Create Your Own Pandemic and Media Scare!
by Dana Ullman, MPH (Masters in Public Health)

a) cow prions
b) tortoise bacteria
c) duck virus 
d) swine fungus
e) mosquito parasite 
f) gerbil worm 
g) fruit bat turds

a) you touched or petted an infected animal
b) you ate meat or something that the infected animal once touched
c) you tied your shoes, but the laces had touched the ground in which the diseased animal walked
d) you had unprotected sex with nurses
e) you had unprotected sex with gerbils

a) cow brains
b) tortoise feet
c) pig fat
d) duck liver
e) dog tongues
f) bat blood

a) Dehydration from chronic urination
b) Eyes protrude out of their sockets with profuse bleeding
c) Head explosion
d) Throat constriction
e) Skin melting

SPEED OF THE DISEASE

a) Slow, agonizing deaths with a protruding tongue
b) Slow and gentle progression into the night (with poetic dreams)
c) Rapid progression of the disease with fear and loathing
d) Rapid progression of the disease with mental confusion and other stuff (you'll hardly even know that you're sick!)

CHOOSE A TRAGIC, INNOCENT FIRST CARRIER

a) Pregnant women
b) Katie Couric
c) Kittens 
d) Virgins
e) Postage Stamps

CONSTRUCT A WORST-CASE SCENARIO WITH A POSITIVE SPIN ON IT

a) Disease creates fear about any type of exchanging bodily fluids, making "Become a master of your own domain" the new public health slogan.
b) Disease shrivels breasts, creating depression for men and women, but makes a bundle for plastic surgeons and pharmaceutical companies.
c) Disease only kills the 1st born...but because new research has confirmed that terrorists are primarily 1st born children (they have early training on their younger siblings), terrorism disappears.
d) Disease smites the God-fearing Christians; people learn to love God.

THE MAGIC BULLET (with minor side effect)

a) Anti-viral (grows hair on your palms...making being a master of your own domain easier to take)
b) Anti-fungal (reduces athletes foot too but creates web feet)
c) Anti-worm (creates acidic urine that kills earthworms in soils, destroying ability to compost food, but gives companies that manufacture fertilizers a major boost)
d) A herb (causes garlic breath)
e) A homeopathic medicine (doctors assert that it was an MD who discovered homeopathy in the first place, so they insist that they invented it)

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE JUST CREATED

a) A pandemic of fear and damnation
b) A pandemic of vaccine-related diseases
c) A pandemic of new drug sales for a disease that doesn't exist yet but that could occur at any time
d) A pandemic of cosmic and comic proportions

GIVE THIS NEW DISEASE A GOOD NAME POTENTIAL NAMES

a) cow prions pox
b) iguana virus plague
c) duck virus wasting disease
d) fruit bat auto-immune disorder

TO ADD FUEL TO THE FIRE, MAKE CERTAIN TO ANNOUNCE THAT THERE ARE PRESENTLY INADEQUATE AMOUNTS OF THE DRUG YOU NEED FOR TREATMENT.

This is very important because it gives people the real sense that they are being left out...and that they MUST have this drug (whether it works or not...and whether the disease is real or not!).

AND NOW...THE BEST PART: YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN VACCINE FOR THIS THEORETICAL DISEASE.

    Please know that you do not have to prove that your vaccine works. For instance, according to the LANCET (October 1, 2005), a systematic review of all previous studies testing vaccines for influenza to elderly populations has not shown that they are effective in preventing this disease. Another important study in the LANCET (February 26, 2005) analyzed every study published in any language, and they could not find a single study that showed a flu vaccine led to the reduction in mortality or serious complications from the flu in children.
   Tom Jefferson, MD, the author of the above two studies in the LANCET, asserts, "What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense." (NOTE: Dr. Jefferson has acknowledged that the abstracts to his articles may provide some confusing information. For more accurate information about the study, please read the study itself, and/or read this article in which Dr. Jefferson was interviewed.)

    Using the above technique, you too can be infectiously creative. What could be easier to cure than a disease you invent yourself?

Dana Ullman can be found lurking the corridors of www.homeopathic.com.

Viagra Ad of the Week
(the one they showed on the Superbowl when you went to the bathroom)

After a screening of Brokeback Mountain, a pack of handsome young Boy Scouts all gather around the campfire with scoutmaster Bob (played by Dom Deluise), who breaks out his guitar, and they all sing along...

