CDC: Nearly 1 in 3 Pregnant Women Who’ve Contracted H1N1 Have Died in U.S.
A stark reminder about how deadly the new H1N1 virus can be. During a news briefing Thursday, U.S. health officials said the virus has hit pregnant women especially hard. Since it first surfaced in April, nearly 1 in 3 pregnant women who were hospitalized due to the virus have died.

“Since the virus was first recognized in late April, early May, 100 pregnant women across the country have been hospitalized due to the novel H1N1 flu and 28 have died,” Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention told FOXNews.com.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC said these numbers “are really upsetting” and urged pregnant women to get the seasonal flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine…

Notice the headline is not truthful. The fact is, that out of 100 women in America who have been hospitalized 28 have died. The statistic doesn’t mean that 1/3 of all pregnant women who have contracted H1N1 have died. Sure does make H1N1 sound a lot scarier though, when you twist statistics into saying something that they certainly do not say.

Sharon Tate’s Sister Says Polanski Sex With 13-Year Old ‘Consensual’

Debra Tate, the sister of Roman Polanski’s second wife, actress Sharon Tate, says Polanski is brilliant and a “good guy” and she doesn’t think her former brother-in-law can get a fair trial in the United States.

Tate told NBC television Wednesday that the U.S. justice system is broken.

Polanski was arrested Saturday in Zurich. The U.S. has been seeking his extradition for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Tate says Polanski did not forcibly have sex with the girl, calling it a “consensual matter.” …

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,557824,00.html

“Consensual.”

Funny how that contradicts this:

CAL. PEN. CODE § 269 : California Code – Section 269

(a)Any person who commits any of the following acts upon a child who is under 14 years of age and seven or more years younger than the person is guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child:

(1)Rape, in violation of paragraph (2) or (6) of subdivision (a) of Section 261.

(2)Rape or sexual penetration, in concert, in violation of Section 264.1.

(3)Sodomy, in violation of paragraph (2) or (3) of subdivision (c), or subdivision (d), of Section 286.

(4)Oral copulation, in violation of paragraph (2) or (3) of subdivision (c), or subdivision (d), of Section 288a.

(5)Sexual penetration, in violation of subdivision (a) of Section 289.

(b)Any person who violates this section is guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for 15 years to life.

(c)The court shall impose a consecutive sentence for each offense that results in a conviction under this section if the crimes involve separate victims or involve the same victim on separate occasions as defined in subdivision (d) of Section 667.6.

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/ca.....1/9/1/s269

Silly me.

Barack Obama : “I urge you to choose Chicago. And if you do — if we walk this path together — then I promise you this: The city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud.” — President Barack Obama telling members of the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen why they should pick Chicago over Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo as the site of the 2016 Summer Games.
—
huh? America will make the world proud for or to who? little green men?

David Letterman: “I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family. I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done. The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.” — David Letterman, describing to his “Late Show” audience how he admitted having affairs with female employees to a grand jury investigating allegations that Letterman was the victim of a $2 million blackmail plot.

hmm. no telling what creepy thing may have happened the recent night Obama was on Letterman’s show,

Here is an essay written that sheds more light on how far Ahamadma’s beliefs are. A possibility that Iran will strike as a way to push up the events of tribulation.

COPENHAGEN – In a quick dash of salesmanship, President Barack Obama is in the Danish capital, putting his personal powers of persuasion on the line to boost Chicago’s Olympics bid.

The president arrived in Copenhagen on Friday morning for a whirlwind trip of less than five hours, with Chicago-backers hoping that would be sufficient to give Obama’s adopted home town the advantage …the host city of the 2016 Summer Games.

Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo have been making their cases to the International Olympic Committee for more than a year, but many IOC members were believed to be undecided about which city they would vote for Friday. Some said they might not decide until after the cities made their final presentations in Copenhagen.

Enter Obama. He was to take part in Chicago’s 45-minute presentation, although details about his role were kept secret. But anticipation — and expectations — ran high.

