The GrassCity Gazette

[aaronman]

^^^ Awesome


Ron Paul receives praise from Hillary Clinton, a lighthearted moment:

YouTube - Ron Paul Didn't Expect This Response...

Followed by, "You're going to encourage him!"

[MountyBounty]

Human cloning claims condemned by leading scientists
Attempts by Panayiotis Zavos to implant cloned embryos in women are unethical and dangerous, critics claim ahead of TV documentary

A maverick fertility expert who claims to be able to clone human beings has been condemned by other scientists for unethical practices that would be likely to lead to a damaged baby if they succeeded at all.

Panayiotis Zavos claims to have cloned 14 human embryos so far and implanted 11 of them into the wombs of four women, but none has survived. A documentary due to be screened tonight on the Discovery channel is expected to show the scientist carrying out his cloning procedures in an unnamed location, since the work is illegal in the UK and many other parts of the world.

Dr Stephen Minger, director of King's College London's stem cell biology laboratory, said Zavos had the necessary technical skills, "but the real problem is the safety issues associated with this". Cloning animals, famously successful with the birth of Dolly the sheep, has in reality been associated with huge problems. "This process has resulted in animals that have genetic abnormalities," he said. "The rate of spontaneous miscarriage is really huge, there is often no implantation, you get late miscarriage, which is unusual, and a lot of postnatal death."

Professor Peter Braude, director of the centre for preimplantation genetic diagnosis at Guy's and St Thomas' in London, said: "He's absolutely hellbent on trying to achieve this and he knows that there are significant risks.

"Who is the experiment here? It's the poor woman and the child involved."

Zavos, who has clinics in the USA and in Cyprus where he was born, claims to be helping people by attempting to recreate loved ones who have died. He is said to have engineered a hybrid embryo using the blood cells of a 10-year-old girl called Cady, who died in a car crash in the USA, and the egg of a cow that had its nucleus removed. Zavos said this was done to study the cloning process and that he would not put a hybrid embryo into a human womb. But he anticipated taking cells from it and inserting them into a human egg, which he said he believed would safely produce the clone of Cady that her parents wanted.

Justin St John, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Warwick, said this process would result in an embryo that still had both human and cow mitochondrial DNA (normally inherited from the mother). "Mitochondria are the generators of energy in our cells and mixing diverse populations of mitochondrial DNA would almost certainly result in the cells not functioning properly – a scenario that we definitely don't want," he said.

Others scientists dismissed the TV documentary as a further piece of attention-seeking by Zavos. "This whole affair shows a complete lack of responsibility," said Professor Azim Surani, Marshall-Walton professor of physiology and reproduction at the University of Cambridge.

"If true, Zavos has again failed to observe the universally accepted ban on human cloning, which was agreed because most of the resulting embryos from such animal experiments are abnormal. This is yet another episode designed to gain maximum publicity without performing rigorous animal experiments or presenting it for peer review in a scientific journal."

Professor Robert Winston, emeritus professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, was blunter. "I do not know of any credible evidence that suggests Dr Zavos can clone a human being. This seems to be yet another one of his claims to get repeated publicity," he said.

Professor Wolf Reik, head of the epigenetics and chromatin programme at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, said a successful clone would be no different from a naturally conceived identical twin. "But there are important ethical issues here that must be considered. For example, cloning a child who has died will create a genetically identical person; but it will not be the same child. This is most certainly not a way of bringing people back from the dead," he said.

[MountyBounty]

Poll: Americans high on Obama, U.S. direction

65 percent still say it's difficult for them and their families to get ahead

For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future. Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington.
Nobody knows how long the honeymoon will last, but Obama has clearly transformed the yes-we-can spirit of his candidacy into a tool of governance. His ability to inspire confidence — Obama's second book is titled "The Audacity of Hope" — has thus far buffered the president against the harsh political realities of two wars, a global economic meltdown and countless domestic challenges.

