Widespread? Yeah, I think I'm coming down with it myself. (I drove my son to the doctor the other day and had to sit in a tiny room with a flu victim who kept coughing into a soggy tissue.) And the nurse practitioner I saw today wouldn't give me a prescription for Tamiflu because I wasn't sick enough - yet:

Influenza is widespread in most of the United States, with the incidence continuing to increase in some states and to decline very slightly in others, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. The infections are "overwhelmingly" pandemic H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu.

The flu season generally lasts well into May, so many months of uncertainties lie ahead, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, speaking at a morning news conference.

Shipments of intranasal swine flu vaccines to providers have begun, and vaccinations began Monday in several states, with a priority for healthcare providers and young children. About 2.4 million doses of the intranasal vaccine FluMist are now available, and states have already ordered 2.2 million doses, Frieden said. Next week, an injectable vaccine will also become available.

So far, vaccine "demand is outstripping supply, but we expect that fairly soon supply will be outstripping demand." Over the next two to three weeks, he added, tens of millions of additional doses will become available.

There have already been some mismatches between supply and demand, Frieden said. "The first couple of weeks are going to be a bit bumpy as we get the supply chain worked out. What we are seeing now is the tap beginning to flow."

Frieden said that the public has three major concerns about vaccination "despite the clear message that vaccine is the best tool to protect against the flu":

* First, he said, many people believe the flu is a mild illness. It is not. "It can make you pretty sick, knock you out for a day or two or three," Frieden said. It can even put people in the hospital or kill them. In a typical flu season, about 35,000 Americans die from complications.

* Second, some people believe that the vaccine is not safe, that corners have been cut in its production, and that it is a new, experimental vaccine. "In fact, none of that is the case," he said. "It is made the same way the flu vaccine is made each year, in the same facilities and by the same companies." And that seasonal vaccine, he added, has "been used safely in hundreds of millions of people. My children will get it [the swine flu vaccine], other public health and societal leaders will get it and have their families get it."

* Third is the concern that the vaccine is arriving too late to do much good. "It's too soon to say it is too late," Frieden said, because no one knows what is going to happen for the rest of the flu season. Even if, say, 5% of the population has contracted swine flu, that still leaves 95% vulnerable. "We don't know what the long flu season is going to hold. We have not had a flu season like this in 50 years" -- since the 1957 Asian flu pandemic that killed 70,000 Americans and 2 million people worldwide.

(Periodically getting up close and personal, even in the 1950's)

Most people lately have assumed our involvement in the Middle East (other than Israel), has been a thing of recent vintage. It goes back a long, long ways, certainly our military involvement extends back at least to the Lebanon situation of July 31, 1958 where religious and political factions lead to an overthrow of the government in Lebanon. Similarly, a wave of assassinations and overthrows also took place between Jordan and Iraq (the assassination of King Faisal of Iraq, leading to a series of military regimes, ending with Saddam Hussein in the 1960's). Cold War tensions, brought on by military maneuvers on the USSR/Iranian border and the rise of Gamel Abdul Nasser of Egypt and just a general shift in the political landscape of the Middle East, brought about considerable nervousness in some quarters, particularly in Britain, France and the U.S.

UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was quick to point out these tensions in a news conference during a quickly called UN Security Council session.

Henry Cabot Lodge: “What is really happening is plain for all to see if you but lift up our eyes. The overthrow of the lawful government of Iraq, beginning with the assassination of the Crown Prince, and which was followed by a wave of assassinations throughout that unhappy country, is one dreadful fact. Then the attempt to subvert and overthrow Jordan, of which we have just heard, is another. And of course the effort directed from without to subvert Lebanon is familiar to everyone. That there is in the Middle East a common purpose to take over, everywhere. All at once. Clearly, there is a purpose, masterminded from one source. You can read all about it in the Cairo newspapers, or listen to the incessant radio broadcasts from Cairo to other Arab countries.”

The culprit in this case appeared to be Egypt, as Nassar was emerging as a potent leader in the Arab world. Of course, underneath all of it was the question of oil. Wouldn't you know?

Didn't you think racism was dead after we elected an African American president? Obama being depicted as a witch doctor was just done in good--clean---American---fun.
Star-Telegram:

GRAND PRAIRIE — Four Grand Prairie police officers and a dispatcher are on paid administrative leave after a racist e-mail about President Barack Obama was circulated, and the local NAACP chapter is asking whether a recent round of diversity training was for naught.

