I'm going to stop taking my lead from the MSM about all but the most obvious news, and that with a big grain of salt. I just don't trust the 24/7 news outlets or the constant on-line coverage. They have to sell product and the bigger the headlines the bigger the sale. Whether it's the flu or a blizzard or drought or global warming or whatever, it's 90% BS mingled some vague truth. It's crazy and it's driving us crazy.

I definitely think that the swine flu panic has been blown way out of proportion, and issues like malaria, measles, and malnutrition deserve far more attention even though they are not as obvious in the United States. The U.S. should be doing more to address these more dangerous issues, though.

The Borgen Project has good info on the estimated cost of ending global poverty:

$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.

$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.

MANDATORY INOCULATIONS? Was that "When Pigs Fly" flu virus just a setup? I don't trust anyone. Least of all the CDC.

Given the 1976 flu vaccine debacle and products like Gardasil, I think I'll pass on any mandatory anything. The government ought to defend our physical borders and deliver the mail and leave us the fuck alone.

Since it doesn't seem like it's so bad, I think I would like to get this new H1N1 flu. It could potentially mutate into something worse during the next several months (remember, it's winter in the southern hemisphere), and maybe getting the present form may innoculate me from any worse forms in the future.

@Gordon Wagner: I love your "SCIENCE BAD!!" attitude to all of this. You must be believing that anti-Gardasil email that's going around. Check out snopes.com to see the whole story on that. Remember, just because you pee in the morning does not mean the rising sun is squeezing your bladder.

And I already organized a jeering mob to torch a Jewish day school per Greenwald's order. Sorry.

And I already organized a jeering mob to torch a Jewish day school per Greenwald's order. Sorry.

Every time a kid sneezes around here, mommies duck and cover their kids.

Mothers contemplate keeping their kids home from school (where there are 0 suspected cases of swine flu) "just in case."

I expect this panic to last well into 2010.

The best part of this whole thing is the MSM was all PANIC PANIC THIS COULD BE WORSE THAN THE SPANISH FLU for a few days, then they started reporting on how stupid people were for overreacting to it. They wouldn't overreact if their "trusted" news source wasn't ringing the alarms over nothing.