A Wall Street Journal columnist has advised people to “start stockpiling food” and an ABC News Report says “there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies.” Now there’s concern that the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food.

“We’re told that the feds bought the entire container of canned butter when it hit the California docks. (Something’s up!),” said officials at Best Prices Storable Foods in an advisory to customers.

While Congress goes on vacation…

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans next week to slash the pay of more than 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum of $6.55 per hour to help ease the state’s budget crisis, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Chronicle on Wednesday.

The governor also will order an end to overtime pay for all but critical services, a freeze on state hiring and the immediate layoff of nearly 22,000 temporary, seasonal and student workers

The world is failing to guard against the inevitable spread of a devastating flu pandemic which could kill 50 million people and wreak massive disruption around the globe, the Government has warned.

In evidence to a House of Lords committee, ministers said that early warning systems for spotting emerging diseases were “poorly co-ordinated” and lacked “vision” and “clarity”. They said that more needed to be done to improve detection and surveillance for potential pandemics and called for urgent improvement in rapid-response strategies.

The Government’s evidence appeared in a highly critical report from the Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee, which attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “dysfunctional” and criticised the international response to the threat of an outbreak of disease which could sweep across the globe.

The Government said: “While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.” Ministers said it would could kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and that such an outbreak would leave up to 75,000 people dead in Britain and cause “massive” disruption.

A newly discovered and highly lethal virus strain begins with symptoms similar to that of a cold but can quickly lead to severe respiratory crisis.

“This virus has the capability of causing severe respiratory illness in people of all ages, regardless of their medical condition,” said John Su, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus was discovered by infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert, who noticed that otherwise healthy patients were being stricken by pneumonia so severe that they would die without oxygen treatment. The dangerous symptoms developed within only one or two days of initial cough and fever symptoms.

Since Gilbert’s discovery of the virus in Portland, Oregon, outbreaks have been identified at military bases in Washington, Texas and South Carolina.

The disease is a variety of adenovirus, the family that includes 51 infectious agents responsible for diseases such as colds, pink eye, bronchitis and the stomach flu. A mutation has apparently occurred in a virus called adenovirus 14, making it much more lethal. In the first outbreak examined by Gilbert, seven of 30 hospitalized patients died.

“That’s an incredibly high mortality rate,” Gilbert said.

One of the patients who survived was 18-year-old Joseph Spencer. After experiencing severe, flu-like symptoms including chills, fever and vomiting, Spencer went to the hospital, where he was placed in intensive care and treated for 18 days.

“We told the family we didn’t think he was going to survive,” Gilbert said.

Spencer was eventually discharged, but says he still feels weak and short of breath, and has had problems with his memory.

Tests have determined that more 50 percent of adenovirus infections in Oregon are now caused by the new strain of adenovirus 14.

“That’s shocking,” said Paul Lewis, an Oregon health investigator. “It went from being imperceptible to being the majority.”

Health officials caution that while the vast majority of cold-like infections are harmless, patients whose symptoms continue getting worse should see a doctor.

A police officer shocked a handcuffed Baron “Scooter” Pikes nine times with a Taser after arresting him on a cocaine charge.

He stopped twitching after seven, according to a coroner’s report. Soon afterward, Pikes was dead.

Now the officer, since fired, could end up facing criminal charges in Pikes’ January death after medical examiners ruled it a homicide.

Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish coroner, told CNN the 21-year-old sawmill worker was jolted so many times by the 50,000-volt Taser that he might have been dead before the last two shocks were delivered.

Williams ruled Pikes’ death a homicide in June after extensive study.

For the record, the real battlefield today is not abortion. It is not homosexual marriage. It is not Social Security. It is not al Qaeda. It is not taxes. It is not inflation. It is not electing conservatives. It is not posting the Ten Commandments. It is not even the high cost of gasoline. That is not to say that those issues are not important and not deserving of our best efforts and attention, because they are. But those issues do not represent the major battlefield today.

The battlefield where the devil has amassed his greatest forces and is thrusting his deadliest armies is the surrender of our national sovereignty and independence, and the creation of global government. And it is our own political and corporate leaders that are facilitating this chicanery. Furthermore, by refusing to oppose this surrender, our Christian leaders are complicit as well.

The Russian is considering deploying long- range bombers to Cuba to counter the perceived threat of the US missile defence shield planned to be based in the Czech Republic and Poland, according to Russian media reports Monday.

‘At the moment, there are just thoughts - but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something concrete behind it…’

Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, warning nations against undermining the authority of the United Nations by acting unilaterally. The Pope also found time to bless the U.N. flag.