Public health officials around the world are scrambling to put measures into place to contain this new outbreak of swine flu, including a declaration of emergency here in the United States. Things are especially bad in Mexico, where the virus apparently originated. Flu pandemics are periodic and inevitable, but they do not have to be as bad as the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic that killed 50 million people out of a world population of 1.5 billion. Of course, the day may come when the virus mutates in just the right way to create a pandemic even worse than that one. Let's hope today is not that day. For lots of links to this story, check out The Drudge Report.

Robert J. Samuelson has nothing but disdain for the myths being woven by environmentalists as they pretend we can easily and cheaply retool our economy to combat global warming.

The selling of the green economy involves much economic make-believe. Environmentalists not only maximize the dangers of global warming -- from rising sea levels to advancing tropical diseases -- they also minimize the costs of dealing with it. Actually, no one involved in this debate really knows what the consequences or costs might be. All are inferred from models of uncertain reliability. Great schemes of economic and social engineering are proposed on shaky foundations of knowledge. Candor and common sense are in scarce supply.

Read the whole thing.

Deep within the GOP base, trouble is brewing.