Mexican Flu Fun Facts, Swine Spam and Germ FashionSwine flu fever burned through the blogscape this week, leaving other big news feeling tired and achy. Oh, sure, there was plenty else going on out there. Sen. Specter flew the GOP coop (warns Right Wing News: "Given that Specter very obviously switched parties for purely political reasons, Democrats would genuinely have to worry he might switch back..."). Pres. Obama finished his first 100 days in office, and we got amazing candid photos (see Laughing Squid) of stuff he did behind the scenes and tons of very biased (Daniel J. Summers) and less biased report cards saying how he's done.
But there will be another 100 days—how often you get a swine flu? There were concerns that the buzz was spreading faster than the bug. net.effect noted "Twitter's role in facilitating an unnecessary global panic about swine flu...misinformed and panicking people armed with a platform to broadcast their fears are likely to produce only more fear, misinformation and panic."
"Could it be germ warfare?" one concerned citizen Tweeted, "Pig = don't eat," misinformed another, as Tweets hashtagged #swineflu trended to the number one spot. "I searched for “flu” on Twitter, walked away from my machine to get a beer, and came back to the message “5670 results since you started searching," blogged my heart's in accra (at least he got beer).
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