The problem with being a news hound
 

You come across a story like this:

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reu...30428_450.html

OTTAWA/BRASILIA (Reuters) - A crew member of an Egyptian merchant ship has died in northern Brazil, almost certainly from anthrax, after opening a suitcase suspected of containing the deadly bacteria, which he was taking to Canada.

...and it may all be nothing, in which case you don't hear anything for a few days and then you wonder what the story really was.

Or it may be the tip of the iceberg of the biggest history-changing event ever.

Mr. Shepps, I'm going to have to ask you to surrender your computer equipment and your television, please.

It's for your own good.

I read that story earlier tonight also and was going to post something about it.

How stupid are people these days ... "Here, take this suitcase for me. Yes, I am a complete stranger, but you will be going to Canada, and you can give this to my friend. There is no need to examine the contents. Enjoy your journey."

Like I said in Juju's "cult like mind-set thread", when you're a member of the "group", you'll do anything without question. Just to be a member of the "group".

I used to be the same way. (About the news hounding, not the luggage carrying.) Most days I'd read the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times, hear NPR's stuff, and then in the evening listen to the BBC World Service and Deutsche Welle, or Radio Netherlands, or some of the other shortwave radio services (in the pre-internet boom, of course) from different countries. Now that even more stuff is available for me, I read less of it. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a bubble I'm so disconnected.

The boy in the bubble was being protected from bad shit. Maybe that's not so bad. weren't most people happier when all they had to worry about was local stuff?

And it turns out to be nothing.

PHEW!

And you're only an average (guffaw, guffaw) news junkie. Think how this shit must affect the people in the media that have to deal with this Simon says; panic; don't panic; panic, ten times a day.:eek:

What iritates me is that the "news" media never seem to confirm anything they read before they send it out to be published. They see a scary sotry - and they race to get it to air. This has the effect of constantly juicing the public's adrenal glands while ignoring critical debate of realistic threats altogether. This country is really going down the tubes. I think I am going to move to Canada.

Most of the people in Canada get their news from the US first (broadcast). when and if the do move on to print medium I'm not so sure their papers aren't subjected to the same commercial pressures as they are here.