Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you have been bombarded with news coverage of the swine flu for several days now.
And when the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert to the second highest level — of 5 — yesterday, the media couldn’t get enough of it. After all, this stuff sells newspapers and gets ratings. But when you take a look at the numbers, it seems like the story might be overblown…
The WHO has confirmed 236 cases of swine flu worldwide. 97 cases in Mexico, with seven deaths. Mexican officials have reported much higher numbers — 2,500 cases and more than 150 deaths — but those numbers haven’t been confirmed. In the U.S., the WHO says there are 109 confirmed cases with 1 death. Out of a population of more than 300 million people, that hardly seems to be cause for alarm.
And scientists who are studying the virus say this strain of influenza doesn’t look as deadly as strains that have caused previous pandemics. In fact, some suggest that the current form of the swine flu virus may not even do as much damage as the regular flu.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/cafferty-has-swine-flu-story-been-overblown/
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Waterboarding For loot!
My Boy Keith Olbermann, is jumping at the opportunity to challenge Fox New's Reporter Sean Hannity. Hannity making light of the severity of waterboarding mentioned he would do it for the troops, well good old Keith challenged him for $1000 per second, to go to the family of the troops.... Let the madness begin! (This could be more entertaining then that show "Hole in the Wall" LMAO)
NEW YORK (AP) — The debate over torture is getting personal for two of
cable TV's prime-time hosts. After Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity made a
seemingly impromptu offer last week to undergo waterboarding as a benefit for
charity, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann leapt at it. He offered $1,000 to the families
of U.S. troops for every second Hannity withstood the technique.
Olbermann repeated the offer on Monday's show and said in an interview
Tuesday that he's heard no response. He said he'll continue to pursue it.
"I don't think he has the courage to even respond to this — let alone do
it," Olbermann said.
Fox News Channel representatives did not respond to
requests for comment.
The two men are on opposite poles of a debate that
has preoccupied the worlds of talk TV and radio. Hannity says waterboarding is a
fair and necessary interrogation technique for suspected terrorists; Olbermann
calls it torture, says it's ineffective and should not be done by Americans.
Charles Grodin was challenging Hannity on the issue on Fox last week,
and asked whether he would consent to be waterboarded.
"Sure," Hannity
said. "I'll do it for charity ... I'll do it for the troops' families."
It wasn't exactly clear how serious the conversation was, since Grodin
joked, "Are you busy on Sunday?" and Hannity laughed.
"I'll let you do
it," Hannity said.
"I wouldn't do it," Grodin said. "I'll hand you a
towel when you come out of the shower."
Olbermann's offer was quick.
Besides the $1,000 per second, Olbermann said he'd double it if Hannity
acknowledges he feared for his life and admits that waterboarding is torture.
"The idea of putting somebody in a position they have volunteered for,
for charity, to respond to their own unsupportable claims, is in many ways
priceless," Olbermann said.
Olbermann, who hasn't missed any chance to
criticize his ideological enemies at Fox, concedes TV competition plays a part
in his offer. But he said it was sincere, because he believes Hannity has had a
damaging role in the debate.
"If you expose people to reality, even with
someone who is denying reality, that can have a powerful and important impact,"
he said.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
100 Day's completed..... 63% grade
I have to say I'm extremely happy that the first 100 days are done, hopefully now people can do a little less scrutinizing of every move. There are still alot of things up in the air, but with so many open issues I think a 63% approval rating is pretty good..... Economy, Mexico Borders, Pandemic, Missiles being launched, Israel & Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan Nuclear issues, Iran, Cuba bans, housing markets.....etc.
WASHINGTON (CNN) – As Barack Obama marks his 100th day in office, an average of
the most recent national polls indicates that more than six in ten Americans
approve of the job Obama's doing as president.
According to a CNN Poll
of Polls compiled early Wednesday, 63 percent say they approve of how Obama's
handling his duties as president. Twenty nine percent disapprove. The 63 percent
figure is down three points from CNN's previous Poll of Polls, which was
compiled Sunday.
The president's approval rating stood at 64 percent in
a CNN poll of polls in January, just after his inauguration
"The number
of Americans who think Obama has the right personal qualities to be president
has gone up since the campaign last fall," says CNN Polling Director Keating
Holland. "That wasn't true for George W. Bush eight years ago, and it may be one
reason why Obama's approval rating is still in the 60s."
So how does
Obama compare to his predecessors in the White House around the first 100 days
mark?
George W. Bush stood at 62 percent in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup
poll in April 2001, Bill Clinton was at 55 percent in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup
poll in April 1993, George H.W. Bush stood at 58 percent in a Gallup poll from
April 1989, and Ronald Reagan was at 67 percent in a Gallup poll taken in April
1981.
