Are you sure you want to include AIDS in that list Peter?

I think AIDS qualifies, didn't Uganda (?) prove it? 6%, IIRC, and their pres is persona non grata cos he cut their transmission rate.

Unless I'm deliberately infected by someone who has it, how am I going to get it?

The global warming myth is a piece of masterful propaganda that will be hard to match; indeed, it is certainly good for several more years of fund-raising/fear-mongering.

It's been a few years since we've heard about some widely-dispersed chemical that is going to kill lots of us slowly...something bigger than Alar, maybe a gasoline additive or another pesticide.

This is the plan:
(1) Scary consensus driven conclusion.
(2) ?
(3) Grant Money!

signed, The global warming Gnome

Uncontrollable, self-replicating nanobots!!!

You would think scientists in a nation situated just to the west of a huge ice-covered island called Greenland would at least give pause for a few moments to wonder whether or not their might be some outside forces of nature controlling the warming and cooling cycles of the Earth far more than anything man is doing. Or they could charter an expedition up there to dig up all those Nordic SUVs the Vikings were driving around that warmed the terrain 1,100 years ago.

Maybe it's a bit off topic, but Lileks references this article on Operation Praying Mantis. Even though it's a dubious source, I took a look. From the second paragraph we get "U.S-backed Iraq". Funny how the Left can leave their lies and information pollution everywhere they go.

As for AIDS, don't forget how we were all told in the '80s it was only a matter of time before it became a plague int he population at large.

As for AIDS in Africa, pop over to Dean's World for many posts on how AIDS statistics in Africa were heavily manipulated and had little basis in fact. The bottom line is that Africans quickly figured out that they could get a lot more sympathy and aid from the West if they called any questionable infection AIDS related. If AIDS is what got funding, then AIDS would be what made people sick.

Genetically modified "Frankenfoods" cross-pollinating with natural grains . . . producing mutant cereal crops that will upset nature's delecate balance and probably cause cancer. Or worse.

Is bird flu too au courant to count?

Sandy, I think the Pres of Uganda is on the outs since he used an abstinence based program to cut the infection rate. Per the Liberal mantra, it wasn't supposed to work, but it did.

Mike -

I believe that gambit has already been run...the fearful Euros bought in, but that was about it.

My money is on benzene!

It's in our soda pop, you know.

Two big lawsuits filed this week in N.E.U.S., claiming that two pop companies are handling their product in such a way as to allow deadly benzene to form in their product at levels higher than 4 parts per billion. It forms with heat, light, ascorbic acid and one of two other preservatives. How long before benzene is EVERYWHERE?!?!

Of course, if the Left argues that the government should ensure the safe consumption of soda pop (benzene-free soda pop), then they find themselves arguing for something that makes our kids obese.

A tradeoff may be in the works. The newly defanged aspartame may be embraced.

Brian, my vote is for chemically altered sugar: The Canadians have had Splenda for years before we got it, and it tastes great: I used to favor Equal (aspartame based) in my tea, but Splenda beat it out.

Regarding "nature's delicate balance," the latest National Geographic has an interesting article about the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. It seems that it is already quite heavily forested and teeming with fauna and other flora.

As the largest nature park in the former Soviet Union, containing only a few stubborn, aged human beings, it is what the environmentalists prescribe for the rest of the planet. All they need to do is let us build lots of nukes, and let OJ use the weaponized ones we already have!

Well, it certainly won't be fear of a Dinosaur Killer, which is what will actually get us.

The key is that whatever the next over-hyped end of humanity fear is, tackling it must require overturning democratic capitalism and disproportionate blame and cost for the US. Also, to be really perfect, there must be a body of scientists able to profit from increased funding for their doomsday science.

Climate change is just so good for this that I don't see them giving up on it, so I'm going to say that we're just going to see them whipsaw between global cooling and global warming for a while.

If that's cheating, then I'm going to with either: travel in any form at speeds higher than 15 mph is destroying the atmosphere; or factory farming is destroying the oceans.

curt: Just more proof that when Darwin thought that nature was red in tooth and claw, he was just mistaking the red carpet nature puts down to escort us all to easy street.

