Monday, March 30, 2009
It's OK to Lie If You're Supporting Stem Cell Research
Get Religion discusses the treatment of "scientists" versus pro-life supporters in this CNN story which includes this paragraph:
Earlier this month, Obama reversed a federal ban on embryonic stem-cell research. Many scientists say the research could lead to advances in treating conditions like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, while some abortion opponents believe destroying embryos in the research amounts to ending a human life.
The problem with the paragraph is it's not true.
But the infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess, is that, of all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit...
But given the lack of any serious suggestion that stem cells themselves have practical potential to treat Alzheimer's, the Reagan-inspired tidal wave of enthusiasm stands as an example of how easily a modest line of scientific inquiry can grow in the public mind to mythological proportions.
It is a distortion that some admit is not being aggressively corrected by scientists.
"To start with, people need a fairy tale," said Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand."
The ends justify the means, I guess.
This brings up some very disturbing questions to me. First, we are constantly told by those on the Left that scientists are, essentially, the ultimate objective arbiters of truth. They don't lie. They don't distort. They simply discover truths. Yet here we have scientists admitting that they willingly lie about the usefulness of stem cell research for diseases like Alzheimer's. And this is acceptable?
The second question stems (no pun intended) from the first. If it's acceptable to lie about ESCR and Alzheimer's, why is it such a stretch to believe that scientists might lie about other hot button issues like global warming?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Obama Really Is Different from George Bush
He stacked Thursday's townhall with campaign backers.
President Obama has promised to change the way the government does business, but in at least one respect he is taking a page from the Bush playbook, stocking his town hall Thursday with supporters whose soft -- though far from planted -- questions provided openings to discuss his preferred message of the day.
Obama has said, "I think it's important to engage your critics ... because not only will you occasionally change their mind but, more importantly, sometimes they will change your mind," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recounted to The Post's Lois Romano in an interview Wednesday.
But while the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008.
Seems like I remember Democrats being upset that certain discredited people asked softball questions of George W. Bush, and that Bush 43 invited conservative talk radio hosts to the White House in order to give them their marching orders.
Keep in mind that Obama only answered 13 questions at his presser, and that five of those came from true believers. Probably the only unstaged question was the one about marijuana.
H/T: Common Sense Political Thought, Protein Wisdom, and Glenn Reynolds.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
More About That Socialized Medicine, Part 2
Did Natasha Richardson have to die? Maybe not.
For the two or three Americans who haven’t read the details, Natasha’s death was the result of a head injury while skiing -- not a high speed Sonny Bono-type wipe out, but apparently a fairly innocent fall during a lesson. She developed an intracranial bleed, and by the time she was able to receive the necessary level of care in Canada, her intracranial pressure was excessive and ultimately fatal...
As reported by the Associated Press, Montreal’s top trauma neurosurgeon cited the lack of emergency helicopters as a contributing factor in the death. “Our system isn’t set up for traumas and doesn’t match what’s available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States,” said Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre.
Secondly, even after arriving in Montreal, the patient had to be transported by land to yet another facility where a neurosurgeon was available. Now, this is not some podunk little community hospital area -- this is a major metropolitan center without air medevac, and apparently without adequate neurosurgical capability, or at least a system of trauma triage.
We want this system?
Friday, March 27, 2009
At Least He Didn't Promise Civility and Bipartisanship
Harry Reid took a stupid shot at Chief Justice John Roberts, slandering him because Reid doesn't understand what justices do:
“Roberts didn’t tell us the truth. At least Alito told us who he was,” Reid said, referring to Samuel Alito, the second Supreme Court justice nominated by President George W. Bush. “But we’re stuck with those two young men, and we’ll try to change by having some moderates in the federal courts system as time goes on — I think that will happen.”
One must assume that the moderates Reid is talking about are in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens mode. And as Ann Althouse notes, without transcripts to back up this claim, the only liar around these parts is Harry Reid.
But more important than moronic personal attacks by this dimwit is the fact that Reid thinks judicial filibusters are bad, but using budget reconciliation to ram through changes to the health care system is permissible. Somehow, my guess is that this is a IOKIYAD situation.
14-Year-Old Sex Offender?
The latest example of how bad laws can have bad consequences.
