Google Maps has the 2009 H1N1 Swine Flu map, which is updated in near real-time.

I guess it's too late to seal the border with Mexico. Horse. Barn. Door.

The Democrats' War on Poverty is nearly 50 years old, yet we're told there's too much poverty despite trillions in wealth transfers of every type.
The Democrats have run the education system for nearly 100 years -- with monopolies like the NEA and the AFT teacher's unions, yet we consistently hear that education is broken and that schools need more money.
Government was responsible for securing the southern border since the era of LBJ and have intentionally failed; this has led to the presence of as many as 20 million illegal aliens in the country thanks to Johnson's policies including "chain migration".
Democrats were responsible for implementing Medicare and Medicaid, which along with Social Security, are in ruins with approximately $55 trillion in debt. That's nearly a half million dollars for every household in America.
I could go down a long list of things the government said it would do, but hasn't done. Because the Statist Democrats are liars.
While our health care system is certainly imperfect -- because all humans are imperfect, including doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurance companies -- they are more perfect, more competent, more informed, more capable than all of the bureaucrats to whom they'll be forced to report: a bureaucracy that will make all decisions about your health care.
And it is easy to confirm the havoc that socialized medicine will wreak on American society. All you need to do is to look at how Democrats are trying to ram home socialized medicine: they're doing it as fast as possible with as little debate as possible, using a loophole to slip it through without amendments or consideration.
Democrats claim it will be more cost-effective and efficient. That's bulls***. The man who's had the least experience at running anything is going to unleash the most massive federal leviathan in history.
This has been the dream of the Statist Democrats since FDR: to force each and every one of you, whether you like it or not, into a strait-jacket form of health care. It controls you; the actual being, the person.
Deciding whether you will have an operation or not. Whether you will have an MRI or not. Whether you will receive a life-saving, life-extending drug or not.
And we know this, because this is what occurs in Canada and Britain and other centralized bureaucracies, where you simply can not have access to advanced health care, period.
Who will run the hospitals and what will they look like when the government unions run them?
Who will be responsive in a massive federal bureaucracy, where no one takes responsibility for anything, and yet they're all-powerful decision-makers for your family's well-being?
Where will Barack Obama be in ten years, when the rest of us are struggling with a massive, out-of-control, federalized medical system that doesn't give a damn about individuals and is busy rationing?
He will be retired as a very young man; a very wealthy young man, who will have imposed his Marxist ideology upon this society and then walked away from it.
They've been lying about the number of people without health care. They've been lying about whether the public is satisfied with health care. They've been lying about every aspect of health care.
Would it be okay for you to break into an empty home because you needed a place to stay?
Would it be acceptable for you to invade a family's home because they had a spare bedroom and could be looking for a live-in nanny?
Or would it be reasonable to crash a party at the Playboy mansion because Hef had plenty of extra food, free drinks and lots of gorgeous females hanging around?
And would it be fair to sneak into the local YMCA to lift weights because you didn't want the hassle of signing up and paying membership fees?
Would it be justifiable to sneak onto a large corporate campus and steal food, office supplies and computers?
So why do Democrats believe in open borders, allowing millions of non-citizens to illegally enter the country without sanction, while American taxpayers fund their health care, food, living expenses and other social services?I am an American living and working in [Canadian City]. Please do not use my name, but I am a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Consulate here... working in the... visas section. I could get in big trouble professionally for telling you this....I had numerous opportunities to work on cases in which Canadians were attempting to emigrate to the U.S. primarily for medical procedures. In one case, a U.S. citizen father was petitioning for his [Canadian adult] son to join him in [state]...
...His son had a non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and was unable to obtain the necessary treatments in Canada. In the U.S., two physicians had examined him and basically concluded that, because the disease had not spread above his neck, that he could be saved. In Canada, this young man was under a death sentence. Once I was satisfied that his medical costs would not be borne by U.S. taxpayers, I got him his visa and (hopefully) another chance at life.* * * * * * * * *
[There was another] case of a young Canadian mother, in tears, who had recently given birth to a child with cerebral palsy. Her husband, a U.S. citizen working in Canada, was able to transmit U.S. citizenship to his infant son and he was petitioning for his wife so that the family could move to Chicago. Why? So the boy could get the treatment that he needed in the U.S., which was superior to that in Canada.* * * * * * * * *
[We all] had several cases of nurses, doctors, and [X-ray] technicians who emigrated to the U.S. for professional reasons. Sometimes it was for the opportunity to earn more money (one doctor, earning about $85K annually Canadian, had a job offer at a clinic in Buffalo for $300K U.S.). For others, it was a chance to to do what they were trained to do - in the U.S., [an X-ray] technician has the equipment and facilities to ply his trade, whereas in Canada the opportunities to do so are quite limited.* * * * * * * * *
I realize that this is all anecdotal and not statistically based, but in my experience the only Canadians who are satisfied with the system here are people who are healthy. I do not mean that in a snide attempt to be funny, I am serious - it is a good program for young healthy couples with one or two children who need vaccinations and routine appointments.
