This is a fear that has gripped the world all of a sudden. Though it is still not an epidemic or a pandemic, world leaders are still looking at it eerily over their shoulders, praying that it does not come to their shores.

There are many people that are affected by it, no doubt. So far, Mexico seems to be the worst hit place of all. It is the country with the strongest strain of the virus. Already at least 159 people are dead there and many more were hospitalized.

The virus itself is something that seems to form from science fiction. It is a mixture of the strain between the original swine flu, bird flu and human flu strain in creating a virus in pigs that jump to human and can be fatal if our anti-bodies are not strong enough.

Governments all around the world have also been exposed as to how badly prepared they are to deal with an outbreak of a flu pandemic should it occur. The “most prepared” country in the world is reported to be the United Kingdom, and it is the only country that has enough flu-shots to give to half her population. Half! That is pathetic. What has happened to all the promises that governments gave that they would be prepared for a global pandemic in the aftermath of SARS and the avian flu? It is sad that politics is put ahead of the lives of people all over the world.

However, in my study of this, I stumbled upon something that really shocked me. 300,000 people are dying every year due to … regular flu! We fear something that has the possibility to be a pandemic but we do not seem to worry about a disease that we see every other day that can kill. Why is that so?

Of this number, 10 % comes from the US alone, the richest country in the world which houses 5% of the world’s population. That is something that is very sad. America cannot even fight the flu and I fear that it cannot fight other diseases that could be pandemics in the future.

The sad part to all this is that all this can be avoided. There are flu shots available. Many people can get a flu shot and that would keep them immune for a year. Why can’t we set a national standard in all our countries that we should get a flu shot every year so that our respective nations do not get flu? We can make people pay taxes, traffic fines and bail out corporations; what is so difficult about giving them a shot that would keep them immune from the current strain of flu?

There are professionals out there that fear that flu strains should be taken care of by our anti-bodies. They fear that if we get flu shots every year, should a stronger virus come about our anti-bodies would be too weak to resist it at all and that would result in larger casualties.

I always state that we should allow doctors to advice and lead people on procedures when it comes to health care. So I would not go against the doctors that suggest against flu-shots, but I think we can agree that people that are prone to death from flu, the very young and very old, should be given a flu shot. After all there are people dying of flu every 2 minutes, something has to be done about that.

Where is the out-cry for the flu virus in general? Why is it that we are worrying so much about a new kind of flu and not the kind that is already killing so many people? 159 seems to be a bigger worry to people as compared to 300 000 for people these days.

To me, I think that this is hyped up by the media too much. Is there a scare, yes. There is always the fear of the flu evolving to become a super-bug, but I do not think that people need to worry about it as they are right now.

Please take general precautions. Wash hands regularly. Maintain personal and residential hygiene. Take the flu shot at least for this year when there is worry of the flu bug. If you are sick, please stay at home and rest. Wear a mask if necessary.

The world has been through SARS and the avian flu, we should not worry about the swine flu too much. We do need to close our borders yet. AIDS have spread with the help of modern day traveling and we did not close it down then, why should we now? We just need to be wary and keep ourselves clean.

President Obama and other leaders around the world are right. Be vigilant but not worried. So chill!

** To all those people that has been affected by the swine flu or other forms of flu, the crew of ST send our sympathies to you. We do not wish to hurt your feelings when we wrote this article.**

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Swine Flu: We’re All In This Together

Many news agencies in America are very biased and very often you would see me complaining about it on Slashing Tongue. I have also complained about many of them that they just talking and spewing hate for the sake of money and ratings.

And then comes along some journalist that earns nothing compared to the amount earned by fat cats like Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity and does an act of defiance and patriotism something so stunning that it really inspires us about our occupation.

First, she was taken in for having a bottle of wine. This is an accusation so baseless that even her closest neighbors poured cold water over it. They cannot believe that there would be such a situation with a mild person like her who lived next to them and was so nice.

Then came the charge of her being a journalist without having the proper licenses to be one. Of all the charges that was the most sane one. She really could have been operating unintentionally and then she got caught. That I could believe to a certain extent. The thing that also would have made doubts linger was the fact that the entire trial was shrouded in secrecy. If it were a charge of operating without a journalism license, there would really be nothing for her to hide.

It all suddenly then became a mockery when the charges were changed to spying. She was again tried in secrecy and they found her guilty at such warp speeds as though this was a trial of a person trying to pay his speeding ticket. In which right minded person would try a case in 1 day when the defendant is pleading not guilty to one of the most serious charges there is.

It is clear to anybody that is watching this that the Iranians were really not bothered with Roxana Saberi at all. All they were trying to do was to hide behind a woman’s skirt with hope that the US would grant them added concessions in the future.

The masters at that trade are the North Koreans. They have just kidnapped 2 Americans and put them in torture camps. They would also conduct a show trial for them and use them as part of a package of bargaining chips that are to be used. This package includes the anger shown at a US training session in South Korea, the satellite launch and so on and so forth.

This is also something that Ms Saberi knew. But rather than being used like a pawn, she fought back. The US warned not to treat her harshly and the Iranians promise to treat her humanely despite putting her in one of the most notoriously tough prisons in Iran.

