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In light of a perceived swine flu outbreak, the World Health Organization raised its influenza pandemic alert to its second highest level in May – but evidence reveals the agency may have made it easier to classify the flu outbreak as a pandemic by changing its definition to omit "enormous numbers of deaths and illness" just prior to making its declaration. WHO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, issued its pandemic declaration – the first in 40 years – just as 74 countries had reported 144 deaths from the novel H1N1 infection. The world was gripped with fears of...

ATLANTA – Federal health officials now say that 4,000 or more Americans likely have died from swine flu — about four times the estimate they've been using.

The experiment goes something like this: A volunteer subject sits at a desk in a room, thinking he's there to answer some survey questions, but in reality, this is an experiment on human behavior and covert influence. A researcher sits on the other side of the desk, facing the subject. There is a glass jar on the desk, filled with cookies. The researcher casually asks the subject, "Would you like a cookie?" And some percentage of subjects say yes, but it's a small number, perhaps something like 15% - 20% (I don't remember the exact numbers, but that's not important...

Within minutes, six-year-old Rubjit Thindal went from happily chatting in the back seat of the car to collapsing and dying in her father's arms. "If we had known it was so serious, we would have called 911,'' Kuldip Thindal, Rubjit's distraught mother, said in Punjabi yesterday. "She just had a stomach ache -- she wasn't even crying.'' Rubjit was pronounced dead at hospital barely 24 hours after showing signs of a fever. Later, doctors told her parents she had the H1N1 influenza virus. She is believed to be the youngest person in Canada with the virus to have died.

PARENTS have accused early childhood centres of "greenwashing" their children by burdening them with the responsibility of saving the world.Tots as young as three have sent letters to Kevin Rudd about their passion for green living and asked companies to reduce their packaging.Others are growing their own food, repairing toys and walking to preschool in an effort to reduce their toll on the environment.But experts have called for caution in teaching children about climate change because of the potential for fear, anxiety, frustration, anger and despair at catastrophic events.Mother Paula Driscoll, from Sydney, said environmental disaster was the new...

'In keeping with the administration's proactive approach" to swine flu, the White House has announced that President Obama has declared the disease "a national emergency." It's the second such declaration, with the first in late April. And in case you didn't know what "proactive" meant before, now you do: "hysterical." Just nine weeks ago, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued its report with a "plausible scenario" of 30,000 to 90,000 deaths peaking in "mid-October." It's now late October and past time for a reality check. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer release specific...

A few days ago, I was sent a link to a screed by MSNBC's left-wing anchorman Ed Schultz, in which he explained opposition to the president's health-care reform. "The Republicans lie. They want to see you dead. ... They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don't have anything for us." Next, a link to the syndicated show of right-wing radio talker Alex Jones ... "They'd love to kill 10,000 Americans," and, "The republic is falling right now." This, increasingly, is the sound of our political conversation. It is not new to call this kind of...

It's just what the primetime cable news lineup needed - another hour-long program tilted toward left-of-center politics with character assassination on conservatives. CNN Headline News debuted its "The Joy Behar Show" on Sept. 29, which included appearances by lefty comedian Jeanane Garofalo, CNN's Jack Cafferty and actress Bette Midler. Garofalo doubled down on her low regard for conservative 9/12 and tea party protesters, labeling them as racists. Cafferty went after President Barack Obama for his disregard of the carbon footprint his lobbying efforts in Copenhagen for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. However, actress-turned-Vegas entertainer Bette Midler went straight...

About a dozen retired generals and admirals, trying to add momentum to President Barack Obama’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, are accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz of scaremongering about the dangers of closing it. “It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday. “Some...

As contemptible as this is, I’ve got two good reasons to spare you a harangue about it. One: I’ve already written that harangue, and after the summer coup in Tehran and another year of cheat-and-retreat on their nuclear program, it’s truer now than it was then. And two: Thankfully, this old crank’s isolationist denialism is so fringe on the right that not even mainstreamers who are sympathetic to his broader agenda, like Glenn Beck, will go near it. It’s almost not worth bothering about. But suffice it to say, in the unlikely event that the three-percent rEVOLution ever commands the...

