Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria - The Swine Flu Panic of 2009

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Saturday April 03, 2010 · 7:34 PM PDT

2010/04/03 · 19:34

Swine Flu: Checking on how many stories have been put up here on Dkos in the last year, I got a count of 189.

They are still being put up here.

3 weeks ago, something got past my radar, or it would have been posted here already. But I did find it today.

Der Spiegel is the most important mass media magazine in Germany, and one of the top 3 or 4 in Europe. Here is what came from them on March 12th:

Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria - The Swine Flu Panic of 2009

It had a really nice graphic, too:
Hysteria vs Reality (If the image does not show up, here is what it shows: Flu Pandemic Scenario: 2 million deaths vs Actual Deaths up to March 2010: 16,500.)

TravelerDiogenes

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Thursday March 25, 2010 · 4:44 AM PDT

2010/03/25 · 04:44

A couple of days ago, Kos had a story up entitled The unfathomable tyranny of democracy. I wrote a longer than acceptable (in my mind) comment that I decided should be its own post, so this is it.

Kos picked up on a good point, one I would elucidate upon - the tyranny of the majority. It is the final stage, I believe in the crackup of the Republicans as a political party, a sign that they absolutely do not even remotely accept the single foundational principle of democracy: the principle of majority rules, the competing of ideas and the one with the most support gets put into place. As such, they have chosen to abandon any claim to being Americans, to being in any way able to represent We The People of America.

I'll lay out some of it below. You see, I actually have some history with the phrase "tyranny of the majority."

TravelerDiogenes

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Monday March 22, 2010 · 7:20 AM PDT

2010/03/22 · 07:20

When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, we all knew he was coming into office with the worst situation of any President except FDR. And possibly - no, probably - Lincoln. So, let's call it the third worst situation, overall.

The economy, at least to me, looked like it would swallow his administration whole. The economic Lehman Brothers' tsunami had traveled around the world faster than a real tsunami would have.

Everyone learned really quickly that preceding fall and that winter what mortgaged-based securities were, and at least a bit of how the investment bankers and mortgage companies had gamed the system and dumped bad securities on Europeans and Asians, and all based on OUR mortgages, which had been sent through shredders and then a random number generator so that no one knew who owned anything anymore.

If we could, a lot of us would have strung a lot of Wall Streeters up from the nearest oak tree - enough to break the limbs off all the available oaks.

Health care was not on the horizon.

TravelerDiogenes

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Saturday December 12, 2009 · 10:37 PM PST

2009/12/12 · 22:37

I know, that title syntax sucks, but it gets the idea across.

There is one scenario by which all this Blue Dog, "moderate" Democrat b.s. and the GOP filIbustering of 100% of legislation of consequence can be ended.

It is the one direction that efforts in the Senate need to aim. The Democrats need to... (see below the fold...)

Poll

61 votes Show Results

Do you want a piece of crap, compromised HCR now, or a really good one for the rest of your life if we have to wait till 2011 to get it passed?

61 votes Vote Now!

Do you want a piece of crap, compromised HCR now, or a really good one for the rest of your life if we have to wait till 2011 to get it passed?

I want ANYTHING now

15 votes

I want the best we can do, even if we have to wait to pass it

34 votes

I don't care which - I love watching the blue dogs push Harry Reid around

3 votes

I love Lieberman

6 votes

I love Ben Nelson

0 votes

I love Olympia Snowe

3 votes

On Nazis, Emperors and the ends of World Wars

TravelerDiogenes

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Tuesday November 17, 2009 · 12:47 PM PST

2009/11/17 · 12:47

This diary began as a comment on Turkana's Nazis story today, but my response to Stevensnell's comment seemed to need its own diary.

I will preface this all with a note that I am researching on the Nazi era for a historical novel, in particular an episode at the end of World War II that caught my attention. I don't want to mention the exact topic, but will say that to get the story right, I had to go all the way back to before the beginning of World War I, in order to find the seeds of my story. 30+ history books later, I am still a long way from having the book completed, but wow have I learned a lot about history.

It begins after the fold...

TravelerDiogenes

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Monday October 26, 2009 · 9:18 PM PDT

2009/10/26 · 21:18

It sounds like Pontius Pilate to me. Pass it on to the Sanhedrin...

I smell a boondoggle. It seems to me the insurance industry and Big Pharma is driving this Opt-Out push in the Senate, since it is obvious they are going to not get their way in the Congress as much as they like. That way, they can lean on the state legislatures and governors. And those entities will be FAR less able than the Federal government to fight back against lobbying by Big Pharma and the insurance companies. The insurance lobby might even save some money - state legislators are probably cheaper to buy than U.S. Senators, even if there are more of them.

