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Jan 28, 2005, 3:24am

If you thought the recent tsunami was bad, things much worse seem to be
brewing...

"WHO warns bird flu could be worse than SARS"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6608053/

"The Next Big Killer"
http://www.forbes.com/global/2005/0207/016.html

"Flu feared more than terror attack"
http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story13.htm

"Act before the crisis"
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/209485_avianed.html

"Russian Expert Says Flu Epidemic May Kill Over One Billion This Year"
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/28/pandemic.shtml

"Surviving the Influenza Pandemic: How to Protect Yourself From the
Coming Bird Flu Pandemic"
http://www.truthpublishing.com/survivinginfluenza.html

-Builderz

Jan 28, 2005, 9:54pm

0h n0s, tehz bird flue!! Bird flu swept though my city a few summers
ago, killing a bunch of birds (they were laying everywhere)... No one
got sick, no one died, although the city was rather quick to respond and
clean up.

-Joe

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Jan 29, 2005, 11:46am

Oh noes. Read this. :P Let's stop scaring ourselves.

http://archive.parade.com/2004/1205/1205_stop_scaring.html

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Jan 29, 2005, 3:27pm

LOL. I found the article ironic since it came from the same man that
brought us Jurassic Park (Ahh, dinosaurs are going to eat me), the novel
Prey (Ahh, small nano robots are going to engulf everything) and ER
(Ahh, my blood is squirting everywhere until the next commerical break).

-Builderz

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Jan 29, 2005, 3:35pm

Uh huh. The danger is the flu can mutate.

If there a lot of sick birds next to a lot of healthy humans, and a
random mutation allows it to infect the humans...

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Jan 30, 2005, 6:07am

No, it is not ironic.

His creations represent completely fictional events or completely real
events that happen every day. His movies never fed the fears of those who
were buying into the hypes of the day. For instance, it would be ironic if
he made the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." But, he didn't. Therefore, it
is not ironic. Perhaps you should re-read the article and find out what
he's really addressing.

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Jan 30, 2005, 3:34pm

Plain and simple, the reason he wrote the article is because he wanted
to promote/advertise his "State of Fear" novel and/or he is under
contract to Parade to write X amount of articles in X amount of time.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I thought the article was decent, but some
new studies have come out to debunk some of what he said in the article.
If you want me to go point by point and debunk him, well, that wasn't
the point of my original post.

The point of my post wasn't to scare anyone, it was to make people
think. It seems that a lot of people have a tendency to take things for
granted in our modern times.

Look, the H5N1 strain is a real threat since it has already killed
eleven people in Vietnam and there are reports that it has spread from
animals (such as chickens and cats) to humans. There are other articles
that mention that human to human transmission is now happening.

In this day and age, all it theoretically takes to spread a disease such
as the H5N1 strain is to have someone that is already infected with it
to just hop onto an airplane and fly to another location. Do some
research on the Spanish flu (which is not fictional) that occurred back
in 1918.

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." -George
Santayana

-Builderz

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Jan 31, 2005, 2:57pm

There's no way for you to know why he wanted to write that article.
Crichton has been doing a lot of research on hyped up Y2K/Global Warming,
and other fears of the day for years, and seeing how all these seemingly
immediate dangers come to pass, I can't blame him or anyone else for being
very suspicious about a spanish flu that could kill a "billion." Man, a
billion people. Talk about a hyped-up number.

Which specific problems did he address that have been debunked? I'd like to
see them.

Of course the point of your post isn't to scare anyone, but it's best to
make people think about how they take things for granted *after* the event
has occurred. Otherwise, the effect you're trying to make is much less,
especially when these scares constantly come to pass. The biggest scares of
the past several years that have actually happened were never predicted.

Already killed eleven people in Vietnam? Okay. That's a standard death
toll for new deadly diseases, but it's far from the "billion" that one
article states.

Learn from history indeed. Every single huge scare that I have seen has
come to pass. Look at today's iraqi elections. They went fine, didn't
they? ;) *adds a tally mark*

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Jan 31, 2005, 6:38pm

I think you are confusing the Spanish flu, which happened back in 1918,
with what a Russian scientist predicted may happen with the current H5N1
strain in another article. That is just one scientist's claim and it
doesn't mean it will come true. It is just a prediction. You need to
read all of the articles and take all of the information into
consideration. Of course some people will hype things up, but you need
to sift through everything and look at the facts, make an educated guess
and decide for yourself what to do or what not to do.

However, what if the prediction came true? What if someone told you that
the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were going to take place before they
happened? What if you knew four tropical storms/hurricanes were going to
damage the state of Florida all within three months? Would you believe
that person and heed the warning or say they "hype" things too much and
go on your merry way? It has come out recently that certain people tried
to warn the countries that were affected by the tsunami before it
happened, but that they didn't get the warning to the proper people in time.