A politically-skewed activist organization has warned law enforcement officials nationwide of the threat posed by the so-called “Patriot movement.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)'s Fall, 2009, issue of the “Intelligence Report” expands those designated as extremists, with alarmist language artificially combining a disparate group. The report said, “Militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and a range of other activists of the radical right are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing.” On the SPLC website, one report claims, "anti-government rhetoric spills into the Mainstream," listing conservative celebrities like Sean Hannity and Red State's Erick Erickson as purveyors of "white-hot...

Navy Chemist Trashes New York Times for 'Continuously regurgitating fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap of global warming propagandists' 'Your coverage of the climate issues is a reflection of either extreme negligence or simply scientific illiteracy' Guest Essay By Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired U.S. Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry. Hertzberg is featured on page 174 of the 2009 U.S. Senate Report of More Than 700 Dissenting Scientists on Global Warming. Dr. Hertzberg's August 19, 2009 Letter To The New York Times is Reprinted Below: Distortions and misrepresentations of your coverage of global warming/climate change I am a scientist...

I'll give it to you in one word: Independents. If House Democrats want to avoid losing 20 seats in 2010, they know they will have to fight and hold on to as many Independents as possible, period. Lose them and they will lose the House, it's just that simple, and they know it. Thus the creation here of late in the mainstream press of the local militia and Nazi memes. It's an old political trick. Fanaticize the right with a bogus militia scare, throw in a couple of swastikas and watch the Independents stream back into the fold. So get...

Conservative groups are rejecting as "anecdotal and exaggerated" a report out of the Southern Poverty Law Center that claims the election of a black president has fanned the flames of a resurgent anti-government "militia movement." The SPLC report cited a recent rash of ideologically driven violent crimes, rising gun sales, a reported rise in the number of militia groups and level of activity and stern warnings from law enforcement officials about the potential for violence in concluding that "there are unmistakable signs of a revival" since the 1990s. The assessment said Latino immigration, and particularly the election of President Obama,...

"Sometimes I think they want Obama to get shot. I do. I really think that there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out." So said liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz Tuesday. I kid you not. What follows is a YouTubed audio of these absurd comments along with a partial transcript (h/t our friend Brian Maloney):

Child with possible meningitis was 'failed by system' say parentsThe parents of a two-year-old girl thought to have died from meningitis after they were told she was suffering from swine flu said yesterday that she had been "failed by the system". Georgia Keeling, from Norwich, died after being rushed to hospital on Tuesday. Her parents, Paul Sewell, 21, and Tasha Keeling, 22, said they contacted health services, including NHS Direct, the swine flu helpline and the emergency services, five times after their daughter first developed a temperature on Saturday. The couple said that by Tuesday she had also developed a...

Polar bears are not dying out and Turkey Twizzlers are fine, according to a new book from scientists wishing to challenge science "scare stories" Contrary to widely held belief, polar bear populations are rising, according to the scientists It is widely thought that the polar ice caps will melt, causing sea levels to rise, resulting in the loss of cities along the coast, as well as a the majority of polar bears. And if global warming does not kill us, then obesity or heart disease will thanks to an addiction to junk food and salt. But a new book, compiled...

The FDA says consumers should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products immediately. All the over-the-counter products contain zinc. Scientists say that ingredient may damage nerves in the nose needed for smell.

President Obama pushed hard Monday for a health care overhaul, saying the system is "a ticking bomb" for the budget that could propel America down "the route of GM" without a legislative fix. Obama went before the American Medical Association in Chicago to declare anew that the existing system leaves too many uninsured and forces "excessive defensive medicine" by doctors worried about malpractice suits. He also declared once again that he does not favor socialized medicine and cautioned people to beware of "scare tactics and fear-mongering" by critics who make this claim. Obama did tell his audience of physicians and...

