Window Cleaner Rescue, Swine Flu + Window Cleaning News

Firefighters Rescue Window Washer After Lines Jam (BALTIMORE) : A window washer got stuck 12 stories in the air at a Baltimore high rise Tuesday. Weijia Jiang reports the man was in the 800-block of Lancaster Street in Harbor East working several stories up when his lines jammed, affecting his ability to maneuver around. "The mechanism that allows him to go up and down to wash windows is powered by a motor, which malfunctioned," said Kevin Cartwright with the Baltimore City Fire Department. Fire department members were able to secure the man with a rope and safely get him inside the building. Witnesses say the man stayed calm while he was hanging in the air. "That's the thing about it, you can't think about it because if you think about it, you can't do what we do. It takes a lot of courage to do what we do. We're out here in the snow, the rain, the sun," said foreman Roland Boyer. "This is what we do. This is our job." The window washer was not hurt. He has not been identified.

Cowtown Cracks Down on Signs - Popular hamburger joint ordered to remove name from window: As part of a crackdown on signs, city inspectors on Tuesday ordered Kincaid’s Hamburgers on Camp Bowie Boulevard to scrape its name off its front window or face fines of $500 per day. An ordinance passed two years ago forbids businesses from having signs or lettering that block more than 10 percent of a window. The law, aimed at cleaning up clutter, also limits the use of temporary and permanent signs. The owner of the iconic hamburger joint, which opened in 1946, said he is puzzled by the order to remove the sign. "We don't consider it offensive,” said Kincaid’s owner Ron Gentry. “There's nothing about it that would upset anyone. Obviously, the city is upset about it."
At least two other businesses near Kincaid’s also received similar orders. The owner of a salon was given two days to remove a sign from her window, which advertises the services she sells, such as manicures and facials. "And I'm like, ‘OK, so you're telling me I have to take it off?’” the owner of Salon One recalled asking the inspector. “And he said, ‘You have to take it off except for three lines.’” Next door, a small business that sells cupcakes was ordered to remove a temporary sign with two helium-filled balloons out front. City managers said the inspector was just doing his job, enforcing a law designed to make the city look better. "We're not trying to negatively impact anyone's business,” said David Hall, assistant manager of Fort Worth’s planning department. “The ultimate goal is compliance with the law, and we'll give people enough time to come into compliance." He noted that businesses can appeal the orders to the city’s Board of Adjustment. The owner of Kincaid’s said city leaders should rethink the entire ordinance. "That signage is very important for these small independent businesses,” Gentry said. “There aren't a lot of chains up and down Camp Bowie… and we need our signage so people can see us." Several customers echoed his comments and said the advertising is harmless. “I love the sign, I love the burger, and I see no reason for the sign to go,” said one man. Hall said the city is enforcing the sign ordinance all over the city, not just along Camp Bowie.

H1N1 Flu Is a False Pandemic, Health Expert Claims: A leading health expert said the swine flu scare was a "false pandemic" led by drug companies that stood to make billions from vaccines, The Sun reported Monday. Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms organized a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic. He believes it is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century," and he has called for an inquiry. An emergency debate on the issue will be held by the Council of Europe later this month. The Council of Europe covers 47 European countries and seeks to develop common and democratic principles between the nations.
Wodarg said, "It's just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu. "The great campaign of panic we have seen provided a golden opportunity for representatives from labs who knew they would hit the jackpot in the case of a pandemic being declared. "We want to clarify everything that brought about this massive operation of disinformation. We want to know who made decisions, on the basis of what evidence, and precisely how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry came to bear on the decision-making." He added: "A group of people in the WHO is associated very closely with the pharmaceutical industry." The WHO recently reaffirmed its stance that the pandemic is not over. However, the number of swine flu deaths is dramatically lower than expected.
In an interview with France's L'Humanite Sunday, Wodarg also raised concerns about swine flu vaccines. "The vaccines were developed too quickly. Some ingredients were insufficiently tested," he said. "But there is worse to come. The vaccine developed by Novartis was produced in a bioreactor from cancerous cells, a technique that had never been used until now. "This was not necessary. It has also led to a considerable mismanagement of public money. "The time has come at last for us to make demands on governments. The purpose of the inquiry is to prevent more false alarms of this type in the future." "We must make sure people can rely on the analysis and the expertise of national and international public institutions. The latter are now discredited, because millions of people have been vaccinated with products with inherent possible health risks." Also see here.

