Singer Don Ho Saved By Stem Cells

"Legendary Hawaiian crooner Don Ho says he could barely walk, let alone sing, and would have been a "goner" without an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart earlier this month in Thailand."

"The 75-year-old singer underwent a new treatment that hasn't been approved in the United States. It involves multiplying stem cells taken from his blood and injecting them into his heart in hopes of strengthening it."

"The experimental procedure he underwent was developed by TheraVitae Co., which has offices in Thailand and laboratories in Israel, where Ho's stem cells were sent to be multiplied. The therapy was supervised by Dr. Amit Patel, a heart surgeon from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center."

Unless you're at least as old as I am, you've never heard of him. I hadn't heard anything about him myself for years, because it seems he retired 40 years ago. Boy, I wish I could've retired when I was 35 like he did.

Anyway, his celebrity is not why I posted this. Reading the article brought to mind three issues, all leading up to the fact that he was forced to seek treatment outside the U.S., just to save his life.

The first is the fact that stem cell research has gotten such a bad rap in this country, primarily due to ignorance of the research and it's potential, as well as the influence of religious objections to a small portion of the research involving aborted fetuses. It didn't help matters to have the President side with the self-rightious crowd, effectively slowing down medical progress. Like it or not, this society was created to cater to multiple religious cultures as well as the non-religious. We can't afford to allow one religious opinion to dictate medical or governmental policy. Too often lately, upon being exposed to technical, scientific information, instead of learning more about it and educating ourselves on exactly what's going on, we fall back on listening to religious rhetoric that would have us all revert to the middle-ages, which is less mentally taxing.

The second issue is the result of all those foreign doctors that have been traning in the U.S. over the years. Many have returned home taking their expertise with them, to help their own people. Many have decided to go home because their own people need them more than we do. Places like Thailand and India. Both those countries are now boasting of first-class medical facilities with American trained doctors. They are also boasting of a sharp raise in American patients too. Because everything is so much cheaper in countries like those, they've managed to start a growing medical institution that will rival that of the U.S. one day, but at only a fraction of the cost to the patients. In fact, it's so cheap, that many Americans are taking advantage of those facilities, because to do so here would bankrupt them. They're finding that inspite of very cheap prices for everything, even major procedures, they get access to the best medical equipment and trained personel that money can buy. They can also get access to procedures and medicine that isn't allowed yet, or banned in the U.S.

And that leads into the third issue............

This is why it's so important to get a grip on medical costs here. It doesn't matter at all how state-of-the-art we are in health care, if no one can afford it, or get treatment that has already saved countless lives in other countries, here at home. We need to purge agencies like the FDA and others that have essentually become partners with the very corporations they're supposed to monitor and regulate. We can no longer tolerate the excusses for the extremely high cost of even basic health care. You would think, that with all the technology we have, that we should be among the healthiest people in the world, but it's just the opposite. Along with our marketing-induced lifestyles, all common ailments, are now being labeled as diseases, which has led to all those ads you see, that if you've payed attention, don't claim to cure anymore, but instead instruct usage for the rest of your lives. With something as simple as heartburn, you're now told to take brand-X daily, not just when and if you need it. Just watching TV ads over the last several years, you can see how the drug companies are intent on having each and every one of us taking at least one (expensive) presciption drug on a regular basis for the rest of our lives. It's either that, or we go back to using less expensive, or even free, remedies that have worked for thousands of years, that required neither insurance, nor a second mortgage.

Funny how a little article can get me started....

EU-wide warrant over 'CIA kidnap'

"An Italian court has issued Europe-wide arrest warrants for 22 suspected CIA agents accused of helping to kidnap a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003."

"The suspects are accused of abducting Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, without Italian permission, and flying him to Egypt for interrogation."

"The new warrants allow for the suspects' detention anywhere in the 25-nation EU, a prosecutor said."

"The authorities had already issued arrest orders within Italy."

"The BBC's defence correspondent, Rob Watson, describes the case as one of the best documented alleged cases of the CIA's policy of extraordinary rendition."

Despite this strong stand, nothing is likely to come from it. It says they aren't even going to ask for extradtion. It would be a waste of time anyway. The thing about our being the worlds' policeman (or neighborhood bully, depending on your perspective), is that we don't have to abide by any rules or laws of any peasant jurisdiction. That's been the attitude of our government for over a hundred years, ever since we began carrying a big stick. In fact, I doubt that rendition would've raised much fuss in times past (especially since the policy was invented long before we ever knew Bush existed). The only reason it's getting so much attention in Europe is because of all the other things this administration has been caught doing, and lying about. Never mind about legalities, if not for our almost total loss of credibility in the eyes of the world, things like this wouldn't get shoved back in our faces.

Britain to monitor every car journey

"Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years."

"Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years."