"He presents a very positive outlook," said Cheryl Wetherington, 35, an independent voter who runs a chocolate shop in Gardner, Kansas. "He's very well-spoken and very vocal about what direction should be taken." But other AP-GfK findings could signal trouble for Obama as he approaches his 100th day in office, April 29:

• While there is evidence that people feel more optimistic about the economy, 65 percent said it's difficult for them and their families to get ahead. More than one-third know of a family member who recently lost a job.
• More than 90 percent of Americans consider the economy an important issue, the highest ever in AP polling.
• Nearly 80 percent believe that the rising federal debt will hurt future generations, and Obama is getting mixed reviews at best for his handling of the issue.

And yet, the percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the right direction rose to 48 percent, up from 40 percent in February. Forty-four percent say the nation is on the wrong track.
Rare burst of optimism
Not since January 2004, shortly after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has an AP survey found more "right direction" than "wrong direction" respondents.

So far, Obama has defied the odds by producing a sustained trend toward optimism. It began with his election. But he is aware that his political prospects are directly linked to such numbers. If at the end of his term the public is no more assured that Washington is competent and accountable and that the nation is at least on the right track, his re-election prospects will be doubtful. "I will be held accountable," Obama said a few weeks into his presidency. "You know, I've got four years. ... If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition."
The AP-GfK poll suggests that 64 percent of the public approves of Obama's job performance, down just slightly from 67 percent in February. President George W. Bush's approval ratings hovered in the high 50s after his first 100 days in office.

But Obama also has become a somewhat polarizing figure, with just 24 percent of Republicans approving of his performance — down from 33 percent in February. Obama campaigned on a promise — just as Bush had — to end the party-first mind-set that breeds gridlock in Washington. Obama is not the first president who sought to tap the deep well of American optimism — the never-say-die spirit that Americans like to see in themselves.
Even as he briefly closed the nation's banks, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke in the first days of his presidency of the "confidence and courage" needed to fix the U.S. economy. "Together we cannot fail," he declared.
"When Obama came in," said D.T. Brown, 39, a Mount Vernon, Illinois, radio show host who voted against Obama, "it was just a breath of fresh air."
Others said their newfound optimism had nothing to do with Obama, but rather with an era of personal responsibility they believe has come with the economic meltdown.

[MountyBounty]

Obama legal team wants defendants' rights limited

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.
The administration's action — and several others — have disappointed civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, after the Democrat's call for change during the 2008 campaign.
Since taking office, Obama has drawn criticism for backing the continued imprisonment of enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial, invoking the "state secrets" privilege to avoid releasing information in lawsuits and limiting the rights of prisoners to test genetic evidence used to convict them.
The case at issue is Michigan v. Jackson, in which the Supreme Court said in 1986 that police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one, unless the attorney is present. The decision applies even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.
Anything police learn through such questioning cannot be used against the defendant at trial. The opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time.
The justices could decide as early as Friday whether they want to hear arguments on the issue as they wrestle with an ongoing case from Louisiana that involves police questioning of an indigent defendant that led to a murder confession and a death sentence.
The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said the 1986 decision "serves no real purpose" and offers only "meager benefits." The government said defendants who don't wish to talk to police don't have to and that officers must respect that decision. But it said there is no reason a defendant who wants to should not be able to respond to officers' questions.
At the same time, the administration acknowledges that the decision "only occasionally prevents federal prosecutors from obtaining appropriate convictions."
The administration's legal move is a reminder that Obama, who has moved from campaigning to governing, now speaks for federal prosecutors.
The administration's position assumes a level playing field, with equally savvy police and criminal suspects, lawyers on the other side of the case said. But the protection offered by the court in Stevens' 1986 opinion is especially important for vulnerable defendants, including the mentally and developmentally disabled, addicts, juveniles and the poor, the lawyers said.
"Your right to assistance of counsel can be undermined if somebody on the other side who is much more sophisticated than you are comes and talks to you and asks for information," said Sidney Rosdeitcher, a New York lawyer who advises the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
Stephen B. Bright, a lawyer who works with poor defendants at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said the administration's position "is disappointing, no question."
Bright said that poor defendants' constitutional right to a lawyer, spelled out by the high court in 1965, has been neglected in recent years. "I would hope that this administration would be doing things to shore up the right to counsel for poor people accused of crimes," said Bright, whose group joined with the Brennan Center and other rights organizations in a court filing opposing the administration's position.
Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and former FBI Director William Sessions are among 19 one-time judges and prosecutors urging the court to leave the decision in place because it has been incorporated into routine police practice and establishes a rule on interrogations that is easy to follow.
Eleven states also are echoing the administration's call to overrule the 1986 case.
Justice Samuel Alito first raised the prospect of overruling the decision at arguments in January over the rights of Jesse Montejo, the Louisiana death row inmate.
Montejo's lawyer, Donald Verrilli, urged the court not to do it. Since then, Verrilli has joined the Justice Department, but played no role in the department's brief.

