does wright think Obama is a tom?

Obama cannot sweep Reverend Wright under the rug. Wright is not a loose cannon but just another espouser of liberation theology. Did Obama cover his ears when he attended church? Wright’s position on race and the complicity of white Americans and their elected officials has not changed much. It is hard to figure how the line about how America’s chickens came home to roost after 9/11 was taken out of context or his statement that Aids was developed by the government. Granted the Church does plenty of community work, but I don’t believe they are helping all that many white folks. If Hillary doesn’t take advantage of the situation she is not serving the needs of the party for, if nominated, ,McCain will run roughshod over Obama’s connection with Wright. Too tell you the truth Wright is probably stirring the pot because he thinks Obama is a “Tom” and no more black then Clinton.

photo by (Kerry)

harper may be oily but layton is a little crude...

Cbc.ca reports, “During Tuesday's question period, NDP Leader Jack Layton accused the government of doing nothing to control high gas prices.
"You cannot trust this government to respond to this crisis," Layton told the House. But Prime Minsiter Stephen Harper dismissed the charge, saying that while other parties want higher gas taxes, his government has lowered the GST by two percentage points to return more money to Canadian households.
"It's obviously absolutely correct to observe that the price of oil and gas is rising," Harper said. "But you know, Mr. Speaker … the best the opposition can come up with is higher gas taxes. That's obviously not the right policy."
Touché! Layton set himself for that and was disingenuous in that todays high oil prices are based on the increase in the cost of oil on a global scale.

photo by Michael P. Whelan

ironically it would be Hillary who is the latter day Lincoln...

William Kristoll grudgingly praises Clinton in an Op-ed piece in the NYTs and challenges Obama’s cavalier attitude about a Lincolnesque debate. I think he’s scared. Hillary is by far the better debater and her call will probably go unanswered. Too which Kristoll writes,
“Which leads to this question: Will the media this week give Obama a pass on refusing to debate Clinton before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6? Will he be chastised for his lame excuse? “We’ve had 21, and so what we’ve said is with two weeks, two big states, we want to make sure we’re talking to as many folks as possible on the ground, taking questions from voters,” Obama said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Will it be left to conservatives like the estimable blogger “Allahpundit” (at hotair.com) to (sarcastically) state the obvious? “What’s the most efficient way to communicate with voters? Surely not at a massively promoted, televised, highly watched debate. Much better to hold a few town halls and meet and greets.”

photo by Tomla

a real pain?

“According to an Associated Press analysis of statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the amount of five major painkillers sold at stores rose 90 percent between 1997 and 2005.” So quotes Jennifer Pifer in an article on chronic pain “boot camps” posted on cnn's website
This means physicians are either better meeting their patients’ need to manage pain or sanctioning the abuse of these medications. The ball is in their court for as a patient it is difficult to figure out which is which.

photo by Prodigal Sunshine

Obama high falootin'?

George Bush is not as dumb as he appears. His image was carefully constructed. He comes on as a good old boy. The kind of guy, if he hadn’t taken the pledge, you could sit in a tavern with and shoot the shit. The kind of guy who if you had a flat tire would stop and give you a hand: the anti-Kerry. McCain seems to be down to earth: the anti-Obama. The working class are drawn to Clinton because she is a fighter and does not indulge in the hIgh falootin' sentiments of the golden boy, Obama.

photo by behindblueeyes

can he handle the high hard one?

The vultures are circling. Obama may be Adonis but that will not win the election. Clinton is no Athena but many feel she is electable. She wins the big states. She gets the working class votes and I’ll just say it, those who don’t believe a black man can be President. Obama whimpers about Hillary playing hardball but he's facing batting practice compared to the high heat he will face against the GOP attack team.

photo by kingeswife

cod, damn it!

In an article in the NYTs Elizabeth Rosenthall writes about the consequences of transporting food and the skewed economics that this produces she points out, "Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground."