Erectile Dysfunction
to the tune of On Top of Old Smoky
(a surprisingly minor rewrite)

Erectile Dysfunction
all covered with snow
is making me horny
with nowhere to go

I can't get a hardon
so what do you know?
I lost my true lover
a-courting too slow

A courting's a pleasure 
A courting's a grief 
Erectile dysfunction
Is worse than a thief. 

A thief he will rob you 
and make you feel dumb
Erectile dysfunction
will not let you come

She'll hug you and kiss you 
Put you to the test
but nothing engorges
the one you like best

The grave will decay you
And turn you to dust
But it is much worse when
your dick is a bust

Go hitch up your horses
And feed them some hay
Then sit down beside me
And watch me decay

It's not I don't love you
It's not that I'm gay
But fare thee well darling
I'll be on my way

Erectile dysfunction
All covered with snow
I lost my true lover
By courting too slow

Charity of the Week

Answers to Last Week's Two Stupid Questions

Stupid Question of the Week

"The Israeli government is planning to give up a large slice of land to American Christian evangelicals to build a biblical theme park by the Sea of Galilee where Jesus is said to have walked on water and fed 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. A consortium of Christian groups, led by the television evangelist Pat Robertson, is in negotiation with the Israeli ministry of tourism and a deal is expected in the coming months. The project is expected to bring up to 1 million extra tourists a year but an undeclared benefit will be the cementing of apolitical alliance between the Israeli right wing and the American Christian right."
- Conal Urquhart: Plans for Holy Land theme park on Galilee shore where Jesus fed the 5,000 -

What rides will they have at the new American Christian biblical theme park?
 

   "America: the longer we allow the illegitimate pretender to the White House and his conniving and callous gang of co-conspirators to continue, the more our collective humanity is damaged. Apparently, candlelight vigils do very little to stop, or even slow down a little, the carnage committed by the war criminals in DC.
    "Then we have the unfortunate innocents of Iraq. I have heard reports of up to as many as 200 of them killed yesterday. So if 200 were reported, one has to really wonder what the true count was. Bill O'Reilly and George Bush define a terrorist as someone who 'kills innocent men, women and children.' Am I the only one who sees the irony and stunning hypocrisy in this statement?" Who do Bill and George think are being killed in Iraq? A well-trained and organized Army? Terrorists? We all know that is false. This is who is being killed in Iraq: living breathing human beings, identical to Americans or any other human beings on earth, who are just trying to go about their lives, trying to survive in a war-torn country that was no threat to America or our way of life.
    "'I would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis,' said George on December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-timate by George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was. If George says 30,000 ... who knows what the truthful total is. It fills me with sorrow and hurts my heart to even contemplate the number...
   "If I hear one more rendition of 'We Shall Overcome' and then watch the vigilers or marchers go home and turn on their TVs and crack open a brewsky, content in the fact that they have done something for peace that day, I am going to scream! We can't overcome unless we take the proverbial bull by the horns and overcome!
    "Hold your vigils and marches in relevant places: such as warmongering local Congressional offices. So many Senators and Congresspeople come to mind. Or in front of a recruiting station. Or federal buildings. Or military bases. Then instead of going home and cracking open a beer, or uncorking a bottle of wine, sit down and say 'we aren't leaving until you call for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq.' Put your butt on the line for humanity.
    "Change will not happen until we make it happen. We can't make change happen by wishing or praying that it will happen.
    "We actually have to do something."
- Cindy Sheehan: The Opposite of Good Is Apathy -

"I love the fact that 'spam' has come to mean unwanted garbage on the internet. Every day I receive four or five offers to add three or four inches to my penis. All of which I accept. And now I have a nine-foot penis."
- Eric Idle: The Greedy Bastard Diary -

