Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

[flintlock]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Everyone on this forum keeps referencing the WHO as if is some kind of oracle of epidemiological information. Should we really be placing so much faith in the public health premonitions of a 1960's english rock band known for its energetic live performances and unique use of voice synthesizers?

"We won't get fooled again!"

[strittmatter]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

"We won't get fooled again!"

Ding............we may have a winner.

[nitroglycol]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Ben Goldacre has some interesting comments on the media's inability to properly deal with situations like this:

First it was the emails, and the tweets. This is all nonsense about the aporkalypse, surely? Just like with Sars, and bird flu, and MMR, is this all hype? The answer is no, but more interesting is this: for so many people, their very first assumption on the story is that the media are lying. It is the story of the boy who cried wolf. We are poorly equipped to think around issues involving risk, and infectious diseases epidemiology is a tricky business: the error margins on the models are wide, and it's extremely hard to make clear predictions.
Here's an example. In Glasgow in the 1980s, less than 5% of injecting drug users were HIV positive. In Edinburgh at the same time, it was almost 50%, even though these two places are only an hour apart by train. Lots of people have got theories about why there should have been such a huge difference in the numbers of people infected, and there's no doubt that it's fun to try and come up with a plausible post hoc rationale. But you certainly wouldn't have predicted it.Maybe some bloke with HIV got off the train at Edinburgh station instead of Glasgow on a whim, some fateful day in the early 1980s.
Maybe there was a different culture among heroin users, or services.
Nobody really knows.
We face the same problem with swine flu. All people have done is raise the possibility of things really kicking off, and they are right to do so, but we don't have brilliantly accurate information. Someone has said that up to 40% of the world could be infected. Is that scaremongering? Well it's high, and I'm sure it's a bit of a guess, but maybe up to 40% could be. Annoying, isn't it, not to know.
...
By Tuesday, pundit-seekers from the media were suddenly contacting me, a massive nobody, to say that swine flu is all nonsense and hype, like some kind of blind, automated naysaying device. "Will you come and talk about the media overhyping swine flu?" asked Case Notes on Radio 4. No. "We need someone to say it's all been overhyped," said BBC Wales.
I assumed they were adhering, robotically, to the "balance" template, but no: he kept at it, even when I protested and explained. "Yeah, but you know, it could be like Sars and bird flu, they didn't materialise, they were hype." Simon Jenkins suggested the same thing. It's not true, I said. They were risks, risks that didn't materialise, but they were still risks. That's what a risk is. I've never been hit by a car, but it's not idiotic to think about it. Simon Jenkins won't be right if nobody dies, he'll be lucky, like the rest of us. Do people think this flappily in casinos? The terrible truth is yes.

From here. The media wants nice, clear-cut, yes/no answers, and the experts here, if they're being honest, cannot give such answers. This throws your average news editor into conniptions.

[ocelotl]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Back to thread:

Oficial sources of information:

http://portal.salud.gob.mx/
http://www.who.int/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian.../en/index.html

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

1. what is the fire economy?
2. what are the building blocks of an asset bubble?
3. what is debt deflation?
4. what options do governments have to stop deflation?
5. which do they take any why?
6. others...

Oh come on.. Basically, you can only post if you've drank the koolaid? That's ludicrous.

Some of us see inflation as a necessary component of insuring that people invest in the economy. Without it, people would just sit on their bars of gold and not take risks, risks that are necessary for innovation.

Some of us also see that the government can print money as fast and as furiously as it wants, as long as we have productivity improvements / world trade agreements to match.

As soon as productivity improvements slow down, or we run out of china's to do the grunt work, then inflation will spike and our ability to print our way out of problems will vanish.

Some of us also see that the current round of stimulus is simply replacing the vacuum left by the shadow banking system and that's why high inflation is unlikely. Instead of spending money on hedgie fund master castles, we're spending money on health care / alt energy / etc.

Personally, I think you should be able to quote that in your sleep before posting on itulip.

[metalman]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Oh come on.. Basically, you can only post if you've drank the koolaid? That's ludicrous.

ok...

Some of us see inflation as a necessary component of insuring that people invest in the economy. Without it, people would just sit on their bars of gold and not take risks, risks that are necessary for innovation.

talk about ludicrous... you got it backwards.

inflation necessary to motivate investment? profits motivate investment. the bars of gold are protection from inflation.

Some of us also see that the government can print money as fast and as furiously as it wants, as long as we have productivity improvements / world trade agreements to match.

