Hunter Baker, writing at "First Things", responds to Jim Wallis’ question "What Would Jesus Cut", referring to government spending. (Which begs the question, would Jesus borrow us into prosperity?)

Obama’s HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, admits to double counting some savings that ObamaCare™ would bring. Not really news, except for those who haven’t been paying attention.

Media Matters, an allegedly non-partisan press watchdog group, has a Transparency project that lists major donors to conservative and libertarian organizations. "The Agitator" notes that, while a number of those conservative organizations themselves already provide this transparency, Media Matters itself does not.

Who’s going to clean up this mess in Wisconsin?

It could cost as much as $7.5 million to repair damage protesters have done to the Capitol Building marble say officials in Madison. Fixing posters to the marble with tape and glue appears to have done the bulk of the damage.

During testimony Thursday, a representative from the Attorney General’s office said a contractor estimated it would cost $500,000 to remove all of the posters and garbage. He says it would cost $6 million to restore the marble inside of the Capitol building and another $1 million to touch up the marble outside of the building.

Guess who came to the rescue? The Tea Party. Liberals trashed it, conservatives will care for it.

Mark Steyn notes a very odd way to say, "Thank you.". A young Kosovar is who killed 2 US servicemen in a Frankfurt airport. I mean, we didn’t even wait for UN resolutions before helping Kosovo get its independence. That’s gratitude?

Remember how upset the Left was about indefinite detentions and military tribunals at Guantanamo, and how much the press covered it? Yeah, well, all that is back on again and now they’re rather quiet about it. Wonder what changed.

Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow say, no, we’re not broke as a nation. Reality begs to differ.

Bummer. A set-back for reprogrammed adult stem cells. Undisturbed adult stem cells continue to be extremely useful, but trying to reprogram them into what are essentially embryonic stem cells is having problems.

Look, if you’re going to be biased in what you say, I have no problem with that. Just be honest about it. NPR isn’t. James O’Keefe strikes again at the heart of liberal bias at the network. NPR tries some damage control, but Patterico calls their ombudsman on it. Predictably, liberals now deplore gotcha’ journalism. (Though calling up a governor and misrepresenting who you are is just fine. Wonder what changed.) And apparently O’Keefe isn’t done with the revelations.

The UK’s CEO of the national power grid is predicting that blackouts will be just a part of the new normal once wind turbines become more prominent and supplant other means of electricity generation. How long before paying to not get blacked out becomes popular, and the politization of energy begins?

Civility Watch: Credible death threats against the Palins.

And finally, the Society of Centurions is named after the Centurion who was at the cross when Jesus died, and ultimately admitted, "Surely he was the Son of God". It is an organization for former abortion providers. Changing one’s view on abortion is one thing. Considering it wrong after you’ve provided them is another thing entirely. Priests for Life admonishes, "Let’s pray for the Centurions, and may their numbers increase!" Amen.

Skin cells turned directly into heart cells.

Scientists have successfully converted adult skin cells directly into beating heart cells efficiently without having to first go through the laborious process of generating embryonic-like stem cells.

The powerful general technology platform could lead to novel treatments for diseases and injuries involving cell loss or damage such as heart disease, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease, according to researchers at the Scripps Research Institute.

In 2006, Japanese scientists reported that they could reprogram mouse skin cells to become pluripotent simply by inserting a set of four genes into the cells dubbed induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. But creating iPS cells itself is a time taking procedure.

Hence, lead author Sheng Ding and colleagues tweaked the process by completely bypassing the iPS stage and going directly from one type of mature cell (a skin cell) to another (a heart cell).

Amazing. This is almost the biological equivalent of alchemy.

A longer list this time.  I took a vacation from blogging during — if you’ll forgive the expression — Christmas vacation, and this video comes out.  Nina Totenberg apologizes for using the term "Christmas party".  Is this really a taboo among liberals?  Or are liberals in the press really this out of touch with the rest of America?

Here are six good reasons why embryonic stem cells will never make it out of the lab and into the bodies of sick people.  But money will still pour into it because, hey, it’s money!

Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket at a kindergarten, hurting one teen passing by.  I didn’t watch much news over vacation, but I’m sure this was all over it.  Right?  I mean, it would have been if Israel had done it, so I’m just supposing.

