Net flu

Lest you be one of those scoffing at the idea that the H1N1 (swine) flu pandemic is a crock of codswallop, consider this news: the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report warning that people home sick hitting the electrons could overload our information highway and create the mother of all data traffic jams.

Think 72-car pile-up on I-5 along the Grapevine on the day before Thanksgiving.

According to the GAO, it’s people “sick, working from home” who will log on to the Internet, clogging the networks and bringing things to a halt.

(They don’t seem to factor in the folks who’ll play online poker, watch episodes of Project Runway on Hulu or visit porn sites. My sense is that there’d be a whole lot more of this type of activity than teleconferencing or swapping spreadsheets.)

So what, you say? Well, it seems that overwhelmed networks deny service to things like financial markets, public services and Homeland Security.

Evidently some securities markets have contingency plans in place, but not all. And Homeland Security doesn’t appear to have thought of that scenario, much less devised a plan to deal with it.

Just consider what that’ll do to your access to www.swinefluisahoaxbythetrilateralcommission.com