What's Really Up With This New Flu?

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.

That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses.

Now, rather than waiting to see if nature spawns such a hybrid, US scientists are planning to try to breed one themselves—in the name of preparedness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon launch experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affect animals. The goal is to assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus will emerge and how dangerous it might be.
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Atlas Shrugged Versus Maobamaism

The Ayn Rand Renaissance

By Dr. Yaron Brook
Executive Director, The Ayn Rand Center

The U.S. economy is in shambles. Government intervention into the economy is increasing by the day. Americans are alarmed and desperate for answers: What caused the crisis? What is the solution? That might sound like a description of today’s world, but in fact it’s sketch of the world of Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

“Atlas Shrugged” has exploded in popularity in recent months. Pundits talk about a widespread “Going Galt” movement inspired by the novel, book sales are higher than at any time in the novel’s 51-year history, and at virtually every anti-tax day tea party you could find protest signs referencing the novel or its author. Given the ominous parallels between the book and today’s events, none of that is surprising.

What “Atlas” shows is how our culture’s ideas–particularly its ideas about morality–are moving us step by step away from the Founding Fathers’ ideal.

The tea parties testify to the outrage that many Americans feel toward Washington’s explosive growth in the past few decades — especially under Presidents Bush and Obama. “Atlas Shrugged” not only gives voice to this outrage, it provides both a profound explanation of the cause of today’s crisis–and a positive solution to it.

“Atlas Shrugged” argues that ideas shape society. A society that values reason, the individual, and freedom creates the United States of America. A society that denounces the mind, preaches self-sacrifice, and worships the collective creates Nazi Germany. What “Atlas” shows is how our culture’s ideas–particularly its ideas about morality–are moving us step by step away from the Founding Fathers’ ideal.

Virtually no one in Rand’s time — or today — questions the precept that we are our brother’s keeper, that self-sacrificially serving others is good, and that being selfish is evil. What Rand saw was that this was irreconcilable with the vision of man as an independent, self-sufficient, sovereign being who deserves and requires freedom. If a society believes man’s duty is to sacrifice for others, then it cannot countenance capitalism — a political and economic system that enables and encourages men to pursue their own interests, their own profit, their own welfare. Such a society, necessarily, looks to the collective, to government for solutions, just as we are seeing today.

But “Atlas Shrugged” provides a way out: it provides a defense of the individual’s moral right to pursue his own happiness, which is the precondition for upholding the individual’s political right to pursue his own happiness.

To show how Rand’s ideas help make sense of today’s events, and to show how her radical new conception of morality–what she called rational selfishness–can help return us to the Founders’ ideal of limited government, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights regularly speaks and writes on current events. Recent engagements including UCLA, American University, Duke University, University of Texas, and the University of Maryland.

Those interested in learning more about Ayn Rand and “Atlas Shrugged” can visit ARC’s Web site:
www.aynrandcenter.org
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We're Now On Our Way To Maobamaism

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You Better Watch Your Backside...

Obama Says: Just "Say No" To Jesus

Georgetown Says It Covered Over Name of Jesus to Comply With White House Request

By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com, Wednesday, April 15, 2009) - Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”--symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.

As I see it, this story is another example of the Obama government dissing the Catholic Church and Christianity generally. This Jesuit run university should not have agreed to this White House request. If Obama then decided not to give the speech there, so be it.

Same deal at Notre Dame. The university should not have invited Obama and in particular should not have agreed to give him an honorary law degree. What a bunch of pansies the Catholics are becoming. Instead of standing up for the long-standing tenets of the Church, they are now lying down with the lions in order to avoid the “suffering” that might accompany standing up for the faith.

Obama, a true Muslim at heart, bows to the Islamic King of Saudi Arabia, and then the adoring Catholics bow and genuflect to Obama, the “Chosen One”. Shame on them!

Has Uncle Sam Lost His Frickin' Mind?

Is There A New Revolution Brewing?

Tea Parties Will Bring America’s Outrage to a Full Boil

By Andrea Tantaros, Republican Political Commentator

As tax day approaches there is a crescendo growing across America in the form of organized protests, also known as tea parties, and the noise is on a path to becoming deafening. Thousands of rallies are planned across the country; one in every single congressional district and larger gatherings slated for cities like New York, Sacramento and Atlanta which hope to boast an upwards of 20,000 participants.

Those who discount the frustration and fury across America should so do at their own peril, particularly incumbents who voted for the Obama budget. This time anger is being transformed into action. Each person who participates in a Tax Day Tea Party is being asked to organize a group of friends, family and neighbors. These groups will be asked to develop a consensus around two candidates, a fiscally responsible Democrat and Republican that they can unite behind to support in 2010 to unseat their big spending representative.

Though many on the far left continue to ignore or downplay the rage claiming that these gatherings are only for conservatives, all evidence is to the contrary. A recent FOX News poll found that 47 percent of respondents were willing to participate in a Tax Day Tea Party, along with 29 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents. By April 15th, organizers hope to have a database filled with a quarter of a million names representing a broad spectrum of political affiliations.

The message is simple: repeal the pork, cut taxes and cut spending. But there is much more at stake than the money. The impact these actions will have on our culture is key. Massive government control is a clear threat to our liberties and our values of American exceptionalism. The argument from Tax Day to Election Day 2010 should be focused on helping voters connect the dots, not only about why we can’t afford to spend money we don’t have or why we can’t trust Washington, but also about how spending and borrowing will cause irreversible damage to our union and put us on a slippery slope toward a European model of stagnate economies, welfare states and mediocrity. Plainly put: the spending and borrowing threatens our greatness.

The fundamental difference between tea totalers and those who are drinking the leftist Kool-Aid is how they view decision-making. The Kool-Aid clan believes that government is better equipped to make choices than a country’s citizens, that they are entitled to our earnings, and that what we get back is simply a giveaway. They feel they know best how to spend it, not us, and simply don’t trust us if left to our own devices.

Every time the government assumes control of our rights and choices whether it is on health care or education, finances, family or faith, it sucks the life out of each one, eventually causing the decay of individual empowerment. As power is increasingly transferred to the government, it will seek to dilute and destroy our most precious values — from the sanctity of marriage to the right to bear arms, free speech and other fundamentals of our constitution.

The Obama Doctrine seeks to do just that: strip power from people, put government — and ultimately the tenants of radicalism — in control. This has a direct impact on our communities and our culture. And once the our culture has decayed, there is nothing left to fight for, which is why we must not cease or waiver in this, and all other, efforts to protect our freedoms.

The culmination of a resistance movement is more than brewing; the tea parties will bring the outrage to a full boil. Though the tea might steep on Wednesday, the battle to protect our nation from socialism’s effect on our culture and our American exceptionalism has just begun. Grab your Earl Grey, it must be stopped.

O-bow-ma shows his true allegiance?