them for a while from the rest of the chaos.
With or without a pandemic, I'm with the PM on this, Wash Your Hands.
This is a chunk of what I wrote up on Your New Reality last night :
It's fine to laugh and mock and be rationally paranoid and snortingly, skeptically question what is unfolding, and how the mainstream media and blogs are covering the possible pre-pandemic, and hyping it, and this questioning and personal judging of the information you're getting should be done, always, your brain demands you question reality, particularly a new reality that seems to be coming on with the momentum of monumental historical events, question it all.Read The Rest Of The Story Here
But refusing to develop a handwashing routine as whatever is going to happen unfolds, refusing to increase the frequency of a basic routine of personal hygiene, might in the end turn out to be a pretty fucking big risk to take just to say You Weren't Fooled By Fearmongering Media when the pandemic doesn't become reality.
I've never asked any readers here to donate money to keep the site going, and I won't (though I might try and flog you a few books sometime soon), but you can take this message as a kind of call for a Your New Reality Donation Drive. Your donation to this site is this : You will spend an extra five to ten minutes a day keeping your hands clean, and the hands of your family members, and particularly your children, just for the next few weeks, at the very least. That's it.
Do whatever else you think you should do to prepare for what may happen, or do nothing and soak up the reality-cracking Fearorama of the evening news. Regardless, get your hands in water and soap, five or six times a day and that will be the only donation I will ever ask you for.
But if you do start to notice on the news that Richard Branson, The Royal Family, Al Gore, Stephen Spielberg, Tom Cruise, the entire US Cabinet, Henry Kissinger and Oprah Winfrey have been climbing into personal space ships and blasting off from Planet Earth with no plans to return for a little while, then maybe, maybe, you should check to see if you've got enough food, and water.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Aporkalypse When?
The World Health Organisation spoils Frankenstein Flu hysteria, for now :
Comments on news.com.au are heaving with talk of bioweapons and Big Pharma conspiracies to flog more anti-virals (the old stockpiles are hitting or passed their expiration dates), but the mainstream media hasn't even begun to nibble at any of this stuff yet.
They probably won't, denying many of their readers exactly the kind of stories they want to hear and read about, even if it is to only debunk them.
The history of bioweapons and bioresearch labs mixing influenza genes, from a variety of animals, including human, bird and swine, makes for some wild, but still interesting reading.
UPDATE : First Official New Flu Death In US
From news.com.au :
Seeing media tag the 22 month old Texas victim of H1N1 as 'The Swine Flu Child' makes a calm person want to slap around some people in a news room. Just fucking ugly.
But then, merchandisers have already rushed out new baby bibs :
The World Health Organisation spoils Frankenstein Flu hysteria, for now :
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says there have only been seven laboratory-confirmed swine flu deaths, all in Mexico, from 79 confirmed cases around the world.The Australian media appears to be rapidly losing interest. Frankenstein Flu has not delivered a body count here yet, despite the dozens in voluntary home 'quarantine', and seeing the isolated infection-suspected being interviewed by phone from behind their front window is about as exciting a visual for the evening news as new internet cable being laid.
Comments on news.com.au are heaving with talk of bioweapons and Big Pharma conspiracies to flog more anti-virals (the old stockpiles are hitting or passed their expiration dates), but the mainstream media hasn't even begun to nibble at any of this stuff yet.
They probably won't, denying many of their readers exactly the kind of stories they want to hear and read about, even if it is to only debunk them.
The history of bioweapons and bioresearch labs mixing influenza genes, from a variety of animals, including human, bird and swine, makes for some wild, but still interesting reading.
UPDATE : First Official New Flu Death In US
From news.com.au :
Seeing media tag the 22 month old Texas victim of H1N1 as 'The Swine Flu Child' makes a calm person want to slap around some people in a news room. Just fucking ugly.
But then, merchandisers have already rushed out new baby bibs :
The Anti-Nature Resistance Rises
Some crazed freak in comments at Grods is using the Man-Bird-Pig Flu outbreak to try and start all sorts of trouble for the ecosphere :
Some crazed freak in comments at Grods is using the Man-Bird-Pig Flu outbreak to try and start all sorts of trouble for the ecosphere :
Bin Laden is dead and Mother Nature is history's greatest terrorist.
It took us the whole of the 20th century and a lot of ingenuity and effort to kill 100 million people in our wars. Mother Nature can beat that with a string of earthquakes, a volcanic eruption, a tsunami or two and a solid global pandemic (as in 1918).Isolate him now.
Mother Nature's War On Humans is ramping up, so we must punish this brutal old hag now, and show her no quarter. Concrete her rainforests, damn her wilderness rivers, squish her precious frogs and eat all of her rarest species.
If She kills 100 Australians with her new virus, we behead one thousand koalas. If She wipes out one thousand of us in revenge, we harpoon 10,000 whales. The big ones first.
My new anti-nature resistance is called Humans Against The Rest (HATeR).
Who's with me?
