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.

Good morning. In a blog post title that I didn’t link, “Obama opposes permanent tax cuts for the wealthy” … I was confused by what the word ‘permanent’ might mean in that context. Permanent if it has any meaning at all really shouldn’t mean, until any given Congress decides to repeal it. 

1. Progressives and Hayek countered.
2. Presentation at the Temple.
3. Selling meat not under false pretenses.
4. Wealth and the US.
5. Discussing Obamacare.
6. Tax talk.
7. Math pedagogy.
8. Doubt.
9. Movement in the Anglican communion.
10. Heh.

As I noted earlier, if we stay on the same course, budget-wise, in just 5 years the interest on our national debt will approach what we spend to defend the country.  This must be dealt with.

Yesterday, a White House commission put together by President Obama released a draft proposal to do just that.

The leaders of a White House commission laid out a sweeping proposal to cut the federal budget deficit by hundreds of billions a year by targeting sacrosanct areas of U.S. tax and spending policy, such as Social Security benefits, middle-class tax breaks and defense spending.

The preliminary plan in its current form would end or cap a wide range of breaks relied on by the middle class—including the deduction for home-mortgage interest. It would tax capital gains and dividends at the higher rates now levied on wage income. To compensate, one version of the plan would dramatically lower and simplify individual rates, to 9%, 15% and 24%.

For businesses, the controversial plan would significantly lower the corporate tax rate—from a current top rate of 35% to as low as 26%—but also eliminate a number of deductions. It would make permanent the research and development tax credit.

There’s much more; cutting $100 billion from defense, raising gas taxes, raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting federal work force by 10%, and others.  It’s quite a sweeping proposal, and it’ll call on the government and the people alike to share the burden.

But what will it wind up doing?

Overall, the plan would hold down the growth of the federal debt by roughly $3.8 trillion by 2020, or about half of the $7.7 trillion by which the debt would have otherwise grown by that year, according to commission staff. The current national debt is about $13.7 trillion.

The budget deficit, or the amount by which federal expenditures exceed revenues each year, was about $1.3 trillion for fiscal year 2010, which ended on Sept. 30.

Even with all this, it’ll only cut the growth by half, with debt still rising by trillions every year.

This is where we find ourselves; overextended and really unable to do anything about it despite some Herculean efforts.  Our government has made so many promises that it can’t renege on, that the most we can hope for is "only" growing slower. Well, ya’ gotta’ start somewhere, and this is just a draft proposal.  But this is a good start.

Or is it?  How do other politicians see it?  (Warning: Easily anticipated reactions follow.)

Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. Why is the method never questioned? That the poll (or polls in general) might be mostly garbage is not offered as a possibility. 
2. Get thee to the gym.
3. Free will and stuff.
4. 2010 census and the 2012 House.
5. On gaming debt.
6. Planned Parenthood and the Garden State.
7. Book selection and choices.
8. Memory and damage.
9. Is journalism witness?
10. Piracy.

How much has this current spending spree put us in debt?  Enough that, in 5 years, the interest on that debt alone will approach the defense budget.

Yeah, it’s that big a deal.  We need to hold the Republicans feet to the fire (as well as Democrats who actually got the right message from the election).

Good morning. 

1. Personal responsibility.
2. A pie chart and a “non-shocker”.
3. More seriously, a discussion of humanism.
4. Our liberal ruling elite.
5. A book list for liberty.
6. A small view of ritual, which sort of knocks the linch-pin out of the discussion.
7. What people will do with their phones.
8. Pain.
9. The UK and the church state divide.
10. The empty tomb.
11. Recalling a good first post.
12. Mr Biden’s phantasmagorical delusion (one shared by not a few on the left I suspect).

Opinion programs on a news network do not have to be held to the same even-handed standards that news journalists do.  They deal with opinion and don’t pretend to be unbiased or completely objective.

So it’s highly disingenuous for Rachel Maddow to accuse Fox News in general of being a political operation because of the publicity given to political candidates by its opinion shows, and at the same time doing the exact same thing, on her show and others at MSNBC.  She tries to assert that Fox is a "political operation" and that MSNBC is not, but, as this video shows, that claim doesn’t pass the smell test.

Maddow is lying to her viewers, boldly and unashamedly, on a subject that is the bedrock of a news channel’s credibility; the subject of bias.  Opinion shows are biased and she knows it, but she accuses "Fox News", the network, of being a branch of the GOP.

Glass house, meet stone.

Good morning.

