An American President takes unscripted (OK, some were pretty predictable) questions at a press conference. The American electorate does not cringe in advance as he pauses to consider his responses.

There has already been a change at the White House.

Yep.

To this man. Thank God. The frustrated fulminations of the dead-enders (are you out there, Elephantman?) are just a bonus. When the economy recovers, it might just drive them all insane. And it will be a short trip.

When considering the first 100 days of the previous administration, I breathe a sigh of relief that adults are indeed running the country again.

In Bush's first 100 days his press conferences had been canceled, Cheney was secretly planning the breakup of Iraq's oil reserves with major oil companies and the Clinton transition team was begging them to pay attention to al Qaeda.

The breadth of ability occupying the Office this past decade is truly historic.

First of all, the high incidence of deaths in Mexico City was more likely related to the pollution issue - people with asthma and impaired immune systems are more sensitive to the flu.

Likewise, one death in Texas should be considered against the fact that ~20,000 people a year die of influenza in the United States. Those numbers are highest among infirm elderly people, but in 2008, there were also 45 pediatric influenza deaths (CDC). Furthermore,

"The 91 confirmed cases in the United States includes the country's first swine flu fatality: a 23-month-old child visiting from Mexico who died Monday at a Houston, Texas, hospital."

The virus is slightly unique in its composition, but Mexico City is a likely place for viruses from all over the world to mix and swap bits - and there is a large population of people with asthma or respiratory-immune problems, who are easily infected by influenza viruses.

The hype is probably driven largely by drug companies in collusion with the WHO - the WHO also played a big role in whipping up hysteria over bird flu. They have really become something of a front organization for Big Pharma - for example, they think that patent protections for drugs are so important that the developing world shouldn't be able to make patented lifesaving drugs themselves, as that would 'stifle innovation'.

Notice also that unregulated over-the-counter use of Tamiflu and Relenza, while certainly profitable for Gilead-Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, is likely to rapidly raise the level of drug resistance in the circulating influenza viruses - the same thing happens with antibiotics and TB, for example.

So far, it looks like the phenomenon of high infection of younger adults is limited to Mexico City - meaning pollution may be the issue there. This is certainly a virus to watch, but so far the hype has outweighed the facts by about 20 to 1.

I am a HUGE Obama fan; after Bush he seems like the Second Coming. That said, I think it's correct to point out that this evening he did not, as Mr. Madden quoth, display "a reassuring competence." Tonight and always, he projects an aura of competence like no other. He displays in Bush-boggling style a sense of competence. But after only a hundred days, I'm still at the stage of praying that he's actually as competent as he seems.

A First Hundred Days that will change America....

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/04/nation-changing-first-100-days.html

Where's the objectivity in the MSM?

on Fox had the lie about an Al Qaeda plot as the plot with a young black man as the patsy.

Our hero saved the day.

Washington DC exists for yet another day, on Fox.

Mr. Sleep? Nah, way too early for that.

Mr. Raider,

Is it possible that the members of the MSM who disagree with your assessment of the current occupant's first 100 days do so because they lack the "sky-is-falling" paranoia-enhanced ability to predict the dire future that many of my right-wing friends seem to think they have?

Then again, maybe the paranoia is justified, and the members of the MSM are truly the evil, perverted hand-maidens of the Machiavellian cabal that controls "the New World Order". Muahahaha!

Nah, more likely though that the MSM are simply good business-people trying to make money for the shareholders by giving the audience what the audience wants so that they can charge the advertiser more for the 30 second Viagra spot. It wouldn't be the first time the news was "enhanced" to sell more crap to the buying public.

Have a pleasant and peaceful day!

OK, Obama personally thinks waterboarding is torture. REFUSES to REFUSE to comment on whether waterboarders will be prosecuted. Just dodges the question. Lame.

Limp.

FTFY.

Lame may offend the crippled who have enough problems without being used as an adjective to describe a dirtbag who will not prosecute torturers and those who conspire to shield torturers from justice, which would be him, or rather, it.

Our President "inherited" a deficit that he voted for, and has since made 3 times larger.

Ignoring the "inconvenient truth" that the New Deal was a 2-year band-aid for the Depression instead of an actual fix (unemployment in 1932 - 25%, 1934 - 13%, 1936 - 17%), he's doing it again, and at a much larger rate. The last two times this has been tried have given us the Social Security and Medicare disasters. I wonder what extra financial weight future generations (that everyone was so concerned about until January 20th of this year) will have to bear.

He's reached out in a spirit of bipartisanship and said, "If you'll just agree to all of my demands, everyone will get along." Of course, that's not much different from what the GOP did when they were in power, hehe. Too bad they didn't start listening to the voters until they were out of power.

And everyone's buying the fact that he's the one fixing the economy, and not the American people. And we're all ignoring the fact that, $25 billion later, the carmakers are right back to where they were before. A prime example of the "brilliance" of the stimulus.

I'd be pretty laid back, too, if I'd pulled something like this off.