The case of cod may seem absurd but Rosenthall points out "The economics are compelling. For example, Norwegian cod costs a manufacturer $1.36 a pound to process in Europe, but only 23 cents a pound in Asia.
The ability to transport food cheaply has given rise to new and booming businesses."

photo by ridetrails

mexican standoff ends with a bit of sleeze just to cap it off...

cnc.ca reports, Brenda Martin a Canadian who was caught up in the Mexican judicial system and spent the last two years in prison there, was finally sentenced this week to 5 years. The Canadian government has intervened and she should be back in Canada shortly to serve out her sentence which counting time served and the usual parole after a third of her sentence will make her de facto a free woman. The secretary of state for multiculturalism spoke with Mexican authorities about her release. of A feel good story, not according to Liberal MP McTeague, who "... called the visit to Mexico by Norlock and Kenney a photo opportunity, accusing the government of dragging its feet and delaying Martin's transfer.
McTeague said Martin spoke Thursday with Mexican officials, who told her they were prepared to release her to Canadian authorities.
"What are they doing there? They don't need to be there personally to negotiate what … the embassy's already been instructed to do," he said. "It doesn't require them, either, to be there to take her home, much as it would be nice to have her arm-in-arm with them."

photo by mnate 34

compared to darfur tibet is a tempest is a teaspoon...

Tibet is a feudal state and will remain so unless China can make some inroads. The problem is the Han Chinese who’ve set out to bring the country into the 21st century are despised. Buddhism has been the faith du jour for the New Agers and they only look to the spiritual rather than social and economic conditions in Tibet. The campaign to keep Tibet back the 14th century enjoys widespread support in the west but only pisses the Chinese off. It seems odd to back a regime where the next leader is chosen when he is boy as Kerry Huss of MSNBC notes, “The Karmapa was born to nomadic parents in 1985, in the remote region of Kham in Tibet. He was discovered there at the age of 7 by a delegation searching for the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa. All signs mentioned in a prophetic letter left behind by the late monk indicated that the boy was indeed his successor, and he was named the 17th Karmapa, and sent off to be raised in a monastery and trained in Buddhist texts and Tibetan culture.” I don’t demean the spiritual but think creature comforts come first, and this is what China has to offer. In a perfect world, the two could live together in harmony, but right now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

photo by Ya Ya

ethanol production not so bad after all?

Roger Cohen puts up a reasonably cogent argument for biofuels claiming the backlash is misplaced. He writes, "Right now, the biofuel market is being grossly distorted by subsidies and trade barriers in the United States and the European Union. These make it rewarding to produce ethanol from corn or grains that are far less productive than sugarcane ethanol, divert land from food production (unlike sugarcane), and have environmental credentials that are dubious.
What sense does it make to have a surplus of environmentally-friendly Brazilian sugar-based ethanol with a yield eight times higher than U.S. corn ethanol and zero impact on food prices being kept from an American market by a tariff of 54 cents on a gallon while Iowan corn ethanol gets a subsidy?"

But what of burning the Amazon rain forest to produce cane? Cohen claims it just isn't happening. There is enough savannah to last into the near distant future. But my concern is sugar cane or corn are not the only crops being exploited for ethanol. What of palm oil where increased production does involve the burning of rain forest?

Cohen also makes an effective argument that ethanol production is not tied to food shortages.

photo by johan_

high price of food=Third World hunger, not so fast!

The high price of food and hunger in the Third World seem joined at the hip but Robert Paarlberg, in the IHT, challenges this assumption and writes, “It is certainly a troubling instance of price instability in international commodity markets, leading to social unrest among urban food-buyers. But we must be careful not to equate high crop prices with hunger around the world. Most of the world's hungry people do not use international food markets, and most of those who use these markets are not hungry.”

photo by another story

1 in a 100 have not passed go or collected 200 dollars.....

Adam Liptak in the IHT looks at how the US fairs in terms of the number of people in jail or prison, “…ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)
The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63.
The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.”
This probably doesn’t come as a shock but an amusing tidbit is, “San Marino, with a population of about 30,000, is at the end of the long list of 218 countries compiled by the center. It has a single prisoner.”

photo by f1/4

photo op...