1. Some post-election demographics.
2. Apparently the “it’s the economy stupid” memo hasn’t reached the White House post-election.
3. Of fear and climate.
4. How not to do diplomacy, Obama in India.
5. Mr Olberman and a prediction, specifically that the right wing will “howl for his resignation”. Oddly enough the first I’d heard about it was the NRO corner defending Mr Olberman against his firing. Hmmm.
6. A discussion between an atheist and Christian continues … now talking early church. Both side make claims that are in error often enough that I gave up on the notion of writing a post correcting their errors. I think there is more error than right in them thar woods.
7. Custody and law.
8. Predictability and democracy.
9. Dating advice for the distaff set.
10. The decaffeination process. Heh.
11. Golden tongue.

For those in southern California, check out the Apologetics Conference at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, tonight at 6 p.m. On tap for the evening are Steve Collins, Stephen Meyer, and William Dembski. Best of all, the event is FREE!

Not in southern California? There is supposed to be a live stream of the conference at this link.

More Info:

• Conference website
• Conference schedule (PDF)

Obama said that the huge electoral loss last Tuesday was essentially a failure to communicate, and not a vote of no-confidence on his policies.  The policies are sounds, so he says, but they’re not working fast enough.  Except that countries like Germany, which adopted austerity policies rather than spending ones, is going gangbusters coming out of this recession.  And we’re not.  That’s what the voters were saying.

And apparently, blaming stupid voters and their anger, rather than facing facts, is an international problem.

ObamaCare price controls will raise health care prices.  We know this because that’s what it has always done in the past.  Joseph Antos, who oversaw a study that created the Medicare reimbursement system, knows of what he speaks.  Americans are already seeing some of this, and voted out those who supported it.

Is the electorate getting more conservative?  The New Republic seems to think so.

Fox was more fair and balanced than MSNBC in covering the election.  That’s not some right-wing claim; it’s the opinion of Time magazine, NPR, Mediaite and US News.  No card-carrying members of the vast right-wing conspiracy among that group.  Of course, being less biased than MSNBC is like saying that you are located somewhat south of the North Pole, with the network having exclusively liberal commentators on for the coverage.  America apparently noticed, since Fox beat the ratings of CNN & MSNBC.  Combined.

(Still, it’s Fox that Obama chooses to do battle with.  He doesn’t want fair coverage, he wants favorable coverage.)

Sorry, no cartoon this week.  Nothing really stood out.  Try again next week.

Good morning.

1. He carries both, although I think the broom gets used on the floor.
2. Our American political dialectic.
3. Orwellian language and war.
4. When “kinds of slavery” are discussed, and “racial slavery was especially severe” whence the gulag and Kolyma?
5. Money and commodities.
6. A black man and the left.
7. Speaking of stupid racial notions. Consider this sentence “Frankly, I would not bet on the consistent returns of any black man who regularly employed anger in a room full of white people” remove “black” and “white” from that sentence and it remains just as true … for “Frankly, I would not bet on the consistent returns of any man who regularly employed anger in a room full of people” is just as obvious. Duh.
8. More racism on the left.
9. What the Admin is not doing to help the economy.
10. People scoffed at Ms O’Donnell … but her concession speech cannot be beat. I applaud her sensibilities.
11. Obamacare and healthcare costs.
12. Checks and balances in the Roman Republic.
13. Fatherhood and daughters. I liked the line in a recent movie a dad giving ‘advice’ to the young man taking his daughter out on a date, “Don’t do anything to her that you don’t want me to do to you.”

Hat tip James Taranto, "Students protest slurs in N.C. State’s Free Expression Tunnel".  The opening paragraph:

Raleigh, N.C. — Students have vowed to protest or block North Carolina State University’s Free Expression Tunnel until the university’s chancellor gives guarantees that no hate speech will be allowed there.

The easy snark would be to laugh at students wanting free speech who then go out and protest free speech.  But this brings up the necessity of responsibility and morality in our daily lives in order to properly enjoy those freedoms we have.

There are limits on free speech, of course.  When said speech could present a danger to people (and moreso to particular people like the President), it does have limits, and those limits are given the force of law.  The quintessential example is yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there isn’t one, and causing a stampede that could hurt or kill people.  As a society, we’ve also decided that the psychological issues related to pornography are not something children are ready to deal with, so we have limits there as well.

What these students, and many liberal folks, want to do, then, is elevate hurt feelings to the same level as psychological or physical harm and death as reasons to legislate against certain speech.  This severely degrades the adjective "free".  People get hurt feelings all the time.  This doesn’t mean we should be legislating against all those free expressions.

But my main point is this; why would someone yell "Fire!" in a crowded, non-burning theater?  I think I can get pretty much unanimous agreement that this would come from a lack of ethics & morals and a general lack of responsibility towards one’s fellow man.  Irrespective of which moral code you live by, I would imagine that someone living up perfectly to those morals would not do such a thing, and if we all lived up to those morals perfectly, there would be, indeed, no need for such a law.

