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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Aug. 24, 2006 at 12:04 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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37 Comments
The 21st Street Business Association has sent out a survey to its members, asking them about possible harassment by city inspectors.The survey was precipitated by a July 19 incident in which a city inspector allegedly called for police backup at a flea market because of reports someone might have a taco on the premisis.Four police cruisers responded. The picture was in Tiempos.Your thoughts on a) if there is indeed a problem, and b) where is the rest of the media on this?
Doesn’t sound that controversial to me.
Here’s some controversy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/science/24stem.html?th&emc=th
Seem’s we’ve found a way to study stem cells without destroying embryos, and our glorious leader will still keep us from funding this research.
On a related note, when my Father is able to use his computer again, (he uses a dictation program) he expressed interest in joining the WE blog crowd here.I believe it would be interesting to hear about this issue from people who would benefit from this research, him being one of them.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/08/foundations_of_.html#more
I. On the Verge … Every four years the American Society of Civil Engineers grades the nation’s infrastructure. The group looks at 15 categories, from aviation to bridges, from waste water to public parks. Last year they handed out a D, down from the D+ in 2001. The report noted different problems in every sector, but a few kept popping up almost across the board: A growing population, and growing demand that is overtaxing aging, inadequate systems.
II. Everything Old… In some ways, America’s low-grade infrastructure is to be expected. Much of the physical stock we rely on today was built either under the public works programs of the Great Depression or in the boom following World War II. …
Fixing up the roads and highways we have is not enough. Back in 1982 there were 232 million people in the country. Now we’re about to pass 300 million. There’s also increased international trade and movement of goods within the country. That means more and more commercial trucks prowling the interstates at all hours. Whether you’re talking about seaports, airports, railroads, canals, or highways, our transport systems need to expand to keep up with our economic activity.
But we haven’t been keeping up.
Europe’s failure to deliver
By Jonathan Freedland
INSULTS are not predictions: they’re not meant to come true. But the leading nations of Europe seem bent on proving that every word of abuse rained down on them from across the Atlantic over the past few years was justified.
Excellant read.
http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/24/op.htm
It has been reported that Bush vetoed a proposal to invade Iraq, saying that U.S. taxpayers who object to should not have to pay for it. Opponents have a range of objections which include a distaste for manipulating or destroying what they see as human life.
Oops. I’m sorry. That was the stem cell research bill that Congress passed last month. Bush decided it was okay to kill adults, children, and pregnant mothers with their fetuses, but he had to draw the line at 8-cell embryos. Cuz he’s a straight-thinkin guy. His constituency tells his pollsters that embryos warrant protection, but, uhm, people, don’t.
How many defense contractors does an 8 cell organism, that doesn’t vote, aaaaaaand has no lobbyists on k street support?
Are you sure they don’t vote?I think some in Ohio and Florida did in the last presidential. HA
Just a comment on equality. When a Wichita patrolman stops a vehicle, he proceeds on his own, but when a Wichita patrolwoman stops a vehicle, she needs two or three police cars as backup.
I want to make a comment about Old Cowtown. John D’Angelo, who I personally know and used to be my former boss, is spearheading the reorganization of the muesum.
While he did a good job getting the Indian Center back up in the black (thanks to a surprised donor), so I think he lucked out, but I’m not for sure what his true creditals are in helping programs or muesums turn-around. He is a good guy and is a great Director of City Arts, but he is advocating the possibility of closing the facility of Cowtown. He did this to the Wichita Boathouse, and we all know that the Wichita Boathouse has a fat chance of re-opening. It’s going to get torn down.
So I’m afraid if they close Cowtown, it won’t be temporary as they said, it’s for good!
Actually JGuy I saw a woman Wichita police officer just the other day that had somebody pulled over and she was already giving the guy a ticket and she had no back-up what-so-ever.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,“The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God.”
Any God who can be threatened by research is too small.
Tracy,Thanks for this last quote.
Anybody else notice that the threads are now categorized for your searching convenience.
Thanks Eds for this upgrade.
JGuy, Joe
It is Wpd official policy to backup any officer who requests it. 99% of traffic stops at night request backup. Most during the day (especially those that are speed traps) don’t request backup because of the obvious, they feel safer in the daylight… I think its more a question of safety rather than gender.
Also, thanks WE Ed’s, thanks for the upgrade, very much like it.
Tracy
Sounds very controversial to me. Now what was said?
I would kindly thank that Wichita patrolman who gave me a ticket for recycling. Nice to know that taking bottles in for recycling is a violation of the open container law, especially when those open containers are in a box in the back of the car out of reach.
I’m always wondering what archaic law I’ll break next in this hick town.