Isn't a little odd that Tibertan refugees in Nepal would be wearing head bands reading Free Tibet in that English is neither the language of Nepal or Tibet?

Kathmandu, Nepal: Police detain Tibetan exiles during an anti-Chinese demonstration near the Chinese embassyPhotograph: Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images

beating high gas prices...

internet hyperbole again Al?

A climatologist finds fault with Gore’s film. He doesn’t dismiss the claim that man is contributing to global warming but calls into question using extreme weather events as proof. It seems we have been obsessed with the weather since the question of global warming entered the common consciousness. Climate by itself is far too complex to put down to one cause and there are always extreme events going on. We are just hyper-vigilant now. For instance, this is not the first time the North-West Passage has been open and polar ice caps have receded. It has happened almost in living memory.

photo by photoplane

will there be a buddhist jesse owens?

China is a proud country and has a long history of foreign intervention in her affairs so when nationalistic passions arise over the debacle around the Olympic torch it is easy to see why the masses would rise against the slights and yet in an Op-ed piece in the IHT this new nationalism is attacked and the N. word is almost invoked.
“There is a crucial distinction between a healthy, constructive nationalism and the pathological variety that Hitler sought to inject into the Berlin Olympics of 1936.
Nevertheless, the nationalistic vehemence that has come into view this spring among China's best and brightest is a troubling phenomenon.
It suggests that nationalism has replaced Maoism or Marxism as the legitimating credo of China rulers - and that the critical spirit defining the Tienanmen protests of 1989 has given way in some quarters to an emotional identification with the ancient idols of blood and soil.”

It is assumed that the Democracy movement had the support of a large percentage of the population was that so? Does the Chinese put down any kind of dissidence regardless of its extent and therefore could the democracy movements influence be exaggerated?

photo by Lalo 5.6

trouble in river city...

There is trouble in River City. It is hard to tell for with subsidies for producing ethanol and the resulting increased demand for food, corn has more than doubled in price over the last three years. Things seem peachy. But not only have prices of grain gone up but so have those for fertilizer. There is a land rush, prices are skyrocketing, and farmers are going into serious debt. The ethanol subsidy seems to holding for now but government is getting concerned about food shortages, especially when it comes to animal feed so prices could crash and foreclosures (sound familiar?) a real possibility.

photo by AgWired

email bankruptcy...

In Punch line for a digital age: Take my e-mail. Please! Randall Stross of the IHT speaks of a novel way to deal with being swamped by email at work and no way to get through it all. Select all and delete and go into email bankruptcy. Looking back to the pre-digital age Stross finds some simple solutions. Thomas Edison read all his mail and then dictated to secretaries. Whatever happened to stenographers? H.L. Menken answered all his mail and followed the golden rule "If I write to a man on any proper business and he fails to answer me at once, I set him down as a boor and an ass." Stross’ solution is to take a page from these older ways of life when mail only came twice a day, only open your Inbox twice a day.

Photo by eszter

not so holy water...

In an article by Sam Kiley, entitled Israel: 60 years of hope and despair, Kiley writes of the insanity of farming in the desert “...if Jesus Christ were alive today among his earliest miracles would be to survive his own baptism, because of the profligate use of the River Jordan's waters for irrigation in Israel and the kingdom of Jordan. At the site attributed to St John's baptism of Christ, the Jordan is no longer a river. Thick, green, about 2ft wide, Israel's government calls it an 'effluent channel'.”

photo by Gray Redfox

can obama win the heartland?

Matt Bai in a piece in the NYTs looks at the Democrats inability to engage rural America and concludes, “Rural Americans may or may not hate Democrats, as Mark Warner put it, but after the rhetoric of these last few years, they could be forgiven for wondering if some Democrats hate them.”

photo by Mr. Trona

obama strikes out...

Obama at some whistle stop bowled a 37. That is insulting to the working man for whom bowling plays an important social role. It all seems very funny and makes him seem more vulnerable, but what would have happened if he shot 200 on the Links? Would it have been as big a joke?

she plays dirty...

