"Swine Flu" at the Doorstep

Back to school and here comes the "Swine Flu."

Swine flu spreading at 'unbelievable' rate: WHO

Sat Aug 29, 9:23 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – Swine flu spreads four times faster than other viruses and 40 percent of the fatalities are young adults in good health, the world's top health official warned in an interview appearing Saturday.

"This virus travels at an unbelievable, almost unheard of speed," World Health Organisation Director General Margaret Chan told France's Le Monde daily in an interview.

"In six weeks it travels the same distance that other viruses take six months to cover," Chan said.

"Sixty percent of the deaths cover those who have underlying health problems," Chan said. "This means that 40 percent of the fatalities concern young adults -- in good health -- who die of a viral fever in five to seven days.

"This is the most worrying fact," she said, adding that "up to 30 percent of people in densely populated countries risked getting infected."

Chan's warning came a day after the WHO said the virus had overtaken others to become the most prevalent flu strain.

"Evidence from multiple outbreak sites demonstrates that the A(H1N1) pandemic virus has rapidly established itself and is now the dominant influenza strain in most parts of the world," the UN agency said in a statement.

"The pandemic will persist in the coming months as the virus continues to move through susceptible populations," it added.

Chan underlined that emergency and healthcare services in several countries had come under strain and stressed that resources allocated for cancer patients and those suffering from heart disease should not be diverted.

"One must not rob Peter to pay Paul," she said. "All governments must prepare for the worst."

She said the most important thing in the battle against the virus was "political leadership."

More than 2,180 people around the world have died from the virus since it emerged in April, according to the latest WHO figures.

Chan also said that it could be months before sufficient vaccine is available to combat the pandemic.

She put world production capacity at 900 million doses a year, for a global population of 6.8 billion people.

Even if this was an unprecedented effort, and authorities were speeding up procedures for getting vaccines to the market, there should be no question of compromises on their safety and effectiveness, Chan said.

Britain and France received their first batches of swine flu vaccine this week. Australia on Friday said a massive swine flu vaccination programme would start in October and Turkey hopes the first supplies of the vaccine will come by that time.

While 90 percent of severe and fatal cases occur in people aged above 65 in seasonal flu, most of those who die from swine flu are under the age of 50.

A "very severe form of disease" affecting the lungs and causing severe respiratory failure among young and healthy people was being reported, WHO said Friday, adding that highly specialised care was required.

Large numbers of such patients could therefore "overwhelm" intensive care units and disrupt the provision of care for other diseases, it warned.

In the southern hemisphere where the flu-prone winter season is tailing off, the WHO said cities in several countries had reported that nearly 15 percent of hospitalised cases required intensive care.

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New Website, a "Pillage the Castle" Sale, and More

We're rounding the final turn and coming into the homestretch ...

1. Next week the plan is to launch our totally brand new buyers club site. It's really very spiffy and a big step up over our current store site. Of course, you know how plans go--it MAY be that something will cause a delay, but right now we are on schedule.

2. We will possibly keep both store sites running for a short time to ensure all is well with the new store before we close the drawbridge on the old site.

3. We are working up a very cool and unusual sale to celebrate the new site. It will be called the "Pillage the Castle Sale" because club members will have the chance at a lot of FREE products (we're not talking knick-knacks here) that we are going to unload to clean up the "warehouse" here, not to mention offering sale prices on some stuff as well.

4. Since the buyers club's inception, the one-time lifetime membership fee has been $19. We are now raising that one-time fee to $29, and of course that only applies to folks who decide to join the club when that change goes into effect, and on into the future. I mention this because this increase will go into effect with the launch of the new website. So if any of you have been contemplating joining, now would be the time, before the price hike and in order to qualify for the FREEBIES that will be given away.
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USPS Glorifying Anti-American, Communist Racist on a Stamp!

I am disgusted. Every day it's something new and appalling.

I send out 2-ounce shelter brochures daily. Not enough to make postage metering necessary. So I buy sheets of the appropriate postage at the local Post Office.

Since the latest postage price hike, I've been given sheets of 61-cent wedding cake stamps. Not really my favorite for what I mail out, but OK--whatever.

But yesterday, I asked for sheets of $.61 cent stamps and I was given a new stamp. The person on the stamp is Richard Wright. It shows a picture of him--a black man in front of what appears to be an inner city-scape.

