Quick Hits

I GUESS THEY DIDN'T GET ANY 'TARP' MONEY:

MIAMI BEACH — Union leaders cannot seem to get enough of Miami’s luxury hotels. Unemployment may be soaring and the stock market tanking, but that did not stop the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s leaders from gathering at the Fontainebleau hotel-resort last week, where rooms often run $400 or more a night.

Fox News ridiculed labor leaders for using members’ dues money to stay there. The hotel was a favorite of Frank Sinatra, and the opening aerial shot of the 1964 James Bond movie “Goldfinger” was filmed there. More recently, it was host to a televised Victoria’s Secret fashion show.

Several union presidents, standing near the Fontainebleau’s 10 pools and 40,000-square-foot spa, mumbled that they were embarrassed to be there. They said they were kept so busy attending meetings from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. that they had no time to luxuriate poolside.

LATER THEY WILL SEPARATE 'ETHICS' FROM SCIENCE:

WASHINGTON — President Obama will announce Monday that he is reversing Bush administration limits on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research as part of a pledge to separate science and politics, White House officials said Friday.

Despite that goal, science and politics remain commingled on Yucca Mountain.

TAXES IN DISGUISE:  A revenue neutral energy tax is DOA because it is a tax; cap and trade is alive and well because no one understands it.

[END OF THREAD]

Comments

[clarice]

So we paid over $10 billion to decide on disposal at Yucca Flats and now will owe the utilities billions more for reneging on the plan.
Charge that putz Reid and his friend Obama.

[Jane]

Hell make Reid work inside after we load it up.

Are you on vacation again Clarice?

[bgates]

I wonder if anyone heartened by the pledge to separate science and politics gives a damn about advances in non-embryonic stem cell technology.

I wonder if Mengele would approve of preventing politics from interfering with science.

[Rick Ballard]

"I wonder if Mengele would approve of preventing politics from interfering with science."

Hansen and Mann are the Mengeles of today and they certainly wouldn't. I wonder when the Dems will announce the establishment of the Lysenko Award for the best application of science in support of politics?

[clarice]

Jane. no. It was my husband's 70th BDay and the kids were in--we had a party--we've been dashing about and having fun. We (at least the I in we)now are so tired we can hardly read.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

bgates, the thing is, if we ever got a non-embryonic way to get fully totipotent stem cells, those fully totipotent stem cells would have the potential to develop into full independent humans too. (Of course, those would be eek "clones", instead of what we call then normally, which is "identical twins".) Nor would progress with adult stems cells mean there would be nothing to learn, and no therapies that might be derived, from starting with totipotent "embryonic" cells.

So progress with "adult" stem cells doesn't solve the practical problem, at least right off, and if it ever did, it wouldn't solve the religious problem.

I'm sympathetic to your religious concerns, but I don't think "adult" stem cells are the way out.

[Jane]

Happy Birthday Mr. F! (just cause someone will say it - you know they will)

[bad]

Happy Birthday, Mr. Clarice!!

[Jane]

Toldya!

[bad]

Dang, I walked right into that one.

[pagar]

I don't see much difference in TAXES IN DISGUISE and this program in Minnesota where the state has decided that they will have a special program for people to buy a house with out interest. Hot Air brings us the latest.

Muslims have a strict proscription against paying or accepting interest on loans, which makes home mortgages impossible, but private lenders have created ways to satisfy both profit and religious motives. Now the state of Minnesota has jumped into the shari’a loan market with its own offering (via William Amos):

How does it work? The state buys the home and then sells it to the buyer at an inflated price, more or less masking the market interest rate as principle. They they set a 30-year payment schedule where the family pays down the debt, but without any interest.

Change the words used and do the same thing Collect payments instead of taxes or over charge for the price of the house and claim no one is paying interest.
Sounds like the old you can fool some of the people all the time joke.

[clarice]

HEH--Chaco, that is an interesting post. I hadn't considered that totipotent stem cells had the potential, but of course they do.

[bad]

Pagar, isn't that the muslim plan so they don't have to pay interest because doing so is a religious violation?

[bad]

DOH, I didn't scroll enough to see the first paragraph.

[bgates]

So progress with "adult" stem cells doesn't solve the practical problem, at least right off, and if it ever did, it wouldn't solve the religious problem.

Even with all the money this administration is going to save or create by giving everyone in the country a PhD and a green job instead of drafting them to spend the next thirty years in the Sunni Triangle or the Chosin Reservoir, science funding is going to be limited. That being the case, there may have to be decisions made between different forms of stem cell technology; if it comes to that, I wonder how much of that decision will reflect the current state of knowledge rather than the joyous prospect of sticking a thumb in the eye of the previous administration.

If a way was found to coax adult smooth muscle, striated muscle, or white blood cell into the potential to develop into an independent organism, then all cells of the correct type could be said to have that potential. In that case, the religions of the world would either have to decide that every bypass operation, biopsy, or shaving cut is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust resulting in the destruction of millions of potential persons, or they'd have to decide that ensoulment doesn't happen in the lab. I have my guess which direction they'd go.

[Dorothy Jane]

I think ALLAH will see through the ruse and they will be turned away at the pearly gates.

[bad]

Exactly, Dorothy Jane.

[Neo]

Frankly, I have stayed at the Fontainebleau.
Of course, I scoped out all theBond spots, but it had changed quite a bit since James Bond and Goldfinger ran about the grounds.

[Neo]

Q: No blogs?

A [Obama]: I rarely read blogs.

[matt]

Charlie;

correct me if I am wrong, but I believe umbilical stem cells are of equal use as embryonic stem cells. My understanding is that there are already a number of private embryonic stem cell lines running. These were never affected by the Federal mandate, as the Feds only banned the use of tax dollars for the research.

The ethical issues have also driven some pretty interesting research. I believe last week it was announced that researchers overseas were successful in using skin tissue to generate multi purpose stem cells. This by the way may assist in issues with transplant rejection as they could then use one's own stem cells for therapy.

My feel is that this has been another political jump up by the extremists and fund raisers for each side. Create the threat and then arouse your supporters to generate revenue and political action.

[SlimGuy]

The game on stem cells is simply a legality one.

Adult stem cells can do all you want and since they are harvested from the host they go back to they do not usually require anti rejection treatments or drugs.

Embryonic stem cells however do have interaction issues since they are not from the host.

The reason ,and only one , for the push to do them is that under existing law you can't patent a treatment which is done with adult stem cells but you can patent one from embryonic stem cells.

The old proprietary vs generic issue and profit also I might add.

[BR]

Bgates, interesting word you wrote there: ensoulment.

My thoughts are that a soul could mistake a lab for a maternity home and end up being trapped in a body used for harvesting of parts.

[bio mom]

I suspect that science will throw a monkey wrench into these arguments as it did with gene therapy (much less controversial). Very, very little has actually come from gene therapy despite all the initial hoopla. Now all the hoopla is about cures from using embryonic stem cells. So far little has come from them either and other countries didn't have our restrictions. We had no private funding restrictions yet there was no big push to invest because the benefits are all theoretical. At least funneling the money to the adult and placental cells pushes ahead progress where things are already working.

[kim]

This is another example where politics has completely warped science. Too bad there isn't a thermometer we can stick into the mess, like there is with the climate mess.
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[sbw]

and:

This is another example where religion has completely warped politics. Too bad there isn't a thermometer we can stick into the mess, like there is with the climate mess.

[kim]

Good one, sbw.
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[clarice]

Education news:
(1)The extent to which leading textbooks for kids have adopted a pro-Islamic biasL
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/us_public_schools_teaching_chi_1.html>CAIR writes your kids' books
(2) The UDC, a massively taxpayer funded open admission college in DC has a new head who wishes to kill the undergraduate education major. The WaPo article on the story carries some truly depressing news about what a waste of money this school is. Only 7-8% of the students graduate from it in 6 years. In large part this is because the students themselves are unable to pass high school level math, reading and writing tests.
Teachers at this boondoggle institution earn more than Harvard professors.

The education School at UDC has joined with the local school board to set up ridiculous criteria for teacher certification. For example to teach anything, including caluclus, an applicant must have passed the school's remedial reading course. This, of course, assures only very compliant not too bright people try to teach here and openings in science and math are hard to fill.
UDC may be extreme but this same education school/local Bd shell game is a feature of life throughout this country.