I watched the first hour of the Presidential Debate in Pennsylvania and Clinton come out on top time and time again. This is the way it’s gone the whole campaign. Obama wins hands down on oratory and Clinton wins in the clinches. To make lemon out of lemonade, Obama says of the debates, "Look, I understand that because that's the text book Washington game. That's how our politics has been taught to be played," Obama said. "That's the lesson that she learned when the Republicans were doing that same thing to her back in the 1990s. So I understand it and when you're running or the presidency than you've got to expect it."
Duh? The election isn’t going to be a love fest and McCain is a veteran campaigner so if he wins the nomination, Obama better hone up on his debating skills for he will face just as tough a debater and the questions will only get tougher.

photo by Steve Hopson

going ape over passover...

a sign of the times...

In an AP story the fate of the Hollywood sign is discussed “It's true the Hollywood sign was originally a sign to help sell development. But by 1945 the City Council of Los Angeles had made it the official iconic sign of Los Angeles.....It's just become part of the culture and landmark status of Los Angeles, extremely important."
The land was owned by the estate of Howard Hughes but nothing happened until recently when it was purchased and plans made for developing the land around the sign.
So there is a certain sad irony that a sign to promote the sale of property and homes in the area is now threatened by real estate agents.
One can only hope that city planners will block the development around the sign and leave the whole area as a park, which de facto it has become

pointy headed liberal again...

I just watched an hours worth of the Democratic Debate in Pennsylvania. That was enough for me. Clinton was winning hands down. She has proven to be the better debater and Obama’s statement about the bitterness among small town Americans and its results played right into her wheelhouse. The IHT poses a very good question
“If he defeats Clinton, will accusations of elitism dog him as they have previous Democratic nominees? Does Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, suddenly have an issue that will resonate for the next six months?”
Or to put it crudely will he be seen as an uppity Negro (to put it politely) and for others as liberal about to fall on his pointy head as have so many before him much to the benefit of John M?

photo by oztenphoto

some mighty big phish...

According the IHT “Thousands of high-ranking executives across the country have been receiving e-mail messages this week to download a Trojan that will record key strokes or take control of the computer. that appear to be official subpoenas from the United States District Court in San Diego. Each message includes the executive's name, company and phone number, and commands the recipient to appear before a grand jury in a civil case.
A link embedded in the message purports to offer a copy of the entire subpoena. But a recipient who tries to view the document unwittingly downloads and installs software that secretly records keystrokes and sends the data to a remote computer over the Internet. This lets the criminals capture passwords and other personal or corporate information….The tactic of aiming at the rich and powerful with an online scam is referred to by computer security experts as whaling.”

photo by ToastyKen

green bush?

According to Ewan McAskill in the Guardian, “George Bush will introduce a Bill that establishes a cap and trade system for stationary polluters. The bill also proposed a five-fold increase in the production of ethanol by 2020 as an alternative to oil.”
He seems, after being a climate change denier to be a “born again” environmentalists. Cap and trade is a step in the right direction, but the consensus among environmentalist is that the production of ethanol could be a disaster, raising food prices in the Third World, being counterproductive in that with a dependency on oil to produce fertilizer the carbon footprint may be bigger than before the proposal. The only positive result of the policy will be increased profits for agribusiness.

photo by terrapin dawg

do seals testicles not cure cancer but promote it?

A “… review, by the Cochrane Collaboration which regularly pools data from trials to evaluate drugs and treatments, found supplements vitamin A, vitamin E and beta-carotene are detrimental to health. In 47 trials with 180,938 people and a low risk of bias, the "antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality", the authors wrote. When the antioxidants were assessed separately and low risk of bias trials were included and selenium excluded, vitamin A was linked to a 16% increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7% increased risk and vitamin E to a 4% increased risk."
Antioxidants gained favour with the American medical establishment so I wonder how many treatments promoted by Alternative Medicine cause more damage than good?

out sourcing surrogacy...