The chemical that is the #1 killer of children: dihydrogen monoxide.

Whether the science "proves" that there is current global warming, and that man is a/the primary cause, and that the warming will continue and potentially cause all sorts of problems, has NOTHING to do with how we should decide what policy steps we should take.

Ptah:

Cute story. We may have Splenda (is that why our diet drinks taste better?)but you can blame us for getting rid of sucaryl back in the early seventies. It tasted just like sugar, but some sniffy Canadian government scientists started a cancer scare based on force-feeding rats huge amounts of the stuff. It caught on in the States with no opposition (it was the seventies)and I still recall crying with laughter at the American legislator who tried to stop the madness by suggesting that instead it come with the following health warning: "Warning. Excessive consumption of this product may be dangerous to the health of your Canadian rat."

Widescale shopping at Wal-Mart is making holes in the space-time continuum.

My vote goes to the notion that the oil supply is running out and will soon become a MAJOR CRISIS!

Implying, of course, stop driving, buy a Prius, and save the caribou.

I riffed on it a while back here.

Shark attacks. Ah, to go back to a pre 9/11 world.

Thanks for the ideas, guys! That govenment grant is gonna be mine after my initial paper on Nano-flu infected Franken-Foods overwhelming the delicate balance of our sugar industry reaches the cover of Hysteria & Doom Monthly.

Research fueled sports car, here I come!

signed, the global warming Gnome

Ban all H2O! It's for the children!
Won't somebody think of the children?

How about chronic homelessness? Remember in the 1980's homelessness was one of those things that could happen to anyone, like you or your next door neighbor, and it could be long-term. I beleieve there were even some tv movies or plot lines in tv shows that said such things without including important factors like you would also have to be an alcoholic, drug addict and/or bipolar.

I believe we are already in the midst of a horrifying shortage of Jennifer Lopez news.

I think Mr. Brokaw nailed it. Peak oil is coming! Peak oil is coming! We're all dooomed I tells ya!
Of course the Hubbard Peak has been coming in 20 years for 50 years now, but it gives people something to rub their worry beads about.
Myself, I'm more concerned about the coming zombie apocalypse.

Wasn't it just in the news that her's was scientifically determined to be the worlds second best butt?

If J-Lo only has the second best butt who has the best?

Someone named Kylie Minogue, who frankly I've never heard of.

Oooo! Zombie J-Lo butts!
I feel a series of appendices coming, I tells ya!
(scribble, scribble, scribble)

signed, the global warming Gnome

my prediction: the left as it loses power in its few remaining stronholds, will whine, scream, and cry (incessantly) about the looming theocracy. of course the fact that their subversive behavior now, would cause a muslim theocracy if it were to succeed.

Kylie Minogue. First came to modest fame in the late 1980s, then re-emerged on the pop music scene about 6-7 years ago. Apparently, Australian female vocalists have late maturing butts.

All hail Harper! Hail Harper. I'm so glad he came along. I'm planning a long delayed vacation to the provinces.

> we're just going to see them whipsaw between global cooling and global warming

Which is why the terminology shifted from "global warming" to "climate change." Covers 'em both.

The last fallback position is "climate variability." That's right. Random noise. No one knows what it's going to do next!

If I had to wager, I'd go with toe. They haven't had a really good anti-clerical rant since Bismarck, and who remembers that? As so many are now so ignorant about religion it's easy to get away with Harry-like "Christians invented scalping..." stories and convince folks it's all voodoo. The formalistic civil rights-inspired respect for religion isn't going to last much longer.

Gideon:

That website almost made me spew a mouthful of dihydrogen monoxide all over my keyboard!

While the world is centuries away from running out of petroleum, we are running out of cheap, sweet, easily processed crude oil.

That will cause some adjustments and dislocations - an important one being that the center of the global oil industry will switch from the Middle East to North America, over the next three decades.
I find that to be A Good Thing, overall.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at April 14, 2006 1:30 AM