Is The Search For Stem Cells With The Superior
Qualities of Embryonic Stem Cells May Be Very Close

Researchers reported this week that they think they may be much closer to finding a good way to take very ordinary cells and morph them into the far more valuable embryonic stem cells that happen to work the best for treatment of various medical crises.

Obviously, the radical right fundamentalist extremists do not want ANY embryonic stem cells used (unless, of course, such cells would help cure their own health problems) because using such cells for anything more than creating a Bush-voter-load of snowflake babies is an abomination against God. Despite how many Republicans, including fundamentalist GOPers and the likes of Nancy Reagan believe very strongly that stem cell research and use is critically important, Bush and Congress and Washington as a whole ignores them. Indeed, they ignore these intelligent folks much as they ignore any other majority (like the number who want us out of Iraq, who don't want war with Iran, those who think Bush and Cheney are incredibly corrupt).Media, Politics, United States, World, War, Terrorism, Propaganda, Constitution, Vermont, US.

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http://cut-to-the-chase.blogspot.com/2007/06/is-search-for-stem-cells-with-superi
or.html

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Turkish Incursions into Kurdistan

The AO is reporting the Turkish Army in some strength entered northern Kurdistan today. The report argues the operation was a 'hot pursuit' case against suspected PKK rebels who have been 'baiting the bear' intensely over the past few weeks and more generally over the past three decades.

The officials who gave the accounts of the raid Wednesday are involved in anti-rebel operations. They did not disclose whether they participated in the planning of Wednesday's operation.

Two of the officials said any confrontation with Iraqi Kurdish groups, who have warned against a Turkish incursion, could trigger a larger cross-border operation. The Turkish military has asked the government in Ankara to approve such an incursion, but the government has not given formal approval.

Tensions are ratcheting up in northern Iraq and one of the few significant pre-war predictions of the problems that we could easily foresee occur that has not yet come true, major regional war sparked off by a three or four way fight in Kurdistan is becoming a stronger probability of occurring.

Cernig is the blog's resident Kurdistan politics expert, so I'll expect more from him in the next couple of days on this subject.

Read The Full Article:
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/06/turkish-incursions-into-kurdistan.html

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Today's Must Read

Don't tell Foggy Bottom that the Bush administration's post-9/11 foreign policy has made the country safer. The State Department is in the midst of a staffing crisis thanks to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to a new report by an advisory council.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Foreign Affairs Council, an association of nonprofit organizations, finds that the need to fill diplomatic positions in the war zones has left the foreign service understaffed by about 1,000 positions. The Council anticipates "a very, very serious situation a year from now" unless the administration and congress takes immediate action.

The council said Rice has required diplomats to carry out a more aggressive mission of "transformational diplomacy" to prod other countries to adhere to democratic principles.

But at the same time, envoys have had to cope with wartime strains, inadequate language and skills training and more overtime work.

In addition, about 750 have been required to take one-year stints in sometimes dangerous postings where they are not allowed to bring their families, the group said.

It's understandable that Iraq and Afghanistan require an outsized share of diplomatic resources, hard as it is to get many at State to go to the war zones, particularly Iraq. Muckraker reported in February how and why some Foreign Service Officers balk at Iraq assignments. But the Foreign Affairs Council's report suggests that unless the Foreign Service expands significantly -- the service only has about 9,000 people -- will barely be able to play catch-up when new crises emerge.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003361.php

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With Friends Like John Bolton...

Mr. Tact strikes again in, of all places, the sentencing letters for Scooter Libby.

In his plea (more like a harangue) for leniency on behalf of his former colleague, our erstwhile unconfirmable Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, delivered a lecture on the dangers of a nuclear world before enlightening Judge Reggie Walton on Scooter?s labors:

?Information flowed across his desk on a daily basis like water coming out of a high-pressure fire hydrant, with more demands for action than could humanly be met...In the face of all these demands, keeping every detail straight is impossible."

Bolton should know. At the time of the Valerie Plame outing, there were suspicions that his office was involved. But he does have a point. When there is so much chicanery going on, who can remember every detail? Alberto Gonzales is living proof of that.


Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/06/with-friends-like-john-bolton.html

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What Ought To Be

Bobby Kennedy was killed on this date back in 1968.  The above YouTube of his speech in Indianapolis are words that RFK spoke to a crowd there on the night of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s asassination.  There is something about the lilt in[...]

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/06/what-ought-to-be/

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Giuliani The Wrong

Live from China, James Fallows smacks Rudy Giuliani down on Iraq. However, he uses the trope that "one can't understand" why Giuliani would be so grotesquely mendacious and wrongheaded, when he clearly knows better and is wildly out of step...[...]

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http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/giuliani_the_wr.html

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Scooter Hoist by His Own Petard

The judicial shoe dropped on Scooter Libby yesterday to the tune of 30 months in jail and a $250K fine. Not surprisingly, there's plenty of caterwauling about the fairness of the sentence and whether he deserves - or will get - a Presidential pardon. People are apt to frame Scooter's sentence through the window of Clinton's impeachment and in some ways the comparison is fair, in others, not so much.

The Humidor Honey

Clinton lied about his humidor honey, Monica Lewinsky. You could argue that he should've been charged and convicted of that felony offense, but he wasn't. The justice system made a legal decision not to prosecute - end of story. From a legal point of view, it doesn't matter whether you believe he's guilty. As they should, the legal system made that determination on our behalf. After all, I believe that OJ did it, but that isn't what the court found and I'm not a judge. So, I respect the decision even though I believe it is wrong. Such is the true rule of law.