The name rang a bell for me right away but I could not place it. I just researched him and found that he was an avowed, card-wielding Communist Party member who wrote widely recognized black-power types of novels back in the 40s and 50s. In fact, he left America and disavowed his American citizenship.

Now what the hell kind of message is this? We put all kinds of mindless stuff like comedians, movie stars, wedding cake, cheeseburgers, and whatever on our stamps--and OK. No big deal.

But if the United States Postal Service is going to start promoting and celebrating anti-American, communist, racists on stamps, that is well over the line.

I called the US Postal Service to express my displeasure and couldn't get anywhere of course. And no, I won't use those stamps even of I have to put sixty-one one-cent Lincoln stamps on each brochure.

This is one of those things that I suppose some liberal genius in the USPS bureacracy thought would be funny, but here's hoping more folks will pick this up. In fact, I also just forwarded this on to Glenn Beck. I bet he'll chew on it a little and spit out some interesting commentary.

Edited to add: See follow-up post here.

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Worst Hiring Rate Ever!

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words (or a few million jobs). To read the accompanying article from National Review Online, click here.
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Jim Baxter: "Peace is not a cause - it is an effect"

I received a rather profound email today from a gentleman by the name of James Baxter. Mr. Baxter is about 83, I believe. He is a WWII and Korea USMC combat vet, is a "point-man/follower of The Lion of Judah," and he has a great deal of understanding and wisdom to impart, based not only on his life experiences but more importantly on the Word of God.

Mr. Baxter's website is: http://www.choicemaker.net/index.htm

The essay James Baxter is presenting as crucial today is entitled ...
"WHAT IS MAN...?" God asks - and answers:
HUMAN DEFINED: EARTH'S CHOICEMAKER

I encourage you to go to the linked essay and read it through. The man has some thought-provoking words of wisdom that apply today like a boxing glove to a fist.

That said, I was especially moved by his email's introduction:

Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (63 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted "peaceniks" and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that "Peace is not a cause - it is an effect."

In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was an ARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.

B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.

We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.

In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government refused to surrender. Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered.

Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." Indeed, they had. Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily where choice-making opportunities abound. America!

Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature's pit bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any generation should know: Never start a war with a free people - you never know what they may invent!

As a newly assigned member of a U.S. Marine intelligence section, I had a unique opportunity to visit many major cities of Japan, including Tokyo and Hiroshima, within weeks of their destruction. For a full year I observed the beaches, weapons, and troops we would have assaulted had the A-bombs not been dropped. Yes, it would have been very destructive for all, but especially for the people of Japan.

When we landed in Japan, for what came to be the finest and most humane occupation of a defeated enemy in recorded history, it was with great appreciation, thanksgiving, and praise for the atomic bomb team, including the aircrew of the Enola Gay. A half million American homes had been spared the Gold Star flag, including, I'm sure, my own.

Whenever I hear the apologists expressing guilt and shame for A-bombing and ending the war Japan had started (they ignore the cause-effect relation between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki), I have noted that neither the effete critics nor the puff-adder politicians are among us in the assault landing-craft or the stinking rice paddies of their suggested alternative, "conventional" warfare. Stammering reluctance is obvious and continuous, but they do love to pontificate about the Rights that others, and the Bomb, have bought and preserved for them.

The vanities of ignorance and camouflaged cowardice abound as license for the assertion of virtuous "rights" purchased by the blood of others - those others who have borne the burden and physical expense of Rights whining apologists so casually and self-righteously claim.

At best, these fakers manifest a profound and cryptic ignorance of causal relations, myopic perception, and dull I.Q. At worst, there is a word and description in The Constitution defining those who love the enemy more than they love their own countrymen and their own posterity. Every Yankee Doodle Dandy knows what that word is.

In 1945, America was the only nation in the world with the Bomb and it behaved responsibly and respectfully. It remained so until two among us betrayed it to the Kremlin. Still, this American weapon system has been the prime deterrent to earth's latest model world- tyranny: Seventy years of Soviet collectivist definition, coercion, and domination of individual human beings.

The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth's choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature's beautiful blue planet and the natural premise of man's free institutions, environments, and respectful relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men choose, create, and progress - or die.

Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, "Know ye not you are in league with the stones of the field?"

Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War
point-man/follower of The Lion of Judah

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"Inside the Revolution" DVD to Be Released September 11

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Fabian Socialists Now in Power and Purposefully Destroying Our Economy

From www.worldviewtimes.com
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"How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It" is a Great Resource Guide

I'm fortunate to have been provided a pre-publication review copy of James Wesley, Rawles' new book, "How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It." The book is due out September 29.

In a nutshell, it's an excellent, well-organized handbook for the thinking man (or woman) who wants to be absolutely ready for uncertain times. Rawles is preeminently known around the world as an expert in many of the related fields surrounding survival in the 21st century. His blog, www.survivalblog.com is number one in an increasingly crowded field, and for good reason.

The man has demonstrated impeccable character and judgment and encyclopedic cognizance through the years. His background and training were years in the making, but his expertise was quickly recognized in his first best-seller, "Patriots, a Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse." Since then, Rawles' blog has exploded in application and acclaim as people struggle to come to terms with a threatening world increasingly discouraging and unfamiliar. In fact, his following is as loyal, respectful, ardent, and eager to contribute as an online audience comes.

In this latest major contribution to the survival genre, Mr. Rawles has put together some of the best advice and guidance for beginners and experts alike that can be found in one place. Can anyone today actually feel in control without having consulted the extensive knowledge base of THE guy who hundreds of thousands of like-minded individuals rely on?

I too am in the field of survival. With a similar background to Jim Wesley, Rawles, my calling was to find a way to get people needed supplies and gear in the most economical and trustworthy ways I could arrange. There are a fast-growing number of people like us who understand that our future will likely call upon people everywhere to fall back on traditional skills and habits and draw upon resources that today most would see as quaint, remote, and even disagreeable. To get a clear view of the future, one should take an unbiased look into the past.

We have built up a complex, fragile society relying upon technologies that literally provide most of the population with crucial life support. Any leg holding up that immense infrastructure that supports modern life can suddenly give way. If that happens, it could bring about a total, irreparable collapse of the whole shootin' match ... in dramatic fashion. We know from events like the Hurricane Katrina aftermath that rescue and rehabilitation initiatives from the great I-AMs in federal high places will be sorely inadequate. Lesson learned--be personally ready or suffer greatly.

I like to give practical gifts away to my customers, friends, and relatives. Sometimes, these gifts are potential life-savers. Eye-opening books such as "How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It" are perhaps the most popular and well-received gifts I give away. I know this title will change some lives, so I already have my initial order in for several dozen copies. That is the best way I can express my appreciation and endorsement for a product--and this book is worthy.
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Wake Up!

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Public Discourse Ultimately Being Fanned Into an Inferno?

In the last week or so, we have all been watching the media reports and YouTube videos clearly detailing the anger and frustration being brought to a boil in America.

The health care debate and the way it is being fast-tracked by congress is seen potentially as an emotional tipping point for a majority of the U.S. population. Hard-working, law-abiding citizens had been stunned incredulous up to this point by the arrogance of an over-the-top control-grab and series of financial misappropriations by the new sheriff in town.

But the wake-up call has been sounded.

Tempers everywhere on all sides are quickly ascending to levels not seen in a long time in most circles. It's more than just political gamesmanship. The personal, class, and ethnic accusations and contempt going around and around are stoking the flames to a point where you know something is going to have to happen soon to release building pressure.

In the past, government officials have largely succeeded in managing and venting similar polemics before they blew out of control. This time however, the barrage of confrontational issues on the sensibilities and values of traditional America seem to be obviously contrived and directed by certain political leaders to bring about conflagration.

Those pumping the bellows are not backing away. And there are plenty of anxious, angry, and hateful manipulatees getting motivated by the tense dynamic.
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Dehydrating the Harvest is a Snap

This spring I wrote a blog entry or two about our new vegetable garden. A LOT of people around the country are gardening for the first time in years, and in our case, it was our first bonafide garden in about 25 years!

That long period of down time did not mean that we were going to be tentative about jumping back into the dirt. Our new garden was to end up bigger than I initially figured I should try. It was carefully and lovingly designed and prepared. And yes, I invested more money than made obvious sense (figuring that through the years ahead, those investments in a new tiller, tools, bird netting, and fencing WOULD be looking better and better).