It’s amazing how stark the double standards are regarding leaks.  Julian Assange didn’t mind dumping data that is life-or-death to some of our Afghani informers, but hated it when leaks about his own legal troubles came out.  Really?  And there are other news reporter groups that hate it when they get leaked. 

Iran is shipping missiles to Venezuela.  Hey Hollywood, this is just fine, right?  (Chavez blames all the failures of socialism on others, and so this paranoia is bound to give him cause to use such weapons.  So, no, it’s not al right.)

No, the polar bear is not endangered.  So says the Obama administration.  Really.  And Bruce McQuain notes that, really, endangered status is more about power than it is about the environment.

The (Democrat-controlled) Congress blocked the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the US.  I guess Obama has no one to blame for this other than … Bush.

Twenty years ago, and continuing as recently as 2009, it was predicted that global warming would bring much milder winters with less snow because of the temperatures.  Ski slopes would be barren and snow would vanish from places as far north as Scotland. Now, however, they’re saying that all that snow we got, even in the deep south, is because of global warming.  The link has a good round-up of weather vs predictions.

More power to this guy, who quit his job, got some legal education, and started suing e-mail spammers.

Why do atheists whine about not being invited to a prayer event?  Hey, you don’t like an inauguration that includes a prayer service?  Go out and win an election, and run your inauguration any way you want.

The fairy tale dwarf was able to turn straw into gold, but it appears he’s updated his resume for the time we live in.

In an important breakthrough, scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from adult human skin.

The discovery, published in the prestigious science journal Nature today, could mean that in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions. Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.

Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster’s Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have also shown that the conversion is direct. Making blood from skin does not require the middle step of changing a skin stem cell into a pluripotent stem cell that could make many other types of human cells, then turning it into a blood stem cell.

"We have shown this works using human skin. We know how it works and believe we can even improve on the process," said Bhatia. "We’ll now go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin, as we already have encouraging evidence."

The discovery was replicated several times over two years using human skin from both young and old people to prove it works for any age of person.

Certainly would sound like a fairy tale, but it’s the real deal.  I’ll be very interested to see if skin can be made into other types of cells, reducing the need, yet again, for embryos to be destroyed for their stem cells.

Using umbilical cord stem cells.

Mrs Leach, 76, lost her sight in February last year and was diagnosed with giant cell arteritis, an inflammatory disease of blood vessels.

She was told by doctors in the UK that nothing could be done but she found out about Qingdao Chengyang People’s Hospital which offered an alternative.

Mrs Leach, from Hardwicke, near Gloucester, and the local community managed to raise the £16,000 to pay for the cost of the treatment.

This involved stem cell fluid taken from umbilical cords of new born babies being injected twice into her right eye and six times into her hands over a six week period.

Opponents of using embryonic stem cells have never had issues with umbilical cord stem cells.  And we have yet another example of a treatment that has none of the ethical, moral and physical issues associated with embryonic cells.

Are we getting the picture, yet?

I knew unions supported the Democrats, but really; getting fired for wearing a Bush hat and sweatshirt?  Even though it’s referring to the aircraft carrier the George H. W. Bush?  That your son serves on?  Really?  That’s a sign of rabid, unthinking support of the Democrats.

Andrew Fergusson, Head of Communications at Christian Medical Fellowship, writing in Christianity Today, lays out the big difference between embryonic stem cells and the adult variety.

Ron Futrell, writing at Big Journalism:

During the discussion where Williams said he gets “nervous” when he sees people on a plane in Muslim garb (that’s what got him fired).  Williams also warned O’Reilly against blaming all Muslims for “extremists,” saying Christians shouldn’t be blamed for Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Timothy McVeigh was not Christian. Love ya Juan, and sorry to hear about what happened with NPR, but Timothy McVeigh was not Christian. He was agnostic. He made the statement many times to newspapers. He also said “science is my religion.”

Political violence is an indictment against the cause that motivates it … except when Democrats do it.  If you just read liberal-leaning blogs, you haven’t heard the whole story about the Rand Paul supporter "stomping" on the MoveOn.org activist.

And finally, a scary Halloween story.  Click for a larger version.