State's future at stake in May 19 vote John Wildermuth,Matthew Yi May 9, 2009 If California voters reject a package of budget measures in next week's special election, it will set off a fiscal free-for-all that could set the state's course for years to come. Defeat of the measures on the May 19 ballot would chop nearly $6 billion in expected revenue from next year's budget, on top of a projected $8 billion deficit left by shrinking tax collections. Proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others to close that gap are driving a wildfire of criticism across the state. Deep...

The WSJ's Siobhan Gorman has a tale today about deep penetration of America's power grid by foreign hackers that has several on the wingnut side of The Force hyperventilating. However, Gordon's story hangs mainly on the anonymous say so of "and former national-security officials". The nearest she gets to named sources confirming this alleged penetration is Dennis Blair saying "we have seen cyberattacks against critical infrastructures abroad, and many of our own infrastructures are as vulnerable as their foreign counterparts.", which doesn't actually pinpoint power companies at all. In fact, the best knows infrastructure cyber attack, in Australia, was aimed...

Last Friday, Lawrence Summers, the White House Economics adviser, blamed a fearful public for dragging the economy down and said that there was an “excess of fear.” Summers is right that an “excess of fear” has really harmed the economy and that that the downturn has been much sharper than it had to be. Fear has scared consumers into changing their spending decisions. Businesses that would have gotten money from those consumers have had to change their plans and cut back on employment. The increase in unemployment is temporary as the money hasn’t disappeared, but simply gone to other places...

As I was snooping around the internet that Gore made, I ran across a web site that was practicing Fear Mongering. As has become common practice, I took a screen shot for future reference. As is the “norm” for the Leftinistra, posts such as this one vanish which then, any criticism of any particular issue can be seen as “hate speech”. Thus the screen shot. This plea for help for a faltering endeavor cannot be denied. Why are they pleading for help? If they have the heartbeat of America, shouldn’t they be rolling in cash? Doesn’t George Soros care about...

Yes, we're going through tough times, but President Obama has repeatedly invoked the Great Depression and it's scaring the heck out of consumers. Who's going to go buy anything if we're headed for an economic catastrophe? People will horde every penny they get and businesses will suffer and things will only get worse. In a well-written op-ed piece in Friday's Wall Street Journal, University of Nevada-Reno economics professor Bradley R. Schiller takes Obama to task for spreading fear itself to win votes for his stimulus package. In his article titled, "Obama's rhetoric is the real 'catastrophe,' " Schiller points out...

Remember how we had to get the stimulus deal done so fast that if we didn't we'd plunge into the Great Depression and we'd all starve and die? Remember how it had to be done so fast that Republicans weren't allowed the 48 hours they'd been promised to read it due to the urgency? Remember how it was so critical that the deal get done that NOT ONE SINGLE representative or senator who voted for the package actually could have even possibly read it? Remember the 60th vote - Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) - being flown in on a special...

If you want to push through the Democrat Party’s social agenda during a time of economic crisis, you attach it to a so-called “stimulus” package, and voila, you have what conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer calls an “abomination.” David Patten reporting in Newsmax.com on February 14th states that the “gargantuan” bill will actually cost closer to $3.27 trillion, including interest and increased spending many expanded Democrat programs (read pork) will create in the next decade. Here’s some of the pork: Three billion dollars in “neighborhood stabilization;” One point three billion dollars to bail out AMTRAK; that’s throwing bad money after bad:...

An article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal says exactly what so many in the media have thought, but what so few have been willing to say. “Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form, “ the Journal opined. “He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression.” “…In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.” “This fearmongering...

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package. In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today's economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover. This fearmongering may be good politics, but it...

Obama: We're in the worst recession since the Great Depression! We've got to take this serious. We must be bold. I know, let's bbq up some pork. Let's have a pork bbq big enough to feed the entire nation. But why stop there? Let's really be bold and bbq up enough pork to feed the entire world! I'm such a smart economist. All the rest of you only think you're economists. Now go vote yes on my pork bbq.

