http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news…ief-Rabbi.html

Would like suggestions on really good books.. I’ve a wide range of interests and open to both fiction and nonfiction, old and modern, science fiction, fantasy, drama, horror, mystery.

It seems like the guy is aloof to the plight of the American worker. He talks rarely about joblessness and it doesn’t seem like a huge priority to him.

Obama really never grew up even in a middle class lifestyle. He is a man of privilege.

Sure his policies on race and health care may seem progressive….but socialist?

Let’s face facts, most companies want health care reform. It’s not really an issue that should be partisan. And even the public option is hardly a gov’t giveaway, it’s just a side-step away from insurance companies.

I guess what spurned me to ask this is that right now we seem to be in a depression. Or on the verge. And yet Obama really seems clueless. A true socialist president wouldn’t be.

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti…934826,00.html

I Can Has Swine Flu? A Cat Comes Down with H1N1
By Alice Park Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

For all the attention that has whirled around H1N1 in recent months, it seems that one vulnerable, and furry, population may have been overlooked: the family pet.

On Wednesday, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported the first confirmed case of H1N1 in a house pet, a 13-year-old domestic shorthaired cat. The animal likely contracted the virus from its owners, veterinarians say, since two of the three family members living in the cat’s household had recently suffered from influenza-like illness. Late last week, when the cat came down with flu-like symptoms — malaise, loss of appetite — its owners brought it to Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine for treatment. The family mentioned to the vet that they had also recently battled illness, which led to testing the pet for H1N1.

H1N1 is a combination of influenza strains; one part originated in pigs, and another in birds. So far, only swine and ferrets, which are particularly susceptible to the flu, have become infected with H1N1.

It’s not yet clear how vulnerable cats, dogs and other household animals may be to the new virus, but the Iowa cat’s case reinforces just how different H1N1 is from seasonal flu viruses. Although some household cats and certain wild cats in zoos have gotten ill with avian influenza, and dogs have their own canine version of the flu virus, pets don’t normally get sick with the regular human flu. "There has never been a report of human seasonal influenza affecting cats or dogs," says Dr. Julie Levy, director of Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Florida.

It’s possible that the Iowa cat’s case may be a bellwether of future pet disease, but it’s also possible it was just a fluke event. At the cat’s advanced age, its immune system may not have been as adept at fending off influenza as that of a younger animal — similar to the vulnerability seen in aging humans. Still, says Dr. Ann Garvey, state public-health vet at the Iowa Department of Public Health, "We just don’t know, we really don’t."

Garvey notes that despite nearly 25,000 cases of positive, lab-confirmed H1N1 in people reported in the U.S. since last spring, the Iowa cat is the first pet to be documented with the virus. But before pet owners start suspecting Fido and Fluffy of being H1N1 hotbeds, Garvey stresses that so far, no cases of influenza of any kind in pets — including cases of bird flu — are known to have moved from animals into people. And even among the animals, the virus does not appear to spread easily, which may further suggest that pets are not ideal reservoirs for influenza.

That’s good news for pet lovers and flu worriers. And so is the fact that the cat seems to be recovering well from its bout with H1N1. "Both the owners and the cat are recovering," says Garvey. As for anyone else who is worried about spreading H1N1 flu to their pets, vets recommend following the same guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest for protecting family members — wash your hands frequently, cover your coughs and try to avoid close contact with your furry friends until you’re well.

____________

This makes sense, but I never thought of swine flu getting to animals.

Not a good time to be wearing a hijab in Texas. Or to be a kid named Ibrahim, or Mohamed. Even if most Muslim Americans - most Muslims world wide - are peaceful, there’s gonna be whole lot of bigots out there making their lives as miserable as possible. It sucks to be a minority after someone in your group commits a crime.

Muslim, Arab Groups Condemn Fort Hood Shooting, Brace For Backlash

Arab and Muslim political groups are bracing themselves for a wave of anger and attacks after news broke on Thursday that the primary suspect behind the shooting deaths of twelve soldiers at Fort Hood had a Arabic and/or Muslim-sounding name.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a native of Virginia, is believed to have been responsible for opening fire on his fellow soldiers at the U.S. Army base.

It was not immediately clear whether Nidal Malik Hasan was, in fact, a Muslim, though reports surfaced that he had converted to the religion late in life.

