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bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 5:13:56 PM

proudsub

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Why hasn't the media apologized for all their hype a few years gao?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/2/14/i-was-right-about-the-bird-flu-hoax.aspx
excerpt:
"Last year, the number of human cases of avian flu dropped rather than rose for the first time -- from a paltry 115 in 2006 to an even more insignificant 86 in 2007. Frightening headlines warning of a pandemic that could kill 150 million people have all but vanished."......

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proudsub

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RE: bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 6:19:58 PM

christine1

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i agree with you, they had me scared to death over this. the media has a lot to apologize for but that will never happen...they glorify the stories they think will promote their agendas and bring in the most viewers. i'm actually almost anti media these days though because i think it's getting ridiculous.

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RE: bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 7:00:44 PM

TheHeretic

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Have they apologized for the 'global cooling' crap of the seventies? The Y2K scare? Hell, we can't even get Geraldo to acknowledge the two hours he stole from the lives of millions with his 'secret vaults of Al Capone' special.

Besides, viruses (viri?) mutate when they feel like it, not according to news cycles. If the avian flu becomes transmissible from one human to another, we'll start hearing about it again in a hurry.

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RE: bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 8:37:04 PM

DomKen

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The problem is there was a new avian flu strain that was showing some ability to infect humans. That wasn't a hoax that was the truth. Did the media hype the possibility of a pandemic out of proportion? Yes but don't start thinking of bird flu as a hoax.

Global cooling? Try as I might I cannot find widespread reports on such. I found a single, Time?, article on the subject and a few newspaper reports based of that article but no wide spread reporting and certainly no hysteria. This is being used for political reasons now all out of proportion for what went on then.

Y2K, I'm glad you think the hundreds of thousands of man hours put into fixing all the busted code was some sort of bogus scare story. The fact is a lot of systems got tested in 1999 and a lot of them failed when the date rolled over. I personally fixed code that simply put the date/time stamp on a cardiac monitor screen that when rolled over silently shut down the whole monitor. How many people could have died if that fix wasn't implemented? The other major system I did Y2K compliance on was a major financial company, the now several times absorbed First Chicago, whose major account software garbled any account that required any interest calculation post rollover. I know guys who fixed nuclear plant ontrol systems and the FAA air traffic control software. It's sort of too bad we all worked all those hours so that nothing would happen so now you can equate it to some sort of hoax

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Post #: 4

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 9:41:12 PM

FangsNfeet

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The fear of new diseases drives up ratings just like Mad Cow disease raised the price of beef. It's all an excuse to make more money with ratings, driving up cost. and selling goods to protect ourselves of these near impossible to catch diseases.

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RE: bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 10:34:54 PM

CuriousLord

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Just wait 'til Staticians from the future get a hold of today's climate data with regards to global warming.

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RE: bird flu hoax - 2/15/2008 11:38:18 PM

christine1

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quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousLord

Just wait 'til Staticians from the future get a hold of today's climate data with regards to global warming.

yeah, they'll say, "geez, what a dork that al gore was."

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i am woman! er, godzilla! hear me roar!

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He's the "boom" overwhelming...

He is my Master, my lover, my best friend my everything.

(in reply to CuriousLord)

Post #: 7

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 10:14:10 AM

Alumbrado

Posts: 5560
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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

The problem is there was a new avian flu strain that was showing some ability to infect humans. That wasn't a hoax that was the truth. Did the media hype the possibility of a pandemic out of proportion? Yes but don't start thinking of bird flu as a hoax.

Global cooling? Try as I might I cannot find widespread reports on such. I found a single, Time?, article on the subject and a few newspaper reports based of that article but no wide spread reporting and certainly no hysteria. This is being used for political reasons now all out of proportion for what went on then.

Y2K, I'm glad you think the hundreds of thousands of man hours put into fixing all the busted code was some sort of bogus scare story. The fact is a lot of systems got tested in 1999 and a lot of them failed when the date rolled over. I personally fixed code that simply put the date/time stamp on a cardiac monitor screen that when rolled over silently shut down the whole monitor. How many people could have died if that fix wasn't implemented? The other major system I did Y2K compliance on was a major financial company, the now several times absorbed First Chicago, whose major account software garbled any account that required any interest calculation post rollover. I know guys who fixed nuclear plant ontrol systems and the FAA air traffic control software. It's sort of too bad we all worked all those hours so that nothing would happen so now you can equate it to some sort of hoax

The media fueled panic to stock up on food, water etc., infected a lot of people as they prepared for the 'end of the world' that never came.. a total hoax.
And not because the video games and chat rooms kept working after midnight, but because the computers that were most affected were so old by that time that the bulk of them were easily overridden or ignored. The fix had been ongoing at the manufacturer's level for years (the Murrays' CiC came out in 1984).

(in reply to DomKen)

Post #: 8

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 10:31:57 AM

CuriousLord

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quote:

ORIGINAL: christine1
quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousLord

Just wait 'til Staticians from the future get a hold of today's climate data with regards to global warming.

yeah, they'll say, "geez, what a dork that al gore was."

..now I know you DIDN'T just poke fun at Al Gore! The man's a hero! He freaking invented the Internet!

