Welcome to my Nightmare

Herald Sun ^ | 12-7-2007 | Andrew Bolt

[randog]

I can’t remember exactly what I wrote that was so evil. So much to choose from.

Was it that I refused to be freaked by this latest panic attack that global warming was blasting in and . . . Oh, my God, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

[randog]

I would add AIDS to his list of "Oh-My-Gawd-We're-All-Gonna-Die" prophecies.

[Badeye]

Some of us remember Swine Flu was going to kill us all, if GLOBAL COOLING DIDN’T back in the 1970’s....

[GOP_Party_Animal]

I definitely remember the "Coming Ice Age" when I was a kid. That memory has been such a useful tool in arguing with the latest WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! crowd.

[Badeye]

Same here. My highschool on the east side of Cincinnati made the local news multiple times back then for its then ‘revolutionary efforts’ at recycling....which allowed the whacko’s running the ‘program’ to speak about Global Cooling being the end of the human race as we know it within a century.

I was one of those rare kids that realized by my sophomore year they were just highschool teachers....

[OCCASparky]

You also forgot the killer bees...

[Allegra]

Italian proverb:

If there is a remedy, why worry?

If there is not a remedy, why worry?

The Iraqis have a similar one, but I can't remember exactly how it goes.

[mountainlyons]

It is true “we are all going to die” I choose not to die by politics.

[Allegra]

You also forgot the killer bees...

And that asteroid that's always lurking around in space just waiting for the opportunity to crash into Earth.

[aroundabout]

Don’t forget that “acid rain will kill all life in our oceans by 1980”. I believe that prophesy was by Ted Dansen, actor.

[Ditter]

I caught the flu that went around in the 50’s. Can’t remember what they called it but years after I survived it I read where it was a pandemic. I guess I am lucky to be here. My husband survived the Swine flu in the 60’s. Are we tough folks or what!

[metesky]

Number Watch An excellent source, especially the The complete list of things that give you cancer (according to epidemiologists) and A complete list of things caused by global warming".

Pretty funny... seems everything causes death and pain.

[Red Badger]

If there is a bomb, why worry? If there is not a bomb, why worry?...........

[Lee N. Field]

I would add AIDS to his list of "Oh-My-Gawd-We're-All-Gonna-Die" prophecies.

The global pandemic that will take down Western Civilization will begin in some crowded cubicle farm.

cough. cough.

[Doogle]

[ctdonath2]

Funny thing is, the stuff that DOES kill people in large numbers is hardly given a second thought.

[Badeye]

Yep, you are right. So many ways we’re all gonna die any second, so little memory chip available in my brain pan....(chuckle)

Ya know, I can’t hear about ‘killer bees’ and not see John Belushi dressed up as one.

[Badeye]

Naw, Bruce Willis destroyed it!

Or Tia Leoni caught it....can’t remember which...(chuckle)

[driftless2]

Other than his wrong assessment of the very real repetitive strain injuries ( I can personally attest to it), Bolt is right on the money. He even mentioned acid rain a biggie from the eighties who the “experts” exclaimed would kill us all. Where are the acid-rain doomists now? I suppose they just transformed themselves into GW doomists. Now I’m just wondering after the GW scare diminishes what the next doomist scenario will be. Exploding mp3 players? Any suggestions?

[Badeye]

Humans aren’t quite as easy to kill as many suggest.

[OCCASparky]

No kidding--just ask Jeanne Dixon in all her annual predictions of how we're all gonna die...

Oh wait--she's dead. Nevermind!

[wbill]

Fantastic quote in this article....

I do often feel lonely in this astonishing age when to panic is a sign of virtue and to reason a sign of a cold heart.

I love it!

[FMBass]

I live by a simple motto, “Watch out where the huskies go and don’t you eat that yellow snow”!

[fredhead]

These prophets forget one thing......

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.....

someday.

