The Last Special Report
BB: Welcome back to FOX News and our round-the-clock coverage of this week's shocking story: the snowballing outbreaks of carnivorous mobs across the nation and around the world. I am speaking to you from our headquarters in Midtown Manhattan which, I have just been informed, has been closed off on the south at 33rd Street and north from the near edge of Central Park; this just four hours after Manhattan-bound civilian traffic was stopped at all bridges and tunnels. Everything is quiet around City Hall, but we are receiving unconfirmed reports of incidents from Greenwich Village and the outer boroughs...
Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed that we have breaking news from the FOX affiliate in Albany, the capital of New York. We go now to Joshua Greeves, our reporter at WXXA. Josh, can you hear me?
[The screen divides into two panels, one showing Bob Blowback in New York and the other a blizzard of digital snow. The audio is static. A picture never forms, but after 15 seconds a scratchy voice rises above the white noise. The speaker sounds distinctly less composed than his southern counterpart.]
JG: Bob, I can barely hear you. We're talking over a ham.......still broadcasting?
BB: Are you trying to ask whether we're still broadcasting, Josh?
JG: There have been rumors...the whole city...It's good to hear from you, Bob.
BB: Good to hear from you, too, Josh. Do you have some announcement from the government of New York State?
JG: Yes and no, Bob. Governor...just finished a two-hour...National Guard Armory where the survivors are staying. That's where I am now, Bob. The governor kept pleading for … FEMA...mobilized the State National Guard and a 24-hour curfew outside designated Safe Zones, which he promised...tomorrow.
BB: Josh, we're starting to lose you on this end. Did the governor ever use the word “zombie”?
JG: Everyone uses...except in front of a microphone...infectious agent spread by bites and bodily...swarm...
BB: Josh, you just said “yes and no.” What did you mean by “no”? It seems to me like a 24-hour curfew is a pretty big deal.
JG: ...enforce it? I think the entire state government now consists of the 100 or so people barricaded in this complex, and they are not going anywhere. No one....Assembly…maybe a dozen Senators...after the perimeter...
BB: Are you saying that you don't believe it makes much difference what the Democratic governor of New York State says now, Josh?
[The level of aural chaos rises, whether because of a commotion at the other receiver or because the signal as been lost. After 20 seconds the static turns to silence and the second screen disappears.]
BB: Well, folks we seen to have lost contact with our Albany affiliate temporarily. We'll return with more as soon... Meanwhile, let's ask our emergency panel here in the studio how they interpret these events. We'll start with Stuart Hemp of the Monthly Placard. Stu, it's good to see you're still in our studios.
SH: Thanks, Bob. I'm sleeping in the Green Room, actually.
BB: Stu, what do you think of our report from Albany? Do you think it's Katrina all over again?
SH: Katrina times ten, Bob. At least the Bush Administration had contingency plans in place for a major hurricane. I don't think that the Obama people gave any thought at all to the possibility that the dead might reanimate and infect the living. It's just another example of the failure of imagination that has been the hallmark of this Administration; and if I may say so, of the modern Democratic Party generally.
BB: You certainly may, Stu. What do you think of these repeated calls from the governor for assistance from FEMA?
SH: Big government thinking breeds incompetence, Stu, and when something goes wrong, you can be sure that big government Democrats will look for someone else to blame. I bet we haven't heard anything like that from Bobby Jindal in Louisiana.
BB: You're sure right there, Stu, though to be fair, no one here has heard anything at all from Louisiana since yesterday afternoon. But let's move on to our next special guest...Folks, I have just been informed that we have the satellite link back to our Washington bureau. We go immediately to our White House reporter, Magnus Loft. Magnus, how are things in Washington?
[An image as clear as usual shows the reporter outside the White House at dusk. The building is bathed in high-intensity light and surrounded by armored personnel carriers and walls of sandbags. The reporter's sculpted hair and meticulously tailored gray trench coat are as well turned out as always, but his manner communicates that things in Washington are not well at all.]
ML: Bob, I've just come from a special news conference at the White House Press Center. The presenter was an Assistant Secretary from the Department of Homeland Security...
BB: Not the Secretary herself, Magnus?
ML: The headquarters of DHS are across the Potomac in Virginia, Bob. It's apparently too much of a security hassle to move a senior official into D.C. without a very good reason. National Airport is still open but the other side of the river is mostly a no-go zone. Anyway, the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that a simple test has been developed to identify the infectious agent. Screening will be offered free of charge at every hospital. It will be mandatory for teachers and medical personnel.