The e-mail came from outside the department, but the officers opened and/or forwarded it, said Detective John Brimmer, a Grand Prairie police spokesman.

The department was "forced to go through diversity training two years ago, and this is what we get," Preston Dixon, vice president of the Grand Prairie chapter of the NAACP, said at a news conference Wednesday.

"Since they’ve gone through diversity training, then they knew better and should be fired," he said. Dixon’s wife, a Police Department employee, has filed an unrelated discrimination suit against the department.

Police did not release the e-mail. "These are some good officers who have worked at the department for a long time that made a serious lapse in judgment," Brimmer said. "You can’t do much about an unsolicited e-mail, but what you do after you open it is on you."

The officers appear to have violated a department policy that forbids employees from using city-owned computers for personal business, Brimmer said.

They should release the email so we know what was being passed around. The fact that these bozos were suspended means that it had to be pretty horrible.

Obama will appear on the teevee tonight, further ramping up his push for healthcare reform. In the meantime, the Blue Dogs are sharpening their teeth in hopes of further weakening the bill. I'm trying to remember if they ever expressed similar concerns over funding Mr. Bush's little Middle East adventure, but I seem to be drawing a blank. Hmm.

(CNN) -- As President Obama prepares to address the nation in a primetime news conference, some sources say Democratic grumbling about his plan for health care is growing louder.

One Democratic senator told CNN that some congressional Democrats are "baffled," and another senior Democratic source told CNN that those members are frustrated that that they're not getting more specific direction from him on health care.

"We appreciate the rhetoric and his willingness to ratchet up the pressure but what most Democrats on the Hill are looking for is for the president to weigh in and make decisions on outstanding issues," the senior Democratic congressional source said.

"Instead of sending out his people and saying the president isn't ruling anything out, members would like a little bit of clarity on what he would support -- especially on how to pay for his health reform bill," the source added.

Yeah, I talked to one of the reform staffers last night, who told me the real battle now is over how to pay for it. My source tells me a lot of these "reasonable" proposals being floated in this phase have the potential to inflict long-term damage on the bill, that the work being done on the bill is so arcane and complicated that showboating congressmen don't have a clue - and don't bother to inform themselves.

The Democratic leadership had hoped the work going on behind closed doors for months could bear fruit in time for the president's news conference Wednesday night.

But multiple Democratic sources told CNN that's looking very unlikely, and one senior Democratic source said some Democratic leaders are frustrated that Senate negotiators have, "repeatedly missed deadlines."

The fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats said Tuesday night that they reached one breakthrough on controlling the cost of health care at a meeting with Obama, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and other House Democrats.

Blue Dog Rep. Mike Ross, D-Arkansas, told reporters after the meeting that the group came to a "verbal agreement," to add a "some type of hybrid of an independent Medicare advisory council " that would set reimbursement rates for health care providers to the House Democrats' bill. He referred to the agreement as a "breakthrough."

But Ross cautioned it was only one of 10 items that the Blue Dogs wanted changed.

I read this really interesting piece on Blue Dogs by David Sirota that pretty much sums up the problem:

Continue reading »

So now Norm Coleman has conceded:

Republican Norm Coleman has conceded to Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota's contested Senate race, ending a nearly eight-month recount and court fight.

Coleman announced his decision at a news conference in St. Paul, hours after a unanimous Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" comedian and liberal commentator, should be certified the winner.

"The Supreme Court has made its decision and I will abide by the results," Coleman told reporters outside his St. Paul home.

This means the hissy fit is truly and finally over. Except, of course, for the one Bill O'Reilly is going to throw.

Boy, somehow you could just see this coming when people started asking where Gov. Mark Sanford had disappeared to:

COLUMBIA, S.C. - During a Wednesday news conference at his office in Columbia, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted to having an extramarital affair — information that surfaced after his recent, secret trip to Argentina.

The married father of four emotionally apologized to his wife and staff, saying, "I've let down a lot of people."

Sanford said he met the woman almost eight years ago, but "about a year ago, it sparked into something more than that."

The governor said his wife and family have known about it for the past five months.

He also announced that he was resigning as chairman of the Republican Governors' Association.

Earlier, the South Carolina governor told a newspaper he was in South America, not hiking the Appalachian Trail as his staff had told the public to explain his sudden absence. He said he "wanted to do something exotic" to unwind after losing a fight over federal stimulus money.

