Remember Bird Flu?
In early to mid-November not a single hour went by in which the Media Paranoia Complex [MPC] wasn't busy "big-pimping" the Bird Flu Fear to an already paranoid, uncritical, and quite notably overmedicated population of media consumers.
In response, Verge Limbo Industries built the "Bird Flu Counter" - a scientific device designed to measure the amount of news hours consumed by the media covering this Wannabe Pandemic.
The first "Bird Flu Counter" was completed November 6th, but had a glaringly insufficient number of decimal spaces to accurately measure the unprecedented growth in fear mongering.
The Fearpushers operated 24-7, on 400+ channels, and peaked out at a cumulative 999 hours per day devoted to Bird Flu Fear conjecturing across the MPC spectrum. A large-capacity Bird Flu Counter was put into operation recently and not a PIP has been registered in the last 24 hours. In fact, not one single squeak or, as it were, "squawk" has been heard for days.
The $64,000 question: What was behind all this fear mongering?
Verge Limbo researchers interviewed some of the leading fear proponents from the media: "Fear is good for (our) business", a media spokesman was quick to offer. "If the people are scared, they need to know why, and just how scared they should be - we can help them with that", he continued. "We can also tell them what they should BUY to lessen their fear...like Duck Tape".
When asked, "Why duct tape?" The official looked puzzled, then recovered, "I'm not sure, but recent polls show it seems to have a very soothing effect on the consumer... plus it's real handy for all sorts of things. Have you seen those Duck Tape Ipod covers? That's handy and useful, no?".
Please leave verge a comment by clicking on "comments" below.
- Green Idea 1 : ' Find your nearest Farmer's Market and go there this weekend with friends...
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- Green Idea 5 : ' What are you waiting for? Make the change today!
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4 comments:
Its like this every year. First it was West Nile, then SARS, this year its bird flu. The cycle continues and the world keeps turning.
I watch jeopardy once in a while. At the end of the show they have a quick list of companies that have paid for considerations. Last time I counted there were seven companies, and six of them were drug companies. For a country which is supposedly waging a war on drugs, (along with "terror"), there seems to be a lot of power and respect held by drug pushers. There is a lot of money in drugs of course, but they should really consider selling crack and heroin, there's a lot of money in those too, much more than pepto or any of those other antacids and heartburn medications, and they are just as useless, except that crack and heoin will give you a short-lived sense of euphoria, whereas rolaids just give you a more enjoyable shit. "What about my heartburn" the fat American asks, "what am I going to do without my pepto and my tums?" I would say that if you didn't stuff your gut with three hamburgers, turkey sandwiches, mashed potatoes with gravy and all washed down with a coke or bad coffee, and maybe if you were anywhere close to not being obese, maybe, just maybe you would start to think that tums are as useless as heroin.
The problem is sooner or later one of these epidemics is going to hit, with devastating results. Unfortunately, instead of preparing a network of responders who are flexible and able to deal with a variety of illnesses and their transmission, this administration sees fit to funnel government funds to stock up on Tamiflu.
Problem is the avian flu doesn't respond much to Tamiflu, and there's no guarantee that Tamiflu will have any effect once this species mutates into something that easily infects humans. This sort of "strategy" is just another way to fleece the American taxpayer and stuff the coffers of pharmaceutical industries.
Oh, how I have missed your vocabulary, Lev! Miss Shaw would be proud.Words Are Important, some may recall. Honoured to have input-hope to read more from you.
VL
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