Doug -Take that ticket to court and fight it. I’m sure the city prosecutor will understand your side.
Tracy, that reminded me of an article I came across: It appears that science has found a way to create stem cell lines by harvesting a single cell from an embryo without destroying it.http://health.msn.com/healthnews/ar…143549>1=8404
There’s still some oppposition, though, because one totipotent cell might, just might, in some alternate universe, develop into a human being. HOWEVER I think most people would find this an acceptable compromise.
After all, docs take single cells from IVF embryos for preimplantation genetic diagnosis all the time…don’t think that this is much different.
Pretty exciting stuff. There’s so much we don’t know about cellular development.
Aww, bad link.
Scientists Harvest Stem Cells Without Destroying Embryo
——————————————————————————–
Breakthrough technique might get around moral issues, experts sayBy Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter
More on this in Health & FitnessDoctors Renew Warning on Asthma DrugsHealth Highlights: Aug. 23, 2006Clinical Trials Update: Aug. 23, 2006Today’s Health News
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) — In what could prove to be a medical milestone, researchers have succeeded in generating new lines of human embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo.
The breakthrough may enable scientists to circumvent the ban on federal funding of stem cell research, paving the way for gains in treating or curing diseases such as diabetes, spinal injury and Alzheimer’s disease.
“The whole goal of this is to increase the number of stem cell lines available for federal funding and give the field a badly needed jump-start,” said Dr. Robert Lanza, senior author of a paper appearing in the Aug. 24 issue of Nature and medical director of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass.
Lanza was cautiously optimistic, although he said the final say on whether this strategy could widen U.S. embryonic stem cell research depends on politicians, not scientists.
“The approach described here does not involve the destruction of an embryo, nor does the biopsied cell ever develop into an embryo at any point. Therefore, we hope this method can be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available for federal funding – and thus give the field a badly needed jump-start,” Lanza said. “But I guess we’ll have to see what the President and Congress have to say about it all.”
The promise of embryonic stem cells lies in their ability to be “pluripotent,” and develop into any cell type in the body. Experts envision a future where stem cells might help replace diseased or injured tissue, thereby treating a host of ailments.
However, many object to the destruction of embryos inherent in this research. For that reason, embryonic stem cell research in the United States has been severely restricted since Aug. 9, 2001, when President Bush placed limits on federal funding of the field. As of that date, federal funds could only be used to study stem cell lines derived from embryos that had been already been destroyed before the limit was set.
This has turned out to be fewer lines than originally thought, and even fewer high-quality lines.
And while some state and private money has emerged to fill the gap in research funding, experts say it’s not been nearly enough. Most scientists agree that federal resources are needed if any credible research gains are to take place.
So far, scientists have obtained embryonic stem cells by taking groups of cells from early embryos before they implant in the uterus. However, this process involves the destruction of the embryo.
Lanza’s new paper improves on research his team did last year. In that study, the Massachusetts group succeeded in cultivating mouse embryonic stem cell lines by removing just one cell from the mouse embryo. The procedure is similar to that used for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, used to check for genetic disorders during in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this case, the mouse embryos survived.
But then, a roadblock. “We tried to apply that to a human system and found that it does not work,” Lanza said. “We had to work out a different technique and initially we weren’t sure that it was going to work. It was pretty tough. Eventually it worked like a charm.”
Here’s how. According to Lanza, the new research involved 16 human embryos left over from IVF.
“We used a single-cell biopsy technique to pluck out one cell when the embryo was at the 8-to-10-cell stage,” Lanza explained. This is the same stage used for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Excising a cell at this point doesn’t interfere with the embryo’s development, the scientist explained.
However, the cells apparently do not like being co-cultured alone, so they were put into a dish with other cells. This technique worked to keep them alive.
Using this method, Lanza and his team managed to get two stable human embryonic stem cell lines that behaved like conventional embryonic stem cell lines.
“They’ve now been growing for over eight months, are entirely normal genetically and they were able to generate all of the cell types of the body,” Lanza said.
“The real importance of this is the potential that you could have embryonic stem cell lines that are pluripotent from embryos that aren’t destroyed,” said Paul Sanberg, director of the Center for Aging and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa. “If these cell lines were allowed, it could help enhance embryonic stem cell research.”
Lanza’s company will be working with the scientific community to make the stem cell lines widely available.
“With the right resources, we could recreate as many lines as the scientific community needs without harming the embryos and help other researchers develop the technique,” Lanza said. “We could move very quickly.”
Next year, he said, Advanced Cell Technology will be filing an investigational new drug application aimed at the eye condition known as macular degeneration.
With the increase in property tax the Sedgwick prison will be able to add more space for prisoners. Will it be enough to house all the corrupt police and politicians though?