She has now gone on a hunger strike in one of the most toughest prisons in the world. She sends the message that no matter what the Iranians do, she want to make sure that she gets out without being a political victim. She put herself at risk rather than putting her country in a difficult position. That is something really extraordinary.

This to me is bravery to one of the highest degree possible for a journalist to carry out. It is really not easy to stand up in a place where even in the open, it would not be safe for an American citizen. She has now tuned the tables on the Iranians.

It is as if a statement to make that is “Release me at once or my death would be on your hands.” Her death due to starvation would be one of the most embarrassing things for Iran to deal with. It would also alienate them from the international community even more than they are right now.

I believe that this would end with the Iranians voluntarily giving her up on some special day such as Eid or the Ayatollah Khaemini’s birthday. Still it is something that I really look up to her for. It is a great action that she took.

Slashing Tongue would like to wish her and her family the best of luck.

Michelle Malkin » Roxana Saberi blogburst
Free Roxana Saberi « If you’re bored, do some good
On Hunger Strikes and Roxana Saberi | Human Rights Now – Amnesty Internatio..

I am against torture. Water-boarding and all other forms of it I am against. The US Field Army Manual is the international standard on interrogation techniques and we have gone back to that. The Obama administration has already closed down Guantanamo Bay.

Then why is it that the liberals keep on gunning back on topics like this? Is this really something that is of extreme importance to America now? Why is it that the liberals are so angry that the President intends to immunize whatever CIA agents did under the Bush administration?

What is in the past is in the past. I do not want this practice of one administration going after the previous ones. There were many Bush administration officials that wanted to go after President Clinton for pardoning a person for tax evasion hours before his Presidency ended. Should they still go after President Clinton for doing that?

It would also not be fair to the CIA operative that were conducting the torture to be prosecuted. This was what they were ordered to do. It was not against the law for them to do so then. The law was changed when the Bush administration panicked after 9/11. They are NOT guilty. I really cannot understand why the far left is going after people that carried them out.

Talking about people that wrote it, the Spanish government is in news again. Just 24 hours after Bill O’Reilly claimed success on the Spanish, the judge that was presiding the case now want the case to go on. I can’t help but say, I WAS RIGHT. It was not the lawyer, it is this judge that want the publicity. He is the judge that went after Pinochet.

Hey Spaniards, don’t you have enough problems yourself? Aren’t you having 18% unemployment paying migrants to emigrate? Doesn’t Spain got anything better to do like trying to solve their economic woes? Why didn’t you guys go after the Bush Administration when they were in power?

Look, I agree that the Spanish got a case in two of the six people that were wanted. But my point to them and the liberals is this : Lets solve more pressing problems now. Lets solve things like the economy, AIDS, climate change and terrorism. Why are we so bothered about things that happen in the past.

People should understand that spot that the President’s administration is in. On one hand, a bloc of the group that elected them to White House are angry. On the other hand they are the new bosses of these people. They need the CIA’s support to function as head of the CIA. How would you feel when your boss is going about firing people that were working for our ex-boss.

Secondly, when is America ever going to control their right wing and their left wing groups? Wasn’t that what the President was elected for? Why are Americans behaving like Red America or Blue America rather than the United States of America? Everybody has disagreements. Some can even be in the own family. But why is it that Conservatives think that America is a country based on Conservative values while Liberal Americans think that America is founded of the progressive mentality and thought?

America was never founded on conservative or liberal thought, it was founded on an American one. It does not mean that when the founding fathers fought a war based on tax that they were conservatives. Neither does it mean that they were progressive because they separated church from state.

Liberals must do their part for America and let us learn from the past. Lets not go after past by letting go of our future.

This is a move that really puzzles me. I am a person that really is against guns. I think guns have no place in a civil society. Only the army, police and other forms of security forces should carry guns. I understand that there are people out there that would disagree with me.

But what I do not understand is this : Why is the US government allowing people to own AK-47s and M-16s? Is that really for personal protection? 2nd amendment in the US Constitution: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. This is the basis pro gun groups like the National Rifle Association would base their case upon.

Do these people understand that this amendment is seriously flawed? Who defines what an “arm” (short for armament) is? There is no law, believe it or not, that defines an armament in the United States. In other words, a very rich and crazy person can, with proper licenses, own a tank for “self defense” and it would not be illegal for him to do so!

In his nomination speech during his Presidential campaign President Obama said that we may not agree on whether we should own a gun, but we can agree that that our streets would not have anyone in the world carrying AK47s. Yet it seems that he has forgotten about it himself and reversed his position.

I really do not see anything good coming out of someone owning an assault rifle. Unlike a solitary handgun which a person can claim that the person needs to protect ones’ self in a tough neighborhood, or a hunting rifle to go hunting, but what is the use of an assault rifle or a machine gun. You do not expect yourself to go about “defending” yourself with an M-16, don’t you?

Lets cut the crap. Guns are meant to kill. These very assault rifles can be found in military all around the world. They are there to kill the enemy and nothing else. Killing is exactly what the drug cartels are doing right now.