Venezuelans are getting tired of the food shortages, the electricity shortages, the soaring crime, the deep recession (i.e. everything that comes part and parcel with socialism) and have started taking back the country, starting with last weekend’s elections.  American voters are poised to do the same in November.

The "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza is apparently mostly about symbolism, false narratives and propaganda.  Flotillas are required to keep up the narratives.

The United Nations will appoint an Earth contact for aliens.  No, really.  "Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN’s little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire."  Doesn’t it strike anyone as unintentionally humorous that "Unoosa" sounds like some alien specie you’d see on "Star Trek"?

When the Bilderbergers met last June (cue paranoid music), one of the topics they discussed was Global Cooling.  No, really.  (Al Gore was apparently not invited.)  But indeed, global cooling, were it happening, would be worse than global warming.  Crops, for starters, kinda’ like the heat.

Tea Partiers uncover rampant voter fraud in Houston.  Would it surprise you if I said that most of this was related to a former SEIU employee’s voter registration group?  Yeah, me neither.

"Scientists have invented an efficient way to produce apparently safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos…."  They start with ordinary skin cells.  As Glenn Reynolds would say, "Faster, please."

And finally, from Mike Lester, two views of the Constitution.  (Click for a larger image.)

Yes, it’s that time of the week again, where I toss out a bunch of links that I was too lazy to do a full blog post on.

Turns out the Iraq war didn’t break the bank.  It’s understandable that you might think that, but that only indicates a need to get your news from more sources.  The MSM loves to parrot DNC talking points.

(Liberal) feminism is dead.  Long live (conservative) feminism!

Jim Wallis said that Marvin Olasky (World magazine editor) “lies for a living” when Olasky noted that Wallis got $200,000 from George Soros.  When it was pointed out that he, in fact, did, then came the abject apology in sackcloth and ashes, “Well, it was so small I forgot.”  UPDATE: Wallis has issued a formal apology.

Three months ago, James Cameron was ready to “call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads”, speaking of those who dispute anthropogenic global warming.  At the very last minute, after changing his demands over and over for how a debate was to be run, he cancelled.  Now that takes guts.  Or something.

In England, teachers are dropping history lessons on the Holocaust and the Crusades, for fear of offending Muslims who are taught Holocaust denial and a different view of the Crusades at local mosques.  They’re afraid of challenging “anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils”.  So much for academia being the standard bearer of truth and free speech.

A back door repeal of the First Amendment by … social workers?  Well, when liberal ideologues get ahold of professional organizations, nuttiness does ensue.  Look at most unions.

And finally, a US district judge put a temporary halt to embryonic stem cell research.  Some believe this will devastate scientific research, but  Steve Breen puts it in perspective.  (Click for a larger image.)

It could happen.

Blood drawn with a simple needle stick can be coaxed into producing stem cells that may have the ability to form any type of tissue in the body, three independent papers report in the July 2 Cell Stem Cell. The new technique will allow scientists to tap a large, readily available source of personalized stem cells.

Because taking blood is safe, fast and efficient compared to current stem cell harvesting methods, some of which include biopsies and pretreatments with drugs, researchers hope that blood-derived stem cells could one day be used to study and treat diseases — though major safety hurdles remain.

The findings “represent a huge and important progression in the field,” stem cell biologist Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, Calif., writes in a commentary appearing in the same issue of the journal.

All this without the need to destroy embryos.  This just keep looking better and better for getting stem cells from adults rather than the more riskier and ethically challenged embryonic stem cells.

That’s the title of a new campaign by the Family Research Council, trying to get the word out on how so many diseases and conditions (>70) are already being treated successfully with adult stem cells.

Currently the most common and effective treatments using stem cells are various forms of cancers and anemias, he said, though adult stem cells have also repaired heart attack damage, treated leukemias, lymphomas, spinal cord injuries and helped patients with multiple sclerosis and juvenile diabetes. 

When asked about the embryonic stem cell research debate, [David] Prentice [Ph.D., former professor at Indiana State University] noted, “No human beings have even been injected yet” in embryonic stem cell research. Published science, however, has verified the successful treatments of thousands of patients using adult stem cells.