WASHINGTON (Feb. 5) - President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, now exceeding $900 billion in the Senate, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes. He painted a bleak picture if lawmakers do nothing. "This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits....

From Plains Radio forum: Posted by paul thompson IP: 75.205.193.18 Jan 25, 09 - 1:21 PM Websites in Danger----E-mails too!!! If you don't know about this, please take it as a warning. It is important to create your own personal network list of phone numbers and e-mail addresses should or when this event occurs. Also back up any and all information and data you have that is not saved. the truth shall and must be protected!! I call out to all network leaders to create their own back up list to keep their members informed and from falling apart in...

Summary: In Daytona Beach, Obama said that "if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week." He referred to "elderly women" at risk of poverty, and said families would be scrambling to support "grandmothers and grandfathers." That's not true. The plan proposed by President Bush and supported by McCain in 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. All current retirees would be covered by the same benefits they...

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (AFP) — Democrat Barack Obama accused his White House foe John McCain Saturday of wanting to "gamble" away Americans' life savings by privatizing Social Security at a time of crisis on the markets. Neither of the campaigns had any immediate response to news reports that the US government wants permission from Congress to buy 700 billion dollars in troubled mortgages, according to a draft rescue plan for Wall Street. But Obama renewed his demand that any government bailout must protect ordinary Americans on "Main Street," as well as the busted financiers of New York, through another round...

Summary A new Obama ad characterizes the "Bush-McCain privatization plan" as "cutting Social Security Benefits in half." This is a falsehood sure to frighten seniors who rely on their Social Security checks. In truth, McCain does not propose to cut those checks at all. The ad refers to a Bush proposal from 2005 to hold down the growth of benefits for future retirees. Compared to the buying power of benefits paid to today's retirees, that would not have been a "cut" for anybody. It would have been a "cut" of half only in relation to benefits now promised to retirees...

John McCain is seriously considering choosing a pro-abortion-rights running mate despite vocal resistance from conservatives, with former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) very much in the mix, close McCain advisers say. Under strong consideration: former Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Ridge, and Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. Multiple GOP sources say that party officials in Washington and in the states have been contacted by the McCain campaign in the past two weeks and asked about the fallout from such a choice. One person familiar with the calls said the party was being instructed to...

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (CNN) – Barack Obama told supporters that Republicans will “try to make you afraid of me” in remarks he made Friday at a Florida fundraiser. "The choice is clear. Most of all we can choose between hope and fear. It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. “We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run,” said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. “They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. ‘He’s young and...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him. "It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy," Obama told a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida. "We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid. "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him. In March he gave a widely praised speech on the subject after receiving criticism over racially charged comments by his longtime pastor. Obama, who faces Republican John McCain in the November election, would be the first black U.S. president.

A scientist whose reservations about "global warming" have been officially endorsed by tens of thousands of other scientists is accusing the U.N. of using "mob rule" to generate fear-mongering climate change reports intended to scare national leaders into submitting to its worldwide taxation schemes. "Science has always progressed on the basis of observations, experiments, and thoughts published by individual scientists and sometimes pairs or small groups of scientific coworkers," Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry and co-founder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, said in a recent column in Human Events. Except at the U.N., he said....

(CNSNews.com) - Does any doting mother want to think about putting her firstborn baby in harm's way? Liberal backers of Sen. Barack Obama are banking on a "no" answer. The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is running a political ad featuring a new mother, bouncing baby boy on her lap, chiding John McCain about wanting to wage a "hundred-year" war in Iraq. "John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for a hundred years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can't have him," the mother (actress) says with a quaver in her voice. (See video)...

Biting the Bullet: It’s Either McCain or Obama By Rene Guerra Never, ever, in her 232 years of illustrious existence, has America been at such a dire juncture where her enemies and rivals--domestic and foreign--are so determinedly poised and so advantageously positioned to undoing her. Islamofascism has vowed to destroy America, at any cost; “Death to America� the frenzied, mouth-foaming, suicidal Iranian throngs cry. Our brave troops in Iraq and Afghanistan keep fighting day in and day out the terrorists that the Saudi Wahhabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Shiite fundamentalists, and the Syrian Baathists would otherwise be sending to...