Spoz the Dems can get Values Boy and his soon-to-be seven children?
Yeah, I saw that too, Dennis.
The things people take pride in these days.
“I’m FECUND. I’m much more FECUND than you.”
The conservatives are so outraged all the time because in the war of ideas, they’ve already lost.
*****
Here’s a great article on how Clinton PROTECTED America against terrorism–and Bush didn’t:
This laundry list of partisan catastrophes goes on and on. Far from being inept on the matter of terrorism, Clinton was profoundly activist in his attempts to address terrorism. Much of his work was foiled by right-wing Congressional conservatives who, simply, refused to accept the fact that he was President. These men, paid to work for the public trust, spent eight years working diligently to paralyze any and all Clinton policies, including anti-terror initiatives that, if enacted, would have gone a long way towards thwarting the September 11 attacks. Beyond them lay the worthless television media, which ignored and spun the terrorist issue as it pursued salacious leaks from Ken Starr’s office, leaving the American people drowning in a swamp of ignorance on a matter of deadly global importance.
Over and above the theoretical questions regarding whether or not Clinton’s anti-terror policies, if passed, would have stopped September 11 lies the very real fact that attacks very much like 9/11 were, in fact, stopped dead by the Clinton administration. The most glaring example of this came on December 31, 1999, when the world gathered to celebrate the passing of the millennium. On that night, al Qaeda was gathering as well.
The terrorist network planned to simultaneously attack the national airports in Washington DC and Los Angeles, the Amman Raddison Hotel in Jordan, a constellation of holy sites in Israel, and the USS The Sullivans at dock in Yemen. Each and every single one of these plots, which ranged from one side of the planet to the other, was foiled by the efforts of the Clinton administration. Speaking for the first time about these millennium plots, in a speech delivered to the Coast Guard Academy on May 17, 2000, Clinton said, “I want to tell you a story that, unfortunately, will not be the last example you will have to face.”
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/WilliamPitt/84
Ramzi Yousef was one of the planners and participants in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Yousef’s right-hand man, Abdul Hakim Murad, was captured and interrogated in 1995. During that interrogation, Murad described a detailed plot to hijack airplanes and use them as weapons of terrorism. The primary plan was to commandeer eleven commercial planes and blow them up over the Pacific Ocean. The secondary plan was to hijack several planes, which would be flown into CIA headquarters, the World Trade Center, the Sears Tower, the White House and a variety of other targets.
Ramzi Yousef eluded capture until his final apprehension in Pakistan. During his 1997 trial, the plot described by Murad resurfaced. FBI agents testified in the Yousef trial that, “The plan targeted not only the CIA, but other U.S. government buildings in Washington, including the Pentagon.”
In 1993, the same year as the first World Trade Center attack, a $150,000 study was undertaken by the Pentagon to investigate the possibility of airplanes being used as bombs. A draft document of this was circulated throughout the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The circulation of the report was timely.
In 1994, a disgruntled Federal Express employee invaded the cockpit of a DC10 with the intention of crashing it into a company building. Again in 1994, a pilot crashed a small airplane into a tree on the White House grounds, narrowly missing the building itself. Also in 1994, an Air France flight was hijacked by members of a terrorist organization called the Armed Islamic Group, who intended to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower.
The 1993 Pentagon report was followed up in September 1999 by a report titled ‘The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism.’ This report was prepared for the American intelligence community by the Federal Research Division, an adjunct of the Library of Congress. The report stated, “Suicide bombers belonging to Al Qaida’s martyrdom battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House.”
Abdul Hakim Murad described plans to use hijacked commercial airplanes as weapons in 1995. Ramzi Yousef’s trial further exposed the existence of these plans in 1997. Two reports prepared by the American government, one from 1993 and another from 1999, further detailed again the existence and danger of these plots. The Federal Express employee’s hijacking attempt in 1994, the attempted airplane attack on the White House in 1994, and the hijacking of the Air France flight in 1994 by terrorists intending to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower, provided a glaring underscore to the data.
No one anticipated the use of airplanes as weapons before September 11? Given the facts, the claim from Condoleezza Rice, carried forward to today by the mainstream media, seems impossible to believe.
Quote of the Day:
“And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.”-Richard Perle(zionist) 2003 :)
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!!
I saw some Monarchs in my yard today. Isn’t it kind of early for their migration?
Birds are starting to form huge flocks and if you look closely, trees are starting to start to turn. It isn’t fall, it is pre-fall. Still, be patient, cooler weather will get here eventually.I certainly hope so anyway.