[Dickie4:20]

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Campaign like a Democrat, trade like a Republican


A truly disturbing bit of economic news has come from Obama’s new trade representative Ron Kirk. He has stated that it is the intention of the Obama Adm. to go ahead with the trade deals brokered by the Bush Adm. with Panama, Korea and Columbia. They also intend to revive talks with the WTO that broke down last July over agricultural commodities. Remember not being able to buy rice? That’s what you get with "free trade".

Obama and Kirk are making all the usual vague promises about protecting American workers. Apparently everything Obama said during the campaign about protecting American workers from these destructive "free" trade deals has now been "out sourced".

To recover from their lost decade; Japan quietly rebuilt its domestic industries. Japan’s government does have a huge debt load even compared to the US, but the difference is that their debt is entirely investments from their retirees. Japan doesn’t owe trillions to China and Saudi Arabia. Japan’s standard of living continues to improve as ours declines. Japan protects its economy from "free trade"; China, India and Europe do as well.

We cannot trade our way out of the mess we are in; we cannot live on a service economy (giving each other haircuts); we cannot rebuild by padding the balance sheets of insolvent banks. We need to make the things we use or accept a third world standard of living.

[AK Infinity]

YouTube - The Worst Media Moments of Obama's...

[Dickie4:20]

Think Progress » Wilkerson on investigating or prosecuting Cheney and Rumsfeld: If the public wants it, ‘let’s do it.’

[aaronman]

Sir Michael Caine warns further taxes will make him move back to America

The Oscar-winning star of films such as Zulu, Alfie, Get Carter and The Italian Job, spoke of his anger at the increase in income tax to 50 per cent for the country's highest earners, announced by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, in the 2009 budget.

He said that the announcement had prompted him to seriously consider moving back to America, where he lived during the 1970s and 1980s as a tax exile.

"Tax got to 82 per cent [in the 1970s] and I thought this was kind of unfair," he said. "Also, I see... that the government has taken it up to 50 per cent and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America.

"I will not pay the Government more than I get. No way, ever. So they've reached their limit with me. That's the lot."

Sir Michael, 76, who is worth an estimated £45 million and who currently lives in between homes in Surrey and Chelsea, said that he believed many other figures from the entertainment industry would also follow suit and that Britain would lose many of its most talented stars.

"That's what will happen to a lot of people," he said. "You know how much they [the government] made out of that high taxation all those years ago?
"Nothing and they sent a mass of incredible brains to America. Yes they did. The most stupid act you've ever seen in your life.

"We've got three and a half million layabouts laying about on benefits and I'm 76 getting up at six o'clock in the morning to go to work to keep them.
"Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not to keep sticking it on."

He also spoke of his frustration with the Government, which he described as "rotten" and said that he was "not a fan" of the Prime Minister.

"A political party that's in too long is like a piece of meat – if it's there too long it will go rotten and they've gone rotten and they've got to go," he said.
"The point about him [Gordon Brown] is he's never been elected by anybody. I'm supposed to be in a country where I get the chance to elect someone and I've been around here at the most dangerous of times led by a man who's never been elected by anybody."

[Dickie4:20]

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Death from Corporate Farming, even if you don't eat what they sell


Remember when the BCF was trying to scare everybody with the Bird Flu? There was really no chance of Bird Flu ever developing into a human pandemic. Virus can’t easily jump from species to species since they are such a simple organism that they cannot digest common sugars and are dependent on predigested sugars found in the bloodstream. These sugars are very different in any species' that aren’t closely related. Swine Flu versions have a much easier time making the jump to humans and if it does this enough times the chances of virulent strain (one that is completely adapted to human blood sugar) developing is fairly high.

