Those of us who write on the web check our stats to see how we are doing.  Periodically, we also check on how others are doing.  Markdown Mom has noticed lately that the stats for Martha Stewart.com have been hidden at the” request of the owner”.  With the exception of the huge audience for the interview of Sarah Palin, Oprah.com has shown declines since June of this year.

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The swine flu vaccine remains scarce, but is slowly becoming a little less difficult to find.

Some people are getting the vaccine at doctors’ offices, some at college health centers, and some at public flu clinics. You’re best bet will depend on where you live.

As KQED’s Sarah Varney reports on Tuesday’s All Things Considered, in some parts of California the best source for H1N1 vaccine might be a shopping mall, while in others only a doctor’s office will do. Each state orders vaccine from the CDC to be delivered to “distribution sites,” such as hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices. Who receives it and how they distribute it varies.

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When swine flu erupted this spring in the southwestern United States and Mexico, it had been 40 years since the last flu pandemic. The outbreak has dispelled any illusion that pandemic influenza belonged to a bygone era, like smallpox, polio or scarlet fever. But we haven’t seen how bad things might yet get.

President Obama’s 90 degree bow from the waist to the Emperor Akihito of Japan has been met by the mass media with a “so what, who cares–get over it” attitude unlike the uproar caused by President Clinton’s nod to Emperor Akihito back in 1994 . It is inconceivable that this was just a spur of the moment sign of respect from the U.S. President to the Japanese Emperor since advisors to the President brief him not only on the issues, but on protocol including the greeting of dignitaries. Why would an American President premeditatedly make a subservient gesture when as Commander-In-Chief he is well aware that there are a number of WWII veterans still alive? On the heels of Veterans’ Day?  And given his ties to Hawaii, has he forgotten Pearl Harbor? Why would he risk a senseless act of betrayal of their sacrifice? Why would the head of a nation that fought a revolution to stand on equal footing with any man, high-borne or commoner, insult that heritage and undermine the United States’ position in the world community with such an open sign of subjugation?

But As For Me…

Either the President is a royalphile enamored by the trappings of royalty; however, this was not apparent when he met Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, or it was a strategic move to de-emphasize the previous bow to the Muslim Royal King Abdullah. Either way, what do such gestures say to the American public? It doesn’t strengthen his image as a leader of the free world. Instead, it presents the U.S. in a weakened posture among the nations of the world. Nor does it lessen the political impact of the bow to King Abdullah on the 2010 elections–two wrongs don’t make a right.

As we approach another holiday season, a malaise hangs over the nation. Despite gains on Wall Street, Main Street is mired in foreclosures, unemployment, rising taxes and inflation. Of great concern is the battering sustained by the middle class from years of stagnant wages and rising costs coupled with this never-ending economic crisis. This cumulative effect has produced a lethargy among its’ citizens reflecting their loss of hope, and rightfully or wrongly, with the loss of empire.

Concomitantly with this global change in status for the United States is the growing disconnect that its’ citizens face with their government. Can you hear me now? seems to be the on-going pleading of our nation as Congress enacts trillion dollar programs without getting a handle on the rising unemployment numbers. The sycophantic responses of government to the concerns of everyday folks is part of this surreal atmosphere. What Washington won’t tell you is that they believe that the glory days of this nation are over, that the empire not only threatened from without, is being corrupted from within–that the change we can believe in is only so much smoke and mirrors—much like the counting of jobs created or “saved” by ARRA.

But As For Me…

The nail in the coffin came in Grant Park with the election of Barack Obama. Raising the hopes of a new generation only to dash them completely once the Oath of Office was taken perhaps is the President’s greatest crime.