As soon as productivity improvements slow down, or we run out of china's to do the grunt work, then inflation will spike and our ability to print our way out of problems will vanish.

so the usa's external debts and capital imports vs its trade partners' are proportionate to productivity growth? that's all that's going on? huh. so, it doesn't help that the usa has a currency monopoly?

Some of us also see that the current round of stimulus is simply replacing the vacuum left by the shadow banking system and that's why high inflation is unlikely. Instead of spending money on hedgie fund master castles, we're spending money on health care / alt energy / etc.

the $$$ the gov't prints is not like the $$$ the private markets printed... it gets used in different ways, has different results. the warburton interview spells it out pretty well, but i still don't really understand it... and i don't think you do, either.

Personally, I think you should be able to quote that in your sleep before posting on itulip.

i'd quote that if i were properly brainwashed by a pack of chicago school profs.

[Guest]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Or why not restrict yourself to posting helpful links and a few pithy synopses, without the creaking and pugnacious baggage of opinons regarding any forays outside of iTulip orthodoxy? You know, make your posts a little more like Rajiv's - highly informative without the stentorian opinionating and the bugle calls to iTulip-ish tribalism?

ok...

talk about ludicrous... you got it backwards.

inflation necessary to motivate investment? profits motivate investment. the bars of gold are protection from inflation.

so the usa's external debts and capital imports vs its trade partners' are proportionate to productivity growth? that's all that's going on? huh. so, it doesn't help that the usa has a currency monopoly?

the $$$ the gov't prints is not like the $$$ the private markets printed... it gets used in different ways, has different results. the warburton interview spells it out pretty well, but i still don't really understand it... and i don't think you do, either.

i'd quote that if i were properly brainwashed by a pack of chicago school profs.

[flintlock]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

I fell like a kid watching his parents fight. :eek:

[cjppjc]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

I fell like a kid watching his parents fight. :eek:

And much like when your parents fight.

A) They do it every day
B) No one admits they were wrong
C) It signifies nothing

[flintlock]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

And much like when your parents fight.

A) They do it every day
B) No one admits they were wrong
C) It signifies nothing

The real question:



Will there be makeup sex tonight?

[Supercilious]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Since they have such a tumultuous relationship I declare lukester and metalman man and wife. I let them decide who is the man and who is the wife.

Since Marquez wrote El amor en los tiempos del colera, I might start writing a book called El amor en los tiempos del influenza porcina.



(By the way for those interested I have in stock for sale the folowing:
Cipro for goldfish (peletes 2.5 g/10 l for the hospital tank)
Relenza for hamsters (0.25 mg inhalers)
Tamiflu for elephants (pack 5 suppositories 10kg each)

Please contact me in private if you are interested in a prompt delivery )

[Guest]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Hey there CJPPJC - I notice you are a bit of an abject Metalman fan - posting smarmily devoted comments all over here? What part of my comment below, in plain English, is not intelligible to you? Are you obtuse? This guy, for the past two years I've been reading here, has made great sport and jollity from baiting a few selected targets. The most probable targets are people who don't spell well, like Miker, whom Metalman has enjoyed baiting quite regularly around here whenever he's in a particularly nasty mood (it's his equivalent to kicking the house cat), and then the newcomers, like $#* and Nero3, when they come in with ideas which Metalman, in his ineffable wisdom, finds flimsy.

Meanwhile guys with your style of fawning appreciation go right in there yapping your applause, and he gets all puffed up with pride at his "contributions" to maintaining the integrity of the "iTulip tribe", which in recent weeks have consisted of posting loooong cartoony dribbles which delight you and make you feel these are wonderfully incisive contributions. Wet soggy cornflakes to my view. What are you guys? Wannabe boyscouts maybe? Want to see everyone here maybe start wearing iTulip tee shirts so as to get even more clubby? Cut that clubby crap out!

Metalman may be beloved by many around here, but he's also got a trace of the hectoriing bully when it comes to people around here who are not all squared up in the "iTulip regiments". He likes to see everyone "up to speed" on the iTulip thinking - which when translated by a less straightjacketed thinker might come out sounding like him wanting everyone to get into tidy little lines along with the iTulip consensus. Maybe it appeases some inner hunger in him, for iTulip and EJ to be proclaimed the only guiding light in the univers, like the north star? This is real pablum when I'm forced to wade through it.