The Chicago bid committee had asked the president to take part in the Copenhagen meeting several times. Despite being a longtime supporter of Chicago’s bid, Obama said the debate on health care overhaul in Congress might keep him from attending. He asked first lady Michelle Obama, a Chicago native, to go instead.

Aides said the president only made the decision to make an overnight flight to Copenhagen after determining that a short trip wouldn’t take away from his work on health care.

But the compressed time frame did not shield Obama from criticism that he shouldn’t be hopscotching to Europe in Air Force One when there were so many pressing issues to deal with in the U.S. such as health care, the war in Afghanistan and the financial meltdown.

“The problems we have here at home affect all Americans, and that’s where his attention ought to be,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday.

Though IOC President Jacques Rogge has said heads of state aren’t required to attend the IOC meeting, recent votes indicate their presence can make a difference.

Obama is poised to be the first U.S. president to make an in-person appeal to the IOC on behalf of an American bid. Heads of state representing all of Chicago’s competitors also were to be in Copenhagen.

In advance of Obama’s arrival, Mrs. Obama did some high-powered lobbying for Chicago. The first lady has been in Copenhagen since Wednesday, holding one-on-one meetings with IOC members. She also was to have a speaking role in Chicago’s presentation and was expected to focus on her personal experiences growing up and raising a family in the city.

Mrs. Obama said she’s relying on lessons learned during the 2008 presidential campaign, when the Obama team focused on making personal connections with voters and rallying support up until the last possible moment.

“You can’t take any vote for granted,” Mrs. Obama said Wednesday. “Nobody makes the decision until they’re sitting there.”

Following the Chicago presentation, the Obamas were to meet with Denmark’s Queen Margrethe, and the president with Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.

By the time the winning bid is announced, the president should be back on his plane to Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....VuaGFnZW4-

“Aides said the president only made the decision to make an overnight flight to Copenhagen”

Obama’s self-idolatry is becoming expensive

What Berlusconi’s Tan Obama ‘Jokes’ Say About Italy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/0.....DMQ–

By JEFF ISRAELY Jeff Israely – 2 hrs 1 min ago

It was the gaffe heard around the globe. Last November, just two days after Barack Obama’s historic election victory, the world’s collective jaw dropped when Silvio Berlusconi quipped that the next U.S. President was “young, handsome and even has a good tan.” Though the Italian Prime Minister refused to apologize for the failed attempt at humor, Obama and his aides gave Berlusconi a pass. The incoming President was not going to be sidetracked by a diplomatic incident with a man already notorious as a loose cannon. Berlusconi kept his place that week on Obama’s initial round of phone calls to world leaders, with the “tan” remark firmly off the agenda and both sides hailing strong relations between the key transatlantic allies.

Strangely, it is Berlusconi who has not let the incident rest. He called his critics “imbeciles,” saying the remark was meant as a compliment. “We’d all like to be tanned like Naomi Campbell and Obama,” he said two weeks after the original one-liner. He has made other references to it in the months since. (See Berlusconi’s worst gaffes.)

And then on Sunday, he dropped the abbronzato bomb again. Having returned from the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, he told supporters in Milan that he carried greetings from “someone tan, what’s his name? Barack Obama!” Not satisfied, he continued, “You will not believe it, but the two of them went together to get some sun at the beach, because the wife is also tanned.”

——–To be quite honest….I think it’s funny as hell.

The propagandist is a fool and an idiot, or in other words………..

He’s a journalist.

FACT CHECK: Loose facts in health horror story

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_....._opponents

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 30, 8:09 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Shona Holmes is the Harry and Louise of this year’s health care debate, only unlike the fictional folks who memorably trashed the Clinton-era health plan in advocacy ads 15 years ago, Holmes is real.

But her story? It’s not quite the slam-dunk indictment of socialized medicine that’s been portrayed by Republican lawmakers and their allies.