County Jon Corzine (D) Chris Christie (R) Christopher Daggett (I) Atlantic
86.5% Precincts Reporting 45.7%
27,220 Votes 48.3%
28,749 Votes 4.9%
2,909 Votes Bergen
79.4% Precincts Reporting 48.3%
94,269 Votes 48.8%
95,280 Votes 2.9%
5,579 Votes Burlington
27.9% Precincts Reporting 43.9%
35,399 Votes 50.0%
40,305 Votes 4.7%
3,810 Votes Camden
65.0% Precincts Reporting 51.8%
41,991 Votes 41.9%
34,021 Votes 5.1%
4,102 Votes Cape May
99.2% Precincts Reporting 38.4%
12,122 Votes 54.4%
17,194 Votes 5.9%
1,857 Votes Cumberland
78.3% Precincts Reporting 51.4%
13,540 Votes 41.1%
10,830 Votes 5.7%
1,488 Votes Essex
83.7% Precincts Reporting 68.0%
100,401 Votes 26.9%
39,798 Votes 4.3%
6,391 Votes Gloucester
100.0% Precincts Reporting 43.9%
36,842 Votes 47.3%
39,674 Votes 8.0%
6,750 Votes Hudson
57.5% Precincts Reporting 68.3%
44,588 Votes 27.2%
17,752 Votes 3.4%
2,214 Votes Hunterdon
100.0% Precincts Reporting 25.4%
12,866 Votes 65.7%
33,283 Votes 8.1%
4,088 Votes Mercer
24.1% Precincts Reporting 56.8%
24,390 Votes 37.5%
16,083 Votes 4.8%
2,067 Votes Middlesex
20.6% Precincts Reporting 43.3%
17,994 Votes 48.4%
20,125 Votes 7.2%
3,015 Votes Monmouth
97.1% Precincts Reporting 31.2%
59,175 Votes 62.4%
118,396 Votes 5.6%
10,626 Votes Morris
61.4% Precincts Reporting 32.5%
31,563 Votes 59.0%
57,376 Votes 7.9%
7,710 Votes Ocean
98.7% Precincts Reporting 28.4%
53,336 Votes 65.7%
123,313 Votes 4.8%
9,009 Votes Passaic
79.4% Precincts Reporting 52.3%
44,059 Votes 43.1%
36,296 Votes 3.8%
3,179 Votes Salem
0.0% Precincts Reporting 0.0%
0 Votes 0.0%
0 Votes 0.0%
0 Votes Somerset
7.6% Precincts Reporting 29.8%
3,671 Votes 57.8%
7,127 Votes 11.3%
1,396 Votes Sussex
100.0% Precincts Reporting 25.8%
12,849 Votes 63.7%
31,665 Votes 9.1%
4,550 Votes Union
100.0% Precincts Reporting 50.9%
64,759 Votes 42.5%
54,113 Votes 5.8%
7,379 Votes Warren
63.3% Precincts Reporting 24.2%
5,288 Votes 64.5%
14,080 Votes 9.8%
2,148 Votes ]]> http://butasforme.com/2009/11/03/10-pm-corzine-lacks-clear-path-to-victory-christie-in-solid-lead/feed/ http://butasforme.com/2009/11/03/nj-exit-polls-independents-breaking-overwhelmingly-for-republican-christie/ http://butasforme.com/2009/11/03/nj-exit-polls-independents-breaking-overwhelmingly-for-republican-christie/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:43:05 +0000 admin http://butasforme.com/?p=15685 8:28 PM - Internal exit polls showing very good signs for Christie in NJ, most importantly Christie is running very strong with independents.

Indies are breaking overwhelmingly for Christie, and this could spell trouble for Democrat Corzine. It stands to note that the Democrats have a very strong coalition in Jersey, so the sway of indie voters may not influence the as strong as it did in Virginia.

However, CNN exit polls suggest that most voters - 38 percent - “said the quality they were looking for most in a candidate was the ability to bring change and most of them said they had voted for the Republican candidate.”

Another round of exits likely to come in soon. Stay tuned…

VIEW LIVE MAP OF NJ RACE RESULTS

A recent skit on Saturday Night Live had a report by President Obama, portrayed by comedian, Fred Armisen , on the accomplishments of his administration. It was summed up by Armisen in two words “Jack Squat.” Systematically listing the numerous promises that have not been fulfilled brought laughter from the audience, but perhaps it was more like chagrin.

However, to those who have a cursory knowledge of community organizers or non-profit organizations, this poor record should not be surprising. Now I am not speaking of non-profit organizations that are well-established and professional, but about those in recent years that have sprouted up as an advocacy arm for a particular political view or intervention. For many community organizers/non-profits applying for grants is not an earnest attempt to do in-depth, unbiased research where conclusions are an end product. Instead start-up community organizations and organizers have a preconceived agenda or outcome in view, and adopt a methodology to attain that outcome regardless of its’ legitimacy. Fuzzy math, voodoo economics, garbage in, garbage out are all products of this type of “research.” Sound familiar?