Joy Braband of Glencoe and Justin Richter of Brooklyn Park announce their engagement and plans to marry on Feb. 27 at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie. Parents of the couple are Jon and Jodi Braband of Glencoe, Maureen Hanley of Fargo, N.D., and Kurt Richter of Oak Grove. Braband is a 2008 graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and is a second-year student in phsyical therapy at the Mayo School of Health Sciences in Rochester. Richter owns Richter Window Cleaning Service and is a student at the University of Minnesota, Rochester campus, majoring in nursing.

More states are requiring schools and government buildings to use environmentally friendly cleaning products, raising debate about their costs and benefits. In New York, schools that responded to a state survey said their costs went up 10 percent, on average, in the first year they complied with a 2005 cleaning law. But New York's Office of General Services said successful programs reduce levels of cleaning chemicals, mold and dust that cause asthma attacks, a top reason students miss school.

Owners' plea for return of precious puppy Lola: Despairing Lisa and John Creaghan are offering "a generous reward" after a thief took their English bull terrier from John's van while he was window cleaning at a house in the hamlet of Highbrook, near Ardingly. The five-month-old red and white puppy called Lola is microchipped and John and Lisa think an "opportunist thief" may have taken her after expecting to find tools or other valuables in John's van. Lisa, of Bolnore Village, said: "She means so much to us. She is my life." Anyone who knows of Lola's whereabouts should ring Sussex Police on 0845 60 70 999 or anonymously on Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Window Cleaner – Now A Swine Flu Call Operator

I was a window cleaner – now I'm in a swine flu call centre.
Case study: 'Dave' Swine flu information line worker.

I found the job on a website, applied for it and got a call back within a couple of hours. It didn't seem to matter that I had no medical experience. Before I was made redundant I'd worked in many different jobs, including a stint as a window cleaner. The guy was really just checking that I could hold a conversation over the phone. He gave me the job on the spot and sent me an email mentioning that training would start on Wednesday – the day before the hotline went live. I didn't hear anything else so turned up and between 8am and 4pm we were taken through what to do by someone from NHS Direct and the contractor.
There was quite a bit of confusion and there were a few problems with the paperwork and the website, but probably no more than you would expect for a start-up. One of the first issues we encountered on the job was that we could only help people in England – everyone from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had to be directed elsewhere.
I must have taken one call every 20 minutes so there was some thumb-twiddling going on. But it was clear that the system was erring on the side of caution. Of the 40 people I spoke to on the first day, I recommended all but two should take anti-viral drugs. It seemed to be all about dishing these things out. The procedure is so heavily scripted that you can end up asking silly questions. I heard one woman asked whether she was conscious when she rang up. We are also required to ask all women aged between 10 and 70 whether they could be pregnant, which can be embarrassing. People were asking things like: "These are strong drugs – are there any side-effects? What happens if I drive on them or have a couple of pints?" I advise them to read the packet.
There were also people ringing up from parts of the country where they have still not got any collection points for the drugs – places such as Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Sheffield. We couldn't really help these people. I wonder how useful the hotline is. People are ringing up thinking they are going to get a diagnosis but we only run through a checklist of the symptoms. They seem to think I'm the world's leading authority on this, but I tell them "I'm not a doctor".
During the training they were telling us what an important job we were doing allaying people's fears and potentially saving lives. I thought, if it is such an important job, shouldn't we get paid more than £6.60 an hour?

The writer did not wish to be identified.

Killing Swine Flu - H1NI & the Window Cleaner

With news from the sensationist UK newspaper today stating that "swine flu will rip through the globe and infect a third of the world’s population in the next six months," it also reports it will get worse this winter.

Prof Ferguson, of the WHO’s emergency committee, added: “Seasonal flu every year affects around ten per cent of the world’s population, so we are heading for a flu season which is perhaps three times worse than usual. “We can say it is not going to be as catastrophic as the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 that killed 50million. “But it is still possible it could be like 1957 - where 3 to 4million people died that year because of the pandemic worldwide. “I am not predicting 3 to 4million deaths. That was what happened in 1957. The world is a very different place today. “We have drugs and vaccines, which should reduce the burdens of the disease. “At the moment, the virus is not spreading fast in the northern hemisphere, because we are outside the normal flu season, but come the autumn it is likely to cause a really major epidemic. It was also reported in the less sensational UK newspaper here nearly word for word.