[wbill]

I was perusing some works by Paul Erlich from the 70s. Basically, if we all weren't dead from cancer caused by pollution, then we'd frozen to death in an ice age, killed by mass disease or starving to death. Oh, and there'd be no clean water no clean air and no oil.

Average life expectancy starting in 90s was, I believe, 41. I emailed my dad this quote and asked him to what he attributed his long life....

His response? "Scotch. And not worrying about all the doomsayers."

[usurper]

You also forgot the killer bees...

And acid rain

A-lar

Red die #2

DDT

Nuclear power

[OCCASparky]

Humans aren’t quite as easy to kill as many suggest.

Or to quote Heinlein:
"At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that news is not something that happens to other people."

Maybe then we'll realize that we're not such fragile creatures after all.

[wbill]

I had a cousin that is allergic to Red #2.

As a kid, if you'd give him something with RD2 in it, he'd literally bounce off the walls for a couple of hours until he exhausted himself.

Not life-threatening, but a real PITA for his parents. You'd be amazed at how much stuff has red dye in it.

[ßuddaßudd]

What? No Alice Cooper references?

[null and void]

If there is a remedy, why worry?

If there is not a remedy, why worry?

The Iraqis have a similar one, but I can't remember exactly how it goes.

If there is a remedy, why worry?

If there is not a remedy, why worry?

Kill the jews...

[Badeye]

Yep.

[OCCASparky]

What? No Alice Cooper references?

Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...

There, happy now?

[libertarian27]

Thanks, Great article.

Ping

[ßuddaßudd]

Great! Now can you do a Vincent Price imitation?
I guess I should go look up the lyrics myself....

[B-Chan]

I was taken in by the Y2K thing in a most embarassing manner. These days, I don’t worry about the end of the world as we know it; I keep my eyes open, yes, but experience tells me that (for folks in America, at least) things always work out okay in the end. As always, we’ll muddle through no matter what happens.

[B-Chan]

50,000 Americans die every year in auto-related incidents. That’s as many as died in the Vietnam War, every year. If we were really concerned about hazards faced by the general public, we’d ban private automobiles.

[weegee]

Ted has since excused his deliberate lie as “hyperbole” to get people to pay attention.

[weegee]

That’s already on the agenda.

[DejaJude]

I haven’t heard much about the Ozone Layer lately. That used to be a big doomsday thing.

[bolobaby]

Frickin’ BEAUTIFUL.

[anoldafvet]

Cell phones cause cancer.

[randog]

Cell phones cause cancer.

As well as power lines...

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The entire essay is classic, but this line made me laugh out loud:

Remember the fear that the world’s computers would crash the second the clocks ticked over to the year 2000? Planes would fall from the sky thanks to this Y2K bug, which the world spent an estimated $300 billion “fixing”. But what happened at midnight? Tick, tick, tick . . . er, tick.

[Allegra]

Kill the jews...

On the whole, Iraqis aren't really hung up about the Jews at all.

Saddam sure hated 'em though.

[Terabitten]

journalists keen to sell a sensation, business keen to sell a cure, and politicians keen to sell themselves as the solution.

Compare to an excerpt from "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton:

Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see — germs, chemicals additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable!

...[T]he military-industrial complex is no longer the primary driver of society. In reality, for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And it is dedicated to promoting fear in the population — under the guise of promoting safety.

... Politicians need fears to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless.

Intriguing.

[Polyxene]

I remember getting a shot for the flu epidemic of the 50’s, and my arm hurt for a week! I think they called it the “Asian Flu” back then.

[a real Sheila]

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE $3 BILLION?

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

. ... Politicians need fears to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless.

The whole aim of practical politics," wrote H.L. Mencken in 1920, "is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

[null and void]

*sigh* You’re going to let facts interfere with a perfectly good joke?

[Allegra]

Sorry. ;-)

It was funny.

[Publius6961]

I believe that prophesy was by Ted Dansen, actor idiot.

There.
I fixed it for you.