The federal government and mainstream media have been so successful in creating H1N1 (swine flu) hysteria that normal people who simply want a seasonal flu shot are out of luck: since mid-October I’ve tried doctors’ offices, retail pharmacies, and government health departments on both sides of the Mississippi – they’re all out of seasonal vaccine because the federal government has given priority to H1N1. Thanks in part to the government geniuses who can’t wait to take control of the entire American health-care system, there’s a shortage of both kinds of vaccine, and we face a bizarre prelude to ObamaCare in which the seasonal flu – which usually kills about 36,000 Americans each year – may kill twice that many (since few of us can obtain timely inoculation), and the comparatively benign H1N1 will kill a relative handful, instead of the double handful that would have died without the hysterical disruption to the regular seasonal flu vaccination. It’s reminiscent of a joke: “What would happen if the dessert were taken over by communists? Answer: nothing, for awhile; then there would be a sand shortage.” But when socialized medicine is about to happen to you, permanently, it becomes a sick joke (pardon the pun).