BB: Was there any explanation of the purpose for the screening? The reports we have are that people are infected by bites and turn into zombies in a few minutes. Does DHS use the word “zombie,” Magnus?
ML: Not to us, Bob. They call them VIPs.
BB: VIPs?
ML: “Vitality Impaired Persons.” Anyway, to answer your question, there have been a few confirmed reports of the disease incubating for several days. That may be how the outbreaks occur so far apart. The real mystery is why anyone would ask to be screened. There is no treatment. The infected can only be sedated and then confined when they turn.
BB: One last thing: any word on the whereabouts of the president?
ML: All we are told is that he and the First Family are in a “secure location,” Bob. That's probably the White House, but certainly not the usual presidential apartment.
BB: Amazing, Magnus. We'll be back to you many times tonight, I'm sure. Now let's go to the second member of our panel, the man with a thousand passports and our favorite Canadian, Peter Fleck. We were just about to call on you when that report came in from Washington. What do you have to say to what we have just been told?
PF: Bob, the Canadian National Health System instituted universal voluntary screening 10 days ago. And this “screening” meant just a seat-of-the-pants clinical assessment. It took the American pharmaceutical industry to come up with a test kit on such short notice. Anyway, do you know where government-sponsored screening has gotten us? All communication is down with Toronto now. I've been trying to get through to people there all day. I predicted in my blog at Continental Inspector what would happen: the federal government created a free good by fiat and the system was immediately overwhelmed. There were reports right away of hospital emergency rooms being mobbed with people asking to be screened.
BB: But Peter, why would so many people want to be tested if there was no treatment for them?
PF: Maybe they were afraid they would infect their loved ones. Maybe they were so addled by the welfare state that they insisted on exercising their “right” to medical care even if that meant they would be taken out and shot...
BB: By most accounts shooting does not do much good, Peter.
PF: Which is probably why it will be adopted by the NHS bureaucrats. Anyway, the tragedy is that the people who were infected, who knew they were infected, were the ones who were most certain to stay away. They were the ones who were left loose to infect their neighborhoods while the authorities handled the crowds of the frightened healthy. It's a classic example of the unexpected consequences of state intervention into the personal matter of health.
BB: That's certainly something to think about as we manage the current emergency, Peter. I hope you can stay with us for more of the evening...
PF: As long as you like. You can't leave Manhattan now either, Bob. DHS just announced that outbound traffic is halted, too. For once they've gotten control of immigration, this time to the rest of America.
BB: Your inconvenience is our gain, Peter. But now let's give some thought to the long term. For that we are privileged to have with us the US Senator from Texas and libertarian-leaning presidential hopeful, Tom Rawls. Senator, it's an honor to have you with us tonight.
TR: Thank you Bob. I'm as happy to be here as is appropriate in light of the grave circumstances.
BB: Well put, Senator. Can you offer us some guidance on what the federal government should do to assist the recovery from what looks to be one of the greatest natural disasters in American history?
TR: This is not a natural disaster Bob, anymore than the recent financial collapse was a natural result of the business cycle. Epidemic disease is as much a product of the vector of transmission as of the organism. In this case, the vector is a transportation system distorted by central planning and especially by the perverse incentives of our ruinously high capital gains rates.
BB: Are you saying that capital gains taxes created the zombies?
TR: I'm saying that capital gains created mass transportation systems that genuinely free markets could not have sustained. Look at the airlines: that industry ought to have consolidated years ago into a few profit-making carriers, carriers that made enough to pay for their own modest airports and navigation system. Instead the federal government has propped up the system.
That means large numbers of people flying in crowded, unsanitary conditions, and congregating in airports the size of Stalin's vanity. And the National Highway System is worse. It was systems like that which spread this nightmare so far, so fast.
BB: So your recovery program would consist of say, a flat tax?
TR: A flat tax would be too intrusive.
BB: Well, I see we have a lot to discuss here tonight. Now, though, here's a word from our sponsors.
[The picture changes to a generic stage-set meant to suggest a private library, where were an oddly emphatic bald man is exhorting viewers to buy gold! gold! gold! His urgency is to little purpose, however. By that point, few people are watching FOX, though still not so few as are watching CNN.]