"The hundred-day mark tends to fall during a period when Americans
are still evaluating a new president. The danger period for most presidents
comes later in their first year in office," Holland says. "Bill Clinton, for
example, still had good marks after his first hundred days, but his approval
rating had tanked by June of 1993. Ronald Reagan's approval rating stayed over
50 percent until November of his first year in office, but once it slipped below
that mark, it stayed under 50 percent for two years. So Obama's current rating
certainly does not indicate that he is out of the woods yet."
The most
recent edition of the CNN Poll of Polls is an average of seven national surveys
taken over the past week: CNN/Opinion Research Corporation (April 23-26),
ABC/Washington Post (April 21-24), Fox/Opinion Dynamics (April 22-23), CBS/New
York Times (April 22-26), Marist (April 21-23), Quinnipiac (April 21-27) and the
Gallup tracking poll (April 25-27).
The Poll of Polls does not have a
sampling error.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Politicians are Free Agents too!
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch parties and run for reelection next November as a Democrat, he announced today, a decision that could have wide-ranging consequences for the Senate and President Obama's agenda.
Specter told reporters that he received a "bleak" poll Friday from his advisers that showed virtually no chance of him winning in the GOP primary next spring against Pat Toomey, a former Republican House member who recently led the conservative Club for Growth.
He said that the loss of several hundred thousand GOP voters, who left the party in 2008 to vote for their favored candidate in the intense Democratic presidential primary between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, left the Pennsylvania Republican Party too conservative to support a moderate such as him. "I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican Party," Specter said.
After more than 28 years in the Senate, Specter acknowledged he was "not prepared to have that record" obliterated by the conservative primary electorate. He reached the decision over the weekend in consultation with his family and top aides, many of whom are staying with him despite his party switch.
He said informed Republican and Democratic Senate leaders around dinnertime last night.
The move brings Democrats to 59 seats in the Senate, just one shy of the 60 they need to exert filibuster-proof control over the chamber. In Minnesota, Democrat Al Franken holds a 312-vote lead over former senator Norm Coleman (R), but Coleman has appealed the result to the state Supreme Court. Oral arguments in the case are expected to begin in June.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monkey Brain's Tweeting with No hands!
(CNN) -- Adam Wilson posted two messages on Twitter on April 15. The first one, "Go Badgers," might have been sent by any University of Wisconsin-Madison student cheering for the school team.
His second post, 20 minutes later, was a little more unusual: "Spelling with my brain."
Wilson, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, was confirming an announcement he had made two weeks earlier -- his lab had developed a way to post messages on Twitter using electrical impulses generated by thought.
That's right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to "type," then focusing on the word "twit" at the bottom of the screen to post the message.
The development could be a lifeline for people with "locked-in syndrome" -- whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease.
Wilson and his supervisor, Justin Williams, made the breakthrough last month after hearing a question posed on the radio. Watch how the new technology works »
"Wouldn't it be great if you could Twitter just by thinking about it?"
That query sparked what Williams called the "a-ha moment."
"We can do that," said Williams, an assistant professor and the principal investigator at the lab in Madison, Wisconsin. "We can do that tomorrow."
In the end, it wasn't quite "tomorrow," Williams said, but Wilson had written the software to link existing technology with Twitter "within a couple of days" of starting on the project in March.
He sent Williams his first "tweet" -- or message -- from the brain-computer interface on March 31.
"I had set up my phone to get Twitter updates, and I walked in my door and got this message, and I knew it was really possible," he told CNN by phone. "My wife was sitting there, and I showed her the message and she immediately got excited about it -- and it's rare that I come home from work and she gets excited about what I have been doing."
That's because using the brain to post Twitter messages is potentially much more than an academic exercise or a party trick -- it could help paralyzed people communicate.
"These are people who have ALS, like Stephen Hawking, or they have a brainstem stroke, or a high spinal-cord injury," Williams explained. "There is nothing wrong with these people's brains. It's a normal person, locked into a lifeless, useless body." (The British physicist Hawking has ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.)
Hundreds of thousands of people suffer from locked-in syndrome, Williams estimated.
Many of them want just the kind of ability the brain-Twitter project seems to offer, said Kevin Otto, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue University in Indiana.
"The interesting thing about this project is they are directly addressing some of the patient desires," he said. "A lot of people think [locked-in patients] want to walk and want fancy prosthetics, but a lot of times what they want are bladder control and basic communication skills."
Otto, who was not involved in the University of Wisconsin project, called it "a very important incremental step to take two existing technologies and marry them together like this."