Well how would you like to live like that, knowing that you're being tracked everywhere you drive? I know I don't. I'm sure it's "for their own good" though, and they should feel a lot safer knowing Big Brother is watching over them.

Here in the U.S., city after city has been adding camera networks (often citing British cam statistics), though not nearly as extensive as the one London's had for years. Regardless of the excuse given for them, they usually tend to turn up in cities strapped for money. In mine, they've just implemented our first series of traffic cams, about a dozen so far, begun earlier this month, and even though they've repeatedly said it wasn't done for the money, fines from those cameras jumped to several hundred dollars more than they would be if the violation had occured in view of an officer. After the first week, they hadn't mention how many violators they caught, instead they were bragging about how many thousand of dollars the city earned from the fines, with a sizable chunk going to the company that runs them, of course.

Here and across the country they're using security concerns as an excuse for what's obviously a money-making scheme for budget-busted communities. So far, their growing use hasn't been widely promoted as an anti-terrorist program, yet, but I suspect that with the growing use of OnStar-type GPS systems built into new vehicles, such wide-spread use of street cams like Britons', may not even be necessary here to keep us under surveillance. I'm sure that if the government wants, it can simply tap into the satellite signals, just as they do for all those cell phones you people are using. Nope, I don't have a cell, nor do I have Ostar, or anything else with tracking capability. The thought of being clandestinely tracked, just creeps me out, even if it's "for my own good". Besides, with some of the things I've said online, I'd be surprised if I wasn't already on a "watch list" somewhere.

I don't know about Briton, but I believe there are enough examples here of the fact that cameras no more prevent crime (or terrorism, as Londoners learned), than does the death penalty prevent murder. All the major TV networks here have shows designed around video clips from surveillence cameras, as well as news shows that daily present videos of convienience store robberies, and even school shootings. Do any of those cams "make us safe"? No, if anything, they just make money, feed the authorities thirst for control, and the publics' voyeurism.

Cost of War - National Priorities Project

"In April, 2003 an intergenerational team of Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD created costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts."

On this page you'll find a running counter of the cost of war with Iraq. You can also compare that cost to that of other programs where the money could've been better spent, such as.........

PRE-SCHOOL
KIDS' HEALTH
PUBLIC EDUCATION
COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS
PUBLIC HOUSING
WORLD HUNGER
AIDS EPIDEMIC
WORLD IMMUNIZATION

This site gives the HTML code of a counter you can paste into your own webpages. I added it to my side-bar so you can see how much we're spending at any given moment during your visit.

U.S. Warns Turkey Of Air Strike On Iran And Syria

In an overlooked story, the Turkish press reported last week that CIA Director Porter Goss went to Ankara recently and informed the Turkish government that Iran already has nuclear weapons and they should be ready for "a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria".

Yes, it looks like we're on the verge of extending our war-weary military even further. We've known the government's been eyeing Syria and Iran as a targets for some time, and it looks like we're getting even closer. Only this time, nukes could well be used, and most likely, by us first.

Somehow, even if Iran does have nukes, I don't like the idea of having to go into another war, after having been, and continuing to be, lied to about the last. I only hope our legislators feel the same, and puts some breaks on this down-hill slide.

Rep. Conyers' Iraq Report

Here's a follow-up to my previous post regarding CensureBush.org.

Here you'll find Congressman John Conyers report on the conduct (or I should say 'misconduct') of the Bush administration involving Iraq, that preceded his House Resolutions of Censure on the President and vice President.

The Constitution in Crisis

Executive Summary

"This Minority Report has been produced at the request of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. He made this request in the wake of the President's failure to respond to a letter submitted by 122 Members of Congress and more than 500,000 Americans in July of this year asking him whether the assertions set forth in the Downing Street Minutes were accurate. Mr. Conyers asked staff, by year end 2005, to review the available information concerning possible misconduct by the Bush Administration in the run up to the Iraq War and post-invasion statements and actions, and to develop legal conclusions and make legislative and other recommendations to him. In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration."

[note that the links for the reports are PDF]

CensureBush.org

"CensureBush.org Campaign Launched in Response to New House Legislation"

"The AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, an alliance of over 100 grassroots organizations, has launched a new campaign called CensureBush.org in order to support new legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers that would censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to investigate the Administration's possible crimes and make recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment."

It looks as though Bushs' lies are starting to catch up with him. After having just read about Rep. Conyers' motion to censure the President and Vice President, at The Raw Story , I find this site. It's got tons of info, along with links to stories from other sites, all aimed at what I've considered for a long time now to be crimes that should warrant prison-time for His Majesty (though that's certainly too much to ask), or at least exile to whatever equivalent to the Isle of Elba we can find.