By Thursday evening, nevertheless, Arab-American and Muslim-American advocacy organizations were already readying themselves for a backlash. The Arab-American Institute said it received one threatening call from an unidentified male shortly after reports surfaced that the name of the alleged shooting suspect was Nidal Malik Hasan. The group, which condemned the massacre, said it was expecting more.

"We like to give people the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to being a reactionary thing," said Leigh O’Neill, director of government relations for the organization. "But there is a lot of hate out there and hate is hate. It is bipartisan and doesn’t have geographic balance. We feel terrible for the victims today. And I wish people will understand when crime is crime and terrorism is terrorism."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties organization for American Muslims, was, meanwhile, working fast to get ahead of a potential rise in anti-Muslim sentiment. The group was set to host a press conference at 8 p.m. on Thursday evening to condemn the attacks and "urge calm" in the aftermath of the shooting.

Ibrahim Hooper, the group’s communications director, told the Huffington Post that they had not, as of 6:30 p.m. received any threatening calls, emails or other communiqués. The organization, he said, would be announcing publicly any such threats as they occurred - in hopes of dissuading people from making them in the first place.

At this juncture, again, there is no concrete reporting as to whether Nidal Malik Hasan was in fact a Muslim or an Arab. All that has been reported is that he served in the Department of Psychology at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda Naval Facility in Bethesda, Maryland. He is believed to be 39 or 40 years old.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/1…347777.html&cp

For the past 200 years predictions of imminent worldwide famine due to food shortages have been common and the usual result of such predictions are bankrupt farmers. I’ve seen a recent spate of articles claiming that this time it is for real. Water is in short supply, deserts are growing and major rivers are no longer flowing to the sea year round. If I’m seeing such articles other people are too and I thought I would see what everyone else thinks.

Why is equality between gays and heterosexuals being put to a vote?

Individual states also would not have supported desegregation or slavery being put to an end, but after a while, the states got told they couldn’t vote on their equality like that (actually, segregation was national, but still). Some would say it’s insulting to compare the two. I’m not going to say that gay marriage is the same as slavery and so forth. What I am going to say is that like those other situations, gays are unequal in the eyes of the law. The idea that their equality should come down to a vote offends me. What if we also put people who got remarried to a vote? What about convicted rapists who wanted to get married? That’s not being put to a vote. All of these are considered invasions upon people’s lives, so what makes gay marriage different? What the Bible supposedly says? Well, we allow people to get remarried and that’s a sin. Furthermore, equality is not supposed to be based on religion in this country. The same Bible also makes it sound like slavery is okay. (Once again, not saying the gay marriage argument is the same as slavery). Are we going to allow slavery because the Bible speaks in favor of it in some areas?

Marriage is a religious institution.

Okay, so let’s not allow Atheists to get married. Or better yet, let’s put whether Atheists are allowed to get married to a vote in every state. Would that be okay or would that be considered a major intrusion upon the lives of Atheists? Also, anybody who got married by a JP probably should have their marriage declared null and void. Or we can vote on it.

Some say just to allow civil unions. Okay, let’s explore the problem with this. I read elsewhere that civil unions are not relevant outside of the state that they’re in. Major problem. Can people with civil unions put each other on each other’s insurance policy? Can they file joint taxes?

So why should all these forms of equality be put to a vote?

(my apologies to those reading this in two different places. Wanted to get it out there for two different areas).

HS Dent is reporting that gross unadjusted applications for the housing tax credit are declining. Since home buys are seasonal, the seasonal adjustment to these figures were not given, nothing from Case-Schiller was reported and other gaps were in the raw numbers probably exist that part of the report did not impress me. What I found interesting was the analysis of the probable outcome as the tax-credit becomes semi-permanent real interesting.

• The gross decline started prior to the expected end of the program which means that probably marginal buyers are running short already.

  The extension of the program to existing homebuyers means that congress has concluded that without increasing the pool of marginal buyers freefall in residential real estate market is likely. (This is a summation of a longer argument not a quote,)

  Bringing future sales forward as with CFC makes a bad situation worse in the not very long run.

So assuming those points are roughly correct housing prices should start going into freefall again by March at the latest. That should cause about a 10 T decline in national wealth by the November elections. My question is how is the best way to play this roughly predictable air pocket in the financial markets?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp…UuyNW-fbMSAbMA

Once again, American is failing its citizens in ways other countries aren’t.