Cameron Petersen is a 21 month old child whose family was given no hope for treatment by doctors. That is no hope by doctors in the US. China on the other hand offers cutting edge stem cell treatment that is not available here thanks to our repugnacan leadership.
Cameron suffers from optic nerve hypoplasia, a leading cause of blindness in children. The condition causes underdevelopment of the optic nerve and can lead to permanent blindness.
Cameron was treated using the latest in stem cell technology, not in the U.S. but in China.
Cameron is now showing significant improvement. Please follow the link below for details.
This is an off the top of the head rant so please bear with me. Th other day I was listening to a right wing nutjob hawk the proposed Fair Tax Initiative. The suggestion is that we do away with federal income tax and institute a 23% national sales tax in it's place. Every purchase would be taxed without exception, food, medicne, cars, all of it. This would supposedly stimulate the economy to no end. The nutjob on the radio repeatedly stated that the economy would grow 10% in just the first year. I'm calling BS on that just because the right hasn't been correct about anything in at least 7 years.
It's 1:00am est and CNN has just shown Macasskil pulling ahead Webb looks like he will win by a sliver and Tester is looking very solid in Montana. The house looks like we will pick up about 30 seats. That leaves the repugnacans with one limp dick president. George only thought he was the decider, he forgot or never knew that the voters always have the last word. The voters have clearly rejected the Bush agenda and the repugs can either co-operate to get the country back on course or they will be seen as obstructionists. These results are more than I ever hoped for, for the first time in months I will go to sleep with a feeling of hope for the country.
The republicans are crowing about the Bush administration creating 6.6 million new jobs over 6 years, let's take a look at that.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment in two ways. The Establishment Survey gathers data directly from 400,000 companies and then estimates how many Americans have payroll jobs. The Household Survey, based on surveys of 60,000 households, determines how many people are working and produces the unemployment rate.
Several republicans have started to blame Mark Foley for their upcoming losses on Nov. 7th. They are partly correct, the Foley scandal was the last straw for many conservatives; however the lion's share of the blame has to go to president Bush. The basic principles of what conservatives stand for are sound. Reduced federal spending, less government involvement in our daily lives, keep taxes as low as possible. It is hard to argue against any of them. The problem for the republicans has been the way the president has ignored all of the conservative principles.
Today the president said that it would be fair to compare the situation in Iraq today with the 1968 Tet offensive in Viet Nam. Bush said, "George, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave,". I'm sure these words haunt anyone that lived through the Viet Nam years. Back then the nation was strung along year by year being told that we just needed to send a few more troops,
Chicago recorded its earliest measurable snowfall ever on 10//06 with 1/3 of an inch falling and near record low temperatures. Buffalo NY also recorded 2 feet of snow the same day that left thousands without electricity. Global warming denier Matt Drudge will use his radio show to whine that "if there is global warming why is there record snowfall and record cold temperatures?" Drudge is either intellectually lazy or willfully ignorant of the climate research that has been done.
ABC news reports that Bush 41 the current Presidents daddy warns of a "ghastly" future if "wild" Democrats take over congress. Bush 41 is referring to the horrors of what the rest of us call accountability. In our daily lives each of us is accountable to our employers, our family and society in general.
Newt, that's really Newton, Gingrich says that the republicans don't have to let "our friends on the left lecture us about morality." Well Newt somebody should lecture you about morality. Weren't you charged with 89 ethics violations while in the house?
The White House today came out I favor of the sexual abuse of minors. Press Secretary Tony Snow called the exchanges between Rep. Mark Foley(R-Fl) and underage boys "Simply naughty emails." Let's take a look at some and see if it was naughty or criminal:
Politicians are not exempt from the legal or moral obligation to report criminal activity to the authorities. Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, and Tom Reynolds all knew about Mark Foley's inappropriate email and instant message exchanges with underage boys and they hid it. Rather than expose the GOP to scandal they tacitly approved of what Foley did. By putting political concerns before the moral obligation to protect children from a predator they have demonstrated that they are unfit to hold the offices to which they were elected.
Are we finally are getting the true picture of "No Child Left Behind."
Boehner knew about it and did nothing. Hastert knew about it and when the story broke his office denied he knew anything about it, after Boehner spilled the beans and told reporters he had notified Hastert, Hastert's story changed.
I guess the Bush administration deserves some credit. It was a challenge to be sure, bringing democracy to Iraq. I'm not sure anyone truly thought it could be done. With a little compromise they may well have succeeded. The Iraqi's have resurrected some old laws from the Saddam days and enacted several new ones that criminalize speech against the government. Bush couldn't quite get the Iraqi's up to American standards so he has compromised and brought America down to the old Saddam Iraqi standard thereby delivering a semblance of democracy to both countries. The Iraqi's have elections with little choice of candidates and a population that has no clue what elections are about, and so does America. Iraq bans journalists from enjoying the right of free speech; Bush is still working on that one for America.
I'm glad my father died. He was a WWII veteran, part of the greatest generation. My father was a liberal. Not a college educated intellectual liberal, but a liberal from the gut. He just knew that all people were created equal, that personal freedom was the most important right in America, and that the people should run the government, not be afraid of it. My father learned these things growing up in an orphanage in Addison Illinois.
Yesterday George Bush declassified a whopping four pages of a National Security Estimate (copy can be found here). http://americablog.blogspot.com/...
In a style that has come to mark recent Bush speeches the president whined about leaks and the need to keep secrets, and then he released a portion of one. Assuming that he gave us what he thought was the piece of the report that was most supportive of his administration; one has to ask, what the hell does the rest of the report say? If Bush thought that "The NIE, declassified and released late Tuesday, concludes that the conflict has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic holy warriors and is "shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives." (USA Today) demonstrates support of his policies he is more addled than we thought.
Now we must try and divine what the rest of the NIE contains. Using only my crystal ball I will make predictions about the contents.
When government is run strictly in the image of a large corporation the ultimate goal is to get a large return on investment. In the case of a government profit is not the measure of return, but usually some intangible that benefits society. The conservatives have touted this model of government as being the best for assuring that tax payers receive the most for their money.
The big question has been why did George Bush invade Iraq? The answer can be found in Bush's refusal to even consider withdrawal, and his commitment to leave troops in Iraq as long as he is president. The Bush administration, led by the neocon philosophy, is terrified of a unified middle east. Imagine a unified middle east with Iran at the head as a nuclear power. Imagine a nuclear power that also controls the world oil supply in a world addicted to oil.
What's up with the Republican's and the Moonies? In recent weeks and months there have been numerous stories published about meetings between Republican leaders, leaders of the religious right, and the Rev. Moon. Here is some background on Moon.