(in reply to christine1)

Post #: 9

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 10:55:52 AM

DomKen

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As usual Alumbrado you're quite simply wrong. Hardware had very little to do with the situation. Old COBOL software was running on very new platforms and that COBOL code was still rife with two digit dates.

Let me reiterate what I said before, I fixed a heart monitor in wide use that if allowed to roll over without a fix just stopped doing anything. With no fix each of those heart monitors would have required to be sent in to the factory and the time chip replaced. Found overnight on 1/1/2000 would have caused entire hospitals to lose cardiac monitoring until the monitors were all shipped in to the factory and been fixed and shipped back. That would have cost people their lives and would have definitely gotten the hospitals and the manufacturer sued.

The second case wasn't life threatening but was likely to effect many more people. A major regional bank would have had massive errors in every interest bearing account starting on 1/1/2000 and continuing until the problem was detected and the system shut down. The cost to audit the entire bank's accounts to find and correct all the errors along with the costs in lawsuits and lost business would have been enormous.

Dismissing those fixes because only a few things didn't get fixed and caused minor problems seems awfully perverse. Blaming the actual Y2K problem that con artists and profiteers made use of the real issue to rip people off seems even more perverse. Seems more reasonable to blame people who didn't bother to get informed and paniced the last month or so.

(in reply to Alumbrado)

Post #: 10

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:07:07 AM

SugarMyChurro

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I agree with DomKen on the technology issue.

As to threats of a pandemic: We are not prepared. Millions could die like flies. And this situation has existed for years. It's not a hoax. If we had an occurrence of something on the scale of the black plague or typhoid we would be hit savagely hard. Believe it. We could resolve this problem almost immediately if we stopped throwing money out the window on corporate welfare and wars of choice.

As to global warming and the idea of natural conservation more generally: Of course it's a good idea. It's not about personalities, it's about what makes sense. Do you pour motor oil on your own lawns? Why are we allowing corporations to dump into our water supplies, our lands, or into our skies? Seriously...

...think.

(in reply to DomKen)

Post #: 11

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:11:55 AM

luckydog1

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This is just human nature at work. It's how our minds operate. The diaster that didn't strike was never a threat, even if people take action to prevent it. Varaitioins of this happen all the time. People think they are getting ripped off paying for fire insurance if thier house doesn't burn. Since we didn't get hit again after 911, there was no threat. Since we won the Cold war, the Commies were no threat. Pandemics are a real threat, and are going to strike again. Asteroids are going to hit us. If we get warned and it doesn't happen immediatly we make fun of the person who warned us. If peopel work hard to prevent something form happening, the average person doesn't care.

Global cooling in the 70s? Just because Google doesn't put up links for it doesn't mean it dosen't exist. I was 9 years old in 76, and remeber hearing about it quite a bit. IIRC It was tied in with the Late Great Planet earth series of Books, and popularised all over the media. We talked about it in school. I loved Science Magazines back then, Ranger Rick warned me about it, it was going to hurt the animals, and it was mankind's fault. It was a lot more than just a Time magazine article. This is an example of one of the dangers of reliance on the web, if it ain't on the web, it doesn't exist.

(in reply to DomKen)

Post #: 12

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:14:26 AM

Alumbrado

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Well, maybe your universe came to an end one minute after midnight... those of us who stick to boring old reality know it was a hoax.

(in reply to luckydog1)

Post #: 13

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:15:13 AM

luckydog1

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Though it does seem that overpopulation is the rootcause or one of the main causes of almost evey social/political/ecological problem in the world.

(in reply to luckydog1)

Post #: 14

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:17:11 AM

luckydog1

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Y2K was a serious issue that a lot of time and money was spent preparing for. It was also overhyped by the media. The two do not exclude each other.

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Post #: 15

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:21:05 AM

SugarMyChurro

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado
... those of us who stick to boring old reality know it was a hoax.

I'm going to simply call bullshit here and provide this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y2K

Then Alumbrado will cry because wiki is not a reliable source of information.

All as predictable as a programming error.

(in reply to Alumbrado)

Post #: 16

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:45:24 AM

domiguy

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We live on fear....You dip that shit in some drawn butter and I believe you could sell it for $30.00 a pound.

The world is an awful place. I'm jumping off, but not before I take a shit load of you fuckers with me.

I'm going to be famous.

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RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:50:52 AM

seeksfemslave

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quote:

ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado
... those of us who stick to boring old reality know it was a hoax.

I'm going to simply call bullshit here and provide this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y2K

quote:

from Sugar's link
The fact that countries where very little was spent on tackling the Y2K bug (like Italy and Korea) fared just as well as those who spent a lot (like the UK and the US) has generated debate on whether the absence of computer failures was the result of the preparation undertaken or whether the significance of the problem had been overstated

(in reply to SugarMyChurro)

Post #: 18

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 11:54:34 AM

SugarMyChurro

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Confession: I was an Eagle Scout.

I don't think being prepared, or contingency planning, are the same things as living in fear or that they occur in response to fear.

It's perfectly reasonable to acknowledge a perceived threat to one's well-being and to nullify that threat in advance of its occurrence.

(in reply to domiguy)

Post #: 19

RE: bird flu hoax - 2/16/2008 12:15:05 PM

carlie310

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I spent a lot of time updating client software to last minute releases in December 1999. Wish I'd known I didn't need to that, since most of the rest of you had that New Year's Eve off.

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Post #: 20

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