Doug's Darkworld

It appears we aren’t all going to die of the swine flu just yet. That pretty much covers that topic. A few points to reiterate. The reason this was such a big deal, though the media did overreact, was that this is a new and and contagious disease. Yes, it is a flu, but it was a brand new flu that humans had never been exposed to before. And sometimes new diseases can be quite lethal. Right now it’s looking like it isn’t terribly lethal and it’s not spreading as fast as it could have. It’s possible it will come back with a vengeance next fall, but presumably by then we will have  a vaccine.

Another point is that from what I have read, is that historically it appears that quarantines can work for small isolated communities and remote islands, but efforts to quarantine large cities, regions, or countries are ineffectual. So there was no point shutting down the border, the fact of the matter is that the authorities handled this fairly well. At least in the USA. The Egyptians killing all their pigs is strange, but governments aren’t always rational, and often don’t want to lose face by admitting they blew it.

Speaking of which, the endless US occupation of Iraq continues. In fact violence seems to be ticking up again, not surprising considering what a horrible mess the country is. It’s not really a country actually, or a  very fractured one a best. So the USA evacuation of Iraqi cities, whatever that means, may be delayed. I’m not betting on a  voluntary US withdrawal any time soon, and even if we do, the country will fall to pieces, not transform into some Germany or Japan magically rising out of the bloody sands of the Middle East.

It’ even less likely that Afghanistan will be building any American fast food franchises soon, they don’t even have a Green Zone. Still, western armies have been campaigning in the region for centuries, so tis may go o awhile. I guess the theory is that someday we will get it right? Beats me. Things are no better in Pakistan. Historically when it comes to western crusades in Asia,  we can look forward to endless low grade fighting, with the occasional disaster. Well, and endless piles of dead brown civilians, but that doesn’t even make it it on radar in the west. On the plus side these endless colonial adventures keep us supplied with veterans should we ever actually have to defend our country I suppose.

OK, so we’ve covered war and plague. In the other pillar of the trifecta of bad news we’re dealing with these days, the economy. It’s still not looking good. Warren Buffet says things are cool, but I’m not a big follower of prophets of any sort as my readers may have discerned. A prophet in a fellow who has made a string of lucky guesses. I’m still predicting that things will get worse before they get better. And in any case, for most of us in America, no matter how badly our wars, our economy, or the flu transpires, life will go on.

And the Obama administration will go on. At this point I’m more disappointed than my worst fears. Obama continues to use his golden tongue to say nice liberal sounding things, but there’s been no real change from Bush’s policies both foreign and domestic. He’s increased military spending, widened our foreign wars, continued to shovel money into the bankers ravenous maw. Some change. He’s even completely caved on looking into some of the human rights abuses under Bush, under the “we must look forward” mantra. Right, we’re still hunting down octogenarian prison guards from a war that ended in the first half of the last century, but crimes committed by the last administration have to be swept under the rug?

Worse, Obama’s election seems to have completely eviscerated what was left of the antiwar and liberal movements in the USA. Or at least made it completely PC to ignore any hint of liberalism in the media. I mean, we have  a black, liberal president, so how can the liberals complain? Snort. However, rather than rant at length about this, I will link to a site which covers the whole topic in depth. I don’t agree with everything, but I agree with the gist of it and highly recommend it to my readers: Status Quobama: A Hundred Days of Fake-Progrssive BS and Liberal-Left Surrender.

Coming up this week, Ten Allied Military Blunders, the Dyatlov Pass incident revisited, and a commentary on some of the jingoistic comments people have left on Doug’s Darkworld.

Have a great week everyone.

(The above image has been released into the public domain by its creator. Credit: Orlovic. It’s an American Predator drone, IE one of our  robotic flying death squads … shot down over Serbia … on display in a Belgrade Aviation Museum. Somehow I doubt it’s there to celebrate the American bombing campaign in Serbia. As always I chose the image to illustrate that there are always other perspectives, despite what they say on CNN and Fox “news.”)