Friday, May 01, 2009

Overpriced.

Now you can use your iPhone to help put the panic in pandemic!
Calling all iPhone owners anxious about the spread of swine flu: A potential app, the Swine Flu Tracker, may be on the way.

The Swine Flu Tracker, still pending approval from Apple, would be free.
That's good, because you'd feel like a real rube a few months down the road if you'd actually paid money for it. This whole thing's likely to amount to nothing, and if it is zomg-it's-Captain-Trips!, then your iPhone is about as useful as a kickstand on a tank.

By the way, has anybody been keeping an eye on the Politico-Media complex's left hand while they've been waving this Swine Flu hysteria around with their right? 150 dead people in a foreign country wouldn't normally even nudge a B-List celebrity wedding off the front page, so I figure they're trying to distract me from something, I just can't figure out what.

17 comments:

CGHill said...

And dash it all, I hadn't even noticed that before: you can't spell "pandemic" without "panic."

(What's left? Why, "Dem," of course.)

pax said...

A bit of relevant nostalgia for you: http://www.hulu.com/watch/47965/barney-miller-werewolf

Heh.

Steve said...

If they scream loud enough about the Schwein-Flu, maybe we won't all hear the death rattle of the republic.

Sorry Mr. Franklin, it appears we were unable to keep it.

Nate said...

"I figure they're trying to distract me from something, I just can't figure out what." That is exactly what I have been wondering this week- what the heck is happening that we are not being told about because all of the MSM is focused on Mexican pig snot.

Somerled said...

Pakistan, perhaps. Obama said he wasn't worried about the status of the nukes there during his 100-day-party speech. There's more trouble in Iraq, too. There was a brief mention today about how U.S. forces might have to stay "longer than planned."

rickn8or said...

"so I figure they're trying to distract me from something, I just can't figure out what. "

Mmmmm. What news stories broke this afternoon? What sort of fuckery has Kongress been up to this week??

(Typical pattern I've noticed since Teh Lightbringer took over.)

Drang said...

Oh, puh-lease. They're building up to National Health Care.

Jenny said...

You know.... I'm actually starting to get weirdly optimistic about this whole thing. McCain's milquetoast 'compassionate conservative' holdovers would have just continued the slow slide till we slumped into the Social Security collapse.

This whole nationalization/porkulus thing though? It just might hit us hard enough to give this generation a nice hard boot to the head enough over the wisdom of collectivist economics to come to our senses before the really big liabilities start coming due.

Sort of like getting vaccinated with a live bug. It might bruise us just enough to be ready for the next wave.

... or weaken us enough for the next wave to drown us. Guess we'll see. :)

Joanna said...

if it is zomg-it's-Captain-Trips!, then your iPhone is about as useful as a kickstand on a tank.

Whenever I hear about some new technology that's going to completely change how we do things (cars that run on electric rails, automatic doors on everything, digital information storage, etc.), I always ask "What happens if the power goes out?" What good is a CD collection of the complete works of Beethoven if you don't have a working device that can read it? What good is the sheet music if it's stuck in a hard drive somewhere? I'll stick to my analog backups, thank you very much.

irdinest: I knew the bird died because I irdinest hit the ground.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

"(What's left? Why, "Dem," of course.)"

Had to wipe the monitor after that. What's left, indeed...

Joseph said...

"By the way, has anybody been keeping an eye on the Politico-Media complex's left hand while they've been waving this Swine Flu hysteria around with their right? 150 dead people in a foreign country wouldn't normally even nudge a B-List celebrity wedding off the front page, so I figure they're trying to distract me from something, I just can't figure out what."

I tend to think sort of thing has been going on for a looonnnggg time, when it started? I don't know but I first noticed it during the Clinton years, but that's just when I was becoming less dumb.

That said, this sort of conspiracy talk is kinda strange coming from the person who's constantly smacking down any talk of any economic conspiracy (oil, ammo, etc). Do you really think that a world-wide conspiracy between political forces and the media is in effect to cover up some sort of more sinister plan?

roy in nipomo said...

I don't believe a conspiracy is needed to explain this. It is just another application of "Don't let a good crisis go to waste," to distract from what is happening in DC.

OTOH, does collusion between the media and the Democrats count as a "conspiracy?"

Michael said...

Never attribute to malice, what can be explained by idiocy. The Swine flu is an easy scare-story that the media types can run with and keep viewership glued to the screen. The story isn't as volatile as politically charged ones, so they would rather run some bogus scare-for-ratings campaign rather than have to be bothered with researching and reporting real news that people might get mad at them for running.

Michael said...

Oh right... just wanted to add the second line:

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice." -Robert A. Heinlein

Unknown said...

The right hand waving a crisis in your face is the hand you should be watching. It's called propaganda.

After all, who can protect from this huge faceless menace except a big strong central government?

Anonymous said...

How about the new $350,000,000,000.00 Budget? That's worth hiding right?

Sp00k said...

Could it be the old power-play? Playing for the power/martial law set-up? DHS & way too many levels of LEO are set for their little "war games" this summer. Could this be the prelude/warm-up to a major push/operation? Just needs a good nudge to get the sheeple bleeting for The Great Enlightened One & His Disciples to save us all from the big, bad ol' world. Even DoD is making noises about what they could do "just in case"."Methinks something is rotten in the state of Denmark".
Keep your powder dry. :>)