six oldsmobiles and a chevy

.
down for maintenance--check back tomorrow.

mkf defends the indefensible

.
the following is a comment i just made, despite my better instincts, to this post over at puntabulous, a blog i dearly love (and, if history is any judge, from which i will probably henceforth be banned from commenting forevermore).

and it's not like the post in question was even particularly interesting--in fact, it was puked up by some guest-blogger--but what made it comment-worthy by moi were two things: (1) it was, like, the tenth reflexive, unthinking, half-assed condemnation of a column by the controversial pat buchanan which i myself had found fairly thought-provocative; and (2) being well into mkf cocktail #2, i figured, what the fuck--right place, right time.

whatever--if nothing else, it's a blogpost, and god knows i needed one:

i read and enjoy you, but never comment–-seeing as how my particular brand of neurotic darkness is so completely incompatible with all the lighthearted dorkiness that generally goes on here, i figure, why spoil things?

tonight (prolly because i’m a little shitfaced), i’m gonna make an exception, because here’s the thing about buchanan: yeah, he’s ultra-conservative; and yeah, he’s probably a nazi sympathizer; and yeah, he’d undoubtedly love to throw all us homogays into concentration camps and fill our every orifice with concrete–-believe me, i understand all that.

what i also understand–-and what most liberals either don’t, or won’t–-is, he’s also a very shrewd, observant student of history, and has drawn some very compelling parallels between the fall of past so-called eternal empires, and what’s now happening to ours.

in other words: yeah, he can be an asshole, but he can also be (and quite often is) right.

[excuse me now while i crawl back into my bunker at ruby ridge, adjust my tinfoil hat and await the invasion of the black helicopters]

i got nothin'

.
except--since (a) i've been under the weather this week and missed seeing him; and (b) this blog seems to have become my personal scrapbook as of late--this shot of v from the early, heady days of his nascent career as a practicing homogay which somewhat recently came into my possession and which i can't even begin to tell you how much i fuckin' adore.



i wish i'd met you back then, too.

let's talk about swine flu a minute

.
there are those out there (including at least one regular commenter to this blog) who would tell you that mkf gets all his news from fringe sources and conspiracy theorists. i am here to tell you this is not true--i only get about 95% of my news from those places; for the remaining 5% i turn to the mainstream media, because they can be counted upon at least 5% of the time to belatedly confirm what my fringe sources and conspiracy theorists have been telling me for months.

take this H1N1 hysteria, for instance:

seems that a major news organization--namely, CBS news--has, for once, done what all news-gatherers should be doing routinely but in actuality do rarely; namely, ignore what the powers-that-be are telling 'em and dig for the real truth.

bottom line: what CBS news found out is, probably less than 20% of the "swine flu" cases you hear reported in the mainstream media these days are any kind of flu, much less the goddam swine flu.

now that we've got the big reveal outta the way, let's backtrack to find how they arrived at the above conclusion, shall we?

first, CBS found out that back in july, the centers for disease control (CDC) advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, since, it being an established epidemic and all (?), continued testing seemed like a waste of resources.

which resulted in--what?--yes, that's right: anybody who showed up at their doctor's office or an emergency room with flu-like symptoms since july has pretty much automatically been branded a swine flu victim, whether they actually were or not.

so, their curiosity piqued, CBS news asked the CDC for state-by-state test results prior to halting all testing in july. when the CDC balked, CBS went to each and every state and asked for their statistics on lab-confirmed H1N1 cases prior to the july cut-off.

what did they find? this is where it gets interesting. CBS reported:

"The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico."

wow--in other words, most of the people showing up at emergency rooms with "flu-like symptoms" didn't even have the goddam flu. here's a nice graphic that breaks it down for you:


[courtesy CBS news]


so how could the CDC's findings be so wildly at odds with those of CBS news?

well, you tell me. could it possibly be because there's a conflict of interest there--that the CDC's advisory committee is infested with all kinds of drug-industry folks who would profit greatly if swine-flu vaccines--at an average of $50 a pop--were hysterically demanded by a panicked populace?

oh, and even better--because this rushed-to-market vaccine was granted blanket immunity from lawsuits by congress in case anything goes wrong?

in other words, our government has just granted to the drug companies the same deal they gave wall street back in 1999: roll the dice as wildly as you want, baby--we'll cover ya.

and you people wonder why i don't trust the goddam government.

_________________

[oh, and since this story broke, have you seen it in the mainstream media, or did you have to hear about it from some drunken blogger with an audience of approximately eleven?

wake up and smell the coffee, children.]

personally, i would kill to have me as a drunk-commenter

.
but you'd be fairly astounded at the legion of bloggers out there who don't see a visit from moi as the honor i always at least intend it to be (or then again, maybe you wouldn't).

while the following after-comment apology from the tail-end of my golden age of drunk-commenting happened to be issued to josh & josh [who, bless their hearts, still put up with my comments], it could just as easily have applied to any number of others who tend to run screaming when they see me coming.

this one's pretty good, tho--i guess that's why i saved it.




[proving once again you never know what you're gonna find while you're digging around for something else]

______________________

sober update: "tomorrow he'll cringe" woulda been so much better. damn.