This is an H1N1 Flu, the same type as the deadly 1918 or Spanish Flu that killed about 50 million with about a 2.5% death rate although some put the actual death toll higher than that. The Mexican outbreak appears so far to have a death toll of as high as 7% but this number could be reduced if total number of unreported "mild" cases turns out to be higher. This strain appears to have originated at a Smithfield factory hog farm in Mexico where the shear number of hogs in one place was able to produce a blended virus containing North American human, swine, avian flu components and swine flu components from Asia. Previously this has only been know to occur in South China where millions of pigs, ducks and people live in close quarters with no proper sanitation.

The reason these H1N1 strains are so dangerous compared to the other types of Flu that go around all the time is that they tend to trigger an allergy like immune response that causes the lungs to fill with fluid. That is what kills you and not the virus. Ironically the more young and healthy you are; the more at risk you are for sudden death. The 1918 strain was capable of killing in a few hours.

The government of Mexico’s response of closing all public places including churches is the only effective course of action. In 1918 people would flock to all day prayer services that promised sanctuary from the evil flu. Many people died in their seats and then all the rest being infected would spread the disease far and wide.

Influenza is characterized as a very "sloppy" virus, it tears itself apart into eight pieces every time it reproduces by division then reassembles. This means trillions times trillions of chances to mutate plus it tends to pick up scraps of DNA from its host as it does this. This is why the US strain is probably milder than the Mexico City Strain that is killing people. If the deadly version can be contained while the milder version of this strain continues to spread; enough people will be naturally immunized to stop the Killer Pandemic in its tracks. Hopefully.

[Dickie4:20]

Switch sides, Sen. Specter


Looks like Sen. Specter listened.

[AK Infinity]

Originally Posted by Dickie4:20

Switch sides, Sen. Specter


Looks like Sen. Specter listened.

Awesome, I was just about to post on this. Could it get any worse for the Republicans?

[aaronman]

Originally Posted by AK Infinity

Awesome, I was just about to post on this. Could it get any worse for the Republicans?

The neocons are returning to roost!

Please, take more of them back!

[Dickie4:20]

Originally Posted by AK Infinity

Awesome, I was just about to post on this. Could it get any worse for the Republicans?

It just goes to show the Republicans cannot win in the Northeast anymore.

[Deutschbag]

Good bye checks and balances!

[Dickie4:20]

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Things that don't work


World markets slumped today as fears increased about the spread of Pandemic Flu. The World Health Organization issued a statement saying that travel bans don’t work. Also from the list of things that don’t work. Anti-viral drugs turned out to be totally useless against the Asian Bird Flu that is very similar to the current strain. Since the reports appeared in the media immediately that it does work against this strain and such information could not possibly be available from Mexico; you should assume it to be no more than corporate hype.

There is also a problem with counting on a vaccine; there was an in depth study published in the British Medical Journal Lancet that called into question the effectiveness of Flu vaccines. It seems no study that these researchers would characterize as scientifically sound has ever been done on Flu vaccine and the death rate each year moves up and down completely independent of the number of people vaccinated. The Bush Crime Family response to the study was to authorize vaccine for younger patients and boost the PR budget. No new studies were funded. Not all viruses respond to vaccination. While it sounds like it should work; why have they never done a study to prove it?

Mexico City is considering a total shut down in order to keep the outbreak from mushrooming beyond their ability to deal with it. This may be the only effective course of action but this requires a level of control that would be nearly impossible to maintain. There are stories from 1918 about towns that attempted to shut themselves off from outside contact and were defeated by things like the mailman coming in. The Flu virus is capable of living 72 hours on a dry surface in cool weather. It would probably take a total quarantine of three weeks and most people don’t have the canned goods to last that long not to mention the problems with services. Proper planning and preparedness would have made this possible but after eight years of the Bush Crime Family we are screwed.