In a serious article by Ellen Goodman of the Washington Post writes about the rising tide of outsourcing surrogacy but opens on a humourous note,

“By now we all have a story about a job outsourced beyond our reach in the global economy. My favorite is about the California publisher who hired two reporters in India to cover the Pasadena city government.”

the free market triumphs over big government again...

WASHINGTON (AP)- It's not just angry passengers who are suffering. The grounding of thousands of flights is disrupting cargo, mail and other crucial business for financially strapped airlines, and that means painful new strains on a U.S. economy teetering on the edge of recession.

Apologetic airlines suggest the cancellations won't extend beyond this weekend. But there are indications the problems may just be beginning as federal regulators step up their scrutiny of carriers' compliance with safety rules.

Air traffic systems, computers and other crucial equipment are aging, as are many of the planes themselves. Critics of the industry say that cutbacks on maintenance and inadequate government safeguards are starting to take a toll.

Wasn’t it a good idea to deregulate airlines and let them police themselves?

let him cast the first stone...

You may see me as an appeaser of China from my last few posts on the subject. There are serious human rights violations, and Buddhists and Muslims (a forgotten minority: the former is groovy the latter is not) are bearing more than their fair share of the brunt. The larger problem for the West is China’s indirect complicity with The Sudan. They trade with the country and more importantly sell them arms. Putting the trade issue aside, the genocide in Darfur is catastrophic  and therefore China’s role is despicable, but hold on, do western arms dealers really care that their product is being issued to child soldiers or in smaller and yet no less bestial kinds of genocide?

photo by baragaon 7

doing the right thing will accomplish nothing except piss them off

There are things I suppose that could be done to really challenge China to improve its civil rights record, although I believe the majority of Chinese don’t give a damn about the pro-democracy movement and see the intervention of outsiders as an affront. The same can be said about ending the countries complicity in the Sudan, but it ain’t going to happen. The US economy would collapse if an embargo were established and even more so China would stop lending the Americans money. Protesting only pisses the Chinese off but I guess it makes the protestors feel better.

photo by tillnet 

where's the beef...

Paul Krugman in his NYTs Op-ed column states a fact that is going to have a major impact on grain prices as the Chinese get more affluent and begin to eat more meat, he writes, “…it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef….”

photo by loupolt (Old Skool) 

3 a,m. may come back to haunt obama...

My good friend William Kristoll, new Op-ed columnists (he makes David Brooks look like John Kerry) with the NYTs looks at how some Republicans and Democrats rate Obama and McCain’s chances. He found that some of them think the candidate from the other party will win. He writes, “Then there’s the fact that we’re at war. As a Congressional staffer put it, “Here’s something to consider: Although Hillary will be out in May, she may determine the outcome in November. McCain’s secret weapon — among Clinton supporters — may be Hillary’s 3 a.m. national security ad.”

photo by blood246

eight years old and sexy!

In an interview on NBCs Dateline Nancy Carson, a friend of the Spear’s family says, “I get chills thinking about it, she was so good. She was really one of the best little ones I’d ever met.

What made her so good, says Carson, was that even then, at the tender age of 8, Britney knew how to put a sexy, little spin on a tired old ditty.”

I get chills too. Eight years old and sexy are not usually used in the same sentence except by a pedophile. No wonder she has problems.

 Sexy has taken on a whole new meaning but still eight years old is too young to put a sexy spin on anything no matter how you define it.

photo by Saman Sohalb Awan

clinton all talk?

AP reports that "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday called on President George W. Bush to stay away from the Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing, a fresh sign that politics, not sports, may take center stage at the summer games."

There is no doubt that China's complicity in the Sudan is despicable, that her human rights record is atrocious and that her stand on Tibet maybe questionable, but the country has made incredible strides and focusing on these rather than being critical will have a more positive effect. China stands to lose an incredible amount of face if countries boycott the games either actually or symbolically and the Chinese are tired outsiders telling them how to run their affairs. I believe Clinton's remark is opportunistic and I wonder what she would do if she really did have to make the decision.

photo by cubsfan 723

King falls from favour...