Err....Yessss...I Too Am An Essential Worker, Really I Am
Hopefully, Health Minister Nicola Roxon is right :
Anti-virals are only as effective as they can be if a course of them is taken, a series of doses. Catching the New Flu and taking one or two Tamiflus or Relenzas is not expected to make much difference.
During a pandemic, the government's plan is to make sure doctors, nurses, hospital staff, ambulance drivers, body collectors, firefighters, some police, essential government and infrastructure workers get the anti-virals they need to keep doing their work surrounded by, and coming in regular contact, with a killer virus.
9 million doses of anti-virals is fuck all for 21 million Australians, if a course is six to twelve doses, with "essential workers" likely needing at least few courses over the many months it would take for a pandemic, or pandemic waves, to unfold.
9 million courses, however, will allow hundreds of thousands of workers to continue doing their jobs, while the rest of the population, for varying amounts of time, are confined to their homes, either voluntarily or under police order.
If there is a pandemic.
There will be anti-viral courses left over for some of the sick, and the ramped up production of anti-virals in Australia now (300 new jobs!) will reach government distribution points in a month or two. But, if 30 to 40% of the Australian population falls ill, over six months to a year or more of pandemic waves (as some experts are now predicting), the anti-viral production output in Australia will not satisfy demand.
If a pandemic becomes reality sooner rather than later, there will be extemely hard choices that will have to be made about whether people more likely to die from the virus, even if they have treatment, should be given a course of drugs that are in limited supply.
It's a surreal reality we might on the verge of being plunged into....
If a pandemic happens.
If.
But a couple of weeks worth of food and water stockpiled in the home, just in case, and to be on the safe side, shouldn't be left to the last minute.
Like the YK2 episode, you can eventually get through all those extra cans of soup and bags of rice crowdiing up the spare room later on if nothing happens, or donate it to charity.
The QLD Government's 'Pandemic Planning In The Workplace' Guide
September 2005 : Then Health Minister Tony Abbott On Influenza Pandemic In Australia - Die In Your Homes
.
Hopefully, Health Minister Nicola Roxon is right :
"...we have 8.7 million courses of these antivirals in our stockpile."And this news report is wrong :
Australia has stockpiled 8.7 million doses of the Tamiflu and Relenza drugs, which are believed to be effective in treating the virus.This one, too :
...the Government has a stockpile of nearly 9 million doses to be used in the event of threatened epidemic.The confusion over Doses and Courses is widespread in the Australian media.
Anti-virals are only as effective as they can be if a course of them is taken, a series of doses. Catching the New Flu and taking one or two Tamiflus or Relenzas is not expected to make much difference.
During a pandemic, the government's plan is to make sure doctors, nurses, hospital staff, ambulance drivers, body collectors, firefighters, some police, essential government and infrastructure workers get the anti-virals they need to keep doing their work surrounded by, and coming in regular contact, with a killer virus.
9 million doses of anti-virals is fuck all for 21 million Australians, if a course is six to twelve doses, with "essential workers" likely needing at least few courses over the many months it would take for a pandemic, or pandemic waves, to unfold.
9 million courses, however, will allow hundreds of thousands of workers to continue doing their jobs, while the rest of the population, for varying amounts of time, are confined to their homes, either voluntarily or under police order.
If there is a pandemic.
There will be anti-viral courses left over for some of the sick, and the ramped up production of anti-virals in Australia now (300 new jobs!) will reach government distribution points in a month or two. But, if 30 to 40% of the Australian population falls ill, over six months to a year or more of pandemic waves (as some experts are now predicting), the anti-viral production output in Australia will not satisfy demand.
If a pandemic becomes reality sooner rather than later, there will be extemely hard choices that will have to be made about whether people more likely to die from the virus, even if they have treatment, should be given a course of drugs that are in limited supply.
It's a surreal reality we might on the verge of being plunged into....
If a pandemic happens.
If.
But a couple of weeks worth of food and water stockpiled in the home, just in case, and to be on the safe side, shouldn't be left to the last minute.
Like the YK2 episode, you can eventually get through all those extra cans of soup and bags of rice crowdiing up the spare room later on if nothing happens, or donate it to charity.
The QLD Government's 'Pandemic Planning In The Workplace' Guide
September 2005 : Then Health Minister Tony Abbott On Influenza Pandemic In Australia - Die In Your Homes
.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Official : It's Not Illegal To Drive A Fake Pope Mobile Around Sydney To Taunt Catholics
So now you know :
So now you know :
More HerePolice have withdrawn charges against a man who was found driving a fake pope-mobile around Sydney.
The car was built as a protest against the Pope's visit and World Youth Day in July last year.
Mr Bryce says the decision is a victory for free speech.
"The purpose of the pope-mobile was the draw the media attention and the public's attention to the false claims and the very bad actions of the Pope and the Church in coming here for World Youth Day, which I believe is in effect a latter day crusade.
"It was against the Pope's claims to have supernatural authority...."
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