We planted all organic, non-hybrid varieties, used organic techniques through the summer, and tried to keep up with the weeding (to varying degrees of success), watering, and harvesting.

One of the better decisions I think we made along the way was to go with dehydrating most of our crops. This decision was the best available option since we have a newer model glass-top stove. The stove manufacturer recommends not to use it for canning as it may break the glass-top. So I purchased an Excalibur Dehydrator and have become quite enamored with it.

Bottom line--a first-rate food dehydrator makes relatively quick work of putting away the harvest. The dried food is lightweight, takes up little space, and stores for years in a cold dark area if you keep air and light away from the food.

I just came across this excellent article on dehydrating food (with some talk about canning as well). If you are new to gardening this year or have not dried your crop before--read and enjoy: "Dry it. You'll like it!" by Jerry Cook.
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Peter Schiff: "Happy Days Aren't Here Again"

If you are overly exposed to the pre-programmed media, it's time to recalibrate ...

Happy Days Aren't Here Again

by Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital | July 31, 2009

Have you heard the great news? The recession is over! It’s true; I saw it on TV. Why fret about growing unemployment lines when banks are paying big-time bonuses again?

Proof of the turn was apparently revealed by the 2nd quarter GDP figures that showed that the economy declined by only 1%. After four consecutive quarters of negative GDP, the green shoots now assume that growth will resume over the summer. But before we pop the corks, it may be worthwhile to ask, “what really has changed, and what is responsible for our new lease on life?”

In truth, because of the continued profligacy of the government and Federal Reserve, the imbalances that caused the current recession have actually worsened. We are now in an even deeper hole than when the crisis began. Rather than wrapping up a recession, we are actually sinking into a depression. If things look better now, it’s just because we are in the eye of the storm.

We must remember that recessions inevitably follow periods of artificial growth. During these booms, malinvestments are made which ultimately must be liquidated during the ensuing busts. In short, mistakes made during booms are corrected during busts – and in the recent boom we made some real whoppers. We borrowed and spent too much money, bought goods we couldn’t afford, built houses we couldn’t carry, and developed a service sector economy completely dependent on consumer credit and rising asset prices. All the while, we allowed our industrial base to crumble and our infrastructure to decay.

In order to lay the foundation for real and lasting recovery, market forces must be allowed to repair the damage. However, current policy is counterproductive to this end. Trillions in stimulus dollars have kept the party going, but now what? How does deficit spending by the government address the problems that brought about the crash? It doesn’t; it just delays and worsens the hangover – and we have to hope we don’t die of alcohol poisoning.

By interfering with the unpleasant forces of the recession, we simply trade short-term gain for long-term pain. By propping up inefficient companies that should fail, we deprive more effective companies of the capital they need to grow. By holding up over-valued asset prices, we prevent the prudent or less well-off from snatching them up and, in doing so, creating a new price equilibrium based upon reality. By maintaining artificially low interest rates, we discourage the very savings that are so critical to capital formation and future economic growth. In addition, the false economic signals the Fed sends the market prevent a more efficient re-allocation of resources from taking place and leads to even more bad economic decision being made. By running such huge deficits, we further crowd-out private enterprise by making it harder for businesses to invest or hire.

The recently passed “cash for clunkers” program (currently on-hold, as it ran out of funding in one week) is a perfect example of how government policy can make the economy worse. By incentivizing Americans to destroy fully paid-for cars so they can go deeper into debt buying brand new ones, the government weakens an already crippled economy. The last thing we want to do is subsidize Americans to go deeper into debt by buying more stuff. Don’t they realize that is precisely the behavior that got us into this mess?

Think about it this way. If your friend were in trouble because he had too much debt, would you encourage him to take on even more? Wouldn’t a real sign of progress be a reduction of debt, even if he had to cut back on his everyday expenses? What is true for an individual is also true for a collection of individuals, even if they call themselves a ‘government.’ If, as a country, we are even deeper into debt now than we were before, we are worse off. Period. The fact that the additional debt enabled better short-term GDP numbers is a long-term negative.

Since we have learned nothing from past mistakes, we are condemned to repeat them. As if we have not already suffered enough as a consequence of the Bush/Greenspan stimulus, Obama/Bernanke are giving ever larger doses, which will prove lethal to any recovery. The recession is over; long live the depression!

Copyright © 2009 Peter Schiff
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