However, if you get sick, this is not the place to be.
Lastly, a comment - U.S. health care is a good value for the money. Would you rather have 2009 health care at 2009 prices, in the U.S., or 1970 health care at 1970 prices? The answer is obvious, and even our own Congress knows it. I am pretty sure that Ted Kennedy would not choose to have his brain cancer treated anywhere but the U.S., and the same is true for John Kerry's prostate cancer.
Do you have gaping potholes on your street and feel the city is not fixing them quickly enough? How about patching them yourself?That's what a group of residents on Chicago's West Side did Wednesday. Members of the South Austin Coalition bought eight bags of a pavement mix for about $100 and used shovels, rakes and a 250-pound push roller to fill 15 holes on the 4800 block of West Van Buren Street.
"The city's not doing it, so residents need to take the matter into their own hands," said Elce Redmond, an organizer with the coalition.
The group's members hope their efforts will shame the city into repairing neighborhood side streets and inspire other residents to band together and patch their own blocks. They also hope residents will create a citywide Pothole Repair Day...
...Leaders of the South Austin Coalition said they chose this residential street after a block meeting. They acknowledged the potholes were average size. The holes were not as bad as say the seemingly bottomless pits that scar Lake Shore Drive or those protested by community groups this week along Garfield Boulevard in the Englewood neighborhood.
Shockingly, it doesn't seem to have improved much since Obama's reign.
Some held signs that read, "We need more city services" and "Mayor Daley, fix our potholes". Others sold cookies to raise money for pothole repairs.
There are more. I just stopped listing them because I grew weary -- so weary -- of the physical labor associated with cutting and pasting.
During his presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama spoke to a conference of Family USA activists and promised, "I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country."
Further, 45% of the uninsured will have insurance within the next four months according to the Congressional Budget Office. Many are transitioning between jobs and purchase health insurance through their employers....I was struck by the promotion of this material by Families USA. When I was involved with [group] a few years ago, we checked out Families USA and found that they had almost no individual contributors to their non-profit organization. We obtained their 990 from IRS and found that we were totally funded by Big Labor and served as a "front group" in every sense of the term...
...Unlike the Heritage Foundation [for example], that proudly talks about grass roots financial support from 300,000 Americans, Families has no such support. All they get is a fat check from Big Labor.
Isn't it odd that the moment a hardcore liberal group sends out a study to the media, 200 headlines blossom?
I'm not sure that happens when Heritage or the AEI sends out a study.
I sorta think it doesn't.
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I'm looking for readers in upstate New York: Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Utica, Erie, Oswego and surrounding areas.
In Pelosi's world, Illegal Aliens must be granted free health care and voting rights.
Families making up to $100,000 annually are given free health care through the 2009 Obama SCHIP program, even if they have private health care insurance.
But our Wounded Warriors? They should be forced to use private health insurance for their grievous injuries.![]() | ![]() |
As McCarty observes:Though I find it less troubling than the president’s continuing assault on the unborn, the file name (hero_stemcell_main2.jpg) under which someone at the White House saved the photo of the signing ceremony this afternoon is disturbingly creepy.
She was a former teacher, blonde and engaging. Not yet 30, she had held a series of administrative, clerical and communication jobs for his family.
They were attracted to one another immediately. Perhaps it was the setting, the sound of buoys gently clanking and the far-off lights of mysterious vessels bobbing far a-sea.
They had met before, but this time each had the other's undivided attention. They were drinking gin and tonics, the ocean breeze lifting their hair as they sat on the veranda, apart from the rest of the party, while laughing at each other's silly stories.
It was a beautiful evening and their conversation lifted her spirits. Soon they were both anxious to go. She climbed into his GM-made vehicle, a late-model sedan with a massive, growling engine.
He had poured two "go glasses" to accompany them on their short trip, each filled to the brim with more gin than tonic.
Soon they were wending their way to the other side of the island, a difficult journey because of narrow roads and poor lighting, now made more difficult by a failed headlight.
A small bridge, just wide enough for one car, lay ahead. She realized, with a horror that rose instantly like a buoy within her heart, that they were headed off the side of the bridge. She screamed as the tires squealed, but it was too late to stop.
In January, a staffer for Rep. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) suggested that any universal health care bill could be named for Senator Ted Kennedy, who is suffering from a very serious form of brain cancer.
And while our thoughts and prayers go out to Sen. Kennedy in this difficult time for he and his family, it is worth contemplating some of the news from around the globe related to socialized medicine.
"British cancer patients are substantially more likely to die of the disease than those in other western European countries because of poor access to the latest drugs, according to an authoritative report to be published today." (Cancer survival rates worst in western Europe: Telegraph (UK) 2007)
"Aside from the problems inherent in all monopolies, the fact that health services are free leads to familiar economic consequences. Basic economics tells us that if a commodity is offered at zero price, demand will increase, supply will drop, and a shortage will develop...
And given the incredible damage politicans have already levied upon citizens through socialized medicine, it would, I think, be a fitting title.