In my mind, the decision is just getting pushed back. The Opt-Out seems to be just a cop out by the Senate. They are saying (if I read this correctly), "Screw this. We can just let the states decide."

(more below the fold...)

TravelerDiogenes

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Monday November 24, 2008 · 10:47 PM PST

2008/11/24 · 22:47

Excerpt from Antoine Garcia's Inaugural speech, January 20, 2029:

My Fellow Americans, looking back over the last century, some wonders and horrors have certainly occurred. Two World Wars, two Great Depressions, and accomplishments and technologies beyond imagination 100 years ago. But I want to address the one I am most happy about, because it is the one that has done the most good for the most people. . .

TravelerDiogenes

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Sunday November 23, 2008 · 4:13 PM PST

2008/11/23 · 16:13

Today's NYTimes editorial is entitled The Price of Our Good Name.

Several references in it refer to the illegalities and abuses of the Bush administration and its usurpations of power away from the Congress and the Courts.

But nowhere in it do they talk about their responsibility to call for impeachment that has been incumbent from the first moment that the editors determined Bush had committed his first crime.

TravelerDiogenes

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Saturday November 22, 2008 · 9:03 AM PST

2008/11/22 · 09:03

I think it is absolutely wonderful that, in keeping with the Anglo-Saxon heritage of our great nation, we have continued the tradition of English and Irish Leaders in electing Barack O'Bama as our 44th President.

It is truly heartening that such a tradition can be maintained in this nation with its history of overt and covert slave owners and subtle and outright hidden class warfare, proving that once and for all, America is the land of the free and the home of those from The Auld Sodde.

Anglican pride reins again.

I am at a loss, though, in determining just what county in Britain or Ireland his family name derives from, however. If anyone might help me, it would be sore appreciated.

Thank you all so much in advance.

We Are All Indigenous People, And We All Will Be Trampled

TravelerDiogenes

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Tuesday November 27, 2007 · 7:07 PM PST

2007/11/27 · 19:07

With all due honoring of MontanaMaven's diaries Who Can Stop the Shape Shifters? Naomi Klein, You're Freaking Me Out and Shock Doctrine II: Sacred Friedmanism vs Mongrel Capitalism from November 11th, there is so much that we can learn from Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The first we need to learn is that the actions of BushCo are not the inconsistent actions of a blithering idiot and his Dark Lords. Secondly, we need to finally recognize what it is that they are doing, and why. Thirdly, we need to get out of our SNITCH mode and actually start to take back the country.

TravelerDiogenes

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Saturday August 04, 2007 · 11:56 AM PDT

2007/08/04 · 11:56

There is a one-line joke about brain farts that applies to carpenters, machinists and do-it-yourselfers. It goes more or less like this, "I keep cutting it, but it is still too short!" This has happened to more than one of us, where our thinking process tells us that the fix for the piece being too short is (our brain gets the idea that it is actually too long? or is it just crossed wires?) to cut it again, and that we need to do the opposite of what is really needed.

At some point in the future the Noble Experiment that is the American Democracy, now 231 years old and counting, will cease to exist. It may be by conquering invaders (hard to figure at this time), by coup, by internal decay, or by some mechanism we cannot now foresee. To paraphrase someone who was on the side of the little guy, but who is certainly persona no grata in the political discourse at this time, there must be permanent revolution.

But revolution may take many forms.

TravelerDiogenes

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Wednesday August 01, 2007 · 10:05 PM PDT

2007/08/01 · 22:05

(Please: If this has been diaried, could someone inform me so I can delete it? Thanks!) I could have entitled this, "Idontrecallitis" is beginning to spread, like a bacterial infection.

Evidently Dick Cheney told Larry King, that he "Had no recollection" whether or not he was the one - as reports had indicated - who had directed Gonzo to go to Ashcroft in the infamous March 10th showdown in Ashcroft's hospital bedside, and get the AG to sign off on the program (whichever one it was as it is turning out).

With Gonzo and his skipping record "I don't recalls" before the Senate Judicial Committee and Cheney now contracting the same condition, it seems someone needs to find a treatment for it. But the real story is what that really means, "I don't recall" or "I have no recollection".

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Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria - The Swine Flu Panic of 2009

"The Tyranny of the Majority"

When Obama came to office in January 2009

How to (eventually) STFU the GOP

On Nazis, Emperors and the ends of World Wars

Isn't Opt-Out just passing the buck?

1929 > Social Security. . . 2008 > National Health Service

NYTimes "Bush is an 'outlaw'", but STILL they won't press for impeachment

President O'Bama - another in a long line

We Are All Indigenous People, And We All Will Be Trampled

The Noble Experiment Has Come Up Short

What does it mean when they don't recall?