So the fact that some people don’t live up to these morals, even common ones most Americans share, means that we’ll have irresponsible and immoral speech out there.  And the more moral the people are, the less of it we’d have.  This is why morality is inseparably tied up with government.  Good laws are not just good policy; they are (or ought to be) good morals and ethics.  John Adams noted that the foundation of our laws was written with this in mind:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Freedom requires a measure of responsibility and morality to be exercised properly. 

And I would note, along with Adams, that morality and religion are essentially inseparable.  Where atheism is the state "religion" (e.g. communist countries, for example), freedom is scarce.  Those here in the Western world who push for a shared ethic based solely on human thoughts and understanding would do well to look at history for a list of bad examples.  Humanity, with no outside influence or acknowledgement of something higher than itself, tends to descend to the occasion rather than rise to it.

Keep the faith.

Good morning.

1. The effect of the liberal publishing/media majority on conservative/liberal dialog.
2. It seems to me if you reject 1.1 the whole house of cards falls down. For humans happiness it might be argued requires pain … why is that not true in general?
3. For the eager conspiracy theorist.
4. HIV/AIDS and Russia.
5. An election related confession. And I confess that on Wednesday morning it was after 8:30 when I overheard someone talking about the election and it occurred to me … “Gee, I wonder how it turned out?” Seriously.
6. A bike on fire.
7. BSG science.
8. Fox and MSNBC compared regarding election coverage. CNN gets a mention.
9. Scientism and morals.
10. And to cheer everyone up, if needed.

With apologies to P. J. O’Rouke for the title, last night was a historic night for the GOP, but I have a feeling this was more the voters saying "Stop!" to Obama than it was saying "Go!" to the Republicans.

Still, there were other things at work here than a Democratic smackdown.  Witness the shift of so many state governments to the Republicans. These folks weren’t the ones who bailed out banks, took over car companies or squirmed a health care bill through Congress.  And yet, for example, for the first time since Reconstruction, Georgia’s major state offices will all be held by Republicans.  While the wave last night certainly helped, this is a shift that has been going on for years.  The state legislature shift is, I think, the underreported story of the night (though Erick Erickson gives us a good view of it).  It’s important because in many cases it is so historic ("not since the 19th century" historic, in a few cases), and because reapportionment is happening this year due to the census.  This is big, and I think it’s more than just coattails.

But if you look at things like how well Democrats did who had voted for the health care reform bill, it’s clear that there was, indeed, a significant portion of the vote that was a referendum on Obama and the Democratic Congress.  Complaining from Democrats that the bill wasn’t explained enough, over the course of 6 months, is simply a refusal to face facts; the American people generally did not want this behemoth.  There was a price to pay for all the shenanigans done to get it passed.

Another big repudiation of the evening was of the media.  (Hmm, repudiation of Democrats and the media.  Why do these two groups keep getting mentioned together, I wonder?)  Uniquely labeling the Tea Party "extreme" by mainstream reporters and pundits alike, and spending so much press trying to make Christine O’Donnell the de facto face of the Tea Party, the voters have apparently decided for themselves what is or isn’t "extreme" and who’s endorsement (rather than the press’s) they’ll listen to (i.e. Sarah Palin’s picks are currently running more than 2 to 1 in the win column). 

Other interesting highlights:

No to recreational pot:  Californians voted No to make marijuana more available than it already is.  

Arizona governor re-elected: Jan Brewer got a vote of confidence from her state.  Apparently, enforcing laws that the feds refuse to enforce hasn’t been the economic meltdown her detractors claimed it would be.

I’ll close with some words from Don Surber, but read the whole thing.

This is not a normal midterm election in which the president’s party typically loses seats. In the last 10 midterms, a president’s party has averaged a loss of 12 House and two Senate seats.

That includes 1994’s tsunami, as then-Congressman Bob Wise put it.

President Carter lost 15 House and three Senate seats in his midterm.

Obama lost 59+ and 7+.

This was a big deal.

But I say to Republicans: Great, kids. Don’t get cocky.

The battle has just begun.

Good morning.

1. A response to a liberal badly missing the point.
2. Someone who lives in a land without winter.
3. East and West and Halloween (or All Souls Day).
4. Fatwas and the Stewart/Colbert rally.
5. In case you haven’t seen this and need a laugh.
6. Poking GM.
7. I’m unclear on why the adjective “GOP” is needed. It’s a certainty that both parties ‘establishments’ have a close relationship with sleaze.
8. The plural of octopus.
9. Damage?
10. An interesting statistic.
11. Theodicy humor.
12. An post-election interpretation. I’d be willing to be that the percentage of Democrats who take that lesson will be less than 1 in 20.
13. Another post election prediction of sorts.