No, this is not another cooking post. Nor is this a graft/corruption post, except peripherally.

This is another pig post, another swine-flu post. The powerful pork lobby doesn't want swine-flu referenced as such, preferring H1N1, hence seldom a reference in any media suggesting a swine-flu pandemic.

What swine our excuse for a Fourth Estate have become! What pigs!
Seems a stinking silk purse can be made from a sow's ear, but I hope this re-branding turns on them like Bush's handlers' "climate change" re-branding of "global warming". A pig by any other name smells of the sty.

Our doctrinare arch-conservative government hesitated at the threat, played it down, started late pushing production of the vaccine. My locale recently received 30,000 units, not even enough for the extreme-risk populace it was meant to immunize: children under 5, pregnant women, those under 65 with chronic diseases (the assumption is that people over 65 have been exposed to a similar virus, thus have some immunity).

Some 700 swine-flu deaths have been confirmed so far in B C, most all within high-risk categories, most all preventable with early immunization. Many deaths with swine-flu symptoms remain as yet unconfirmed. Local schools are a third down in attendance.

More vaccine is promised sometime this month for those at most risk, but a panacea vaccine to cover the pandemic for all apparently won't be available till Next Year. Happy New Year, Ghost of Ingmar Bergman!

My 22 year old daughter and her 26 year old husband are the latest victims in my family, so surely we'll be next. Christine visited up-island a few days ago, now exhibits sympathetic symptoms. A few days later, no one here exibits real symptoms. But Erin and Jory are sick to the point of immobilization.

Jeezus! Had that old arch-Liberal Jean Chretien, he of the wonky face and street-fighter lawyer mentality still been in charge, we'd have been innundated with swine-flu vaccine and he selling excess at inflated prices to needy others and skimming his rightful vig. Proper politics.

You know what scares me? The encouragment of pregnant women getting those shots. How would they know any AE's? Has the vaccine been around long enough to do clinical trials on pregnant women & the effects on the babies?