When You Die... Can I Have Your Bacon?

Thanks goes out to Cory at work for that picture. I know, it hurts my soul to be doing this, but I have to throw my 2 cents into the Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 2009. Oops, my bad, it's not Swine Flu, but the H1N1 virus. Oooh... scarier because it's just letters and numbers and scientific sounding. I remember seeing something on Fox News earlier this week where the newsanchor said, "Why is everyone freaking out about the swine flu?" as the ticker on the bottom of the screen flashed, "DEADLY SWINE FLU OUTBREAK!" Gee... you WONDER why people are freaking out about it? Are we really so bored and gullible to freak out about everything? Why is everything a disaster or some other extreme? I mean, in recent memory, how many deadly outbreaks have there been? Mad Cow? West Nile? Bird Flu? SARS? And maybe I'm being naive, but steaks and chickens still taste the same. Mosquitos are still annoying. And Chinese people are still around. According to ABC News, webpage found at: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFlu/story?id=7471341&page=1 "Swine flu may sound nasty. As of late Thursday, there are 236 cases of swine flu and eight confirmed deaths worldwide. But by comparison an estimated 600 people die of tuberculosis, about 1,400 people die from strep and 2,704 people die from a common asbestos-related lung cancer in the United States every year. Last year the seasonal flu took the lives of 83 children and an estimated 36,000 adults in the United States, according to the CDC." Gee... swine flu is scary ain't it? What about the millions of people that have died from HIV/AIDS? Cancer? And the number one killer of people: STUPIDITY!? It boggles my mind that people are always caught up in the breaking news story of the week, freaking out about something that they can't do anything about. Countries actually stopped the importation of pork from the US and Mexico. YOU CAN'T CATCH THE FLU FROM EATING PORK! People are walking around with those little surgical masks thinking that will prevent them from catching swine flu. THOSE DON'T WORK EITHER! The anger the feel about this level of stupidity is best exemplified by this little animated .gif: WHY? WHY? WHY? If people are so freaked out about diseases why don't we all just live in little plastic bubbles? Or better yet, why don't you put a plastic bag over your head and see how that goes? It never ceases to amaze me that people will jump on the newest scare and run with it without thinking. All the while, we have people not vaccinating their children because they think the side effects of vaccination are worse than the very epidemics that they fear. We have people getting prescribed antibiotics for no reason but because they go to a doctor and expect to get drugs for something antibiotics can't cure. We have people with bacterial infections not taking the full course of their treatment leading to bacteria mutating and developing tolerances for the drugs that we have. It is THOSE people that are the problem. THOSE people that will kill us all. Let's not start freaking out about a flu. Yes, people died from it. Yes, people may die from adverse reactions to vaccinations. Yes, PEOPLE DIE. It happens! I'm sorry! It's called evolution, Darwinism, or will of God depending on what you believe. And I'd like to say to those people that believe in God... God didn't let humanity develop science, technology, and medical treatments if God didn't mean for us to use that stuff. Regardless of that religious debate we can have another day... shit happens. Now, I'm going to make some bacon and enjoy breakfast. If by some strange chance it is the H1N1 virus that kills us all: Oops, my bad. I'll start accepting bids for who gets all my stuff when I die now. But if it's not, you are all idiots.