H1N1 claims its 12th U.S. victim, this time in Chicago. According to an AP report, the CDC has documented more than 6,700 cases in the U.S., most of them mild.

Swine Flu: 12
Regular Flu: 40,000

Maybe we can stop pushing the FUD now?

If you want to cover a newsworthy untimely death in IL, post something about Jay Bennett, RIP.

"* Roh Moo-hyun, a former president of South Korea, committed suicide over the weekend, jumping off a cliff. Roh had been mired in a corruption scandal."

If only many members of King George's had the same sense of honor as Asians do!!

.
The average Korean seems to feel that Roh was honest and the conservatives were framing him, driving him to suicide by threatening his family. A crowd at the funeral pelted high officials with eggs. If only WE had the cojones to do that!

But, no. It seems our boys & girls died for nothing. In Korea and everywhere else. We don't have the balls for freedom any more.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone without a memory.
.

How many states will have passed gay marriage before the extreme social conservative side of the spectrum give up their anti-gay crusade?

Happy Memorial Day and to everyone of a Sci-Fi persuasion, Happy Towel Day! I know where my towel is at... do you know where yours is?

"...Charles Bolden, ...the next NASA administrator. He'll be NASA's first African-American chief...."-Benen

Oh for the day that making this point would be completely irrelevant...as in pointing out race.

btw...more importantly than race is age when it comes to running anything. So how old does one have to be to to get it into their ego that maybe...just maybe...they are getting too old for government legislating. McCain was too old to be president...and Senator Fienstein is too old to remain a senator. It's a big deal that people in their eighties are still fairly cognitive much less being a senator. Do we have to wait until they have to be wheeled in and can no longer hear and barely able to see to say "look, You may be just a tad past making laws that govern an entire nation. These aged senators will not remove themselves of their own free will and good conscience but the job is too important to allow one with even the hint of senility to continue to do. Dedication also means knowing when to quit Fienstein...McCain and a whole host of others who think..."hey I could still be the champ, just put me back in the ring and hold my glasses...I'll show these young punks". Should be a mandatory retirement age for senators and congress...say 72.

Was that a witnessed suicide??

Hey, didn't Pat Buchanan hate Felt for talking to the WAPO and love L. Patrick Gray?

How many states will have passed gay marriage before the extreme social conservative side of the spectrum give up their anti-gay crusade?

In how many states will abortion be legal before the extreme social conservative side of the spectrum give up their anti-abortion crusade?

bjobotts, @18:24,

I'd be perfectly willing to extend it to 76, which would make 70 the last time one is permitted to run for a Senate seat. If you win, you get to complete your term. If you lose, you get to enjoy your Golden Pond at about the same time the rest of us do. Much longer than that, and you're more likely to be leaving your own little golden puddles in every chair seat...

Whether he realizes it or not, Newt Gingrich is not the Speaker of the House.

To me, he will always be a lizard-like amphibian.

Ah, yes, ban anyone > 76 from running for office.

Let's also ban anyone with any disability or deficit from public office. The deaf? Gone. Blind? Nada. One leg shorter than the other? No way. Diabetes? No chance? Overweight? Bye-bye. Too skinny? See ya later. Women? Well, we all know how irrational they are during that time of the month... Blacks? Well, they commit a disproportionate amt of crimes; can't trust them for office. Jews? Muslims? Come on, everyone knows they're just all after our money. Poor? If they're too dumb to make money, they have no business being in the Senate.

We leaves us with -- physically fit middle-aged rich white Christian men.

Good job, guys....

Yeah, that Schulman is incredible, even for them. As they lose, they lose their minds.

“Sam Schulman’s case against gay marriage…is extraordinarily unpersuasive.�
Yea, but it was some serious entertainment.
And lest gays think only they are loathsome enough to earn Sam’s disdain…
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009482
I’m thinking Sam and Ben Stein are a match made in heaven.

Besides what he says about gay marriage, Sam Schulman seems to think that women are all virgins before they get married, after which they get the protection of their husbands. Does he realize this is 2009?

Disputo,

"Swine Flu: 12
Regular Flu: 40,000

Maybe we can stop pushing the FUD now?"

The 1918 influenza was also a hybrid, and hybrids can mutate. Initially it was also very mild, but it came back in the Fall in a mutated form that killed 50 million.

Hence the FUD.

Maybe we can stop pushing the FUD now

FUD = "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt." One might cast doubt on a person or a product or a technology. But the flu? No, they're not "pushing FUD" with respect to the swine flu stories. They're fearmongering.

Please don't write like a junior-level IT consultant.

I especially love getting a Taliban-esque explanation of what marriage is all about from a guy who is on his third go-round.

The current crop of wingnuts has a REALLY serious irony deficit.

"Maybe we can stop pushing the FUD now?"

I'll trust the scientists. If they have fear, uncertainty, and doubt, I do, too.

Regarding Bolden. He's from South Carolina. I hope they're finally proud. My dad's family is from Florence County, Lake City, SC, where there's a statue to native son Ronald McNair, the african american MIT PhD jazz saxophonist who died in the Challenger accident. Near the pathetically maintained public park (public amenities down there being only for the non-white population, in practice if not in theory, and thus badly funded). I commented on the statue last time I visited, Maybe eight years ago, and remember the abject contempt from my old white relatives at the reference. I saw why my dad had to leave. Deeply embarrassing. I hope they are finally proud of a Bolden or McNair. But I doubt the day is yet come, there at least, or the schools and the parks would be better, and the governor wouldn't dare threaten to refuse money to improve them.

Sorry for the extended reminisce, hopefully anachronistic.

Re: Sam Schulman's thesis

Sex between a father and his son of consenting age is incest if the father is married to a woman, but if the father is married to a man it is not.

Um.

Wow.

"Maybe we can stop pushing the FUD now?"

By all means, let's abandon all preventative measures like washing hands and monitoring the progression of the disease. The time to take action is after it mutates into a truly deadly strain, and not a second before!

The really sad part is, if the CDC and other scientists working to keep an outbreak from turning into an epidemic are successful in protecting us all, we'll never really know.