I'm glad the motion includes the Cheney. People have long been wanting Bush impeached, but that would leave someone (IMO) even worse to elevate to the highest office. If Bush goes, Cheney has to go with him. But remember, as was mentioned in the Raw Story article, there'll be no censure or impeachment as long as the Republicans retain the majority. So this is where the importance of next years' elections really come into play, if there's to be any justice meted out to probably the most lying criminal we've ever had as President.

"H.Res.636 and H.Res.637 would censure, respectively, Bush and Cheney for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that they and others in the Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of the Administration, for failing to adequately account for certain misstatements they made regarding the war, and – in the case of President Bush – for failing to comply with Executive Order 12958."

H RES 636 PDF
H RES 637 PDF

I can think of other crimes, like Bushs' Snoopgate, but these will do for a start.

Miniature Golf Course on Terror Target List

"San Jose officials are still wondering how a miniature golf course landed on a federal list of the most attractive terrorist targets."

Here's another one of those tiny little local news items, that happens all too often across the country, that when taken as whole, can expose real problems with this so-called War on Terror.

As soon as local officials found out it was on the list, a police officer in charge of "critical infrastructure assessment", removed it. What's troubling about it is that their Congresswoman, a "ranking minority member of a House subcommittee on terrorism risk assessment", can't even find out if it has indeed been removed. The story doesn't say how it was found out to begin with, but you would think that this Congresswoman would have full access to the secret list the golf course was on, considering her position, but apparently not.

This is a big problem with Homeland Security and the War on Terror; too secretive. Those who have been tasked with monitoring and overseeing policies and activities conducted pertaining to anti-terrorism, always seem to be left out of the loop. I can see a point in not revealing to the general public details of anti-terrorist planning, but city, state, and federal elected officials should have complete knowledge of everything going on, and why. We need someone to hold accountable for any policies or actions that are in error or are abuses of authority, and we all know that enforcement officials and bureaucrats don't like to be questioned or corrected. They give lip-service to being public servants, but they don't feel themselves accountable, which is why our elected officials must be completely informed. At least they're obliged to pay attention to public concerns, if for no other reason than a desire for re-election.

Of course, they could all just be faking cluelessness. Not all elected officials have the balls to lie like Bush, so ignorance could just be a convenient way of avoiding responsibility.

Lack of balance at C-SPAN’s Washington Journal

"Since 1979, C-SPAN has provided an invaluable service to viewers with its no-frills coverage of congressional hearings, press briefings, demonstrations, book readings and other political events. By presenting public affairs with a minimal intrusion by hosts or reporters, C-SPAN has gained a reputation as a frictionless conveyer of raw political information to the public."

"Washington Journal’s reputation for maintaining a low-key atmosphere for serious discussion is matched by its image of fairness. The New York Times (12/15/96) once described C-SPAN as “the politically neutral public-affairs cable channel,” and NPR’s Mike Pesca (On the Media, 4/6/02) declared that balance was the key to the network’s success: “This bare-bones, aggressively evenhanded format is why C-SPAN was founded and probably why 8 million people a week watch Washington Journal."

However..........

"Despite C-SPAN’s stated goals, Extra!’s study found Washington Journal skewing rightward, favoring Republican and right-of-center interview subjects by considerable margins over Democratic and left-of-center guests. The study also found that women, people of color and public interest viewpoints were substantially underrepresented."

The article goes on to list all the results, and I have to admit I was surprised. I haven't been able to catch the show for a while, but it seems it no longer has anything resembling a balance. I hope this doesn't spill over to it's other shows.

I loved being able to watch entire speeches on that network because it afforded me the opportunity to see just how badly the general media was on reporting, commenting on, and debating, public speeches. I was amazed at how often speeches, having been reduced to 15 second sound-bites by the news, would be reported as meaning something entirely different than what was actually said. With C-SPAN I was able to get the full context, and would often wonder what the hell the talking-heads were watching while the speeches were on, that they'd later get them so wrong and totally miss the points being made. With the exception of Presidential speeches, you can't listen to or watch others such as Congressional debates and Senate hearings, not to mention a whole host of others including even the British Parliment, in full, without C-SPAN, unless you happen to attend them.

It looks as though even C-SPAN has become vulnerable to media bias. Now I'll be wondering what speeches they might decide not to show, in favor of right-wing points of view.

Bush's "Need for Speed" Argument Runs Into the Truth

"In his news conference today, President Bush invoked the need for speed in the War on Terror as the reason he is illegally ordering the National Security Agency to conduct domestic surveillance without search warrants. Sounds like a compelling argument, right? In the fast-moving world of information age technology, we can't really afford to make our law enforcers take the time to go get a warrant, right?"

"It's true – Bush might have had a point, except for one tiny little detail he refused to discuss at his press conference: namely, the fact that current law is so lax that he is already permitted to get a search warrant 72 hours after surveillance is conducted. Put another way, the law currently allows Bush to order surveillance as fast as he possibly can, and allows surveillance operations to take place immediately. The only thing that is required is a court-issued warrant that can be ussed retroactively within 72 hours of when the operation started. And, as I've noted earlier, the special court that grants these warrants has only rejected 4 government requests in a quarter century, meaning getting a warrant is about as easy as it gets...that is, as long as you aren't trying to do something wholly outrageous and unrelated to the War on Terror."

