Time To Think

What an interesting Saturday morning. I got up and found that Kathleen Petty was interviewing Jeff Rubin, former head of CIBC World Markets on The House. Rubin is arguing that the world is about to get a lot smaller as peak oil sets in and obliterates the global economy. And instead of doing what most journalists do, Petty is going to keep the story going by wondering what peak oil will mean for governments and policymakers in the next few weeks. All I can say is good luck managing peak oil my dear bloated, inefficient governments. Maybe you can hire a few more staff and expand your parking lot and that should be enough. Except what are those new workers going to eat?

And then following The House was White Coat, Black Art, a show about the medical profession. Usually half interesting exposes into sleep-deprived doctors and nurses, today the subject was the hype about Swine Flu, our old friend H1N1. Wow! Doctors and public health officials were lamenting the scaremongering perpetrated by Health Canada and numerous public health agencies across the country. And the result of this scaremongering is big business for the corporations selling TamiFlu, ventilators, gloves, and masks (oh yeah, and of course body bags). Of course in the end it's kind of understandable. Thanks to lawyers and insurance, governments are scared to underplay the potential deadliness of a virus, to cover their backsides, as my mum would say.