Holmes, a Canadian living under that country’s single-payer system, has said flatly that her brain tumor would have killed her if she’d accepted her fate in Canada — a wait of four months for one specialist and six months for another. Instead she went to the U.S. and had successful surgery.

But she never had cancer — a fact routinely omitted by the advocates who have seized on her case. Technically, she didn’t have a tumor, either. She had a benign cyst that was apparently threatening her eyesight.

——But the brilliant Canadian doctors told her it was a tumor. (oops)

Holmes’ decision to come to the U.S. exposed her both to the best of American health care and the worst: its capacity for prompt, advanced treatment for complicated conditions, and its staggering expense.

She and her husband took out a second mortgage on their Waterdown, Ontario, home and made other sacrifices to cover the nearly $100,000 in medical and travel bills from her visits to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

In that respect, she was much like the 40 million or so Americans who have no health insurance and are only one hospital bill away from financial peril.

——-But, as you so eloquently stated later, “had she waited, she wouldn’t have had to pay a dime. You want it both ways when you try to make your argument.

Had she waited, the surgery would have cost her nothing back home. She says that was a risk she couldn’t take.

——-See, a risk she couldn’t take. But the doctors back home had the best info, right? Or, are you gonna blame it on a lying CIA and Bush because it was merely a cyst and not a brain tumor?

———-snip

THE FACTS:

The Mayo Clinic diagnosed Holmes with Rathke’s cleft cyst, which the clinic describes as a rare fluid-filled sac that grows near the pituitary gland near the base of the brain and can cause hormone and vision problems over time. The condition is not known to be fatal and the clinic, in trumpeting her treatment, makes no claim that her life was in danger.

———But again, the Canadian docs had it as a tumor.

It does, though, say she would have eventually lost her sight without surgery.

———Oh, for sure I’d rather be blind than dead any day. So….give me the public healthcare option. It was the MAYO CLINIC docs who got it right. Something you repeatedly indicate in your watchdog presentation.

——–Before you go flaming a conservative notion…you first have to understand what we’re talking about. However, the diametric opposition is more likely to continue instead.

——–The last statement in the article says:

Holmes was at first diagnosed in Arizona, then went back for the surgery after she failed to persuade health officials at home to speed up her treatment. She says her vision has been restored.

——–This is flatly untrue. She had an MRI after complaints of dizziness while in her home nation of Canada. Her doctor who reviewed the MRI results said he thought it was a brain tumor. That put her into motion to save her own life as she had only the doctor’s information to go on. Only when further diagnosis (something the Canadian government probably flatly prohibited [death-panel-esque]) indicated it was a cyst did she realize that her life was no longer in danger

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....amp;ccode=

* By Kimberly S. Johnson, AP Auto Writer
* On Wednesday September 30, 2009, 5:07 pm EDT

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors Co. said Wednesday it would shut down its Saturn brand after an agreement with Penske Automotive Group Inc. to acquire it fell apart.

Penske, citing concerns of whether it could continue to supply vehicles after a manufacturing contract with GM ran out, ended talks with GM Wednesday to acquire the brand.

GM CEO Fritz Henderson said in statement that Saturn and its dealership network will be phased out.

“This is very disappointing news and comes after months of hard work by hundreds of dedicated employees and Saturn retailers who tried to make the new Saturn a reality,” Henderson said in a written statement. “PAG’s announcement explained that their decision was not based on interactions with GM or Saturn retailers.”

In a statement, the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based auto retailer says an agreement with another manufacturer to continue producing Saturn vehicles after GM stopped making them fell through, leading Penske to terminate talks with GM.

Penske said it negotiated terms and conditions to make Saturn cars with another manufacturer, but that company’s board of directors rejected the agreement. Penske spokesman Anthony Pordon would not identify the other manufacturer.

“Without that agreement, the company has determined that the risks and uncertainties related to the availability of future products prohibit the company from moving forward with this transaction,” the company said in a statement.

