Swine Flu

...affects the brains of bigoted

"But then an Egyptian health official admitted "the authorities took advantage of the situation to resolve the question of disorderly pig rearing." More likely, as the country's Coptic minority was quick to suspect, was that health and sanitation were merely pretexts to extend anti-Christian bigotry into matters of livelihood and diet."

and opportunistic

..."What Russia's chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko refers to as "the danger of swine flu proliferation to Russia" is in fact a good formal pretext for the hysteria stepped up around a relatively ordinary condition. This flu is neither new nor "swine." It is another horror story that sells well in breaking news, just like bird flu or red mercury, and can yield profits at a time when regular businesses are seeing losses due to the tight economic situation.

Every day adds entries to the Russian government's list of countries and U.S. states and Canadian provinces whose pork is banned from Russia. Every day Russian pharmaceutical companies sent out news releases full of commercial offers aimed at fighting the "terrible disease" that has so far killed 30 people and contaminated slightly over 1,000 around the globe.

Panic in a globalized world has long become an effective financial and political tool."

dictatorships ...

...and of journalists. How many cases do we have now in Canada? Fifty, perhaps? All of the mild form. But 50 cases out of 33,000,000 people is enough to cause a media frenzy and a whole lot of really, really stupid statements issuing from a whole lot of really, really stupid people.

Funny how many of the comments at CBC's website address CBC's willingness to contribute to this hype. Our state funded broadcaster doesn't get enough money from the taxpayer, so they have to engage in the hysteria to increase the audience from among the very people who pay their wages. We deserve better than that.