19 Deaths From Swine Flu In Younger Children...

... and that was in the past week alone! H1N1 has killed a total of 76 children in the United States thus far, proving that this flu is more dangerous to the younger crowd.

The regular flu kills between 46 and 88 children a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That suggests deaths from the new H1N1 virus could dramatically outpace children's deaths from seasonal flu, if swine flu continues to spread as it has.

CDC officials say 10 more states, a total of 37, now have widespread swine flu. A week ago, reports suggested that cases might be leveling off and even falling in some areas of the country, but that did not turn out to be an enduring national trend.

The new virus, first identified in April, is a global epidemic. The CDC doesn't have an exact count of all swine flu deaths and hospitalizations, but existing reports suggest more than 600 have died and more than 9,000 have been hospitalized. Health officials believe millions of Americans have caught the virus.

Vaccinations against swine flu began this week and so far, states have ordered 3.7 million doses. Demand is exceeding supply, and people seeking the vaccination should ask their state or local health department where to go, said Schuchat, who heads the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Health officials also said more data is trickling in from several clinical trials of the new vaccine, and so far no serious side effects have been reported.
Preliminary results from one study indicate that both a seasonal flu shot and a swine flu shot are effective when given during the same doctor's office visit. However, the government is not recommending that people get the nasal spray versions of the seasonal and swine flu vaccines at the same time.
The nasal sprays contain weakened, live virus, and the government doesn't have data on how a person's immune system would react to exposure to both at once, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091010/ap_on_he_me/us_med_swine_flu_8

Go and get your children the shot for this flu folks, because this is going to get even nastier, I think. Some places are out of vaccine already so you may have to wait. Be the first in line!

Obama's Peace Prize And Republican Hatred

Why the Right REALLY hates Obama's Nobel
by Paganus Sat Oct 10, 2009
The conservative media's collective unravelling at the news of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize should surprise no one at this point. They have actively hated the Peace Prize since Carter won it.
But the tone and substance of the analysis from the Right clearly reveal, once again, a more deeply seated, and somewhat disturbing, basis for their criticism. Their vision of the world at peace is essentially a Roman one: the eagle victorious atop crushed 'enemies,' a fearful prospect to allies and rivals alike. "Oderint dum metuant - let them hate so long as they fear."
Of course, the problem with this approach to peacemaking is obvious. 1) It's not really peace and 2) it fools exactly no one. The Roman Historian Tacitus, in one of his more remarkable moments of empathy, has a British chieftain say of the Romans, "Auferre, trucidare, rapere falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant." - "to ravage, to kill, to steal under false pretenses they call "empire;" and when they make a desert and they call it peace."
Obama's initial rapprochement with the Muslim world, his trip to Egypt, his opening of discussions with Iran, his insistence on ending the occupation of Iraq, and his reformulating of the mission in Afghanistan have turned the basic neoconservative foreign policy formulation on its head. For that alone, for repudiating the imperial course laid by the the previous administration, he richly deserves the Nobel.
Paganus's diary
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/10/791845/-Why-the-Right-REALLY-hates-Obamas-Nobel

Rewriting The Liberal Bible

Rewriting the liberal Bible
by kos
Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 01:20:04 PM PDT
For years, the wingnuts have claimed that the Bible is the literal word of God, and that it supports conservative ideology. Problem is, the actual Bible hasn't been as hateful and bigoted as they've wished, and really, cherrypicking the right passages while ignoring other salient ones is hard work! So conservatives, rather than adjust their belief structure to better line up with the actual Bible, have decided to rewrite it and eliminate liberal "bias".
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[2]
Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."
Yup, they are admitting the Bible (and by extension, true Christianity) is too liberal.
So what are some examples of said liberal "bias" in the Bible?
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:[7]
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
See? The passage is a favorite of liberals, so it must be excised from the Bible, since liberals were running rampant when the Gospel of Luke was written in the year AD 70. I mean, Fox News didn't even exist then! The real Jesus would've called for the "Shock and Awe" bombing of Rome, not forgiveness. GOD the Bible is so liberal!
More:
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.
For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times.
"Without justification". Maybe the justification, if you believe in Christ, was that Christ believe in social justice? But nah, that's a liberal plot.
And much like Fox News rewrites reality in order to better ratify conservative ideology, these jokes are now setting out to rewrite the Bible to better ratify their own hate and bigotry. It's nothing new for religion -- people have been reinterpreting holy texts from pretty much every religion imaginable to justify all manners of horrors. It's just funny seeing these conservatives so overtly admit that the religion they use to justify their own excesses doesn't really support them.
(Via Little Green Footballs)