With increased warnings of keeping your hands clean, wearing masks & avoiding crowded areas - what effect will this have on the average window cleaner? Well for one, we have contact with a wide range of people & for another we are cleaning, perhaps cleaning areas that are considered "infected" by clients or the general public. The good news is that in this Q&A article in USA Today labelled "Do you know your swine flu?" - Soap and alcohol-based cleansers kill viruses, and flu is a virus. But antibacterial substances kill bacteria, not viruses. Below is the new UK advertising campaign urging people to catch the sneeze before binning the tissue.

For those that old enough to remember, the disease was swine flu, whose appearance in 1976 was believed to be a reincarnation of the infection that killed tens of millions of people in 1918 and 1919. the swine flu campaign is the one recent example of a large, government-sponsored emergency immunization program, and as such may offer lessons for today.
Events began with the death, on Feb. 4, 1976, of an Army recruit at Fort Dix, N.J., during an outbreak of respiratory infections following the holidays. Throat washings were taken from 19 ill soldiers, and a majority tested positive for that winter's dominant strain of the influenza virus, which was called A/Victoria. But four samples were different, and New Jersey public health officials sent them to the CDC to be identified.
On Feb. 12, the CDC delivered a chilling report. The four samples – which included one from the dead soldier – were swine flu. As the name suggests, swine flu was endemic to pigs. However, the devastating pandemic of the Spanish flu in 1918 and 1919 is believed to have been caused by a strain of swine flu that, through mutation, gained the ability to infect people.

Three elderly people in Pittsburgh died on the same day within hours of getting swine flu shots. It was a chance event, but just the sort of guilt by association that arises whenever a public health intervention is done on a mass scale.
What killed the program, though, was the observation in early December that people given the swine flu vaccine had an increased risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare, usually reversible but occasionally fatal form of paralysis. Research showed that while the actual risk for Guillain-Barre was only about 1 in 1,000 among people who had received the vaccine, that was about seven times higher than for people who didn't get the shot.
On Dec. 16, the swine flu vaccine campaign was halted. About 45 million people had been immunized. The federal government eventually paid out $90 million in damages to people who developed Guillain-Barre. The total bill for the program was more than $400 million. Below is the video for the swine flu propaganda in 1976.

N95 Masks Are Useless at Protecting Wearers from Swine Flu: When it comes to infectious disease, preparedness is good. But ill-informed preparedness is a waste of time and resources, and there's a lot of ill-informed preparedness going on right now with the swine flu.
Case in point: All those people buying N95 masks (respirators).
They think wearing a mask protects them from swine flu. The mainstream media perpetuates the myth, broadcasting images of people wearing the masks, all while talking about people "protecting themselves" from swine flu. If it wasn't a potentially life-and-death situation, it would all be quite hilarious.
But let me ask you a question: Have you ever had surgery or visited a surgery room? Did you ever notice that the surgeons and medical staff are all wearing surgical masks that are very similar to the N95 face masks being used by people afraid of swine flu?
Did you ever wonder WHY they are wearing those masks? Here's the question: Are they wearing those masks to protect themselves from the patient's germs? Of course not! They're wearing those masks to prevent their own germs from infecting the patient!
N95 masks, you see, have but one purpose: To prevent the wearer from infecting others. To use blunt medical terminology, they work by preventing snot, spit or other virus-carrying particles from becoming airborne. Thus, if the wearer sneezes, coughs, drools, spits or talks excitedly, his or her infected fluids will be trapped in the mask and will not infect others.
N95 masks have virtually no ability to protect the wearer from other people's airborne germs. This should be obvious by simply noticing that N95 masks are not air-tight! When you inhale while wearing such a face mask, the air you're inhaling enters through the gaps on the sides of the mask, completely bypassing the mask filtration system.

You may also want to check out this story from 27th February this year before the virus had even been news-worthy: The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. “At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark. “But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany. The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses. Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

This strain of influenza contains viral code fragments from:
• Human influenza• Bird Flu from North America• Swine flu from Europe• Swine flu from Asia
This is rather astonishing to realize, because for this to have been a natural combination of viral fragments, it means an infected bird from North America would have had to infect pigs in Europe, then be re-infected by those some pigs with an unlikely cross-species mutation that allowed the bird to carry it again, then that bird would have had to fly to Asia and infected pigs there, and those Asian pigs then mutated the virus once again (while preserving the European swine and bird flu elements) to become human transmittable, and then a human would have had to catch that virus from the Asian pigs in Mexico! - and spread it to others.

Smell a rat yet? Whatever you do - don't get "vaccinated!" Reports have emerged that health care workers in Mexico City who were vaccinated, died within days.