The following story needs no additional commentary. rotflmosrfao
Racial Achievement Controversy8/17/2006
By: Anne Imanuel WCJB TV 20 News
The goal of the legislation is to leave no child behind, but some parents say the No Child Left Behind legislation is singling certain children out.
Many Florida schools did not meet the Annual Yearly Progress guidelines.
Williston Middle School is one of those schools. They sent out a letter to parents stating why they fell short. A portion of the letter states:
“The following sub-groups did not meet the criteria for making AYP.
1. Reading: African American students
2. Mathematics: African American students and students with disabilities.
3. Writing: African American students”
That language has some parents concerned.
“It’s unfortunate that they find someone to put the blame on. I’m very much concerned about that I can’t say that enough. ‘African American, African American..’ it’s got to be more to it,” says Jeff Bryant.
Bryant is a father and former school teacher. He says the letter sounds racist.
But Levy County school officials say it’s not meant to sound that way. They add, they also have no choice in how it sounds because the state lays out very specific guidelines for how to notify parents of the schools’ progress.
Levy County Superintendent Cliff Norris says, “We are required by Florida law and the No Child Left Behind law to send that notification out and it’s sent out in a format that is prescribed to us by the Florida Department Of Education in a sample letter.”
They say parents in all counties across Florida whose child’s school does not meet the Annual Yearly Progress goals should expect similar letters by the end of September.http://www.wcjb.com/news.asp?id=14100
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!
Ian–
How do explain black-Asian Tiger Woods kicking everybody’s ass in a white man’s game?
Just wondering . . .
Capn America
Strong early parental involvement, not to mention a ton of talent and a work ethic that would put most of us to shame.
Sorry to hear about your dad, Tracy. My dad had alzhiemers and I wonder if stem cells could have prevented that. Here are links to stem cell research sites..
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/http://stemcells.nih.gov/
If we trully care about our loved ones, why would we have a preference of embryo vs umbillical vs adult? It’s a given that the fight over embryo stem cells will go on and on and on. Right? Who has moral issues over umbillical or adult stem cells? Few if any. So, do we want to find a way to make stem cell technology work in our lifetime? Or, is your cause more important than saving millons of lives? Either debate embryonic stem cell till the last human is left standing, or move on to umbillical/adult stem cell until objective research either confirms or debunks their usefulness.
What are your true colors?
Adult stem cell therapies have a limited capability. The need for embryonic stem cell research is to look into treatments where adult stem cells are useless. Hence the need for embryonic stem cell research.
http://www.isscr.org/public/current_sc.htm
I really don’t understand the controvery. Why is it important that we don’t use tissue from dead fetuses? Is it some Jewish prohibition against surgery? We abandoned that a long time ago. Or is this just revising the religious opposition to artificial hearts and cures for syphillis?
I see that Pluto is no longer a major planet, so kids taking science factoid learning will be able to revert to memorizing the 19th century 8-planet system. The Mensa question, “Identify the missing letter, MYVSEHMSJRSNUSNEP_” will have to be tossed out.
But, at least, Disney is keeping Pluto. I think.
A win for women (18 and over) today. The FDA released the hold on non-prescription emergency contraception (EC) for women 18 and over today.
Makes me wonder how many pharmacists will continue to withhold, based on their personal ideology.
I have mixed feelings RD. I assume this is a fairly powerful drug – I have doubts about it being OTC. On the other hand, since time is such a crucial factor I don’t know that a woman could get the necessary DR visit.
Heh, Dennis!
That’s the right answer.
But that’s not Ian’s answer.
His head’s gonna explode one of these days, I’m telling ya!
Ben,
Like anything else, it depends on how it will be used and by who. I haven’t heard what the cost will be, but it could be high enough that it won’t be a replacement for regular birth control. I favor abstinence, but I was young once, so… *grin*
Taking Plan B is a very unpleasant experience. There’s a lot of nausea, vomiting and pain associated with taking such a large dose of hormones in such a short time period. No sane woman would replace her regular birth control with it, especially at 30 bucks a pop.I like the idea of allowing pharmacists to not prescibe it if it conflicts with their religious beliefs, as long as there is another pharmacist in the same place at the same time is willing to dispense it. In some small towns, another pharmacy could be 10 miles away. Without transportation, this could be problematic.That said, I do feel uneasy that birth control pills are prescription only and Plan B is OTC, when they are the exact same thing except for the dosage. One could take four regular pills to achieve the same effect. If birth control is restricted to prescriptions because of the health risks involved, then Plan B should be treated the same way.I had an idea for a 24 hour hotline in which a woman could consult with a physician, be told of the correct procedure, risks and side effects and if they have no conflicting medical conditions (such as being prone to blood clots), then the physician can call in a script to a 24 hour pharmacy.