There are two types of Black churches in America. Those with prophetic pastors who preach the social gospel and those who preach the prosperity gospel, Reverend Wright is an example of the former and his stridency and that of those like him are turning black’s towards the former, based on the non-Gospel saying, “The Lord helps them that helps themselves.” According to CNN, “Prosperity Christians  started as a fringe doctrine in the black church. It was pioneered by "Rev. Ike," a prosperity televangelist with a pompadour who boasted during his heyday in the 1970s that "my garages runneth over." Now it is mainstream, with mega-Churches prevailing and the prophetic congregations shrinking. It is a little ironic that MLK may have more support in white Churches than black ones.

photo by CreepyMo

watson an ecoterrorist...

In an earlier post, I reported in that the Guardian reports there is a Green Scare going on much like the Red Scare of the fifties. There is talk of eco-terrorism. This  tars all environmentalists with the same brush and plays into the hands of big business. Unfortunately, pirates like Paul Watson add credence to the scare and alienate vast numbers of nascent environmentalists.

photo by guano

how many seals are worth one human life, paul?

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Society and his crew on the Farley Mowat are a class act, for according to cbc.com,

“Fishermen on Saint-Pierre cut the vessel's mooring lines and ran it out of port in response to disparaging comments Watson made about several seal hunters who died last weekend when their boat capsized as it was being towed off the coast of Cape Breton.”

photo by guano

who's the imperialist now?

Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times shows how the repression of Tibet is more complicated than just being a violation of human rights by despots. The move is immensely popular in China.  Kristoff writes, “To Chinese, steeped in education of 150 years of "guochi," or national humiliations by foreigners, the current episode is one more effort by imperialistic and condescending foreigners to tear China apart or hold it back.” He goes on the say, “The Dalai Lama is the last, best hope for reaching an agreement that would resolve the dispute over Tibet forever. He accepts autonomy, rather than independence, and he has the moral authority to persuade Tibetans to accept a deal.” He goes on to say the stream of Han Chinese should be stopped as they are resented for their mercantile acumen.

photo by Helmut Schadt

step into my parlour...

Paul Fischer, of France, presents the Cervical Stretcher – an exercise and therapy device for people with cervical problems -The Guardian

Photograph: Martial Trezzini/EPA

the case against space...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- A new European cargo ship flew up to the international space station and docked Thursday, successfully delivering food, water and clothes in its orbital debut.

The craft was unmanned which begs the question is it necessary to send man into space’s hostile environment with the level of sophistication of robotics? Is there an agenda fueled by the romance of space travel? The logistics of a manned flight to Mars are absurd and what good would come of it? Why has man not returned to the Moon? Technology is far superior than it was during the 60’s. Could it be that there is no point?

Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. by Nick Sherman

a chicken in every pot...

According to cbc.ca Jose Lima won the 14 ½ million dollars 6-49 jack pot. His largesse took an odd form,

“Lima said he was handing out 22,680 kilograms of chicken legs to celebrate the $14.5 million he won last week in Lotto 6-49 and chose the day to mark the fifth anniversary of his father's death…. Worker Jane Sousa said her boss hasn't changed since learning of his lottery win.

"He'll be the same Joe from the meat store for years and years and years to come," she said, grinning. "He hasn't changed a bit now. If anything, he's happier. That's all."

The 52-year-old father of two said the big win won't change his life too much. 

But one thing will change: he plans to cut his seven-day work week to three or four days.”

Tell me why so many people play the lottery and when they win let it sit in a bank account and make few changes to their lifestyle?

rembrandt chicken by kattenmeisje  queen of

 

green scare...

The following is from The Guardian,

“According to many, the US is now in the middle of a "Green Scare" akin to the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, when senator Joseph McCarthy launched his infamous communist witch-hunt. Environmental and animal rights activists are being targeted, it is believed, not because they are dangerous, but because in the wake of 9/11 the government needs scapegoats beyond Muslims, and people - often young, white and middle-class - with defined ideologies who target corporate America are easy and attractive game.”

photo by Brent Hageman

celebrity's remarkable cure for autism?