You know, I was going to just let pass todays press conference, as well as his speech yesterday, But then I said what the hell.

The above quote speaks of just one of the outright lies he told today, and the writer also points out how he simply refused to acknowledge actual facts when they were shoved in his face. He just repeats the lie over and over. But this wasn't the only lie he told. In fact, nothing he's said in the last two days can even remotely be called truthful.

He continued to claim others had the same intelligence on Iraq as he did, long after that had been proven to be a lie. What has also long been exposed, is the fact that he knew long before we invaded Iraq, that there were no WMD, no ties to "the terrorists", and no threat to the U.S. from Iraq whatsoever. He continued to claim "the Democrats" had no initial problems with the Patriot Act, but now they want to get rid of it and leave us vulnerable. Well as far as that goes, it was widely reported at the time, that he all but ordered the Legislators to pass it in a hurry, and not to even read it. They did as he commanded, so they are as much to blame as he. Though after they passed it, they finally took time to read it, and saw what they'd done, and began objecting to it almost immediately. But it was too late. I don't really think they'd have had much of a choice but to pass it anyway, since the climate of the time, as well as threats from the White House that they would be labeled as unpatriotic and soft on terrorism, would've put them in one hell of a position, as most Americans were still cowering under their beds from 9/11. For some reason he insists that his opponants want to kill the Act, even after many have said that they simply want to have some civil liberties added, and not allow the whole thing to be made permanent. No matter what anyone says, he always pretends to hear something different.

Under ordinary circumstances, someone who claimed to be safeguarding our freedoms and liberties, would not have a problem with allowing Congress and the courts to oversee the methods used to fight this so-call War of Terror, instead of just telling us to trust him. There would be no reason not to allow sunshine clauses in the Act, so that when those extraordinary Police State powers are no longer needed to fight the 'specific' terrorists who attacked us, they could just be allowed to expire. If need be, they could be simply renewed until the threat has passed, and should another emergency arise after the Act has expired, it could be brought back and reinstated.

But that would only make sense if we're faced only with the threats posed by Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, Bush can't reveal the true nature of the threat to America. Through a consistant string of his actions, that bare no relation to what he says, he's making it very clear that, having no respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, or the intelligence of the American people (not to mention the world), he intends to follow the neocon blueprint for American domination, and to make sure there's total submission here at home.

Hmm, I'd promised myself I'd let his last two speechs (ie; lies) pass, without bothering to respond to the same tired crap he keeps spewing. But alas, it was not to be. At least I didn't go over each and every lie he just restated. But I think I'd better quit now, before I do........

Greetings from Idiot America

Welcome to your new Eden.

Welcome to Idiot America.

LET'S TAKE A TOUR, shall we? For the sake of time, we'll just cover the last year or so. A federally funded abstinence program suggests that HIV can be transmitted through tears. An Alabama legislator proposes a bill to ban all books by gay authors. The Texas House passes a bill banning suggestive cheerleading. And nobody laughs at any of it, or even points out that, in the latter case, having Texas ban suggestive cheerleading is like having Nebraska ban corn. James Dobson, a prominent conservative Christian spokesman, compares the Supreme Court to the Ku Klux Klan. Pat Robertson, another prominent conservative preacher, says that federal judges are a more serious threat to the country than is Al Qaeda and, apparently taking his text from the Book of Gambino, later sermonizes that the United States should get with it and snuff the democratically-elected president of Venezuela.

That isn't the begining of the article, because the begining might lull you into thinking this is just another poke at Intelligent Designers. In fact, it ranges through ID, faith-based politics, media, terrorism, Iraq, Katrina, and yes, even Bush is in there too.

It's a long interesting read, but only to those who probably already figured out what's wrong in this country. The simple premiss is that those who have long been relegated to the fringes of society for their lunatic ideas, have now taken the forefront, leading hordes of uneducated, easily manipulated masses. The dumbing-down of and to Americans, has resulted in a series of social conflicts beween reasoned intellect, and faith-based gut feelings. It demonstrates that at one time, we held scientific expertise in high esteem, but that today, everyone is accepted as an "expert", where all ideas, no matter how outragous and unprovable (or long proven wrong), are equal to proven facts. It blames us for having an attitude where thinking for ones self, is not a cherished passtime as much as it used to be.

I'm no historian, though I do consider lessons from the past of paramount importance, but I can think of no society throughout history, that benefitted from promoting ignorance over logic and reason. In fact, it usually signals the begining of a rapid decline that leaves a society open to a dark age for which it may never recover, if not reversed in time.