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