“Lets focus on helping the patients, and helping them now,” Prentice said. “We’re not even talking about embryonic stem cell research. It’s not helping anybody. It’s not even helping the lab rats.”

No human has been injected because of all the complications with embryonic stem cells, including cancer.  In the meantime, adult stem cells, without carrying the ethical and moral baggage, continue to work successfully.  And with new methods being discovered that make adult stem cells as flexible as embryonic, there is absolutely no need to even go down the embryonic path.

You can visit the campaign’s website here.

Former President George W. Bush walked a fine line between science and morality/ethics when he decided that existing embryonic stem cell lines, at the time, would be the only ones available for Federal grants.  Federal money would not be available to any new lines.

Contrary to some misinformed, partisan critics, he did not ban embryonic stem cell research.  Companies using private money were not restricted in any way.   Bush simply said that Federal money would be given out in what he believed was as moral and ethical a way as could be done at the time. 

The LA Times reported this week that a Stanford University study was done to determine the extent of this restriction.  The results show that the loudly-complaining scientists have put even tighter restrictions on themselves, making their protests disingenuous.

Read the rest of this entry

The Obama administration has finalized its rules regarding embryonic stem cell research.

The new rules, which go into effect on Tuesday, follow President Barack Obama’s March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

They allow funding for research using human embryonic stem cells created by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) for reproductive purposes and no longer needed, in a departure from the Bush administration’s policy.

Not surprising.  We’ve known this was coming.  What I do find unbelievable is that the administration is still misrepresenting the debate, making it sound like Bush kept all this scientific knowledge away from us.

Bush barred federal funding from supporting work on new lines of stem cells derived from human embryos in 2001, allowing research only on a small number of embryonic stem cell lines that existed at the time.

Using human embryos for scientific research, which often involves their destruction, crossed a moral barrier and urged scientists to consider alternatives, the former president argued.

In reversing the ban, the Obama administration argued that the promise of medical breakthroughs through stem cell research could not go unexplored.

Unexplored?  Adult stem cells have been bringing us these breakthroughs for years, whaddya’ mean "unexplored"?  Adult stem cells have been coaxed into what amount to embryonic cells.  Unexplored? 

Obama wanted to restore science to its "rightful place".  I’d suggest he restore truth to it first.

In an number of previous essays the notions of Bertrand de Jouvenel regarding political theory have been utilized. One of these ideas in particular is that government is rightly formed for a particular society and culture when its authority is freely granted by the people, that is it utilizes the authority granted to it by the people and does not have to resort to coercion. This idea of government does not stem from rights or freedoms and the “standard” contract terminology stemming from Hobbes/Lockean political philosophies. Limitations on government stems from both the withholding of authority and that what actions and freedoms state may grant to a person, does not by that granting make that action ethical or moral. For example, the Roman state (and in fact many states) granted the power of life and death to the state over individual citizens. For over 200 years, Christians were put to death for their faith under this power granted. That however, did not make it ethical or moral for a particular Roman to do put a Christian to death. Or more plainly, it was within the boundaries of Roman rule to put a Christian to death but it was unethical for individual Roman to do so. Nero as Emperor could execute Christians as such but it was unethical for Nero the man to do so.

Christians for just slightly under two thousand years have opposed abortion. A statement regarding abortion made today of and by those against abortion that fixes the idea that the act of abortion is a equivalent to murder and the actor be it the mother or the doctor, is equivalent to a murderer is not unheard of in pro-life circles. Some pro-life activists “go this far” and those criticizing the pro-life Christian position remark that this should be a logical consequence of ascribing personhood to the fetus. It is not necessary to ascribe full or even partial “personhood” to a fetus in order to oppose abortion. But even granting that, a view of government as expressed above combined with Christian ethics does not necessitate that step of equivicating abortion with murder. Read the rest of this entry

President Obama, demonstrating another example of what Jim called an "incomplete life ethic", rescinded Bush’s executive order, reversing the ban on most federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  Bush’s restrictions were informed by his moral beliefs, but Obama will have none of that.

Aides to Obama told reporters in a phone conference Sunday that the new administration intends to be led by a “responsible practice of science and evidence instead of dogma.” Harold Varmus of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said, “We view what happened with stem cell research in the last administration as one manifestation of failure to think carefully about how federal support of science and the use of scientific advice occurs.”