Well, that scratches Sanford from the ranks of GOP possibles for 2012. That leaves Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin, who've self-inflicted similar but perhaps less egregious wounds, and Mitt Romney, who is looking increasingly like the winner by default.

Amen! I do love this man:

WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean said a public health insurance option is more important than bipartisanship, and that Democrats should pass health-care legislation that includes the option with 51 votes if necessary.

Dean added that Democrats should have "no intention" of working with Republicans if it's not the strongest possible legislation that could be passed with a simple majority.

"If Republicans want to shill for insurance companies, then we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said during a news conference at the first day of the liberal America's Future Now! conference here.

Dean, though, also praised what he called President Obama's "realist" approach to trying to pass health care reform.

"What I like about Barack Obama's plan is he's a realist," Dean said, adding that private insurers aren't going away and that polling shows people are generally happy with their private health care -- if they have it. He said it should be all about giving people a "choice" of signing up for a public option, but "on the other hand, you don't want to take something away either."

Dean repeated a line of the president's, giving him credit in doing so: "If you like what you have, you can keep it."

No, it didn't go away. In fact, the daughter of one of my best friends was just diagnosed:

Two more New Yorkers have died with confirmed cases of swine flu, the city’s health commissioner said on Tuesday, bringing the city’s total number of deaths related to the virus to four. Emergency room visits and hospitalizations also continued to rise.

The commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said the two latest casualties, a 41-year-old woman in Queens and a 34-year-old man in Brooklyn, were linked to the H1N1 virus by lab tests completed on Monday and Tuesday. Both patients had underlying health conditions that put them more at risk, he said. He added that he could not say officially whether the flu had caused their deaths until autopsies were finished. Both died on Friday.

Officials have cited underlying conditions as a factor in all four deaths in the city, but they have not revealed those conditions, citing medical confidentiality.

[...] Dr. Frieden, speaking at a news conference at the health department, noted that both patients who died were relatively young. Health officials have said that there is some evidence that people born before 1957 may have been exposed to a similar virus and may have some immunity to the novel strain of flu that is circulating.

Hospitals that normally get about 200 visits to the emergency room each day are getting 2,000 per day, he said, and more than 25,000 people have gone to emergency rooms over the past month. The numbers are highest in Queens, but are increasing in Brooklyn and, to a lesser extent, in the Bronx and Manhattan.

Over the last five days, he said, 20 to 25 people a day have been hospitalized with the flu. Before the weekend, the city had recorded only 57 hospitalizations for flu during the entire preceding 30 days.

I meant to post this when it broke but the news has been furious the last few days. I guess like the fact that Shanna didn't bow down to another conservative whiner. Shanna joined Norah on MSNBC the other day and told us why she quit.

Moakler: I don't get paid to do this pageant because I love it and I enjoy it and after I lost control of my pageant, my title holder and instead of getting the help that I really needed my titleholder basically got rewarded for her actions and I can't stand by that.

Norah asked her why she didn't say this during the presser and she said that everything happened very quickly, it was a whirlwind and she thought maybe it could work, but when she say her on the Today show lying abut what happened she had enough.

Norah: What was it Shanna that she wasn't complying with in her contract? The nude photos?

Moakler: The fact that you can't go and work for organizations. She became a spokesperson for NOM organization by doing PSA's, by doing telemarketing for them, appearances, she was neglecting her Miss California responsibilities. She breached her contract by numerous levels and plus continuing to lie, but to answer your original question, I went back to my hotel, I really thought about everything that was taking place and I was upset that in the press conference it wasn't addressed and she needed to take responsibility for those actions and then the next day I saw her on the TODAY Show and she was continuing to lie about some of the photographs and for me it just got petty. It's very difficult for me when someone is lying. I would respect her if she just said I was modeling, I was young, I should have brought it to your attention, I didn't, I'm sorry, but she's pointing fingers to everybody but herself and I cannot take that.

Shanna Moakler didn't buy into Donald Trumps garbage and resigned her post from the pageant. Good for her. The Donald's presser was ridiculous, but Carrie's whining, blame everybody first follow up to him was even worse.

Former Miss USA Shanna Moakler resigned as co-executive director of the Miss California USA pageant Wednesday after her boss Donald Trump allowed Miss California Carrie Prejean to keep her crown.