However, a republican congress disagreed with the legal decision and attacked Clinton's case via a legislative process. I personally believe that was the wrong decision, but they carried it out properly under congressional rules, so I respect it. It doesn't matter which is worse, a lie about a BJ or a lie about outing a spy. Both are actionable crimes and both men payed for their transgressions. It's a little disingenuous for Libby supporters to split that hair now and charge the prosecutor played politics at Scooter's expense when a similar argument could be made about Clinton's impeachment.

Scooter's supporters think he should get off because he wasn't convicted of the original "crime" the feds investigated, but that's also true of Clinton's imbroglio. Whitewater had zero to do with blowjobs. Lying and obstruction are crimes in of themselves - not withstanding the still unproven republican claims that Plame wasn't outed. Scooter's supporters also claim he should get off because of his long and honorable government service. That argument just don't hold water. One could say Clinton served his government equally well.

It seems that on the "rightness scale" both cases are more or less equal. But a pardon is another matter entirely.

Pardon Me?

Clinton had little recourse in defending against impeachment. There was no one to pardon him. He may have lied to the grand jury, but once the affair was out he allowed the process to go forward with little whining. His supporters complained loudly, just as Scooter's do now. But at the end of the day, both men deserve punishment and are getting it.

However, Scooter does potentially have a get out of jail free card. Unlike Clinton, there is someone to pardon him. It's true other Presidents have made dubious pardons, but that shouldn't be a precedent or excuse for a Bush pardon. A pardon would highlight Bush's evident disdain for the judicial process and the rule of law he so often cites. It would also be true to form. He's often skirted the Constitution and angled to prevent legal challenges to those decisions and that is neither fair nor right. If Bush pardons Scooter, it will be an injustice.

And perhaps that, would be the biggest crime of all.

---

The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!
Tech Tags: politics libby omnipotent+poobah

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http://omnipotentpoobah.blogspot.com/2007/06/scooter-hoist-by-his-own-petard.html

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Amateur Porn!

Julian, commenting on the rise of amateur porn, writes: there are plenty of people who consume porn as a second-best substitute for the sex they're not having, which means they want something that approximates at closely as possible an erotic...[...]

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http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/amateur_porn.html

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Schlozman Admits To ‘Boasting’ About
The Number Of Republicans He Hired

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked Justice Department official Bradley Schlozman about evidence that he hired officials for their conservative or Republican affiliations. Schlozman insisted that such qualities were “irrelevant to the hiring decision for a career position.”But minutes later, Schumer asked Schlozman, “Did you ever boast to anyone [...]

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/06/schlozman-boast/

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Washington Post editorial: Putin was mean to us

A rather odd editorial in today's Washington Post criticizing Russian President Putin. Yes, Putin has been rather belligerent of late, but the Post editorial reads like it was penned by an adolescent who was just told he had to be home by midnight. The editorial - clearly written by Post neo-con Fred Hiatt - isn't a criticism of Russia's lurch back towards dictatorship, rather, it's a criticism of Russia saying mean things about democracy. And democracy, fair lady that she is, apparently can't hold up to criticism.

Per the Post:

IN THE PAST few days, the anti-Western rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which had been rising in pitch for several months, has reached Soviet levels of shrillness. He accused the United States of "imperialism" and "diktat" and threatened to target Europe with new Russian weapons. In an interview with foreign journalists, he cynically mocked Western democracy, saying that U.S. "torture, homelessness, [and] Guantanamo" and Europe's "harsh treatment of demonstrators" have left him as the only "absolute and pure democrat" in the world.

Talk about shrill.

Yeah, okay, the threat against Europe was a bit over the top, but it's not as if we haven't issued our own military challenge to Russia in their own backyard (Eastern European missile shield, anyone?). As for the rest of the what Putin said, save his comment about being a "democrat" (meaning, pro-democracy), what exactly did Putin get wrong? That our foreign policy under Bush and the Republicans isn't a tad imperialistic? That we don't expect the world to shut up and do what we say? (Hell, that's the way Bush and the GOP treat domestic dissent as well.) That torture, homelessness and the ongoing abuse that is Gitmo isn't a mockery of our very democracy? Sure is, and it doesn't take a former communist spy leader to see it.

Yes, what bothers Fred Hiatt about Putin's comments aren't the actual substance of the comments, it's the very fact that Putin would dare to say anything at all critical of the good 'ole U S of A. Putin dared to "mock Western democracy," you see. And everyone knows that the first rule of a democracy is "please don't speak your mind," and its corollary, don't ever ever ever criticize the government.

So it's no longer okay in civilized, democratic societies to mock our own government, our politicians, even our system of governance? Then what exactly are our soldiers dying for in Iraq anyway, Mr. Hiatt, if not the very freedoms that you and the Bush administration seem to have such increasing contempt for? (Let alone the irony of a newspaperman criticizing someone's opinion not on the basis of that opinion, but on the very fact that they had the audacity to issue an opinion at all.)

Democracy is more than a bumper sticker, Mr. Hiatt. At some point, you and the other neo-cons running the Republican party need to come to terms with your obvious dissatisfaction at being forced to live in in a country whose founding principles so offend you.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/122693933/washington-post-editorial
-putin-was.html

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