Wednesday, June 17, 2009

SWINE FLU EXPLAINS EVERYTHING!!

THE ABSURD TIMES


The Absurd Times has devoted all of its biological, biochemical, chemical, psychological, and statistical resources to bring you this public service expose. All of our staff are exhausted, but we can present the real truth.
For one thing, the CDC asked everyone to call the Swine Flu the H1N1 virus, but this was not to save the hog population. Technically, the Swine Flu virus combined with the Bird Flu virus (which we have been warning about for years) and the human flu virus to produce this deadly strain. It's effects are described below.



A couple issues ago, I mentioned the insane right, but at the time I did not make the connection. The Swine Flu has infected so many people that the pig in them is coming out.

I am using this as a public service announcement -- keep an eye out for sneezing pigs. You can see the results all about you.

For example, and all of this took place in the South where pigs are rampant: one cop recently pulled out his taser and tased a 72 year old Grandma -- some reports are that she is a great-grandma.

Another cop pulled over an ambulance, with its emergency signals on, and assaulted the EMT in charge. The patient was screaming all the time. The EMT was black, the cop white. Probably didn't make much difference.
Pig in Chief (Illustration above) said high health costs are due to people who exercise. See, they break bones and stuff. Otherwise, our health care system would be fine.

For a long time I had been warning about the bird flu. Well, this is not just swine flu. No, part of it is Bird flu. And part is human. The way that worked was the virus mutated (in other words, evolved) so it could spread. Is this a part of intelligent design?

NitWitYahoo says there can be a Palestine so long as the settlements continue, Jerusalen remains Israel's, and all the Palestinians have no weapons. Our government welcomes this "progress." Yes, there are pigs loose in Washington D.C.

A rash of attacks on health care proposals. See, if the government pays your doctors fees, you will suffer. Insurance companies have your welfare in mind. Hell, they can't even sustain their own investments. And people believe this crap. I warn you, there is a pig near you with your name on it.

A man named Von Brunn walked into the Holocaust Museum and shot a black guard. This gave the museum much-needed publicity. He is described as a "neo"Nazi. He is also 88 years old. Isn't that a bit old to be a NEO-Nazi? Brains gone -- too much NyQuill.

There are alot of pigs in Kansas, but the birds mainly just pass through. Still, one person, to prove how much he believed in the sanctity of life, murdered a doctor in Kansas. His apartment was in Kansas City, newly rented, from someone who was obviously either a bad judge of character or also suffering from Swine Flu. It should be pointed out that Kansas was the first state after Texas to announce case of Swine Flu. I think I can find out the address for you, but I don't think any of you are contemplating renting in Kansas City just now.

The famous adage goes "The blues went from New Orleans to Chicago, but they stopped in Kansas City on the way." (Obviously, this was before the interstate highway system of Eisenhower.) There are pigs on the highway as dash-cams attest.

The AMA is an association of Swine against health care. They stopped national health care during borth Roosevelts, Truman, and Clinton. (Lyndon Johnson threatened them with napalm and they relented on Medicare.) They are fighting the idea.

The WHO (World Health Organization) has announced that it is a "Pandemic," obviously having something to do with orgys. But it affects the brain, makes it coarser and its blood vessels expand. This helps explain all the stupidity.

Sarah Palin is afraid David Letterman is going to rape her fourteen year old daughter, "Willow". Great name, eh? Letterman actually apoligized. Maybe he hopes she will come closer to him? Since he apologized, pigs will demonstrate in front of his theatre. She said the fighting men and women overseas is the reason he apologized. Never apologize to a pig.

How did pigs get to Alaska, anyway? I'm trying to imagine a pig-sled. Muhush Y'all!

Since we are on swinish behavior, have you tried Twitter yet? Forget it. There is a great deal of publicity over it because of Iran right now (the idiots think they can block the internet). Well, you are limited to about 147 characters, including spaces, commas, apostrophes, etc. Moreover, many people keep send the same bit over and over again -- I guess they use a macro. Fortunately, you actually have to choose to view those threads. Some have about 120 per second -- messages, that is. Our state department actually asked them to postphone maintainence until a later time so the Iran bashing can continue. Oink!

