| Year | US | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 32 | 22 | 54 |
| 2008 | 155 | 139 | 294 |
| 2007 | 117 | 115 | 232 |
| 2006 | 98 | 93 | 191 |
| 2005 | 99 | 31 | 130 |
| 2004 | 52 | 6 | 58 |
| 2003 | 48 | 9 | 57 |
| 2002 | 49 | 20 | 69 |
| 2001 | 12 | 0 | 12 |
| Total | 662 | 435 | 1097 |
No one kows the full potential of stem cells, but what if scientists might be able to figure out a way to use them to cure Alzheimer's? Nancy Reagan was delighted at Obama's move precisely because she thinks it might, and she saw what the disease did to the former President.
What you might not realize is that if that turns out to be true, Bush will have destroyed millions of lives. Because about half of all those seniors who live past 85 get Alzheimers. Baby boomers are likely to live in large numbers into an advanced age. And as it is, an estimated 10 percent will fall victim to Alzheimer's.
In fact, by 2010 there will be nearly 500,000 new cases a year, and in the foreseeable future there will be a million new cases a year. That is, if Bush delayed the research 8 years, and if a cure really does come from that quarter, Bush will have condemned at least 4 million persons to the debilitating disease.
Although some alternatives to embryonic stem cells have been explored, we won't know without a lot of experimentation whether they really are useful alternatives. Science is, uh, about experimentation.
For some important number of persons, the discovery may come 8 years too late. Because of Bush. When the Federal government frowns on research, it has a chilling effect on it even if some private concerns try to continue with it. I personally think we should change the name of Alzheimer's to "Bush's."
The stem cells to be used for this research come from the 600,000 embryos every year that are produced in the US for in vitro fertilization attempts, and which are discarded anyway. Although some on the right say that these eggs can be implanted in women and raised as children, only 60 a year or so are "adopted." That means that all those religious persons who say that they believe that human life begins at conception are hypocrites, standing idly by and allowing a virtual holocaust to occur annually, since they are not adopting these frozen embryos and raising them. They also don't put filters on their toilets to try to save the millions of embryos that prematurely detach from the uterus wall in very early miscarriages, some of which scientists might be able to somehow save if the proper precautions were taken. I mean, if millions of adults were drowned in toilets annually, wouldn't we put in special safety procedures to stop it from happening?
I think the likelihood is that the strange new doctrine of life beginning at conception is mainly intended to keep women barefoot and pregnant, since no obvious heroic measures are actually being taken by any significant number of believers to save the embryos.
The belief that life begins at conception is recent, irrational, and has frankly highly impractical consequences.
Last week some Church members began e-mail chains calling for cancellations of subscriptions to AOL, which, like HBO, is owned by Time Warner. Certainly such a boycott by hundreds of thousands of computer-savvy Latter-day Saints could have an economic impact on the company. Individual Latter-day Saints have the right to take such actions if they choose.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an institution does not call for boycotts. Such a step would simply generate the kind of controversy that the media loves and in the end would increase audiences for the series.
Lawrence O'Donnell on Mormonism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aWjIpkxcak&eurl=http://www.americablog.com/2009/03/mormons-float-boycott-of-aol-over-hbos.html
The top Republican in the US House of Representatives urged President Barack Obama to "reevaluate" his decision to lift limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
"The president has rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us," charged Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Dividing our nation?
Favor 73
Oppose 19
Unsure 9
Sorry, Mr. Boner, but the Bush years are over - no more governing to appease the furthest extremes of the Republican Party.
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A new hero for the compelled conception movement
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International
Dear Fr. Euteneuer,
There is no shortage of sinners in the story of the nine-year-old Brazilian girl who received an abortion: there's the little girl who had the unholy procedure; the doctors who advised her to abort the baby citing her smallness; and the OBY/GYN who actually performed the abortion. Thankfully, the Holy Catholic Church punished each of these sinners by excommunicating them.
But there is also a hero in this sad story. He's the one person who was not excommunicated for the part he played in the scandal. I'm referring to the father of both the little girl and her aborted child.
Yes, I know most people consider him to be a monster for impregnating his nine-year-old daughter, but they're also the same people who are disgusted with the Church for excommunicating everyone but him. I think we can change their minds, and by doing so, gain their support for the work you're doing for the Church. All we need to do, is promote him as a hero of the anti-contraception movement.
Inasmuch as he impregnated his daughter, it's obvious that he accepts the Pope's teachings on contraception (I suspect that's why he wasn't excommunicated--what other explanation could there be?). You need to exploit that and use his fame to your advantage.
Think about it. He could be the "Joe the Plumber" of the anti-contraception movement. The compelled conception folks would love a man who refused to violate God's law by wearing a condom when he raped his young daughter. He's already obviously a hit with the clergy.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen.JC Christian
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Utah embraces Marxism: allows citizens to simply walk into bars and order drinks!
