Don't make me hurt someone.

Stop it, people. Stop it NOW.

Stop using the swine flu outbreak as a step ladder onto your own personal soapbox. Stop politicizing every crap event that happens in our world as evidence of "ZOMG THE WORLD IS GOING TO END IF EVERYONE DOESN'T IMMEDIATELY CONFORM TO MY SUPERIOR WAY OF LIFE"

Because it's making me STABBY, people. It's infuriating.

Here follows a sampling of what I have seen/heard suggested:

1. Swine flu is happening because evil humans enslave animals to eat. If we didn't have farms, we wouldn't have swine flu. (And if we didn't have industrialized food production, we'd probably have far fewer people, because lots more folks would be dead of famine).

2. "It's them damn Mexi-CANS." We don't know for sure where it originated. And even if it originated in Mexico, it looks like it got here by Americans traveling to Mexico, getting sick, and bringing the virus back here. Not every bad thing that happens is the fault of illegal immigrants or porous borders.

3. "This outbreak wouldn't have happened if the Congress had just rubber stamped Obama's appointments to HHS instead of actually checking them out first." No, that's not true, and you KNOW it's not true. Stop being stupid.

4. "Evil employers FORCE sick people to come to work or lose their jobs!" I have no way of knowing if this might not be true in some cases or not. (I will admit to having worked sick. But not CONTAGIOUS sick.) I think if you have an employer who is forcing sick people to come to work, there are a couple of recourses:
a. Find a new job if possible. With a non-evil employer.
b. Cough on your boss.
c. Band together and everyone act REAL sick, like pass-out-on-the-floor sick.
d. Call the EEOC or whatever damn federal agency is supposed to limit the power of evil bosses. I know such an agency exists.

5. "Yaaaaah, Rick Perry, you're not so tough with your secession talk now." Huh? If something this non-sequiter was given as an answer on an exam, I'd write a big red question mark next to it and then take away ALL the points for the question. Likewise for the people blaming it on "alien DNA" or "government conspiracy to 'cull the herd'" (hint: if an evil genius wanted to unleash a deadly virus, it would NOT be swine flu), or anyone who mentions the Illuminati.

6. "OMG I ate pork now I'm going to get sick." Step this way, my friend, and join the line for the rocket going to the sun. Oh, don't worry, we're going to leave at night so you won't get too hot. (Because seriously: how many times do they have to say EATING COOKED PORK DOES NOT CAUSE SWINE FLU before people will believe it? I'm willing to forgive people who were worried on the first day or so this came out, but anyone saying that NOW...forget it). Oh, and the nations congratulating themselves on "saving" their populaces by banning pork from the US: I will SO laugh when the disease shows up on your shores.

7. The people saying "we need to rename this because people are getting confused by it being called 'swine flu'" Great. Let's just allow the idiots to win. They want to call it "North American Flu." Though I would suggest we rename it ManDuckPig flu, because apparently that's how the virus started - by combining strains from three different influenzas from different critters.


Actually, you know? I kind of like ManDuckPig Flu as a name. Maybe I should call up the CDC and suggest it.