I don't appreciate the brand of slightly fawning praise you lavish on this guy, nor do I appreciate the occasional comments you throw in from the peanut gallery helping along the collective jeers he likes to instigate. This guy patently wants everyone to be solidly in closed ranks with iTulip, and if we all complied, this place would turn into a crashing bore in a hurry. To all the fawning Metalman acolytes, this guy has a long track record of picking on dissidents here for sport. Well, it's a free forum, but there's one thing wrong with that: I notice that when he is "picked on" himself, he gets kind of wimpy.

Easier to deploy the withering comments when he's having a little sport with Miker, or Nero3 - but when it comes to him taking the heat a little bit, he looks downright tender to me, and all you dubiously partial fans conveniently overlook that this guy has spent a good deal of time chewing out other people here for dissident views - for years now. What do they call that, eh - when you can dish out tons of lampoons, jibes and criticism, but you suddenly get very tender if you have to take any?

Your "it signifies nothing" is rubbish. You only arrived here months ago and I noticed you immediately started talking about this place in proprietary terms, like your posting "what have we all learned from our experience at iTulip" threads within one month of first arriving here. Yeesh. Are you looking for a surrogate family maybe? What all this signifies, is that the guy being criticised here has done A LOT OF CRITICISING of his own - for two or three long years before having to read this. You don't know what all was going on here for so long - yet you profess to have an informed opinion. You don't, nor are you impartial. I suggest you can the coy remarks.

What a pile of horseshit I'm reading here. I have lost track of the times MM lashes out at Miker for spelling mistakes - just for example - maybe MM is some sort of frustrated novelist perhaps, and gets his jollies from posing in attitudes of lofty superiority to someone who has a touch of dyslexia, because it makes him feel more eloquent. I've watched that stuff going on for 2 f234king years! You think that does not provide a hint about someone's character? What is to admire about that, when you see such weak behavior repeated over and over again, because "he enjoys it"?

Then you wonderfully insincere twits think MM is being "abused" when someone points out that's hardly admirable? Heh. We can only commend your wonderful impartiality as you blissfully ignore him ragging on others. The guy likes to rag on the vulnerable, and on the outsiders. That, to me, is the mark of someone with a core of inner misery they seek to appease. I knew kids like that way back in grade school. In the end, I did not like them.

Or why not restrict yourself to posting helpful links and a few pithy synopses, without the creaking and pugnacious baggage of opinons regarding any forays outside of iTulip orthodoxy? You know, make your posts a little more like Rajiv's - highly informative without the stentorian opinionating and the bugle calls to iTulip-ish tribalism?

And much like when your parents fight.

A) They do it every day
B) No one admits they were wrong
C) It signifies nothing

[cjppjc]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Hey there CJPPJC - I notice you are a bit of an abject Metalman fan - posting smarmily devoted comments all over here? What part of my comment below, in plain English, is not intelligible to you? Are you obtuse? This guy, for the past two years I've been reading here, has made great sport and jollity from baiting a few selected targets. The most probable targets are people who don't spell well, like Miker, whom Metalman has enjoyed baiting quite regularly around here whenever he's in a particularly nasty mood (it's his equivalent to kicking the house cat), and then the newcomers, like $#* and Nero3, when they come in with ideas which Metalman, in his ineffable wisdom, finds flimsy.

Meanwhile guys with your style of fawning appreciation go right in there yapping your applause, and he gets all puffed up with pride at his "contributions" to maintaining the integrity of the "iTulip tribe", which in recent weeks have consisted of posting loooong cartoony dribbles which delight you and make you feel these are wonderfully incisive contributions. Wet soggy cornflakes to my view. What are you guys? Wannabe boyscouts maybe? Want to see everyone here maybe start wearing iTulip tee shirts so as to get even more clubby? Cut that clubby crap out!

Metalman may be beloved by many around here, but he's also got a trace of the hectoriing bully when it comes to people around here who are not all squared up in the "iTulip regiments". He likes to see everyone "up to speed" on the iTulip thinking - which when translated by a less straightjacketed thinker might come out sounding like him wanting everyone to get into tidy little lines along with the iTulip consensus. Maybe it appeases some inner hunger in him, for iTulip and EJ to be proclaimed the only guiding light in the univers, like the north star? This is real pablum when I'm forced to wade through it.

I don't appreciate the brand of slightly fawning praise you lavish on this guy, nor do I appreciate the occasional comments you throw in from the peanut gallery helping along the collective jeers he likes to instigate. This guy patently wants everyone to be solidly in closed ranks with iTulip, and if we all complied, this place would turn into a crashing bore in a hurry. To all the fawning Metalman acolytes, this guy has a long track record of picking on dissidents here for sport. Well, it's a free forum, but there's one thing wrong with that: I notice that when he is "picked on" himself, he gets kind of wimpy.