Williams had been working on brain-computer interface technology "for many years," he told CNN, before the idea to use Twitter.
"The technology we were developing was 10 or more years down the line, so we started wondering, 'Is there something we can do now?' "
His lab at the University of Wisconsin -- like those at Brown University, Purdue and the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York, among others -- is developing ways for locked-in people to communicate. Projects range from manipulating a cursor on a computer screen to operating a robotic arm, and they can include devices physically implanted into a brain.
But the Twitter project has a lot of advantages, Williams said.
"Twitter fits so many of our needs and patients' capabilities," he said. "Their first interest is in being able to communicate in a normal fashion, and at a distance."
Twitter is simpler than e-mail, he said.
"If I am locked in and I want to e-mail someone, the format is all wrong. You have to be able to select recipients and group them, copy, paste, send. ... We don't think about that much as normal people, but it can become unmanageable.
"Twitter takes care of all those things. They just have to get [the message] to a location where people can come and find it," he said.
Locked-in people communicating by tweet might have followers who don't even realize they are disabled, Williams said.
"Nobody's going to notice that the person at the other end is disabled. They might not have any idea. And that might be very empowering for people," he said.
The interface is not unlike the method the French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby used to dictate his novel "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" -- later turned into a movie -- after a massive stroke left him paralyzed except for his left eyelid. Bauby's caregivers recited letters of the alphabet; he blinked when he heard the one he wanted and they wrote them down.
The brain-Twitter application flashes letters on a screen while the user, wearing a cap fitted with electrodes, concentrates on a letter.
"When the letter that you are concentrating on flashes, we can pick that up," Williams said.
Williams declined to say how soon the interface could be available commercially, noting it has not yet been used by anyone with locked-in syndrome.
"I'd hate to speculate about things being on the market," he said. "Adam [Wilson] is going to graduate in May, and his next role is to start preclinical trials with subjects in New York and Germany."
But Williams said he is excited about the development.
"We were interested in seeing what we could do right now to help people," he said. "The field has come far enough that we need to start getting to people in their homes."
CNN senior medical producer Shahreen Abedin contributed to this report.
His second post, 20 minutes later, was a little more unusual: "Spelling with my brain."
Wilson, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, was confirming an announcement he had made two weeks earlier -- his lab had developed a way to post messages on Twitter using electrical impulses generated by thought.
That's right, no keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to "type," then focusing on the word "twit" at the bottom of the screen to post the message.
The development could be a lifeline for people with "locked-in syndrome" -- whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease.
Wilson and his supervisor, Justin Williams, made the breakthrough last month after hearing a question posed on the radio. Watch how the new technology works »
"Wouldn't it be great if you could Twitter just by thinking about it?"
That query sparked what Williams called the "a-ha moment."
"We can do that," said Williams, an assistant professor and the principal investigator at the lab in Madison, Wisconsin. "We can do that tomorrow."
In the end, it wasn't quite "tomorrow," Williams said, but Wilson had written the software to link existing technology with Twitter "within a couple of days" of starting on the project in March.
He sent Williams his first "tweet" -- or message -- from the brain-computer interface on March 31.
"I had set up my phone to get Twitter updates, and I walked in my door and got this message, and I knew it was really possible," he told CNN by phone. "My wife was sitting there, and I showed her the message and she immediately got excited about it -- and it's rare that I come home from work and she gets excited about what I have been doing."
That's because using the brain to post Twitter messages is potentially much more than an academic exercise or a party trick -- it could help paralyzed people communicate.
"These are people who have ALS, like Stephen Hawking, or they have a brainstem stroke, or a high spinal-cord injury," Williams explained. "There is nothing wrong with these people's brains. It's a normal person, locked into a lifeless, useless body." (The British physicist Hawking has ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.)
Hundreds of thousands of people suffer from locked-in syndrome, Williams estimated.
Many of them want just the kind of ability the brain-Twitter project seems to offer, said Kevin Otto, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue University in Indiana.
"The interesting thing about this project is they are directly addressing some of the patient desires," he said. "A lot of people think [locked-in patients] want to walk and want fancy prosthetics, but a lot of times what they want are bladder control and basic communication skills."
Otto, who was not involved in the University of Wisconsin project, called it "a very important incremental step to take two existing technologies and marry them together like this."
Williams had been working on brain-computer interface technology "for many years," he told CNN, before the idea to use Twitter.
"The technology we were developing was 10 or more years down the line, so we started wondering, 'Is there something we can do now?' "
His lab at the University of Wisconsin -- like those at Brown University, Purdue and the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York, among others -- is developing ways for locked-in people to communicate. Projects range from manipulating a cursor on a computer screen to operating a robotic arm, and they can include devices physically implanted into a brain.
