Friday, November 26, 2004

This week's best lies from the Culture of Fear


Tracy looking completely underwhelmed by Mexican Hat, Utah

Oooh it's been a busy week for lies in the papers this week, as they bang away like Trojans keeping us as scared as they can. I don’t think I managed to keep up. My Top 3 lies of the week are:
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Lie #1
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September 11-style terror attacks on the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf were thwarted, it has emerged. Plans to crash aircraft into the three skyscrapers in London's Docklands were among four or five al Qaida strikes that security chiefs believe they have stopped. Training programmes for suicide pilots who planned a spectacular attack on the financial centre were disrupted, a senior authoritative source told the Daily Mail. Heathrow Airport was another high-profile target for a possible simultaneous strike, the newspaper also reported. There were no details of when or where the plot was uncovered, or how close the fanatics were to success. Downing Street, the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the reports. The source told the newspaper that the threats were real and were not deliberately exaggerated for political purposes. "This is not about politics, it's about hard work behind the scenes to stop what is a clear threat," the source said.
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I don't think that story needs any further comment from my fairself. A top tip though, whenever a story or even an internal email includes lines like 'it has emerged …' or 'it is expected …' you can be 100% certain something crooked is taking place, as no-one is willing to take responsibility for what follows
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Lie #2
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Earlier, Iraqi Minister of State Kassim Daoud told a news conference: "Soldiers from the Iraqi National Guard found a chemical laboratory that was used to prepare deadly explosives and poisons. "They also found in the lab booklets and instructions on how to make bombs and poisons. They even talked about the production of anthrax."
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What is it with Iraqis? They have this most peculiar habit of producing and stockpiling huge quantities of bioweapons then forgetting to use them. Why, oh why, do they bother?
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Lie #3
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Britain is "in the grip of a serious HIV epidemic" as the number of people suffering from the infection continues to soar, figures show. There are 53,000 adults now living with the virus, yet more than 14,000 of them are unaware of their infection.The Health Protection Agency says there were 6,606 new HIV infections diagnosed in the UK during 2003. Each HIV infection is estimated to cost up to £1m in treatment and lost productivity. The majority of new cases diagnosed in the UK are the result of people migrating from countries with the biggest HIV problem, especially Africa.
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This lie is tad more subtle than the other two. An epidemic is usually defined as an outbreak of a disease. We don’t actually have an HIV epidemic in the UK, other contries do. Even if we isolated and cured every victim currently in the UK, HIV figures would still grow because we keep shipping more victims in. Am I sounding a tad heartless on this one? Maybe so. Those 53,000 people represent a total cost to the UK taxpayer of c.£53,000,000,000. I'm not actually being xenophobic or selfish. Where's the logic, or humanity, in treating one person who was able to sneak into the UK when the same money could be spent treating 20,30, or 40 equally, if not more deserving, people back home in Africa? The money would be better spent in Africa itself where HIV drugs are much cheaper compared to expensive old Britain. But, there again, the drugs companies wouldn’t make so much profit. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to discover that the drugs companies were sneaking some of these guys into the UK.
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Strangely, the incidence rates of other sexually transitted disease are growing each year in the UK much faster than the, adjusted, increase in HIV infections. Brits are clearly indulging in ever-increasing quantities of unprotected sex but not coming down with HIV. Which leads me on to one of my favourite global lies / hidden truths of our times. (look away if you're easily offended) - The vast majority of people who contract HIV, contract it through anal, not vaginal intercourse, that is the only rational explanation for why some ethnic and sexual groups are much more susceptible to the virus than others. Working girls in the UK know what the truth is, that's why those very few who will go 'bareback' / 'AWO' / on a 'Death Ride' charge anything from 5 to 10 times over their usual rate.
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Don't fancy the idea of AIDS? Stop BF'ing loads of different people. It's that simple.
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I haven't seen that mentioned on any of the expensive awareness campaigns. Have you?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yawn you're shit