Continue reading »

It was smart to address this, because the wingnut echo chamber in talk radio is pushing the idea that "fascist" Obama wants to take over and run more private industries:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said he wants to get the government out of the private sector as fast as possible -- but that as long as his administration is acting as a major shareholder for large sectors of American commerce, from cars to finance, he won't hesitate to shape decisions at those firms.

President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference marking his 100th day in office in the East Room at the White House on Wednesday.

In his most extensive public comments to date on the principles guiding government-ownership stakes, Mr. Obama said at a news conference Wednesday that "I don't think that we should micromanage." But he added that, in the name of protecting taxpayer dollars, the government would help troubled companies make "tough decisions based on realistic assumptions."

"Like any investor, the American taxpayer has the right to scrutinize what's being proposed," he said at news conference marking his 100th day in office. "I don't know how to create [an] affordable, well-designed, plug-in hybrid, but I know that if the Japanese can...then doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same."

[...] In addressing the government's role in the private sector, Mr. Obama said his administration had no choice but to step in as the financial and auto sectors were collapsing and that "our first role should be shareholders that are looking to get out."

"I don't want to run auto companies. I don't want to run banks. I've got two wars I've got to run already. I've got more than enough to do. So the sooner we can get out of that business, the better off we're going to be," he said. "I want to disabuse people of this notion that somehow we enjoy, you know, meddling in the private sector."

(photo via Reuters)
I was going to write that this didn't surprise me, but it actually does because it's not the FOX News channel.

The network is turning down the president's request to show his prime-time news conference on Wednesday. The news conference marks Obama's 100th day in office. Instead of the president, Fox viewers will see an episode of the Tim Roth drama "Lie to Me."

It's the first time a broadcast network has refused Obama's request. This will be the third prime-time news conference in Obama's presidency. ABC, CBS and NBC are airing it.

Fox Broadcasting Company issued a statement on their motives:

"The Fox Broadcasting Company will not air the Presidential News Conference," Fox said in a statement. "Fox's sister networks, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network, will air the press conference in its entirety. Fox will be alerting viewers with an onscreen graphic at the top of the 8:00 PM (ET) hour that the press conference is available on Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network.

If John McCain or George Bush were giving a prime time news conference, FOX would be giving it wall to wall coverage. Being the only network not to broadcast it kind of hits home the right wing bias that Rupert Murdock has brought to television. If Bill O'Reilly or Chris Wallace start whining about President Obama not appearing on their network they can only look at their own behavior, but this is much bigger than that. This is the president giving a speech to the nation at a critical time in our history and FOX just passed.

President Obama said he's still for the "assault weapons" ban, but he knows it will be difficult to get passed. Well, duh? I know the freak-show teabaggers will get armed if you make this a priority, but some things that are difficult must be acted upon.

Listen, I want him to get universal health care first and foremost, but he has a chance to move the ball forward here. He should tread carefully, because every police officer is a bit nervous right now, but don't wimp out altogether.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President, as well. President Obama, as a candidate for your office, you said that you wanted to see the assault ban weapon -- the ban on assault weapons reinstated. Your attorney general has spoken in favor of this. Mexican officials have also spoken in favor of it. But we haven't heard you say that since you took office. Do you plan to keep your promise? And if not, how do you explain that to the American people?

And, President Calderón -- I'm sorry, if I may -- would you like to see this ban reinstated? And have you raised that today with President Obama? Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, first of all, we did discuss this extensively in our meetings. I have not backed off at all from my belief that the gun -- the assault weapons ban made sense.

And I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the 2nd Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we now know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence -- violence in our own country, as well.

Now, having said that, I think none of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy. And so, what we've focused on is how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws, because even under current law, trafficking illegal firearms, sending them across a border, is illegal. That's something that we can stop.

And so our focus is to work with Secretary Napolitano, Atty. Gen. Holder, our entire Homeland Security team, ATF, border security, everybody who is involved in this, to coordinate with our counterparts in Mexico to significantly ramp up our enforcement of existing laws.

November 05, 2008 News Corp
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has returned to her home state of Alaska, where she was greeted by dozens of supporters encouraging her to run for president in four years.

The crowd chanted "2012! 2012!" as Palin disembarked her airplane at the Anchorage airport. Asked by reporters if she might run for president, Palin said, "We'll see what happens then."

The Alaska governor said she hoped to work with president-elect Barack Obama on energy policy. She was returning to the state after spending Tuesday night in Phoenix, where she watched election returns with her Republican running mate, Arizona Sen. John McCain.