For those people who agree with Groucho Marx that they would never want to be in a club that would have someone like them for a member, your wishes have been answered. Utah has made a major change that has beer drinkers raising a glass around the world. Utah has long required that anyone who wants a drink would have to fill out an application to join a bar as a "private club." This is a bit of an barrier for casual drinkers and certainly a barrier for inebriates. Now, bars will be open their doors to the drinking public, admittedly a small percentage in Morman-dominated state.
The elimination of 40-year-old system is designed to boost the state's $6 billion-a-year tourism industry and was requested by the Utah Travel Industry Coalition.
Under the prior rule, the bar would charge $4 for a new member with a membership that would last three weeks or they could pay $12 for an annual membership.
Roughly 60 percent of the state's population belongs to the Mormon church and roughly 90 percent of the legislature are Mormons.
Story here.
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Global D-Nile
James Inhofe's chum, Marc Morano, and the Heartland Institute are holding a conference where they will bring together global warming deniers to prove that there is no global warming. Sponsored by ExxonMobil and a horde of other conservative corporate travelers, it should be a scene of fun and frolic. After all, they know the world is entering an extended cold spell. (Perhaps this is how the next ice age starts?) This conference follows on their first conference on global warming denial held in 2008 where they proved conclusively that the sun orbits the earth and that you can make gold from lead.
It's amazing how much money can be found to fund this sort of stuff.
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Goodbye, White Fang!
Although Sarah Palin didn't get the chance to shoot the nation's wolves from an upgraded White House helicopter, she will still get the last laugh as Obama decides to pursue Shrubya's rancher-friendly policy of delisting wolves from the Northern Rockies from the endangered species list. Although I had thought Obama was shaping up as a Lyndon Johnson, he is now reminding me of Bill Clinton, who pulled the rug out from under Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's attempts to make ranchers and miners pay free market rates for their exploitation of public lands.
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I see that the media and the right have settled on the notion that Barack Obama is expending too much energy in too many directions:
Yesterday's edition [of Mark Halperin's daily video blog post for Time] was especially illustrative of how political analysis often goes horribly awry.
Halperin was joined by MSNBC's Louis Burgdorf, and they agreed about the "big story." As Halperin explained, "All this dialog, this debate, about whether Obama's trying to do too much." ...
The meme is steadily becoming a favorite of the media establishment -- conservatives have been pushing the "distraction" line pretty aggressively, and reporters have been picking up on it...
Glad to have that clarified, especially with regard to the conservatives. You see, a month ago, when Obama had the nerve to spend a weekend at Camp David and then tell reporters he looked forward to spending time there in the summer, the wingnuttosphere declared him a pathetic slacker:
A Freeper: "Dang that man-child is lazy!"
A righty blogger: " ...you know how hard it is to go out every night to a ball, go to parties, and make a speech here and there. It's not like he should be trying to do, you know, real work."
A libertarian blogger: "President Barack Obama was in office less than three weeks and he has already taken his first vacation?!? And I thought I heard him say we were in the middle of an unprecedented crisis that required immediate action. I guess that means immediate action after he has some R & R"
A white supremacist message board participant: ...Er, you probably don't want me to go there.
So now he's not a shiftless clock-watcher -- he's doing too much. Though if he dials it down, I'm sure he'll go right back to being shiftless again.
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A gaffe in Washington, as they say, is when a pol accidentally tells the truth. In an article in the National Journal (subscription-only), House GOP Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry (N.C.), admitted that House Republicans' campaign of opposition to Democrats' anti-recession policies is motivated purely by politics: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/03/10/top-rep-says-gop-will-risk-us-failure-to-win-back-house/
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According to a new poll from Rasmussen, Republicans see their party as leaderless.
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"Crawford" tells the story of a town, and a nation ruined by Bush: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/03/09/6489/
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Iraq takes banking advice from Citibank: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/10/citibank-iraq/
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South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), who is considering a run for president in 2012, "will be sending President Obama a letter in the next few days asking for permission to apply a quarter of South Carolina's stimulus money, approximately $700 million, to paying down state debt rather than using the money to fund government programs." If Obama rejects Sanford's request, the governor will not seek the $700 million in stimulus funds which are under his discretion, possibly causing the state legislature to override his efforts. Sanford's move follows the attempt by Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), another 2012 contender, to reject $90 million in stimulus funding that would have benefited 25,000 unemployed Louisiana residents.
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Turdblossom: the Deciderer was kept out of the decision-making process when his misadministration finalized the bank bail-out strategery.
He considers this a good thing??
Bonus: "during the same interview, Rove declared that the Obama administration has 'got to start accepting responsibility for the outcome of their decisions'."
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Obama to sign massive $410 billion dollar spending bill today that he'll get the blame for even though IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE LAST FALL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/10/congress-approves-massive_n_173702.html
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