But As For Me…

We must remember that Obama has not a great deal of executive or even legislative experience, having served in attendance as a U.S. Senator for only 143 days. It is not unreasonable that his management style is based upon his work as a community organizer.  Given that, it is not surprising that little has been accomplished. Coming to the executive branch with an agenda that ran counter to Main Street America and the tenets of our Republic under the guise of change without a believable or documented rationale is pushing a political outcome unsupported by empirical evidence.  Remember,  “Change” was never defined during his campaign, at least in terms of concrete programs or policies; instead it was a catch phrase that appealed to the mass media , a negative term against the status quo at the time.  Wrapped in “hope,” the net effect has been, as labeled by SNL, for both friend and foe alike :  Jack  & Squat!

Fox News reported the phrases spoken often by politicians that voters find irritating.  Here are five that either have become annoying to us, or at least, ones that we consider particularly tiring and our spin on them:

“Let  me be clear…”interpreted as I have to correct a statement  because either I or someone in my administration misspoke, completely goofed up or,worse yet, mistakenly told the truth.  Either way I have  to backtrack and deny whatever was said.

“A new foundation we seek to build” or I will huff and puff and blow your house down if you get in my way.

“Make no mistake. Change isn’t easy. ” But if you check your pockets, that’s about all you have now.

“We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.” Some policy of hope, huh?  FDR doesn’t have to worry about Obama ‘s supplanting his place in U.S. History.  Yeah, yeah we know, you inherited it from GWB– as Archie Bunker once said, stifle yourself, we’re sick of hearing this excuse.

“The goal here, uh, is that we’re gonna create or save 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days.” Um, it’s now  almost 10 months later and we are approaching double digit unemployment and have lost all the jobs created in the last 2 decades.  Liar, liar your pants are on fire! Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said “liar.”

President Obama declared the H1N1 flu outbreak a national emergency last weekend. While U.S. officials insist the move is not a reaction to new developments but a preventive measure, it comes just as the vaccine shortage has been making headlines, with the Centers for Disease Control “frustrated” by the tight supply of vaccine — and Friday’s report that swine flu, still on the rise in schools, has forced 315 schools to temporarily shut down.

Read More…

But As For Me…

Since the present H1N1 vaccine will not reach most of us to prevent us from becoming infected, the government should focus its’ energies to increasing production of Tamiflu and other antivirals, despite reports that strains of the virus have been found to be resistant to the two most common antivirals in Europe. Concomitantly, the government should increase testing in order to detect possible mutations of H1N1 that might appear in the next 6 months or more.

Additionally, the government should review its’ preparedness for pandemics in light of the problems it has encountered thus far and correct any areas that have limited dealing effectively with a pandemic now and for the future. It is apparent from our current situation that pandemic preparedness has a long way to go.

Remember the old adage?  Well, those who bought into the Cash For Clunkers are going to have quite a surprise on the taxes. 
Posted from Janet Larson, Read More:

Political Math….

Let’s do some good old fashion math, not the new fangled political math. Let us do the math using what we learned in school, not using the “new” math used by today’s politicians:

Ignore all the gas crap and just look at how the stupid car buyer got taken to the cleaners:If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent “savings” of $1000. However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for. Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that
you will now be making.

But wait, it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer. For example, every dealer here was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the “cash for clunkers” program started. When “cash for clunkers” came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before. Honda, Toyota , and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did.

So let’s do the final tally here: You traded in a car worth: $3500.You got a discount of: $4500.Net so far: +$1000.But you have to pay: $1350 in taxes on the $4500.Net so far: -$350.

And you paid: $3000 more than the car was selling for the month before. Net - $3350.

We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan but let’s just stop here.

So who actually made out on the deal?

1. The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they “gave” you.

2. The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies.

3. The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before.

And the poor stupid consumer got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford. Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in “free” money from the “government” when in fact Joewas giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.

It’s about taxes, all about taxes. The same goes with this health reform, call ‘em what you want, they’re taxes.

Check out snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/clunkers.asp

As Congress is moving toward reforming the current health care system, the H1N1 pandemic offers a real time test of the efficacy of a government run system. For example, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus has an enrolled student body of approximately 10,000+ students . Primarily a commuter campus, students health care coverage is handled largely through their health service associated with its’ world renowned University of Minnesota Hospital. Several clinics to obtain the seasonal flu vaccine were scheduled, but recently there haven’t been any, plus none have been scheduled to inoculate against the H1N1 flu. The Dean from one college sent an email to the students with the following information/policy regarding the distribution of the seasonal flu vaccine. Again, I remind the reader here, the H1N1 vaccine has not made an appearance on campus as yet. In it he makes the statement of policy regarding the access to the seasonal flu.

