Skank

Here

This is an experienced man who has major credibility in regards to war:

Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military’s elite covert counter-terrorist unit.

And he thinks it’s a disaster:

Q: What’s your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and … pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That’s why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.

Follow the link above to hear his opinion of torture and other war related issues.

If Bush can’t convince this guy, he’s in trouble.

I’d been thinking of writing a post about the nonsense spin of the wingnutters that the war in Iraq was being lost because of the refusal of the media to tell us about all the good stuff being done in Iraq. But now I don’t need to. Digby has done it for me:

Don’t be fooled. The fact that life goes on in Iraq, even during a violent occupation, doesn’t mitigate the death and destruction that makes Iraq a daily story of unimaginable terror. Bush and his minions would like to make Americans believe it does, but it isn’t true. All we have to do is imagine if we would agree that a new school being opened in St Louis was newsworthy on a day when 30 people were killed while shopping at the Safeway down the street and four Catholic churches around the country were blown up.

Addendum:

But what about Iraqi schools?

Their visit came as more violence was reported across Iraq, including a terrifying incident earlier in the week in the western city of Ramadi. On Wednesday, armed insurgents burst into the classroom of Khidhir al-Mihallawi, an English teacher at Sajariyah High School, accused him of being an agent for the CIA and Israeli intelligence and beheaded him in front of his students, according to students, fellow instructors and a physician at a local hospital.

One teacher, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared retaliation from insurgents, said that most students ran from the classroom but that some stayed to watch. Many stopped coming to school after the incident, he said. Another teacher, who said he moved his mathematics class to his home to accommodate frightened students, said Mihallawi had earlier been threatened because he worked as a translator for U.S. forces in Ramadi, a hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

Mihallawi “looked at us just like he was telling us that we do not have to be scared. Even as we were running out of the door, his looks were still telling us that nothing will happen and we do not have to be scared,” said a student, whose father asked that his name not be used. “I heard him screaming for a few seconds, then stop screaming.”

Mouse testicles may hold stem cells’ promise

I’m not interested in participating in this line of research. Can’t we find another way?

Link to Timeline.

Here it is in all its “splendor.” One lie and screw up after another.
How do you spell “incompetent”?

B - U - S - H.

How do you spell “liar”?

B - U - S - H.

I suppose this leaves me out…

Link (Subscription required)

Japanese researchers delivered some fun news at the American College of Cardiology earlier this week: They have successfully harvested stem cells from the menstrual blood of six women. Which is pretty frigging cool. Scientists currently collect stem cells from a variety of places, including human embryos, fetal tissue, umbilical-cord blood, and other human tissue, like the bone marrow of adults and children. Adding menstrual blood to the list seems attractive for several reasons: Menstrual blood is plentiful; it’s easy to extract (the body gets rid of it anyway); and it’s less controversial than most of the other sources. I for one love the idea that I could contribute to world health just by menstruating. Plus, the scientists reported that they got 30 times as many stem cells from these women’s blood than they typically get from bone marrow. Yay!

And so the world heaved a collective sigh of relief that the stem cell controversy is over at last. Right?

Well, not necessarily. The harvesting of stem cells from menstrual blood is great news, but it’s not yet clear whether how useful these stem cells will turn out to be. They might be able to form specific kinds of cells; Reuters reported that the Japanese researchers thought these menstrual-blood stem cells could be “coaxed into forming specialized heart cells.” Or they might be more limitedly useful, like stem cells from bone marrow, which are mostly used to treat blood-related illnesses like leukemia and not to replicate organ tissue.

Either way, though, it’s unlikely that menstrual-blood stem cells will turn out to be as plastic — which is to say, as potentially useful for treating a wide variety of illnesses — as embryonic stem cells. So we’re locked into the debate over embryonic stem cell research no matter what.

It’s official–Pico Pica is not a condiment: it’s a tasty anticancer medication. Looks like I’m going to have to double my weekly intake.
Link

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Capsaicin, which makes peppers hot, can cause prostate cancer cells to kill themselves, U.S. and Japanese researchers said on Wednesday.

kos brought a smile to my face with this post on WWJD

From Newsweek’s Periscope:

“Right now, I wouldn’t vote Democratic if Jesus Christ was running.” Judy Deats, a Texas Republican, who is standing by Rep. Tom DeLay in his re-election bid despite the fact that his association with lobbyist Jack Abramoff has made him vulnerable to political opposition for the first time in more than 20 years.

I’m glad she realizes that Jesus would be a Democrat.

Rich or poor, black or white, Americans get equally shoddy treatment:

BOSTON - Startling research from the biggest study ever of U.S. health care quality suggests that Americans — rich, poor, black, white — get roughly equal treatment, but it’s woefully mediocre for all.

“This study shows that health care has equal-opportunity defects,” said Dr. Donald Berwick, who runs the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Mass.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11842861/

US News Article | Reuters.com

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The counterfeit money looked good, but there was one flaw. There’s no such thing as a one billion dollar bill.

U.S. Customs agents in California said on Tuesday they had found 250 bogus billion dollar bills while investigating a man charged with currency smuggling.

Tekle Zigetta, 45, pleaded guilty to three federal counts of trying to bring cash, phony bills and a fake $100,000 gold certificate into the United States in January.

Further investigation led agents to a West Hollywood apartment where they found the stash of yellowing and wrinkled one billion dollar bills with an issue date of 1934 and bearing a picture of President Grover Cleveland.

“You would think the $1 billion denomination would be a giveaway that these notes are fake, but some people are still taken in,” said James Todak, a secret services agent involved in the probe.

*
Hmm. Now I’m wondering about that suitcase full of $7 bills with the picture of Davey Crockett that I was planning on dividing among my kids when I punch out.

Now I know:

CHICAGO - Most high school students eagerly await the day they pass driver’s education class. But Mayra Ramirez is indifferent about it.

Ramirez is blind, yet she and dozens of other visually impaired sophomores in Chicago’s public school system are required to pass a written rules-of-the-road exam in order to graduate - a rule they say takes time away from learning material they might actually use.

“In other classes, you don’t really feel different because you can do the work other people do,” said Ramirez, 16. “But in driver’s ed, it does give us the feeling we’re different. In a way, it brought me down, because it reminds me of something I can’t do.”

Hundreds of school districts in Illinois require students to pass driver’s education before they graduate, although the state only requires that districts offer the courses. A state education official says districts that require it should offer an exemption for disabled students.

“It defies logic to require blind students to take this course … and waste their academic time,” said Meta Minton, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education.

About 30 students at two Chicago high schools with programs for the visually impaired recently formed an advocacy group in part to change the policy.

A Chicago Public Schools official said Thursday the district would be open to waiving the drivers’ education requirement for disabled students.

“I can’t explain why up to this point no one has raised the issue and suggested a better way for visually impaired students to opt out of driver’s ed,” said Chicago schools spokesman Michael Vaughn.

Vaughn said parents of disabled students can, by law, request a change in the student’s “individualized education plan” to exempt them from the rule. But teachers and students say it’s a little-known option that school officials rarely, if ever, mention.

Brent Johnston, a teacher at a suburban high school and chairman of the Illinois High School/College Driver’s Education Association, told the Chicago Tribune that the classes aren’t a waste of time for blind students.

“I don’t think you can ever get enough traffic safety,” Johnston said. “Still, this shouldn’t be the school’s decision; it should be mom and dad’s decision. A little commonsense would go a long way.”