He once said that determining when a baby gets human rights was "above my pay grade".  Apparently, deciding when to destroy them isn’t. 

This, then, is apparently the "rightful place" that he promised to restore science to.  It doesn’t sound like morals and ethics are part of the equation anymore. 

Ryan Anderson, writing in the Weekly Standard, brings this point home (as well as noting a "big lie" that Obama continues to perpetuate).

During the ceremony this morning, Obama announced that by signing this executive order "we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research." Of course there never was a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. President Bush was, in fact, the first president in history to fund embryonic stem cell research. The compromise Bush reached, however, put restrictions in place that prevented the further destruction of human embryos. It is these restrictions protecting human life that Obama has lifted.

Anderson notes that, while Obama did appeal to "moral values", he set up a straw man that he could easily knock down and brush aside, supposedly taking the issue off the table.  Anderson’s article covers this and a number of other objections that Obama’s decision simply ignores.  Read the whole thing.

The Washington Post headlined their article, "Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics".  It not only touches on the signing of the EO, but notes how this value system will affect us going forward.  A memorandum was issued along with this signing.

The memorandum will ensure that "people who are appointed to federal positions in science have strong credentials and that the vetting process for evaluating scientific information doesn’t lead to any undermining of the scientific opinion," he said.

That is to say, Obama wishes to shield science from similar ethical concerns, or indeed any debate, during his administration.  Heck, his spokesmen injected politics into the debate by trash-talking "the last administration as one  manifestation of failure to think carefully."  One wonders how the WaPo headline writer actually came up with that summary of the story.

And finally, Scott Ott satirizes this whole situation, such that it can be, with this:

As he signs an executive order Monday lifting limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, President Barack Obama said he intends to make the wealthiest Americans “bear their fair share of the burden.”

Following through on his inaugural promise “to restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost“, the president will order the National Institutes of Health to extract stem cells from embryos whose parents earn more than $250,000 per year, and to inject them into “the sick and crippled middle class.”

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Mr. Obama said, “if your family earns less than $250,000 per year, the federal government will not harvest one single stem cell from your embryos…not one single cell. In fact, for 95 percent of working families, my stem cell plan contains nothing but miraculous healing. That’s right, the cures are on the way.”

Again, read the whole thing, and get a good chuckle.

After President Obama’s inaugural speech, when he said, "We will restore science to its rightful place", I wondered aloud (as did others, see that post’s comments) if this had anything to do with his stance on embryonic stem cell research.  Well, it looks like we’ll find out soon enough.

A new way has been found to create stem cells like embryonic ones.

Scientists have developed what appears to be a safer way to create a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, boosting hopes that such cells could sidestep the moral and political quagmire that has hindered the development of a new generation of cures.

The researchers produced the cells by using strands of genetic material, instead of potentially dangerous genetically engineered viruses, to coax skin cells into a state that appears biologically identical to embryonic stem cells.

"It’s a leap forward in the safe application of these cells," said Andras Nagy of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, who helped lead the international team of researchers that described the work in two papers being published online today by the journal Nature. "We expect this to have a massive impact on this field."

Click here to see all the posts just from us on this issue, and how many alternatives to embryonic stem cells there are (include the hundreds of successful uses for adult stem cells).  All of these methods sidestep completely the ethical question surrounding the use of embryos.  You’d get no hollering from religious conservatives over the possible use of embryonic stem cells as an incentive for, or at least a slight guilt relief from, having an abortion.  That question goes right out the window.

But the scientific and the religious communities hold their breath.

In addition to the scientific implications, the work comes at a politically sensitive moment. Scientists are anxiously waiting for President Obama to follow through on his promise to lift restrictions on federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells. Critics of such a move immediately pointed to the work as the latest evidence that the alternative cells make such research unnecessary.

"Stem cell research that requires destroying embryos is going the way of the Model T," Richard M. Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said. "No administration that values science and medical progress over politics will want to divert funds now toward that increasingly obsolete and needlessly divisive approach."

We will see soon enough where Obama thinks that science’s rightful place is.