I don't want people running out in the streets saying "Oh my gosh, we
are all going to die!" Panic isn't the answer, but sometimes people need
to be direct to get things done and to motivate people. I want people to
use common sense. I think it is wise to go to sleep a bit earlier and
get more rest, research herbs to boost your immune system and don't stay
out in the cold for hours at a time to help deter you from catching the
flu after having read the articles about it, don't you?

As for why the author wrote the article, let's just drop that since
neither of us can prove why he wrote the article or not unless we
interview him.

Now, about those elections in Iraq... Did you hear that they went "fine"
from the mainstream media "talking heads" on TV or a "shock jock" on the
radio? Parts of it may have went okay, but there are some discrepancies
and a lot more work needs to be done before anything over in Iraq, let
alone the elections, can ever be called fine again. Here are a few
examples for you:

"AMS critical of Iraq elections"
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F1149ACC-43EE-4BA6-AD8A-AC9D62290514.htm

"Fear Shrouds Iraq's Elections in Secrecy, Confusion"
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7408615

"Don't be fooled by occupation in democracy's clothing"
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/OpinionNF.asp?ArticleID=149203

"Iraq Vote Praised But Many Details Unclear"
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/01/48a25475-4483-4cc1-ac02-37e6e425a362.html

"The Iraqi Ballot, Translated"
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/karama.php?articleid=4651

I'm sure more articles like the above will come out over the next few
days/weeks. Oh, and wasn't the original reason the US went to Iraq in
the first place is because they had WMD? Talk about hype! No WMD was
ever found last I checked.

-Builderz

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Feb 1, 2005, 6:07am

Aljazeera.net (I recall insane Hu using this as a "valid" source),
reuters.com, antiwar.com (Gee, I wonder if they're pushing an agenda.),
gulfnews.com Disgusting. Lmao at the anti war article. Sounds like whoever
wrote that was having a lot of fun with that. Do I believe a word of it?
Of course not. It's emotionally driven, without a bit of logic in it.
Look at the rferl article "U.S. and other foreign forces in Iraq stayed out
of sight of polling places yesterday but near enough to help Iraqi forces if
necessary."
This directly contradicts the antiwar.com article. I can't believe you had
the resolve to post two contradicting statements if you want to sound
credible at all when discussing this situation.
Post something that isn't riddled with so much bias, and maybe I'll listen.
YES just about every news source on the planet is biased, but I'm sure you
have the eyes to find something more reasonable. Oh noes! It looks like
they're now criticizing how many voters actually showed up. Does that
really matter now? The predictions were much worse. You can tell that
these sources are clearly anti-american, anti-bush, anti-war, and are
writing those articles to push a clear agenda. They're desperately looking
for something to criticize, because they refuse to believe that yes, there
is indeed democracy in Iraq.

Anyway, the point that I was making about the Iraqi voting was that sources
everywhere predicted massive attacks and bombings during the voting, but did
anything even close to the predictions occur? Nope.


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Feb 1, 2005, 2:32pm

I made a post a long time ago in another thread saying that almost
everything has a bias or spin to it, so yes, I agree with that. However,
you shouldn't just blindly believe what you hear on the mainstream
media. Remember that Iraqi Information Minister when he kept saying
"Yes, we are beating the Americans. We have destroyed their tanks, bla,
bla" when all the while the American troops were like right behind him
about to capture the city? For example of mainstream media press reports
that aren't true or half truths in the US, well, there are many
documentaries out there detailing them if you know where to look. Look
up Noam Chomsky for just one example. Look at Dan Rather at CBS for another.

Now, if you call dissenting, protesting or disagreeing with whatever the
Bush administration says anti-American, I'm sorry to say that you've
been brainwashed by their rhetoric. If you think any war, let alone the
Iraq war is "fine," you are sorely mistaken. How would you like to have
your house bombed by mistake? The US "accidentally" bombed a hospital in
Iraq and an article in The Lancet estimated that 100,000 Iraqi civilians
have died.

Why didn't Bush give the troops proper armor? Why did he ban the media
from showing troop caskets? Did you hear that Germany wanted to try
Rumsfeld on war crimes lately? If you were serving in Iraq right now and
your life was on the line, I'm sure your mood would change. If you want
to support the troops, I say bring them home.

This is the last thing I'm going to say about predictions -- they are a
slippery slope. If they are correct, people are going to complain that
they didn't hear about them or heard about them too late or make up some
excuse. If they aren't *exactly correct* (say, off by just a few minutes
even), you'll have a bunch of people jumping up and down and saying
"See, see, that guy lies and is full of BS!" So you are darned if you
do, darned if you don't. Take everything with a grain of salt and use
common sense with a dose of history and make up your own mind. Just
don't come back to me and say I didn't tell or warn you if/when it is
too late. :P

Finally, about the elections... Did you read what I said about there
will be more articles coming out about it? Well, here you go:

"Iraqi Elections: Media Disinformation on Voter Turnout?"
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO501F.html

"Some Just Voted for Food"
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000192.php

While the two sources above may be bias, at least consider the
information they put forward. Read left, right, center and independent
media sources to get all sides of the issue and then make up your mind
if you want.