90% of guns used by these cartels come from the US. Contrary to what the right-wingers might believe, I would rather trust the information that comes out from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rather than some non government sources. This is because the gun laws in the United States is huge. If there can be cases where “a new born baby” can acquire a gun without being caught, (I refer to the case last year when a man registered himself as his new born baby and managed to get a gun) there is something very wrong with the gun laws in this country.

Another suggestion that I can give President Calderon is this. Ban the influx of weapons from the US to Mexico altogether. Ban them. That is the simplest method isn’t it? Ban the weapons coming into Mexico outright and there would be much less trouble altogether. I do not think that the US would mind helping ensure that no guns enter Mexico.

Lastly, this should also silence all the right wingers that think that seem to think that President Obama is going to take away your guns. He is not even having the backbone to pass a law saying that there would be a ban on assault weapons.

Either way, even if President Obama is really going to go after your gun, why buy it then? You want to start a revolutionary war? It is like the government saying that they would be banning milk that comes from China, and people are storing them up because they want them.

If you guys are not living on Mars, you would know that there is a competition to get the best ratings in amongst news channels in the media. Things though have been heating up recently with the war of words.

FOX News dominates the news channels in the most lucrative TV ratings, having more than than their nearest 2 rivals, CNN and MSNBC combined. On-line, the conservatives do not stand a chance getting about 5% of traffic , though there is no credible source (aka AC Nielsen ratings) for online traffic.

So when the crazy Glenn Beck started the fiasco when he depicted President Obama as a Nazi. That started the chain of events that lead to the biggest mess I have seen in quite a while on TV. When CNN, pounced on this, FOX News was not happy and then commented that this is the reason the CNN ratings are low. Of course there are also the ultra liberal loons in MSNBC jumped at this making their crazy comments via Keith Olbermann.

Firstly, Glenn Beck is nuts. He picks on the section of America that I call the Ron Paul America, the fringe loons that think that the US is going to collapse soon and that their interpretation of the constitution and their ideals must be in place to stop this collapse.

Look, Glenn Beck has been in radio for so many years, why do you think that all of a sudden, he becomes so popular? Everybody knows why Bill O Reilly is dominates the world of cable. He is good at what he does. He approaches his subject carefully and makes sense in his arguments. That is something that Glenn Beck shows lack.

The thing that really started him showing pictures of Nazi Germany is that he felt that the government is going to take over the lives of ordinary Americans. He felt that President Obama intervened in the private company business and had the CEO of GM fired. Had he really checked the facts or told the truth, he would have known that President Obama is not the person that directly fired Rick Wagoner.

What was done was that President Obama made conditions for GM to get additional access to TARP money which GM and Chrysler wants. This is something that all banks do when they make a loan to you. When you start a company and want a loan, the bank has a right not to loan you any money if they are not happy with the business plan.

In this case, President Obama and his team felt that they were not happy with the plan that GM put forth and wanted there to be a list of things for GM to do to get additional TARP money. If they fail, they face chapter 7 bankruptcy to return the TARP money they owe back to the taxpayer. But what Glenn Beck did was put this way out of context by putting Nazi pictures on.

This is not the first time he has done something stupid like this. “The only way to stop this blood suckers is to drive a stake through their heart”, with reference to a picture of members of the Obama administration. “You (Obama) are spending money that would lead to slavery!” He said that after spewing nonsense that America owes the world 1.25 quadrillion ( 1250 trillion) in debt overseas, how Obama is “bowing” to other countries and that President Obama want to give American work to illegal immigrants.

The question I have is this, how does Glen Beck get away with all this stuff? Even though he is not as right-wing as Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, he is really putting more venom than both of them put together. Somebody really got to stop this guy from saying things like this. In my opinion, Glenn Beck should be arrested rather than ignored by the government. There is enough evidence in his statement he made to stab the Obama and his administration.

Why can’t he even be half as good as his FOX colleague Bill O Reilly? Why can’t he know where the line is that he cannot cross. Even when Bill O Reilly blows up, he never stepped out of line. You can disagree vehemently with Bill O but you would never see him say anything that calls for the death of the President.

That however is just part of the problem. I think that the media in general started this “war” just for the sake of ratings. Was CNN right? Yes. But now that CNN is drawn into a war with FOX, there would be more of this nonsense rather than important news that our media should concentrate on.

More worryingly, CNN has now been painted as a left wing media by the right wing. They are now painted as the “other side” by the conservatives and CNN has now been drawn into this right wing vs left wing nonsense.

CNN should have left this topic alone. After all this is Glenn Beck. You expect him to be idiotically say something like this. It is just like you would expect terrorists to say that they wish for America to fail and that they would praise the Somali pirates. It was ridiculously stupid for them to go after reports like this.

I think that America should wake up. There is no such thing as a right wing solution or a left wing one that is the best. The best solution is the one that fits the fact and figures. We should be making decisions based on science and logic rather than ideologies.

Lastly, why are the far left and far right thinking that sources like AP, Reuters, BBC or CNN either liberal-biased or conservative biased? These organization are mostly NEWS organizations with little or no views or their own, like how it should be. Seriously, never believe in anything like this. Just keep subscribing to Slashing Tongue.