"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."
- Stephen Jay Gould -

    "While working on our S&L book (Inside Job) in 1986, my co-author, Mary Fricker, and I followed one of our S&L crooks to a small Indian reservation outside Palm Springs. It was the home of the Cabazons, the very tribe that took their case for gambling rights to the U.S. Supreme Court and won sparking the Indian gaming revolution.
    "What we found there was, to say the least, unnerving. Sure there were Indians - about 25, but they weren't in charge. Instead as group of Los Angeles-based Mafioso were running the operations -- people with names like Rocco. The gaming operations were run by a non-Indian management company. They would front the money to build, maintain and operate the various gaming operations with the promise the tribe would get a share of the 'profits,' as calculated by Rocco and friends.
    "This is how Indian gaming began. After being chased out of Los Vegas and New Jersey by state and federal heat, the mob discovered Indian reservations. It was like a gift from the Mob Gods. One mobster testifying before congress was asked how the mob viewed Indian reservations. He replied, 'as our new Cuba.'
    "That's because Indian reservations are sovereign nations within a sovereign nation. The mob could set up casinos, pay off tribal leaders and skim casino proceeds with impunity. If the FBI showed up they had tribal security usher them out the gate because they had no jurisdiction on reservation property.
    "During our short investigation of the goings on at that Indio, California Blazoning reservation: 

• Three members of the tribe were found shot in the head a week after threatening to go public with corruption at the gaming facilities 
• An illicit arms sales operation was set up peddling machine guns 
• The non-Indian head of the tribe's gaming management company, John Philip Nichols, was sent to prison on a hire for murder charge 
• The S&L crook who led us to the reservation in the first place and who had financed the tribe's high-stakes bingo parlor, was charged with running fraudulent insurance companies and running off with customer premiums 
• The same fellow was later sued by the federal government for tens of millions in fraudulent loans he got from now-defunct S&Ls

    "And there was more. And it's still going on . (See this story)"
- Steve Pizzo: The Real WMD Threatening Democracy - Gambling Money -

"The noble effort of CaoDai is to unite all of humanity through a common vision of the Supreme Being, whatever our minor differences, in order to promote peace and understanding throughout the world. CaoDai does not seek to create a gray world, where all religions are exactly the same, only to create a more tolerant world, where all can see each other as sisters and brothers from a common divine source reaching out to a common divine destiny realizing peace within and without."
- CaoDai -

"We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do."
- Ethel Barrett -

"The late-night program hosted by David Letterman is the toughest interview show on television. That's because Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down."
- Bill O'Reilly: The Letterman Experience (2001) -

"I'm not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. 60 percent. I'm just spit-balling here."
- David Letterman to Bill O'Reilly (2006) -

"Well, you're going to have to give me an example if you're going to make those claims."
- Bill O'Reilly to David Letterman -

"Well I don't watch your show so that would be impossible."
- David Letterman to Bill O'Reilly -

    "I really don't think he'd sound like an idiot if they kept him informed. He would, however, still sound like a kid trying to get out of trouble by tattling on something Billy did: 'My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program (the NSA surveillance program) in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy.'
   "There he goes again. He is being deceitful and insincere. Bush and Co. have broken the law, and furthermore, it was completely unnecessary to do so. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is not a hindrance to tracking down al-Qaida - every objection to its requirements is easily refuted.
   "So Bush breaks a law he didn't remotely need to and then denounces anyone who discusses this as helping the enemy. Come on. It's so stupid. The choice is not between a police state and another al-Qaida attack."
- Molly Ivins: They Don't Tell Him Anything -

"Explain to me, in your best wingnutnese, how exactly it damages national security to reveal the fact that we spy on people without secret warrants instead of the fact that we spy on people with secret warrants?"
- Atrios -

"The blank page gives us the right to dream."
- Baston Bachelard -

"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."
- Frank A. Clark -

"When we feel stuck, going nowhere - even starting to slip backward - we may actually be backing up to get a running start."
- Dan Millman -