In June, GM and Penske agreed to take over the Saturn brand and related dealerships, although GM would produce the vehicles for a limited period of time.

GM said Saturn vehicle owners can still go to their Saturn dealer for service and would be able to go to a certified GM dealer for service once Saturn dealerships are closed.

It was expected that GM would announce the completion of Saturn’s sale to Penske in the coming days.

Share of Penske fell $1.93 to $17.25 in after hours trading. They rose $1.32, or 7.4 percent to $19.18 in regular trading Wednesday.

——–What you may not be aware of is that this will put another nail in the coffin of Opel, Europe’s GM mainstay in Germany and where much of the Saturn cars are based from.

——-So, Barry, how’s that change workin’ for ya? Ya like owning a car company? Do ya? Huh? Do ya?

“…Consider the lucrative lot of the men and women who work for Uncle Sam. In 2008, according to data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 1.9 million civilian employees of the federal government earned an average salary of $79,197. The average private employee, by contrast, earned just $49,935. The difference between them came to more than $29,000 – a differential that has more than doubled since 2000….

Americans increasingly fall into one of two camps. Those who work for the government – about 15 percent of the labor force – tend to enjoy sumptuous perks, virtually indestructible job security, and pensions that are guaranteed for life. The rest of us work in the private economy, where millions of jobs can be wiped out by a recession, defined-benefit pensions are disappearing, and competition and downsizing are facts of life…”

http://www.boston.com/bostongl....._employee/

Thank goodness bureaucrats are so capable, efficient and hard-working…….like postal workers. If they weren’t, the country might really be in trouble.

Mrs. Reason happened to be at our local Post Office at quitting time yesterday. Fortunately, she wasn’t run over. But she reported back that almost every car racing out of the parking lot was a Mercedes or BMW. Now, Mrs. Reason does have a tendency to exagerate. But I like the story anyway.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/asse.....raft12.pdf

And this list is as-of July 1. The hire rate appears to be about 100 per month.

For the people on the list, I estimate the annual budget for salary and benefits alone to be 74 million. But of course, they need office space, will consume vast amounts of telecom, will have extravagent expense accounts, will travel frequently, many will have government paid cars and/or chaufers.

There can be little doubt that the annual cost is well over $100 million……probably closer to $200 million, perhaps even higher.

“The public is not as dumb as it’s made out to be, and Mr. Obama’s public option died a bipartisan death yesterday in the Senate Finance Committee. What’s left is a package of “reforms” that are mere trite extensions of what we’ve been doing for decades. That is, piling up mandates on private insurers and then lying that this somehow isn’t driving up the cost of health insurance; piling up subsidies for health consumption and then lying that this somehow isn’t responsible for runaway health-care spending.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/.....inion_main

No Games Chicago is holding a protest against the Daley/Obama crony bid today at 5:30pm in Chicago. City Hall. 121 N. LaSalle St.

~~~~De facto Olympics czar and interest-conflicted real estate development mogul Valerie Jarrett “can’t imagine why anyone would be against it.”~~~~

Well, the IOC is certainly watching Mayor Daley’s mouth:

Could Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Games be hurt by Mayor Richard M. Daley’s comments about the competition with Rio de Janeiro?

Daley’s comments last week about Rio’s capabilities to host both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics are being taken by Rio as critical of Chicago’s presumed main rival in Friday’s International Olympic Committee vote for the 2016 Games. (You can read our original story about that by clicking here.)

What Daley said about Tokyo and Madrid also could be viewed as critical of those two other finalists, since he minimized their chances based on geographical factors.

The IOC prohibits bid cities from criticizing their rivals.

Questions about whether Daley’s comments had breached that prohibition were raised at both the Rio and Chicago media conferences here this afternoon, and a Brazil bid leader promoted that idea.

Responding to a question today about Daley’s comments, Rio 2016 bid chairman Carlos Nuzman said, through a translator, that such issues are “in the hands” of the IOC ethics commission.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009.....ago-today/