Things I learned this past week...

Chinese symbol for knowledge




The Flu sucks. (I actually already knew this)

Our Family Practice sucks too. (Ditto on the knowledge thingy)

Seems they only give anti-viral medication (heck, just about any for that matter) to drug addicts, cancer patients, and enhanced athletes.
They call it their "high risk" policy.
Their best advice for folks/families who ALREADY HAVE THE FLU is to get a flu shot.
Never mind having kids (including a three year old) isn't risky enough already...

Speaking of high risk drugged athletes. . .
I heard that up to 12 players on the Cleveland Browns caught the flu and that the Browns were going to catch a break and be allowed a player roster exemption. . .

Nonsense! We all know the Browns can't catch!
Especially when it comes to anything related to pigskins...

The only thing worse than having the flu is having multiple people in the same family having it at the same time.

The only thing worse than having multiple family members sick at the same time is being sick with the flu at the same time as throwing out your back so you can't move.

There is a GOD.

Mercifully, he has spared me the worst of this last bit of knowledge for the moment, but I do still have the bad back and the start of a cough.

GOD has a sense of humor.
So it only hurts when I cough, or laugh...
I just know he is waiting until I get over the back thingy until I get what everybody else has.

We were actually torn on the whole flu shot thingy...

- Partly because of number 2 above...
- Partly because there is a part of me who believes in the pound of dirt theory...
- Partly because my wife and I see stuff like this on the news... and think once again about #2.
- Partly because it was only a few short years ago that I got my first flu shot ever, (my wife was either expecting and or we had a new born), but the flu shots that year were not for what ended up being the most prevalent variation and I got it anyway.

You probably are getting very tired of me RANTING . . .
Too Bad!

If my FF team (Santas Helpers) can pick a week to under achieve. They will.
As of right now I am 5 points behind and have two defensive players and Chris Cooley playing tonight.

If you take a chronically bad performing FF team (Pariahs) and decide to play spoiler and accept trades from others who go raiding, you actually might get a better team and start winning...
I now have Big Ben, AP, Sproles and Vincent Jackson.
As of right now I am amazingly 18 points ahead going into tonight.
I have Cooley (notice a pattern) and he has Maclin left to play.

I'll stop for now but I'll be back!

Promise.

In the meanwhile, Be Good. Do Well. Have Fun.

And stay away from evil medicine hoarding family practitioners!

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Tuesday Trading Ideas

The federal government has asked three drug companies to make enough swine flu vaccine to immunize at least 20 million people in key positions in health care, national security and emergency services, officials said yesterday.

The order, announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is part of a $1 billion investment in immediate production and testing of vaccine against the newly emerged strain of the H1N1 flu virus. Further orders for potentially hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine are expected.

So, What companies are these?

Sanofi Pasteur (SNY)
Novartis (NVS)
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
MedImmune (AZN)
CSL (CSL.AX)

Last month I did a quick trade on the pandemic hype and make a nice little profit on QDEL, which makes the test to identify the Flu. At the time there was quite a bit of hype with other pharm companies but since none had a "product", I was reluctant to invest in them right away.

Now, it appears that there is going to be a product, and; the governments are putting real money behind it.

Of course, these are just ideas, but perhaps ideas worth looking into.

Happy trading.

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Achoo

The swine and bird flu index has taken flight.


Notable notes:

GILD holds the patent rights to the swine flu vaccine just release by the US Gov't.

QDEL sells flu tests to tell you and doctors if you are sick or not. (with the flu)

NVAX is the quickest manufacturer of the vaccine.

BCRX develops vaccines.



It's too soon to tell if this is a big pandemic or not but the stock market does not care.
Hype sells!
Invest at you're own risk.

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