But the Twitter project has a lot of advantages, Williams said.
"Twitter fits so many of our needs and patients' capabilities," he said. "Their first interest is in being able to communicate in a normal fashion, and at a distance."
Twitter is simpler than e-mail, he said.
"If I am locked in and I want to e-mail someone, the format is all wrong. You have to be able to select recipients and group them, copy, paste, send. ... We don't think about that much as normal people, but it can become unmanageable.
"Twitter takes care of all those things. They just have to get [the message] to a location where people can come and find it," he said.
Locked-in people communicating by tweet might have followers who don't even realize they are disabled, Williams said.
"Nobody's going to notice that the person at the other end is disabled. They might not have any idea. And that might be very empowering for people," he said.
The interface is not unlike the method the French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby used to dictate his novel "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" -- later turned into a movie -- after a massive stroke left him paralyzed except for his left eyelid. Bauby's caregivers recited letters of the alphabet; he blinked when he heard the one he wanted and they wrote them down.
The brain-Twitter application flashes letters on a screen while the user, wearing a cap fitted with electrodes, concentrates on a letter.
"When the letter that you are concentrating on flashes, we can pick that up," Williams said.
Williams declined to say how soon the interface could be available commercially, noting it has not yet been used by anyone with locked-in syndrome.
"I'd hate to speculate about things being on the market," he said. "Adam [Wilson] is going to graduate in May, and his next role is to start preclinical trials with subjects in New York and Germany."
But Williams said he is excited about the development.
"We were interested in seeing what we could do right now to help people," he said. "The field has come far enough that we need to start getting to people in their homes."
CNN senior medical producer Shahreen Abedin contributed to this report.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
With All Due Respect...Get the F@cK Outta here!
With All Due Respect (Now Remember I said that first) Can we please stop with the pettiness of who blames who for what and have a Damn Meeting about stuff that's important.....
I mean OK so now we don't go to a racism conference because the wording implies that somehow and someway Israel might be wrong for what again....
OH BOMBING THE HOLY CRAP OUT OF PALESTINE....
But we can have a president shake Russia's leader hand right after an altercation, or we can talk about peacing it up with all of our enemies, but Israel's skin isn't thick enough to take a sentence in a document, as criticism....
Isn't that the damn point of the meeting...how can you talk about racism if you won't show and we won't go because the criteria may put you in that category, fucking come and clear the shit up if your not wrong...... Obama, and administration, please untuck your tails from between your legs and go Represent...AMERICA! Now remember I did say with all due respect......
I mean OK so now we don't go to a racism conference because the wording implies that somehow and someway Israel might be wrong for what again....
OH BOMBING THE HOLY CRAP OUT OF PALESTINE....
But we can have a president shake Russia's leader hand right after an altercation, or we can talk about peacing it up with all of our enemies, but Israel's skin isn't thick enough to take a sentence in a document, as criticism....
Isn't that the damn point of the meeting...how can you talk about racism if you won't show and we won't go because the criteria may put you in that category, fucking come and clear the shit up if your not wrong...... Obama, and administration, please untuck your tails from between your legs and go Represent...AMERICA! Now remember I did say with all due respect......
Despite efforts to rephrase the language in a rough draft conference
document, the Obama administration has confirmed its decision to boycott "with
regret" this week's World Conference Against Racism in Geneva. The
administration believes the final text draft could potentially isolate Israel
and that it compromises free speech, the State Department said Saturday.
The World Conference Against Racism, also known as Durban II, ignited a
firestorm of controversy when the Obama administration initially said it would
boycott the event in February of this year, after the original conference essay
was released. As reported by The Washington Post, the document was 45 pages and
is believed by White House officials to be instigating racial hatred and
perpetuating anti-Semitism. The text contained the term,
"validation of Islamophobia" alleging Israel's treatment of
the Palestinians is racially motivated and also calls for reparations for
slavery.
As a result of the Obama administrations disapproval, the
preliminary content had been edited to remove negative statements towards
Israel, condensed and revised. Despite the language compromises the
administration remained hesitant to attend, sparking fury among civil advocacy
groups who believe the first black U.S. president should make a point to be
present.
Imani Countess, Senior Director for public
affairs at TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group whose
focal point is U.S. foreign policy, said "for his administration not to be
present at this global conversation is a disappointment. For President Bush not
to participate, that would have been expected. For Barack Obama's administration not
to participate sends a disappointing signal. It says these issues are not
important."
Department spokesman Robert Wood said the administration was
"deeply grateful" for the revisions that were made, however, the document is
still believed to contain problematic language and references.