******************************************

Here is a review of the film "PIG BUSINESS":

Film review: Pig Business

Originally due to premiere on Channel 4 in February, Pig Business - a documentary about intensive pig farming - was cancelled because of fears of legal action from Smithfield Foods, the world's largest producer of pork. Subsequent screenings have also ran in to difficulties, with a recent showing at the Barbican only going ahead once the director, Tracy Worcester, signed an indemnity taking personal responsibility for its content.

So what are Smithfield Foods so afraid of?

Four years in the making and just over 70 minutes long in its current form (the version I watched may be cut down for future broadcasts), this cogent documentary argues that intensive pig farming is "bad for our food, our health and the livelihoods of our rural communities."

Initially focussing on the United States, Worcester explains how large corporations such as Smithfield Foods - an organisation that processes 27 million pigs in fifteen countries producing sales of $12 billion every year - now have effective control over the whole market, producing cheap meat to supermarkets, which in turn sends small, independent farms out of business.

Housed in superstore-sized sheds in cramped conditions with little natural light, the stressed-out hogs produce a staggering amount of waste (pigs defecate ten times the amount a human does), often contaminating the local water table and emitting an illness-inducing stench. Tom Garrett, from the Animal Welfare Institute, argues this is nothing less than "the application of industrial systems that were designed to build car and machines, to living creatures."

Tired of being steamrolled by large corporations, in the 90s a grassroots movement of farmers and environmentalists won a number of small, but significant victories, leading to greater regulation of pig farms in the US. For example, in 1997 Smithfield Foods was fined $12.6 million for discharging illegal levels of pollutants into the PaganRiver in Virginia - the then largest ever financial penalty given by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In response to this popular protest and increasingly restrictive laws, Smithfield Foods relocated much of its business to countries such as Poland, where it purchased former state farms and slaughterhouses at bargain basement prices. As Worcester points out, following the radical free-market shock-therapy of the early 90s, what is euphemistically called a "favourable business environment" was created in Poland - that is low labour costs, light regulation, poor governance etc. Speaking to the Polish Senate, Robert Kennedy, Jr, son of US liberal legend Bobby Kennedy and Chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance, notes that Smithfield Foods is trying to "get away with something in Poland that people in the United States now recognise is a catastrophe."

A long-time environmental activist working on a small budget, Worcester has done a great public service by shining a light on an industry that would prefer to stay out of the public eye. She has certainly done her homework, gaining incisive interviews with academic experts, politicians, industry heads and ordinary people on both sides of the debate. Best of all is the film's centrepiece interview with Smithfield Foods' Vice-President of Environmental and Corporate Affairs, Worcester's pointed and passionate questions countered by some particularly bland and slippery answers.

Frustratingly, like much of the coverage of animal welfare in the mainstream, Worcester fails to consider vegetarianism as a legitimate response to the problem. Her plea for consumers to flex their power by buying locally produced, organic, free-range meat is welcome. However, if you are really concerned about pig welfare isn't the answer to not eat these intelligent creatures in the first place? Am I the only person baffled by the widely-held view that you can care deeply for a creature but be happy for it to be killed and eaten as long as it has had a good life? On the other hand, perhaps it could be argued that an ethically-minded meat eater has more influence on the welfare of animals than those who completely disengage with the industry such as vegetarians.

But while the debate continues about how best to improve the lives of pigs and those people - workers, local residents and consumers - who are most affected by the industry, it is clear Smithfield Foods only has one interest: profit. As Joel Bakan notes in his seminal study of the corporate world "the corporation's legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception, its own self-interest, regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause others."

Seen in this light, the legal threats from Smithfield Foods are a logical response to this illuminating and absorbing documentary. In short, there is no doubt that if Pig Business receives a wide audience, it will be very bad for Smithfield Foods own pig business.

"It's a battle about who is going to control our resources", Kennedy, Jr sums up at the film's close. "Are our resources going to be controlled by a corporate-feudal system or are they going to be controlled by the people?"

Pig Business is directed by Tracy Worcester: http://www.pigbusiness.co.uk/.

*An edited version of this review recently appeared in the Morning Star. ian_js@hotmail.com.

No comments: