Tne End of a Fight that Shouldn't Have Happened

In New York, a battle over patients rights was about to go to court:

NEW YORK (AP) — A 12-year-old New York City boy whose family battled a Washington hospital over his care has died in the hospital, the family's lawyer said Sunday.
Motl Brody was pronounced dead Nov. 4 by Children's National Medical Center in Washington, but a machine continued to inflate and deflate his lungs.
His remaining bodily functions ceased Saturday, the lawyer, Jeffrey Zuckerman, said.
...
Motl had been diagnosed with severe brain cancer and was at the hospital for six months.
His parents, who are Orthodox Jews, had clashed with the hospital over the hospital's desire to disconnect the ventilator. Although Motl had been pronounced dead, his heart was still beating with the help of a cocktail of intravenous drugs and adrenaline.
That heartbeat prompted Motl's parents to refuse the hospital's request to remove all artificial life support.
...
The family had asked the hospital to leave the breathing machine on and keep administering drugs until the boy's heart and lungs no longer respond.
Disagreements between families and medical providers over when to end care for terminally ill patients are common, experts say, but this case wound up in court with unusual speed.
On Nov. 2, the family asked a federal judge to block the hospital from doing any further tests for brain activity.
The hospital responded by asking a District of Columbia Superior Court judge for permission to discontinue treatment.

Let us make this clear. There should have been no disagreement. And that a hospital took legal action to discontinue treatment of a patient is absolutely outrageous.

The role of the doctor is to provide expert medical advice. One that has been given, it is the right of the patient or caregivers of the patient to refuse or accept that advice. Even if it is hopeless, it is the right of either the patient or the family to continue to continue to fight, and receive care up until the moment of death.

The medical profession, having long ago given up, do no harm, has gone further and further away from the goal of treating patients without the tradition, and clearly understood doctor patient relationships...in favor of abritrarily deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.

It is not the job of doctors to discard people who are too costly, too old, too sick, or have too little of a chance of survival, but rather to treat patients and follow the wishes of the sick and injured without bias. That fights between doctors and terminal patients (or their families) about how much care they deserve is a frightening development in medicine. One we should all be leary of. That the courts can be used by doctors to get rid of inconvenient patients is terrifying.

If We Want to Talk Root Causes

How about we look at illegal immigration?

MEXICO CITY (AP) — More than 100,000 frustrated Mexicans, many carrying pictures of kidnapped loved ones, marched across the country Saturday to demand government action against a relentless tide of killings, abductions and shootouts.
The mass candlelight protests were a challenge to the government of President Felipe Calderon, who has made fighting crime a priority and deployed more than 25,000 soldiers and federal police to wrest territory from powerful drug cartels
Cries of "enough" and "long live Mexico" rose up from sea of white-clad demonstrators filling Mexico City's enormous Zocalo square. The protesters held candles twinkling in the darkness as they sang the national anthem before dispersing.
...
In the capital, Romana Quintera, 72, wore T-shirt with a photograph of her baby grandson, who was kidnapped for ransom five years ago when gunmen burst into her home and killed her niece. Two people imprisoned for the attack have refused to reveal the boy's fate, and Quintera said investigators have given up on the case.
"We're desperate," she said, holding back tears. "We ask authorities with all our heart to be more sensitive. Maybe nothing like this has happened to them, or they would be more sensitive."
Despite the arrest of several drug kingpins, little has improved the ground since the Calderon government began its crackdown.
Homicides have surged as drug cartels battle each other for control of trafficking routes and stage vicious attacks against police nearly each day. In the gang-plagued border state of Chihuahua alone, there have been more than 800 killings this year, double the number during the same period last year.
This week, a dozen headless bodies were found in the Yucatan Peninsula, home to Mexico's most popular beach resort, Cancun.
While impoverished Mexicans stage almost daily strikes and protests, Saturday's marches brought out thousands of middle-class citizens who are often the targets of kidnappings. The protest was inspired by the abduction and murder of the 14-year-old son of a wealthy businessman — a case that provoked an outcry when prosecutors said a police detective was a key participant in the abduction for ransom.

If Mexico wasn't such a corrupt, impoverished, violent place, the people would stop fleeing in droves to make it here. I doubt we'll have any national discussions about this any time soon though.

Oh Mr. Biden

Even though it's been days since it happened, Joe Biden's speech to the Democratic Nation Convention, to accept his vice Presidental part of the ticket has stuck with me. Much ahs been made of other pronouncements the man has made, and his record examined, but to see the measure of the man, I don't think we have to look beyond this one speech.

That's the America that George Bush has left us, and that's the future John McCain will give us. These are not isolated discussions among families down on their luck. These are common stories among middle-class people who worked hard and played by the rules on the promise that their tomorrows would be better than their yesterdays.
That promise is the bedrock of America. It defines who we are as a people. And now it's in jeopardy. I know it. You know it. But John McCain doesn't get it.
...
John McCain is my friend. We've known each other for three decades. We've traveled the world together. It's a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.
But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country. For example,
John thinks that during the Bush years "we've made great progress economically." I think it's been abysmal.
And in the Senate, John sided with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Give me a break. When John McCain proposes $200 billion in new tax breaks for corporate America, $1 billion alone for just eight of the largest companies, but no relief for 100 million American families, that's not change; that's more of the same.
Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history--a half trillion dollars in the last five years--he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuels. That's not change; that's more of the same.
Millions of jobs have left our shores, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That's not change; that's more of the same.
He voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage. For people who are struggling just to get to the next day, that's not change; that's more of the same.
And when he says he will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when Iraq is sitting on a surplus of nearly $80 billion, that's not change; that's more of the same.
...
As we gather here tonight, our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole with very few friends to help us climb out. For the last seven years, this administration has failed to face the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons; the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water; the challenge of climate change; and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front against terrorism.
...
Again and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.
Folks, remember when the world used to trust us? When they looked to us for leadership? With Barack Obama as our president, they'll look to us again, they'll trust us again, and we'll be able to lead again.

The John McCain painted by Joe Biden is not a great person. He doesn't care about the poor. He refuses to help those who struggle, while going out of his way to make the rich richer, at the expense of the poor. He refuses to give cheap affordable energy to everyone, and instead wants us to continue to fund terrorism. He has emboldened our enemies and is making Americans less safe. Quite frankly, his foreign policy will end up killing scores of Americans, both soldier and civilian, and will lead to piles of dead bodies. Because of McCain, Israel may be annihilated, Georgia razed by Russia, Tibet run over with Chinese tanks. All because McCain won't just sit down and talk with these people and tell them the error of their ways. This John McCain is pretty damned evil, or, at the very least, cruelly indifferent. This John McCain has killed the American dream!

So why the hell is this man Joe Biden's friend? Why the hell would Joe Biden have a 30 year friendship with such a man, who is responsible for so much suffering? As Biden himself would say:

You know, I believe the measure of a man isn't just the road he's traveled; it's the choices he's made along the way.

So, for 30 years, Joe Biden has willingly associated with McCain. Either McCain is the monster he is, and Biden overlooked it, working on legislation with him out of political expediancy, or Biden is lying about his long time friend, and villifying him to advance his political career. Either way that's the bedrock of Washington politics. And, as Joe Biden now likes to say:

"That's not change; that's more of the same."

No Duh Story of the Day

Botox is Dangerous!

Months after US authorities sounded the alarm, European officials are warning of dangerous possible side effects from the wrinkle-smoothing injection Botox, according to a German news report.
The London-based European Medicines Agency had by August 2007 recorded more than 600 cases of negative effects potentially linked to the popular cosmetic treatment, Focus news weekly reported in its issue to be released Monday.

In 28 cases Botox users died.

While potentially devestating news to people trying to pretend they're 16 again, once you realize what botox is, it's not all that shocking.

The botulinum toxin is a natural poison found in decomposing food that is 40 million times more powerful than cyanide.

Injecting poison into yourself is bad? Whoda thunk it?

We banned wood treated with CCA because it contained small amounts of arsenic. Yet the FDA only notes that injecting something 40 million times more toxic than cyanide is a bad idea. No ban? What the hell good are they?

Another Hurdle for Clean Energy

A completely new NATIONWIDE infrastructure would have to be made for Wind to be a viable power source...

Sigh

When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.
That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.

So for wind power to even produce any power we have to tear down the system we have and start from scratch? That'll take decades, and billions. Hell, by that point, we're spending more money than we're saving. How viable is an energy source that needs an entirely new infrastructure?

HPV Vaccine Not Safe

From ABC:

First, Gardasil's long-term effectiveness is unclear. Because cervical cancer takes years to develop, critics say the current information is insufficient to determine whether Gardasil works.
"The overall effect of the vaccines on cervical cancer remains unknown," Dr. Carolyn J. Haug, the Journal of Norwegian Medical Association's editor, wrote in the New England Journal editorial. "The real impact of HPV vaccination on cervical cancer will not be observable for decades."
...
"Most of the information people have right now leads them to believe that if they're vaccinated with Gardasil, they're protected for life, and that's just not true," said Dr. Diane Harper of Dartmouth College.
There is also the issue of side effects. FDA records reveal that, since Gardasil's approval, nearly 9,000 girls had "bad health events" after receiving their shots. These included 78 reported outbreaks of genital warts, 18 deaths and six cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, which can result in paralysis. It is unknown whether there are unseen side effects, like decreasing the body's ability to fight off other strains of the HPV virus.

To compare this against an unsafe drug...Fen Phen had less than 200 negative side effects, and 1 death, when it was pulled from the market. Guardasil has about 4500% more health problems related and 1700% more deaths than the "unsafe" Fen Phen. Far from being considered a health risk, it is potentially going to be forced on young girls by several different states. By any objective standard of risk, this drug qualifies. The lead toy, and date rape drug toy scandals of last Christmas claimed no lives, and injured few, yet they held the headlines for days. This drug has killed almost 20 and has maimed thousands, and yet may be forced upon unwilling teens?

Where the hell is the FDA?

Bush's Third Term

Lurches Sharply to the Left...

GOP Platform may have Global Warming Plank

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The Republican platform may include a first-ever plank on global warming, an examination of a draft document indicated.

"Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the Earth," The Hill reported the draft document as saying. "While the scope and long term consequences of this warming effect are the subject of ongoing research, we believe the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today."

Sen. John McCain, poised to become the party's presidential nominee next week during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., is a proponent of tackling global warming.

McCain, supposedly the massive right winger, comes out to endorce a milder version of Barack Obama's position. While the Republicans are tepidly endorcing McCain, because he's not Obama, positions like this are the reason for McCain's lagging support. And they put the lie that McCain is Bush III, and a massive rightwinger to boot to rest.

More Government Efficiency

In not firing consistantly missing employees:

Via ABC:

The federal government has 2.6 million civilian workers, making it the nation's largest employer. But, it turns out a growing number of these workers are not working.
"People have just flat not shown up for work," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "My question is: If people aren't showing up for work, why are they still employed by the federal government?"
Coburn commissioned the report "Missing in Action: AWOL in the Federal Government," which tracked the number of absent workers without leave, AWOL workers, across 18 government agencies from 2001 to 2007.
It found that federal workers missed nearly 20 million hours of work in the last six years, not including vacation time or sick leave. On average, 2.8 million hours of work are lost per year because of AWOL absences.
The numbers show the formation of a growing trend: Forty-five percent more workers are absent without leave throughout different government agencies than in 2001.

A massive government agency not noticing if some of it's employees are absent? Say it aint so!

How could this happen?!? Let's hear the explaination:

"To me it's a scathing indictment of the Bush administration, their total incompetence and mismanagement and disdain for government and running government," said Mark Roth, general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees/AFL-CIO. "Apparently, they are so asleep at the wheel that they're letting people go for months without any consequences."

The head of these people's union passing the buck? Astonishing!

Realistically though, it's assinine to expect any one man to actively monitor 2.6 million people. It can't be done. Even if that person had no other responsibilities, it would be impossible to keep track of that many people with any real accuracy. Even expecting 535 people (Congress) to do it would be a daunting task. And since these people live lives and have other responsibilities, expecting the federal government to take care of problems that these agencies won't is unrealistic. If the agencies themselves aren't cracking down, and they have full legal power, what is any Congress or President to do? If these problems were being widely reported...they would be taken care of now wouldn't they?

The simple problem here is that the bigger any agency gets, the harder it becomes to micromanage. It's easy to look at one office with 10 people and determine waste or laziness. When that becomes 500 offices with 50,000 people that becomes harder still. If the company is not reporting the problems they know about to the higher ups, it becomes impossible to determine the problems. Ridiculously, the article quotes the biggest offender, the VA, as to what the solution is:

Also, the State Department and independent agencies don't monitor the number of AWOL workers, which could increase the number of lost work hours considerably, according to the report.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, the worst violator according to the report, has asked for more employees.

Of course the solution is to replace the people who don't work with people who do. Not simply to add more workers. Unfortunately, putting the people at fault in charge of the solution is more than a little like putting the Fox in charge of the Henhouse.

Of course this is nonsense. Would a parent accept "Well if my allowance was higher, the grass would get mowed better" as an excuse? Of course not. They'd demand the lawn was done or no allowance would be tendered. If you took your car to a mechanic and paid 100 bucks for a new tire, then found the tred worn bare...would you pay more money for a different tire? Of course not. You'd demand a new tire since you paid for a new tire. We should hold these agencies accountable like we would any business.

Real Oppression

The Olympics are bringing out ugly truths, whispered in secret, about the Communist dictatorship hosting them.

Thank god the Chinese are a just people!

Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday. Police later squelched a pro-Tibet demonstration.

While this is making our papers, it'd be nice to see this start to get as much attention as Abu Ghraib. Sadly, the American media are only interested in exposing American misdeeds. It's not enough that the media let's Americans know of the Abu Ghraibs, they have to be clear that what the Chinas and Russias of the world are doing are wrong too. The condemnations have to be open and loud and often. Otherwize the American people won't get it.

Our Bold New Plan to Educate Our Youth

Remove all standards for grading them in school!

Dallas public school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that have angered many teachers.
The new rules will be distributed when teachers return to their campuses next week. But many who have already seen the regulations say they are too lenient on slackers, and will come at the expense of kids who work hard.
For example, the new rules require teachers to accept late work and prevent them from penalizing students for missed deadlines. Homework grades that would drag down a student's overall average will be thrown out.
School officials said the new guidelines are needed to ensure that all district teachers operate under the same rules and to create a "fair system" for grading students.

Nothing says fair to me like grading the students who do their work on time the same as the students who don't. With the constant bemoaning how much our students are falling behind, this certainly isn't going to help. Part of the job of schools is to prepare our students for the work world. In the real world a deadline means something. You either make it or you're fired. If we're falling bhind now...I can't wait to see what this'll do for our standings against other countries!

Why We Should Adopt the British Health Care System!

Because it's so damned cost eficient!

Patients 'should not expect NHS to save their life if it costs too much

The NHS should not always attempt to save someone's life if the cost is too much, the medical regulator has ruled.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidelines (Nice) has ruled for the first time that saving a life cannot be justified at any cost, in a review of its ethical guidelines.
Nice is facing growing criticism over the number of drugs it is now rejecting which are available throughout Europe and in America. Last week, it refused to sanction four kidney cancer drugs which can double life expectancy.
It has now rejected the so-called "rule of rescue" which stipulates that people facing death should be treated regardless of the costs. The rule is based on the natural impulse to aid individuals in trouble.
In a report on "social values judgement" the regulator says: "There is a powerful human impulse, known as the 'rule of rescue', to attempt to help an identifiable person whose life is in danger, no matter how much it costs. When there are limited resources for healthcare, applying the 'rule of rescue' may mean that other people will not be able to have the care or treatment they need.

It should be noted that the British system, always touted for it's fairness, is rejecting drugs that are being used everywhere else in the world. Yet here we have a system which is seemingly more worried about costs than our American system.

Nice is facing increasing accusations that it is giving undue weight to financial considerations - rather than medical benefits - when making decisions on whether to allow drugs or other treatments on the NHS. Doctors and patients have alleged that they are treated with contempt by the organisation and that life-saving drugs are being unfairly denied.

THE UGLY SPECTOR OF CAPITALISM STRIKES AGAIN!

The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday that Nice is preparing to offer patients advice on the medical benefits of drugs that are not available on the NHS. The disclosure is likely to anger patients who face paying tens of thousands of pounds for expensive drugs which may prolong their lives.

And why shouldn't it anger them? The system is supposed to cover all of their medical expenses, and the taxes are quite a bit higher to cover it. And yet, the system has created an Edwards-esque "Two Britains", one where the rich can buy medicines and live, and the other where the poor are just out of luck.

It's kinda clear that if we're really concerned about cheap, widely accessable health care...Britain is not the system we should follow.

Simply Amazing

From the Associated Press:

VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — The family of a gay teenager who was fatally shot in class blames the school district for allowing their son to wear makeup and feminine clothing to school — factors the family claims led to the death.
The parents and brother of 15-year-old Larry King of Oxnard filed a personal injury claim against the Hueneme school district seeking unspecified damages for not enforcing the dress code.

Chances are if the school had enforced the dress code...they would've been sued just like the federal government, the prisons, the army, City Halls, and even Fema.

Even if you do what they want, you can get sued by transsexuals.


It's very much a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing. If you prevent them from doing what they want, you're discriminating against them. If they get hurt...well, why didn't you stop them? It's ridiculous.

And moreover, why didn't the parents stop said behavior?

King was a ward of the court and living at a shelter for abused, neglected and emotionally troubled children at the time of the shooting.

Oh, well then. So the parents' wrongdoing put their son in a shelter and made him "emotionally troubled." So, this whole thing is their fault. And now they're suing. Spectacular.

Maybe if they'd taken better care of their kid, he wouldn't have ended up dead.

Obama Could Make His Biggest Blunder

In who he chooses as his running mate.

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Barack Obama has yet to name a vice presidential nominee and some are wondering if he might turn to Massachusetts to round out the ticket.

John Kerry for vice president?

Don't dismiss the notion just yet.

Some political insiders are telling WBZ it could happen.

The article goes on to ask the very first question that popped into my head:

So why would Obama reach out to Kerry as his choice?

Even Heller admits its out there:

"If you're laughing off the idea of Kerry back on the national ticket again, I don't blame you. While he came close four years ago, his campaign was widely derided as, to put it politely, clumsy.

Obama is already being hammered as an out of touch elitist who changes his position every 15 seconds by his Republican opponents. So yeah, lets invite Mr. Flip Flop on the ticket. That's absolutely brilliant. Obama would be done before the end of the week. Hillary would use that to argue that Barack can't win and that she should be the nominee. And the DNC may just buy it.

While the article goes on to list all the strengths that Kerry would bring...it neglects that Kerry LOST on all of those areas. If Obama is looking to bolster his military credentials, Kerry is worst person he could go to. It wasn't that long ago that right wing blogs were slamming Kerry for his "get stuck in Iraq comments". Most Democratic pundits believe the Swift Boat Vets killed Kerry the first time around. What? They won't go after Obama too? Better to have no record than a glaring weakness. More Americans believe that McCain is better on foreign issues that Obama. Adding the dude who lost to Bush, air force memos and "dissertion" rumors and all. Will the Winter Soldier really help Obama beat a POW on war issues? Hardly.

Taking in Kerry would confirm with the public everything the Republicans have been saying, he's an out of touch, elitist, arrogant. And it would cost Obama an election that he's already struggling in. Obama may be superman, but John Kerry is political Kryptonite.

h/t Drudge

Rage from Feminists is So Silent it's Deafening!

Over the brutal murders of two women by the Taliban yesterday.

Two women were ruthlessly gunned down by Taliban militants seeking to punish them from prostitution. Even if the prostitution charge is valid...who cares? Where is the outrage from those who see prostitution as a valid life choice?

These women had rights, which were torn apart by a hail of bullets from radical religious extremists. Yet the response is...nonexistant.

Sigh.

Father Arrested for Protecting Son

Simply amazing

I haven't met a parent yet who wouldn't have that reaction. Some stranger reaches out and starts fondling their child in front of them...guys lucky to still be breathing. Three parts of this story simply amaze me:

1. The employee, Valerio Rodriguez, 71, of Providence, allegedly told police through a translator “that he was wrong for touching the little boy.”
...
“The predator did admit to police that he touched my son, but stated he was just joking around,” the flier stated.

The hell kind of joke is it to grab someone from underneath a stall. That's like saying it was a joke to rip off a strange girls dress. Even if you're telling the truth...you're still going to jail. What kind of crap defense is this...and why did it work?

2. But others interviewed in the parking lot, most of whom declined to be identified, said they believed it was an unfortunate, isolated incident.
Police seemed to agree.
“It’s far more likely that a young kid is going to get molested by somebody he knows than by some stranger in the restroom,” said Raynham Police Chief Louis J. Pacheco.

The guy still works there. It's not less likely that a child will be groped in a bathroom...if that bathroom is frequented by a child groper who has done this in that bathroom before. It's like a pretty girl walking into a rapists house drunk and saying "I'm more likely to get raped by an aquaintance than a stranger." Well...all things equal yes. But when you cozy up to a rapist...not at all.

And 3. Police said they did not arrest Rodriguez at the scene due to his advanced age and lack of a criminal record. Arresting Rodriguez, he said, would have required police to also arrest Beatrice, a scene that might have further traumatized the young boy.

That's a bold faced lie. If you see someone hitting a woman and you intervene, you are protected by the good samaritans law from going to jail. The assinine assertion that they would have HAD to arrest both parties is belied by millions of one sided arrests after fights. There is absolutely nothing that says they'd have to arrest the father as well.

The police handled this one horribly.

Oil Schitzophrena

Nancy Pelosi seemingly can't decideon a consistant position about oil. Her bouncing around on the issue is almost a political bipolar disorder.

Last Tuesday she hammered Bush on the strategic oil reserve:

Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced to Democratic leaders Tuesday night that she has written a letter to President Bush, urging him to release a “small” amount of oil from the government stockpile to increase supply and decrease prices, a leadership aide said.
In the letter, Pelosi said the price of a barrel of oil has risen nearly five-fold during Bush’s tenure and called the effects "devastating."
...
Pelosi’s letter noted that a release at the time of the start of the first Gulf War in 1991 brought prices down $8 a barrel. When President Clinton ordered a swap in 2000 to lower prices, she wrote, prices dropped 34 percent, to a little more than $20 a barrel.
The most recent drawdown, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, lowered prices by about $5 a barrel, she said.

So we'd be looking at anywhere between a 5 and 10 dollar a barrel decrease, or a 3.7-7.4% decrease in crude oil. Congress has also previously blocked efforts to add oil to the reserve. The 70,000 barrels a day put into the reserve constitute .0028% of our 25 million barrels a day oil consumption.

On the other hand, Pelosi has balked at drilling for more oil:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday shut the door on expanding oil and gas drilling beyond areas that have already been approved for energy exploration, drawing a clear distinction from her counterparts in charge of the Senate.
“This call for drilling in areas that are protected is a hoax, it’s an absolute hoax on the part of the Republicans and this administration” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “It’s a decoy to punt your attention away from the fact that their policies have produced $4-a-gallon gasoline.”

In light her her repeating this criticism this monday, the simple question then is...does supply reduce the price or not? Will a one time release of oil really have more of an effect than continually drilling and getting an influx of oil every day?

Pointing out that this will take time is also silly. No one expects the oil to start flowing the instant that the bill is signed. But has anyone stepped up to tell Obama that investing in finding alternative technologies will do absolutely nothing to reduce the price of fuel any time soon? As even he seems to realize? It could take decades, plural. Building enough wind turbines or solar panels to make any difference would take years and lots of government subsidies. No one has dismissed this because of the fact that it's not immediate. Most people understand that a sound energy policy will not come into play overnight. Indeed, many of the objections to the gas tax holiday were to the fact that it was a short sighted venture that would do nothing to save any real money in the long term. As Obama put it:

"This is his (McCain's) solution to the problems of the energy crisis and your tax bills," Obama told several thousand at a noisy rally in Wilmington. "Keep in mind that the federal gas tax is about 5 percent of your gas bill. If it lasts for three months, you're going to save about $25 or $30, or a half a tank of gas."

So are we looking for a long term solution? A short term solution? The gas tax holiday, in theory, would provide as much savings as a "small" release from the Strategic Reserve. What are we trying to do here?

And what about those nasty speculators that Nancy always rails on about?:

“I have sent a letter to President Bush calling on him to direct the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its emergency powers to take immediate action to curb speculation in energy markets. They should act to investigate all energy contracts. This is authority Congress has already given to the CFTC, but which they have not used.
“Eight years ago, before another Congress made the Enron loophole law, the energy industry made 70 percent of the energy futures market trades were made by the industry—only 30 percent by speculators. Today, those numbers are reversed—and trading volume has increased six-fold.
“As the International Monetary Fund recently concluded, ‘speculation has played a significant role in the run-up of oil prices.’

Are we to believe that speculators will not react to increased supplies, or to a perceived increase by selling before the price drops? As it has 10 dollars a barrel in the two days since Bush lifted the executive ban...a purely symbolic move that has not increased the supply one drop.And it also sends a message to the Middle East gougers that we may be getting serious about getting off their oil.

If that's not enough, Pelosi's original opposition to the gas tax holiday puts all of her objections into question:

["I]t will defeat everything we've tried to do to lower the cost of oil," noting that Democrats have been trying to shift the nation to alternative fuel sources, not promote gasoline consumption.

Then what the hell is this entire debate even about? If we want people to use less gas...why are we complaining about the price of gas? Nothing encourages less use like higher prices. And why do we want to increase supply of the very substance we're supposed to use less of?

If you're confused, you're not alone. The speed at which Pelosi is spinning in circles may produce enough power in and of itself to get us off foreign oil. In which case, both Republicans and Democrats get what they want.

Do Something Syndrome on Display

This time from Canada:

Panties for Peace:

The Panties for Peace campaign plays on the regime leaders’ superstitious fear that contact with a woman’s underpants will rob them of their power. Women around the world are asked to post their panties to local Burmese embassies in a bid to strip the regime of its power and bring an end to its gross violations of human rights, especially those committed against Burma’s women.

The only group that has ever shown even close to this kind of stupidity is the group "Boobies Not Bombs". The idea that sending panties to the Burmese government will effect any meaningful change is downright moronic...as even the website admits:

A humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions has been playing out in Burma for more than 20 years. Thousands have been killed and many thousands more arrested, forced into slave labour or displaced from their villages by the ruling military regime. Burma’s women have endured rape and other forms of systematic sexual violence employed by the military to enforce its control over the country’s ethnic minorities. On May 3, 2008, Cyclone Nargis brought new and terrible suffering to the people of Burma, suffering made only worse by the military regime’s refusal to promptly accept the international community’s ensuing offers of humanitarian assistance. What began as a natural disaster was soon supplanted by a catastrophe rooted in the pride, paranoia and corruption of Burma’s military rulers.

For decades, this government has endured threats, worldwide mockery, and embargoes, but this...THIS will break the bank. THIS will be the final straw that breaks the camel's back. THIS will be what finally exacts change in a corrupt dictatorship that murders it's people!

And i'm the prince of England!

The idea that doing ANYTHING will bring about results is childish thinking. Certain actions bring about results. Others don't. Even if the regime is afraid of touching women's panties (and I can't find an objective site that backs this up), they'll just throw them away...not touch them. And this seems to be made up out of whole cloth.

Doing SOMETHING...isn't a substitute for doing an action of value. Protestors need to realize this. And stop pretending that every action has an equal consequence.

It's all about the Children...Sometimes.

A little old...but still noteworthy:

UN Sex Scandal

Accusations of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers around the world have increased in recent years and the United Nations is investigating claims against its soldiers in hotspots such as Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This comes on the heels of another sex scandal...

School Sex Scandal

5 Different Sexual Scandals have rocked the LA school district. And the UN has been indicted as well. Major news coverage on either? Nope.

Child sex scandals only matter with a right wing source...like the church. So, if priests are having sex with teenagers...it's big news. If teachers are having sex with teens...meh. If UN workers are having sex with single digit age children...who cares?

So if the source of the child molestation is a right winger...it's big news. If it's a leftist source...like the UN or union teachers, then it never makes TV news.

Children matter. But partisan politics matter more.

Ted Kennedy: Polluter

He'll just buy...oil in the water...offsets. Or something.

Ted Kennedy has called Nantucket Sound near his Massachusetts estate “a national treasure” — but that didn’t stop the senator from having oil dumped from his yacht into its waters.


A local photographer spotted an oil slick coming from Kennedy’s yacht Mya as Kennedy and his guests left the vessel in a launch following a race that ended in Hyannis, the Cape Cod Today newspaper reported.


The lensman was so shocked that he rowed his dinghy out to question the crew member left aboard the yacht.


He asked the crewman, “What the hell are you doing?”


The crewman said that diesel fuel had gotten into the bilge and he was told to dump it.


When the photographer pointed out that the yacht was moored in coastal waters near shellfish beds and people swimming, the crewman replied, “Whatever.”

It's hard to take people seriously who rant and rave about pollution, then are caught doing it themselves. And what's even worse is that the average American sees something like a Ted Kennedy shrugging off polluting the water, or an Al Gore doing the equivalent to the air...and write off pollution as a non-issue. That's always helpful.

No Criticism of Barack Obama Allowed!

As even Democratic commentators are finding out, criticism of Obama gets one branded a filthy racist.


From CNN:

(CNN) -- Geraldine Ferraro defended her controversial comment that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign was successful because he was black, telling an interviewer Tuesday that she was being attacked because she was white.
"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says, 'Let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world,' you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up," she told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California. "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

Her criticism may seem unfair, but it's not like the "Vote for Obama because he's black" crowd doesn't exist. Some of the comments from Black Enterprise:

it is that the majority in this country has brainwashed us. every race gender or creed through out the world would pull together to support their own except us. we try to find every reason not to just to sound intelligent for the other manif there was a native american running there would be no devide among them or asian jewish only us we will countinue to be lower class until we decide we can lead to. and for all those who want to vote for the other man or woman keep on being a slave and tell your kids and grandkids why they are still slaves to the other man

Obama is black. He is christian. He is highly educated and is supported by lots of educated people of USA. He is the most capable to deal with our friends and enemies alike. He is honest, fairand is electable. yes, America is ready for a black president, the problem is not USA not being ready, but some black people not being ready for a black president themselves. AAH. 12/19/07

This is a great time for the African American Community and all Americans I live in the Detroit, Michigan area and would like to work with the, Obama for president Campaign.

And the racial component of his campaign has been recognized by even black critics:

To white people, Obama positions himself as a singular solution to the nuisance of Black people's irksome complaints about ongoing racism. His appeal to Blacks is rooted in a lingering Jim Crow mentality that uncritically celebrates the prospect of Black faces in high places. ... Supposedly, the missing ten percent of Black progress that he says is required to achieve equality will be provided by his own ascension to the presidency. Then, all will be right with the African American world[.]

So the general unspoken Democratic assumption was that Barack Obama's blackness was an asset in the election, and that he was assumed to garner a large portion of the black vote. And even a few black Democrats have criticized him for relying on his race and ignoring policy.


Yet when a white woman brings up what multiple black analysts have said many many times...she's branded decisive, told she has no place in politics. Is Obama prepared to say this about Roland Martin, who told him not to assume a majority of the black vote...just because he was black? How about Debra J. Dickerson who asked whether race or gender would win out? So the idea of Hillary and Obama making it so far because of their minority status has been out in the open for some time. Only now that it's being used as criticism instead of praise or just comment...only now is it taboo.

Though it takes the wind out of his sails when his critic admits shes was only relevant because she was a woman.

The Silent Plight of Muslim Girls

If there is any area on which modern day liberalism is not willing to compromise its beliefs in order to appease the worst excesses of radical Islam, I have yet to find it. The staunchest defenders of human rights are oddly silent about the most eggregious human rights violations facing Muslims, mainly women and children. To the extent that ANY of them speak about barbaric practices such as female genital mutilation...it is usually to defend such practices.


One of the most grissly recent stories to fit this model is the tale of Yasser Abdul Said who murdered his daughters Amina and Sarah for offending his honor. No stories on DailyKos or DemocraticUnderground. And in a search on yahoo, google, and even ask.com, the first 40 stories are all from right wing blogs, usually linking either to JihadWatch and Robert Spencer, or to Phyllis Chesler. This is a case of TRUE theocratic religious zealots murdering their daughters for impure sexuality (real or imagined) and for religious reasons...yet, there is silence.


As Chesler reports:

[B]ased on extensive interviews that I have done with the female relatives of the murdered Texas teenagers, it is clear that:


a) Amina and Sarah were expected to wear headscarves. Their failure to do so, their “hidden” lives as normal American teenagers, doomed them.


b) Amina and Sarah were expected to enter into arranged marriages against their will to much older Egyptian men whom they had never met. Their refusal to do so doomed them.


c) Amina and Sarah were expected to keep quiet about the horrific sexual, physical, and psychological abuse which was heaped upon them by their father, mother, and brother. Their failure to do so doomed them.


d) Amina and Sarah were not supposed to have “boyfriends.” At the very least, their friends, both male and female, were not supposed to be Christians. The fact that they were friendly with Christian male teenagers doomed them.


e) Amina and Sarah were supposed to learn to hate America and to choose Shari’a law. Their failure to do so doomed them.


These are only some of the “rules” that Amina and Sarah were expected to obey. One of my informants has quoted their brother Islam, who often stalked his sisters, as saying: “They knew the rules. They broke them.” Islam is saying that it is their fault that his father had to kill them.


Thus, whenever you see a woman in a face veil, headscarf, or burqa, it is very likely that these rules also apply to her.

Western feminists, who leap to defend the poor and downtrodden female from having to unfairly look at ultrasounds of their unborn fetus, report to their parents that they need to travel across state lines to have an abortion at the age of 12, or have a 15 cent an hour wage difference from their male counterparts...are shockingly silent about the execution of two beautiful young women by their zealot father for not conforming to his expectations of their lives.


The charge of racism to anyone who brings up such issues is not only irresponsible...it is silly. How is it racist to try and defend women and children of color or minority faith? All those who would defend "the Muslim community against such slander" is defend behaviors that lead to the deaths of young women the world over in such "honor killings". It's just a shame that some would rather play victim politics than save lives. That those who would defend western women from the rather minor inconvenience of a wage disparity would not stand up for their sisters who are being executed by a very real patriarchy is a terrible dereliction of duty. And that some would actually defend a patriarchy responsible for such attrocities is disgusting and pathetic.