Thursday, October 29, 2009

Swine Flu Myths That Could Kill You

From New Scientist by way of Avian Flu Diary some popular myths about the H1N1 Flu. I like the format over at Afludairy as they are one of my prime sources for H1N1 info and link back to the main article. But if you prefer, you can go straight to the source.

Myth 1

The symptoms are like regular flu. You've got it if you've got a fever
Up to half the people who get swine flu never develop a fever, and some suffer from gastrointestinal symptoms as well as more standard flu symptoms. Read more

Go and read the updated symptoms list. You may save the life of someone you love.


MYTH 2

This is just mild flu. The death rates are even lower than for normal flu

Swine flu is killing young people rather than the very elderly, and although winter is just starting, more young people have already died of flu than normally die over the entire winter. Read more

I mentioned this earlier this week. The elderly are the usual victims of a flu season which at least in part is an expected outcome. The fact that this flu is killing the young will have a very different psychological impact should the trends continue.


MYTH 3

You're safe as long as you're healthy. Only sick, weak people get really ill

Most of the children who have died of swine flu were perfectly healthy beforehand, and many of the adult victims also had no underlying conditions. Read more

See Myth 2. Personally I know of two individuals, otherwise healthy adults, who have been hospitalized with pneumonia stemming from H1N1. One was hospitalized for 4 days and the other for the better part of September and almost died.

Go here and read more and the other 5 myths...

ACORN- The Nuts Are Everywhere

The Congressional ban on federal funding of ACORN expires this week-end. Happy Halloween. Roll back your clocks and your ethics. It doesn't get much scarier than this. And right on cue we hear that ACORN is firing up the propaganda machine with a a new website, DeFOXamerica.com, which is an effort to shoot the messenger. More can be found about this over at the Spectator. Piss off Soros and the Dark Lord will fight back.

In fact, Congresswoman Maxine "Wormtail" Waters has already been busy adding an amendment to the impending takeover/overhaul legislation of the country's financial institutions that:

"...adds an oversight board of five representatives from the fields of “consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgages" to join federal banking regulators in advising the CFPA’s director...." (Judicial Watch) (more)

Read ACORN.

Fortunately Ms Waters has her own issues to deal with an ethics investigation all her own. Anyone surprised?

White House Says No ‘Veracity’ to Argument That Forcing Individuals to Buy Health Insurance Is Unconstitutional

Not going to confuse you with an English major either but that is another issue.
You're not really surprised they would say that are you? Interesting that Mr Gibbs also says that,

"I won't be confused as a constitutional scholar, but I don't believe there's a lot of--I don't believe there's a lot of case law that would demonstrate the veracity of what they're commentating on," said Gibbs.

Well, of course there isn't any case law on it because the government HAS NEVER TRIED IT BEFORE!

As CNSNews points out:

In 1994, when the Clinton administration attempted to push a health care reform plan through a Democratic Congress that also mandated every American buy health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office determined that the government had never ordered Americans to buy anything. “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” the CBO analysis said. “An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

But of course the Constitution does not appear to be a very large consideration for this Administration in this or (m)any other matters.

13 New Tax Hikes In the Dems Healthcare Bill

Let's see 1,990 pages divided by 13 is one tax hike every 153 pages.....From Americans For Tax Reform:

H.R. 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" has been introduced--all 1990 pages of it. This gargantuan beast contains thirteen new tax hikes. Here they all are, with description and page number (PDF version):
***
Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).


Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

read the rest here...

Obama Administration -Privacy Act Does Not Apply to White House

In a not so surprising statement the White House has stated its position that the Privacy Act does not apply to it. So how's that new era of openness working for ya?

From Judicial Watch:

..."What the Obama administration is effectively saying here is that if the White House decides to illegally compile FBI files and violate your privacy rights, tough luck," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "It is disturbing that the Obama administration has taken the legal position that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House and the Clinton FBI files scandal was not a scandal. It is worrying to those of us concerned about the Obama White House's collecting "fishy" emails and compiling an enemies list of new organizations, radio hosts, businesses, and industry associations to attack and smear. Is the Obama defense of the FBI files scandal less about that Clinton scandal and more about what his White House is up to now?"

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Do our Troops have the support of the Whitehouse?

No worries Mr President. There are plenty of more troops in Afghanistan that we can let die while you decide on when you will decide to support our troops or pull them out.

8 US troops die; new deadliest month in Afghan war

We don't want to interrupt your golf game or evening parties at the Whitehouse. At the rate of 55 military deaths a month, hell we can last another couple of years before they are all dead. At least the fringe media is doing you a favor by keeping this out of the news. We don't want to upset the political apple cart and mentioned body counts, oh no, heavens to Betsy no....meanwhile, we'll keep attending the funerals.

President Obama ties George W Bush on Golf

Country is circling the drain, Moody is ready to downgrade the countries credit rating, we're owned by the Chinese, self proclaimed communist on your staff, but hey, as long as you can salsa, it's all cool.

Geeze Barry, it might be time to put down the crack pipe.