Easier to deploy the withering comments when he's having a little sport with Miker, or Nero3 - but when it comes to him taking the heat a little bit, he looks downright tender to me, and all you dubiously partial fans conveniently overlook that this guy has spent a good deal of time chewing out other people here for dissident views - for years now. What do they call that, eh - when you can dish out tons of lampoons, jibes and criticism, but you suddenly get very tender if you have to take any?

Your "it signifies nothing" is rubbish. You only arrived here months ago and I noticed you immediately started talking about this place in proprietary terms, like your posting "what have we all learned from our experience at iTulip" threads within one month of first arriving here. Yeesh. Are you looking for a surrogate family maybe? What all this signifies, is that the guy being criticised here has done A LOT OF CRITICISING of his own - for two or three long years before having to read this. You don't know what all was going on here for so long - yet you profess to have an informed opinion. You don't, nor are you impartial. I suggest you can the coy remarks.

What a pile of horseshit I'm reading here. I have lost track of the times MM lashes out at Miker for spelling mistakes - just for example - maybe MM is some sort of frustrated novelist perhaps, and gets his jollies from posing in attitudes of lofty superiority to someone who has a touch of dyslexia, because it makes him feel more eloquent. I've watched that stuff going on for 2 f234king years! You think that does not provide a hint about someone's character? What is to admire about that, when you see such weak behavior repeated over and over again, because "he enjoys it"?

Then you wonderfully insincere twits think MM is being "abused" when someone points out that's hardly admirable? Heh. We can only commend your wonderful impartiality as you blissfully ignore him ragging on others. The guy likes to rag on the vulnerable, and on the outsiders. That, to me, is the mark of someone with a core of inner misery they seek to appease. I knew kids like that way back in grade school. In the end, I did not like them.

I think you've made yourself very clear. I do agree with almost everything you wrote. I think they pay you bye the word. I am sincerely sorry if you fell I've picked on you. That was never my intention. I wish I knew how you, and others are able to respond in the middle of other posts, then I could go over each point you've made in a better way than this:

1) Smarmily? Maybe?
2) Obtuce? I don't think so
3) I've only noticed Metalman go after Mike once. I am a little confused about that one. I was not aware of any (how to put this) handicap.
4) Metalman gets puffed up with pride. A fair guess.
5) Clubby? No I actually enjoy reading other ideas. I don't think I've ever chimed in on your market predictions, because I like reading other thoughts. I did pile on Nero, only because it was so funny to me. the whole 81/82 64/65 71 thing. I'm actually laughing a little bit now thinking about it.
6) Metalman a beloved, hecktoring bully? Agree.
7) Fawning praise? Maybe?
8) Itulip would become a crashing bore. Could not agree more.
9) My "It signifies nothing" comment was part of what I thought were two funny posts about parents fighting. Nothing ment to insult either of you.
10) The post was: What have you observed about YOURSELF. Not what have we learned from our experience. There is a huge difference. May I suggest you go back and re read your post there. After a very humorous cut up of Metalman, (It was very funny. Too servile here?) you answered the question with some thought.
11) Am I looking for a surrogate family? Yes. I really had hoped an iTulip get together was possible. As had been suggested.
12) I don't think I profess to have an informed opinion. Except for real estate matters. I think I am impartial. If you like, I wont comment ever again, in any humorous way to anything you post.


I have run out of steam here. I hope you can figure out what I'm trying to say. I don't know how you can do a long post like this more than once a day.

[Roughneck]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

One thing to me is obvious. If this flu turns deadly or in the event of a real bio attack we are f'ed. Because the government does not have the balls to do what is necessary to slow or stop the progress of an outbreak.

[jwonks]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

I was in Tijuana beach for a month earlier this year. One thing that struck me was how awful the food stands and mom and pop restaurants handled/stored their meats. We're talking raw chicken and beef just sitting outside the freezer at room temperature for hours coupled with flies flying overhead. At least the meats were still in their original plastic packaging and therefore the flies couldn't get to 'em. Yuck.

Before I left for Mexico my aunt and uncle had warned me that Mexicans do not properly refrigerate their meats and to be careful. Although my experience is obviously limited, I'd warn everyone to watch what and where they eat if you're there.

My theory on why so many Mexicans have died from the flu is twofold [1] suboptimal immune systems due to an unbalanced diet and due to the unsanitary handling of and miscooking foods and [2] shoddy medical care.