"Unfortunately, it now seems certain these remaining concerns will not
be addressed in the document to be adopted by the conference next week," Wood
said. "Therefore, with regret, the United States will not join the review
conference."
In spite of the decision, Wood emphasized that the U.S. "is
profoundly committed to ending racism and racial discrimination" and "will work
with all people and nations to build greater resolve and enduring political will
to halt racism and discrimination wherever it occurs."
Conversely,
Democratic State Representative of California Barbara Lee, who is a chair member
of the Black caucus said the group is "deeply dismayed."
"This decision
is inconsistent with the administration's policy of engaging with those we agree
with and those we disagree with," Lee said. "By boycotting Durban, the U.S. is
making it more difficult for it to play a leadership role on U.N. Human Rights
Council as it states it plans to do. This is a missed opportunity, plain and
simple."
The new draft was created to reverse the administrations
decision not to attend and was believed to have appeased the president's
objections. However, the changes were inadequate and failed to gain Obama's approval.
"This is a big blow," Countess said. "Given the high priority the
administration places on international engagement and multilateralism, this is just a little bit
baffling."
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Getting Hectic on the High Seas!
MOMBASA, Kenya (CNN) -- Pirates off the coast of Somalia hijacked a second freighter Tuesday, a NATO spokesman said.
The spokesman could not immediately provide further details.
Earlier in the day, pirates hijacked a 35,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia's northern coast, the European Union's Maritime Security Center said.
The crew of the Greek carrier was thought to be unhurt and ships have been warned to stay clear of the area for fear of further attack, the security center said.
The two hijackings on Tuesday follow the killing by U.S. Navy SEALs of three pirates who were holding an American ship captain hostage.
Pirates attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama last week. They seized its captain, Richard Phillips, and held him hostage on a lifeboat after their attempt to hijack the ship failed.
U.S. Navy snipers on Sunday fatally shot three pirates, rescued Phillips and arrested a fourth pirate. Watch the tough tactics the Navy uses »
U.S. law enforcement authorities are discussing what to do with the lone surviving pirate, who may be as young as 16.
The crew of the Maersk Alabama will reunite soon.
Phillips is on the USS Bainbridge headed to Mombasa, Kenya, a military spokesman said, where his crew members were relaxing at a beach resort under the watchful eyes of the Kenyan military.
The men are then expected to be flown home together by Maersk.
The spokesman could not immediately provide further details.
Earlier in the day, pirates hijacked a 35,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia's northern coast, the European Union's Maritime Security Center said.
The crew of the Greek carrier was thought to be unhurt and ships have been warned to stay clear of the area for fear of further attack, the security center said.
The two hijackings on Tuesday follow the killing by U.S. Navy SEALs of three pirates who were holding an American ship captain hostage.
Pirates attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama last week. They seized its captain, Richard Phillips, and held him hostage on a lifeboat after their attempt to hijack the ship failed.
U.S. Navy snipers on Sunday fatally shot three pirates, rescued Phillips and arrested a fourth pirate. Watch the tough tactics the Navy uses »
U.S. law enforcement authorities are discussing what to do with the lone surviving pirate, who may be as young as 16.
The crew of the Maersk Alabama will reunite soon.
Phillips is on the USS Bainbridge headed to Mombasa, Kenya, a military spokesman said, where his crew members were relaxing at a beach resort under the watchful eyes of the Kenyan military.
The men are then expected to be flown home together by Maersk.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Colbert is killing Fox's Beck right here!
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The 10/31 Project | ||||
| ||||
Stephen Colbert ripped apart Fox News host (and New York Times cover boy) Glenn Beck Tuesday night, mocking his 9-12 project, meant to conjure the spirit of compassion and camaraderie Americans felt on September 12, 2001.
"We weren't told how to behave that day after 9/11, we just knew," Beck says to describe the project. "It was right, it was the opposite of what we feel today. Are you ready to be the person you were that day after 9/11, on 9/12?"
"Ready!" Colbert shouted, decked out in a gas mask, holding a gun, and wearing adult diapers.
Colbert then used a classic "Daily Show," exposing the hypocrisy of Beck's 9-12 project by highlighting comments he made on September 9, 2005.
"This is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this," Beck said on his radio program that day, "you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims' families? I don't hate all of them. I hate probably about 10 of them. But when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh, shut up!' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them."
"The 9-12 project is not for families directly affected by 9/11, just people building their careers on it," Colbert said.
Colbert went on to mock Beck's now infamous tendency to cry, and to launch his own "democratic experiment, the 10-31 project."
"It will be scare and balanced!" he joked.
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