    "The Bush administration has sent troops into Paraguay. They are there ostensibly for humanitarian and counterterrorism purposes. The action coincides with growing left unity in South America, military buildup in the region and burgeoning independent trade relationships...
    "In December 2004, the Bush administration canceled $330 million in economic and military aid to 10 South American countries. They were being penalized for turning down a US request for granting its soldiers immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit within the countries borders.
    "On May 5, however, the government of Paraguay took the bait. It signed an agreement authorizing an 18-month stay, automatically extended, for US soldiers and civilian employees. The previous limit had been set at six months. On May 26, in a secret session, Paraguay's Congress passed legislation protecting US soldiers from prosecution for criminal activity, both within Paraguay and by the International Criminal Court.
   "Reportedly, 400 or 500 US troops estimates vary arrived in Paraguay on July 1, with planes, weapons, equipment and ammunition. They are billeted at a base near Mariscal Estigarribia, a small city located 200 kilometers from the Bolivian border in the arid, sparsely populated Chaco area of Paraguay. That facility, built by US contractors in the waning years of the Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), offers a runway long enough to accommodate large military transport planes and bombers. It provides barrack space for 16,000 troops.
    "Journalist and human rights activist Alfredo Boccia Paz, stated in Asuncion that immunity from prosecution for US soldiers, extension of their stay, and joint military exercises all provide the groundwork for the eventual installation of a US base in Paraguay. He quoted Argentine Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Prez Esquivel: 'Once the United States arrives, it takes it a long time to leave. And that really frightens me.'"
- W.T. Whitney Jr.: Secret Invasion: US Troops Steal into Paraguay -

    "Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush's violation of law. Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration's illegal behavior.
    "Bush has actually declared it Treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior!"
- Paul Craig Roberts: A Criminal Administration -

    "We now know that George Bush personally ordered American intelligence services to spy on American citizens without the consent of any court and repeatedly directed officials to take actions that explicitly violated the law. Our courts are the last line of defense against abuses of power like this, and every judicial nominee must demonstrate that they will honor their most important responsibility: protecting our rights and freedoms.
    "Samuel Alito will not.
    "During the course of his judicial career, Samuel Alito has compiled a record of looking the other way when abuses of power threaten our basic freedoms. He has deferred to unscrupulous prosecutors who constructed all-white juries to try black defendants. He repeatedly failed to protect our right to privacy. He was even the lone judge voting to uphold the illegal strip-search of a 10-year old girl."
- Howard Dean -

"Writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
- Mary Heaton Vorse -

    "Despite spending $1 million in the last two years to assure Los Angeles residents that their tap water is not only safe to drink but also top quality, city officials spent $88,900 in public money during that time on bottled water from private firms.
    "The Department of Water and Power, which supplies the city's water and promotes it, spent the most on bottled water, paying $31,160 to Sparkletts."
- Patrick McGreevy: DWP Pays to Drink Sparkletts -

"'Tis the season to state that from now on I refuse to be defined by people who think that by constantly declaring their love of God and their unquestioning, deep belief in their religions, they are relieved of the more onerous responsibilities and behavior prescribed by such faiths. Those very faiths' carefully laid-out, moral and spiritual guides for personal behavior and action the day-to-day way of respecting one's creator are evidently waived. All they have to do is: 1) loudly proclaim, publicly and often, that they and their kind are leading truly godly lives, while also pointing out that most others aren't, and 2) maintain that any indiscretion committed is in the service of punishing, attacking, and demeaning those who are unbelievers of the one and only true way of your faith."
- Louis Black: Belligerent intolerance is no testament to faith -

    "A SWAT team at a mining disaster..... Hmmm. Distraught relatives are everywhere. In a big city emergency room, almost every day, you see people who are anguished and enraged past reason.  There aren't any SWAT teams present, only security guards who have seen it all. 
    "The SWAT team does not show up for garden variety disturbing the peace. Could it be that the mining officials had good reason to fear someone would attack them, that a lot of people were mad. The public has an explanation coming. Why is that being left out of the story? Lie of omission.
    "CNN slipped up and explicitly named the owner of the mine, International Coal Group. How many code and safety violations has this company had? Why is that being left out? Lie of omission.
    "Who are the people and or corporations who own this International Coal Group? Why is that left out? Lie of omission.
   "Have any of the owners of International Coal Group lobbied, directly or indirectly for relaxed safety codes or liability for coal mines? The 'reporters' should at least tell us they looked into it. Why is that left out? Lie of omission."
- Martha: A Lie in Progress -

"I'm an artist. It's the very opposite of saying - 'I know all about it. I've already found it.' As far as I am concerned, the word means - 'I'm looking, I'm hunting for it, I'm deeply involved.'"
- Vincent Van Gogh -

"I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet... and took his shoes."
- Xarvon, alien investigator -

Everything Else

Oh what the hell, you may as well check out the Top 15 Mug Shots of the Year, even though there aren't nearly enough neocons.