“The University of Minnesota is experiencing a shortage of seasonal influenza
vaccine. Per the recommendation from the Minnesota Department of Health, the
University will administer the remaining supply of seasonal flu vaccine to
“high priority” groups.
AHC students, faculty, and staff who are in clinical rotation with routine
patient contact (human) between now and June 1, 2010 are considered a “high
priority” group.”

What does this say, well, it says that only medical personnel/students are going to receive the remaining supply of seasonal flu vaccine because they are a “high priority” group. For the rest, well, boys and girls you are S-O-L !

At the same time, if you go to the www.flu.gov site for the state of Minnesota, you will notice several clinic sites around the metro area where you can get the seasonal flu vaccine for $25+ a shot. Mind you these are sites located in a large metro area. Outside the metro area, like Duluth, Minnesota, population around 86,000 and three college campuses including the University of Minnesota, Duluth, no clinics within a 100 mile radius are listed for the seasonal flu vaccine, zero, nada.

At least with the H1N1, both metro and non-metro areas are equal, the vaccine is limited and only available to health care professionals, at least until November.

But As For Me…

As In the case of the seasonal flu, will the H1N1 flu be available to the public at a price? Will only the large urban areas receive the vaccine? Is this making the case for the Obama Administration that the current system is only available to the few that can pay for it?  Or is it a precursor of the inability of government to equitably run any health care program?

Even questions surrounding the release of information by the government of when the H1N1 vaccine would be available have been continuously pushed back. Midsummer and into August, you may recall that the government told us that a vaccine would be available October 1, then it became mid-October, and now it’s November. Again, the strategy of reassurance, so don’t hold your breath people. I guess in a pandemic, you are on your own!

by Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 14 (HealthDay News) — People who are severely ill with the H1N1 swine flu run the risk of blood clots in the lungs, University of Michigan researchers say.

And because standard chest X-rays may not be able to spot the potentially fatal condition, more sophisticated CT scans may be needed to identify the risk, the researchers said.

Read More…

The report, Critically Ill Patients With 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Infection in Canada, showed people in their 30s are most vulnerable to catching swine flu.  Read More…

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BY FRED TASKER

ftasker@MiamiHerald.com

The H1N1 influenza virus is so new it’s not entirely understood, South Florida doctors say. It can be as mild as a cold or, rarely, so severe that blood pressure rapidly plummets, lungs collapse and kidneys fail, sometimes causing death.

As one who has experience firsthand the ravages of the flu this season, all I can say is that there is no way to adequately prepare your family against an outbreak of this size, notwithstanding a pandemic.

Not to be critical of the local public health officials and medical personnel, the current situation on many college campuses provide a microcosmic study of the impact of a purportedly mild version of H1N1. Testing as to what type flu the patient is experiencing has come to a virtual standstill, overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases. Rather than suspend classes until the vaccine was available, many college administrators made a decision, based on budget considerations and reassurances by the government that the current strain of H1N1 was mild, to go about business as usual. The only accommodation some administrators have made was to allow an excused absence for the student, and employees can use paid sick leave; however, if you are an unclassified or nonunion employee and do not have a paid sick leave benefit, you are simply out of luck. As a result, you have illness infecting the campuses at an alarming rate.

Antivirals and distribution of the seasonal flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine are so limited that large populations do not have access to these drugs necessary to prevent or mitigate the flu’s effect. The net result is the continued transmission and infection of these illnesses to healthy individuals who could have avoided and stopped the H1N1 virus in its’ first round. Yes, first round! As more and more individuals become infected, the viruses is given time and opportunity to mutate—a scenario that occurred in the 1918 swine flu pandemic.

Which begs the question of how effective is a pandemic preparedness plan that doesn’t result in resurrecting quarantines?

But As For Me…

Perhaps pandemic preparedness is an oxymoron. From the first cases found in the United States after the outbreak in Mexico, the time for preparedness had a narrow window of opportunity to come to grips with this potential devastating virus. Since our government failed to address the situation boldly and decisively, weighing in on the economic effects over the nation’s physical health, we now face a situation not of preparedness, but of recovery.