As for the original Parade article, here are some things that may debunk
or at least make you think about the things the author was talking about:

Y2K Issue
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/0216220&from=rss

Global Warming/Dimming
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Global+Warming&btnG=Search+News
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=Global+Dimming&btnG=Search+News

Cell Phone Dangers
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2-1436543%2C00.html

-Builderz

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Feb 2, 2005, 9:05am

Nah. This is just going to degrade into an argument over who's being
brainwashed. But, if you ask me, more mainstream media sources would be far
more credible than antiwar.com, which has one of the worst spins I've ever
seen :P By the way, I'm not talking about armor, or any other things that
happened during the war. Just talking about the voting.
I just love how there are so many small web sites out there that claim to
have the "real" truth, and that the mainstream media is all completely
wrong! They're so darned proud of themselves, don'tya think? ;) Now, let's
say that all media has a huge spin on it. What would you buy more? The
mainstream media through watching many different TV channels, reading
newspapers, and whatnot, or will you get your information from sites such as
antiwar.com, which clearly has an agenda? I'm just saying, be more careful
in the sources you choose. I'm not going to call you brainwashed, because
everyone loves calling people that these days when it comes to politics, so
even though I know saying that is a very easy card to play, I am not going
to jump onboard :P
I was not comparing those who are anti-bush to those who are anti-american.
I was citing one of your sources when I said anti-american. If you know the
news, you will know which source I am talking about.
Sorry if you're crying a river over the Iraq war not being perfect. Know
what I think? I think it is a huge mess, but I am not calling the
administration evil because innocents got killed. That happens in war.
That's one of the many things that makes war stink. I think there is a
greater good, though. "The Lancet estimated that 100,000 Iraqi civilians
have died." From what? If you're talking about "killed by americans" then
you are grossly mistaken. Let's take a biased liberal source called
guardian.co.uk, which is eager to inflate its numbers. They say "War may
have killed 10,000 civilians, researchers say." That's far from the 100,000
you cited, and far from the 700,000+ that Saddam's regime has killed. That
is why I think there is a greater good in this war.
Ooh Germany wanted to try Rumsfeld on war crimes. That's like France trying
to ban croissants and funny accents in the U.S. Do you think the United
States really cares what a country that accepted oil bribes from Saddam's
regime says? I sure hope not. Bring the troops home is a way of supporting
them? Do you know how many of those troops actually want to fight this war?
Do you know the disaster it would cuase if they left right now? We'd have
another Vietman on our hands. This war was riddled with errors, but we're
in now, and we're in for the long haul. It's too late to back out, so wipe
your tears and support our troops. We need to win this war.
Anyway back on the predictions. Yes, it's hard to predict anything without
someone getting on your case about being wrong. Crichton's point was that
we should stop getting worked up over it. These one-by-one armageddon
predictions never turn out to be what was predicted.
Thanks for the links. Though I might have already read some of those, any
read, biased or not, I still find interesting.

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Feb 2, 2005, 2:51pm

Okay, I think we've both gotten a bit off track. Let me try to sum up my
final thoughts and then we can take this to e-mail if you want so this
doesn't turn into a bad flame war.

The mainstream media obviously can't cover everything and most of the
major American media are owned by half a dozen major corporations (look
this up if you don't believe me). They generally don't report news that
contradicts with their own corporate interests unless they are forced to.

However, excluding adult sites, alternative news sites on the Internet
are among the most popular and more and more people have been turning to
them to get their news. Yes, some have a major bias or an agenda, but
why would so many people be going to these sites for their news unless
they felt that the mainstream media was lacking something?

Some of these alternative news sites are very small while some aren't.
Antiwar.com has articles written by both people on the left and right
spectrum that do not like the idea of war and has an Alexa traffic
rating of 4,338. Compare that to MSNBC.com which has a traffic ranking
of 772. AW's site is 109,534. The lower the number, the better. So
Antiwar.com isn't some guy in his basement that loves Kerry and likes to
rant all day.

For the record, I'm a registered independent and voted for third parties
this past election. I lean more to the right than to the left and agree
with some of what Bush says, but not very much. Bush was right when we
should unite as a country, but I think we should unite around the
Constitution and limited government.

If the government was honest and put the interest of the American people
first, I probably wouldn't be here complaining today. But it is obvious
that you can buy out or create special interests to pass almost any law
you want in this day and age. Hardly any members of Congress even read
the USA PATRIOT Act before they passed it. That says a lot about how
much our Congress cares about us.

-Builderz

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