All indications are the Democrats will pick up seats in both the House and Senate, with the Senate likely being a couple of RHINOs away from the magic 60. McCain is no Reagan but he's the only thing standing in the way of the most liberal Senator in Senate becoming President with a clear majority in Congress and at a critical time with decisions to be made on the war on terror, the war in Iraq, heath care, taxes, illegal immigration and likely the Supreme Court. Sometimes you do have to pick the lesser of two evils. This is one...

Democrat Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday of trying to "play on people's fears to scare up votes" with a television ad showing sleeping children and asking who would be more qualified to answer a national security emergency call at 3 a.m. "The question is not about picking up the phone. The question is: What kind of judgment will you make when you answer?" Obama said as he campaigned in Texas ahead of crucial contests here and in Ohio on Tuesday. "We've had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton...

NASHUA, N.H. -- Former president Bill Clinton yesterday delivered in stark terms a version of his wife's central campaign message: that her experience in Washington better prepares her to "deal with the unexpected." Addressing more than 100 supporters at a VFW hall here Saturday, Clinton used the strongest language he has so far in the campaign to describe the threats facing the nation, making an oblique reference to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and saying that the "most important thing of all" in selecting a nominee is the question of who could best manage unforeseen catastrophes. "You have to...

The Left's FEAR MONGERING exposed The latest bombshell to hit the radical left cabal: Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in Historyhttp://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/07/weather-channel-founder-global-warming-greatest-scam-history Radical liberal loons the kind of Bill Maher and others, in their usual devious conduct of trying to spin on the real threat of the western society, like (or shall I say liked?) to use 'global warming', as the 'real threat', not ISLAMO - FASCISM. My advice to the militant left from Rosie O'Donnell to the backward "MoveOn" & other left-behind "progressive" fanatics, hurry up, "find" some "other" threat before you are left out to dry by...

Christian conservatives want more respect. They were instrumental in propelling George W. Bush to power—twice—and now they're feeling neglected. At a "Values Voters" summit in Washington last week, leading evangelicals gathered to speak out and take a straw poll. The survey showed how unhappy they are with the twice-divorced, pro-choice Republican frontrunner for the presidential nomination, Rudy Giuliani. He got less than two percent of the overall vote. (Some Christian activists have threatened to back a third-party candidate if Giuliani wins the GOP nomination.) Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the straw poll of 5,775 conservatives, which included voters who...

Who would you vote for if you were not afraid that your candidate could not win? I get the feeling that a lot of Republicans are not going with their "true love" candidate but picking someone they think has a better chance of winning. Dragon-lady Hillary is always held up as the dire consequence of voting for a Republican that does not have cross-over appeal. Another part of this problem is how the media pick the "top tier" candidates and the "serious" candidates. They create a self fulfilling prophecy by giving the impression that the candidates with the most money...

So, have you heard the latest? Your business records can now be taken away by Big Brother without a warrant, thanks to that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-reform bill Darth Bush — an unstoppable force of nature with 30-percent approval ratings — just slammed through the notorious wallflower also known as the Democratic Congress. Yup, all the government has to do is pretend it needs your records — or your phone calls, or even your person — for a national-security investigation of someone overseas and — Presto! — your privacy rights are shredded. It must be true. After all, it’s in...

Journalism: If you laid all the economists in the world end to end, goes an old joke, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion. But there's one thing almost all economists agree on: Free trade is good. Yet the media don't get it. This month marks the 77th anniversary of an economic event that lives in ignominy: The signing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the anti-free-trade bill that helped push the world into depression. It should be forever etched in the minds of both the media and the public they serve. Sadly, that's not the case. Instead, on an almost monthly...

WASHINGTON (March 10) - The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium. At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be...