Is Swine Flu the new health Armageddon or can it simply be sneezed at?

We all remember bird flu, earlier this decade, which sounded bad but killed fewer than 1000 people globally, that sounds a lot but malaria kills more than 500,000 every year but never makes headlines. During the anthrax scares in the post 9/11 period, I think two people died of exposure to this disease. I recall reading later that in the US in any typical year, around 5 people die from anthrax. You could say the anthrax scare lessened the incidence of anthrax deaths to below an average level, ergo improving it, probably because people were more careful around exposure to it.

Is this latest scare just that, a scare? Is Big Pharma looking to clear down some drug stocks? Is it just a getting back at those filthy Mexicans for stealing our jobs? Is it the former and the latter is a bonus?

I’ve not bought any Tamiflu, but I’d be curious to see a pack so I could check its use by date. My guess is it’s around 5 years after the manufacturing date. Remember, every Western government and many others too, stockpiled Tamiflu in 2003. If this all needs to be biffed, it’ll need to be replaced too, especially given there’s a new ‘threat’.

Don't feed them onboard for a start.

This report was mentioned the other day on Stuff too. I've always thought it somewhat ridiculous that a 85 kg person can only have 20 kgs of check-in (or 30 in business) and a 120 kg person can have the exactly the same. Even more ridiculous, is having to take out say 2 kgs from your check-in because you're over, then their allowing you to put it in your carry-on. What's the point!

Changes to the bullshit around luggage allowances are well overdue, never to speak of what to do with the fat people. Those chairs aren't getting any bigger, but nearly half the people sitting in them are, so something has to give.

Ryan Air are clearly leveraging this to turn a coin, as I imagine things are tight in the airline business right now, but charging for bog roll is going a little too far, I suspect.

Aha!

I note my hit counter spiked yesterday, and though hmmm, am I more popular than I thought? But then realised you're all just refreshing the SI widget to the right aren't you?!

It's doing wonders for my 'impressisons' count. Click away. There're a quite a number of different pics as it happens, more than the standard sort of expection of 12.

Which one gets your vote?

Social networking

I've mentioned this before, and this is yet another example. Not that I have a particular hatred for Face Book, I just think it's kinda odd people open themselves up for this. I guess it's not FB's fault per se, but what people choose to add to their pages.

Or is it something more sinister? Is the MSM embarking on some sort of slagging campaign as they're worried about social networking, and FB and Twitter in particular, as they see them as a threat to their existence?

Discuss.