In an article on cnn.com Jenny McCarthy and her husband speak of her child’s struggle with Autism, a battle they say he is winning. This was done by starting Evan on a “…gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines. Once Evan's neurological function was recovered through these medical treatments, speech therapy and applied behavior analysis helped him quickly learn the skills he could not learn while he was frozen in autism. After we implemented these therapies for one year, the state re-evaluated Evan for further services. They spent five minutes with Evan and said, "What happened? We've never seen a recovery like this." “Many people aren't aware that in the 1980s our children received only 10 vaccines by age 5, whereas today they are given 36 immunizations, most of them by age 2. With billions of pharmaceutical dollars, could it be possible that the vaccine program is becoming more of a profit engine then a means of prevention?”

The two are egotistical in believing that the medical and research community should embrace the therapies they employed to lead to Evan’s recovery. It may have been a misdiagnosis or it may indeed have been effective but the evidence is only anecdotal and therefore will do nothing other than suggest hypotheses that may lead to a substantial breakthrough. Evidence may suggest that autism has been connected to vaccines is all well and good, and that the increase from 10 to 36 may look like the drug companies trying are cashing in, but who is decide which of them should be discontinued given the relative rarity of children diagnosed with autism?

In terms of McCarthy’s and Carrey’s claim that no one is listening, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. I don’t think it is any coincidence that on the CNN site today there are three stories about autism. This might help their cause but give it a couple of news cycles….

photo by Seth Rogen

 

just when you thought the oil industry couldn't get any slimier..

ANTHONY, Texas (CNN) -- Texas may be best known for "Big Oil." But the oil that could some day make a dent in the country's use of fossil fuels is small. Microscopic, in fact: algae. Literally and figuratively, this is green fuel.
Algae is the ultimate in renewable energy," Glen Kertz, president and CEO of Valcent Products, told CNN while conducting a tour of his algae greenhouse on the outskirts of El Paso.
Kertz, a plant physiologist and entrepreneur, holds about 20 patents. And he is psyched about the potential algae holds, both as an energy source and as a way to deal with global warming.

photo by Jeff Wignall

won't get fooled again...

It’s too late to come with a prank but here are some recent ones and classics from cbc.com.

Britain's Sun tabloid wrote that the five-foot-five-inch [Frech Pesident] Sarkozy would undergo stretching treatments so that he wouldn't be shorter than his new wife.

Virgin Airlines ran newspaper ads offering half-price tickets if people were willing to stand for the entire flight, called "no chair fares"

Classic April Fool's gags include the BBC's 1957 report on the Swiss spaghetti harvest. The news show Panorama showed footage of farmers pulling down strands of pasta from trees.

In 1962, an announcer on Sweden's sole television station told viewers they could convert their black-and-white broadcast to colour if they covered the TV screen with a nylon stocking.

photo by chichacha

now the white man bears other's burdens...

In an op-ed piece for the NYT Roger Cohen looks at India and China who are both concerned that there economies will only grow by 8% this year, this while the American economy is battered and may be going into a recession, which means no growth. Cohen writes, “Everything passes. In the 17th century, China and India accounted for more than half the world’s economic output. After a modest interlude, the pendulum is swinging back to them at a speed the West has not grasped.

It’s the end of the era of the white man; and, before it even began in earnest, of the white woman, too.”

photo by *mike7.net

 

not so mad a march...

We are down to the Final Four, according to Mike Celizic, “Before the season began, the pollsters, who, as experience has taught us, never get these things right, said that the four best college basketball teams in the nation were North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas. Then, before March Madness began, the selection committee said that the four best teams in the country were still North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas.

And now, after eight days of battle, there are four teams left — North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas.”

It’s never happened before and if you bet on it you probably got long odds because every year there is at least one major upset.

photo by wa2wader