Girl Faces Child Porn Charges for Posting Nude Photos of Herself on MySpace
A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com -- charges that could force her to register as a sex offender if convicted.
The case comes as prosecutors nationwide pursue child pornography cases resulting from kids sending nude photos to one another over cell phones and e-mail. Legal experts, though, could not recall another case of a child porn charge resulting from a teen's posting to a social networking site.
MySpace would not comment on the New Jersey investigation, but the company has a team that reviews its network for inappropriate images. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off a state task force, which alerted the Passaic County Sheriff's Office.
The office investigated and discovered the Clifton resident had posted the "very explicit" photos of herself, sheriff's spokesman Bill Maer said Thursday.
"We consider this case a wake-up call to parents," Maer said. The girl posted the photos because "she wanted her boyfriend to see them," he said.
Investigators are looking at individuals who "knowingly" committed a crime, he said, declining to comment further because the case is still being investigated.
The teen, whose name has not been released because of her age, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography. She was released to her mother's custody.
If convicted of the distribution charge, she would be forced to register with the state as a sex offender under Megan's Law, said state Attorney General Anne Milgram. She also could face up to 17 years in jail, though such a stiff sentence is unlikely.
The original idea behind Megan's Law was to prevent creepy adults from having unfettered access to children. We wanted to prevent molestation.
Unfortunately, lots of things constitute a "sexual offense" these days, from actual molestation to horseplay to hugging. Even consensual sex between, say, an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old can result in a lifetime branding as a sexual offender, complete with all the restrictions that label requires.
I'm not championing the cause of people who rape and molest children. But being branded a sex offender is worse than being a murderer. At least, when the murderer completes his sentence, that's it.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Democrats Own This Economy
Great post at Flopping Aces--complete with charts--showing how the Democrats are responsible for the current financial mess.
You can't be in charge of the purse strings (all spending bills originate in the House) and still blame the president for your bad decisions.
Strict Construction = Homophobia?
That's the argument Barney Frank made to call Justice Antonin Scalia a homophobe.
The Democratic lawmaker, who is gay, was discussing gay marriage and his expectation that the high court would some day be called upon to decide whether the Constitution allows the federal government to deny recognition to same-sex marriages.
"I wouldn't want it to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current Court," said Frank...
Scalia dissented from the Court's ruling in 2003 that struck down state laws banning consensual sodomy. He has complained about judges, rather than elected officials, deciding questions of morality about which the Constitution is silent.
Controversial topics like gay rights and abortion should not be in the hands of judges, he has said, calling on people to persuade their legislatures or amend the Constitution.
Emphasis mine.
Like a lot of liberals, Frank is happy when five justices make decisions he agrees with, but unhappy when five justices do not. The Founding Fathers created the constitutional amendment system to ensure that changes to our government were acceptable to most people. Unlike those who agree with judicial fiat, strict constructionists understand that altering law at whim hurts all Americans.
UPDATE: Ann Althouse takes apart Frank's "analysis."
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Hey, I Thought of This First!
Allahpundit has a post up about the Facebook page devoted to those who think the government stimulus should include forgiveness of student loans.
I seem to remember joking about this at the height of the stimulus debate. I have about $70k (yes, that's a small mortgage) that could use some Obama lovin'.
The Bush Deficit vs. The Obama Deficit in Pictures
Our friends on the Left seem to need pictures to help them understand things, so, here is one that should make things perfectly clear:
'Nuff said.
Our Educated President
President Barack Obama just finished speaking at a White House roundtable on clean energy efficiency attended by Neal Verfuerth, Orion president and chief executive. Obama saluted Orion...
All terrific press for Orion, except that Obama kept pronouncing the company’s name wrong, calling it OAR-ee-on.
H/T: PowerLine, which included this video:
Beyond the Conservative Bubble
Interesting article on attempts to move conservative ideas beyond conservative circles.
(Conor) Friedersdorf had a different idea in mind. "I’m not sure another Buckley’s what we really need," he wrote. "Instead, I’d prefer another Tom Wolfe, or better yet a dozen. As his generation’s conservative commentators railed against The Great Society, insisting its urban anti-poverty programs encouraged radicalism, bred dependence on the welfare state, and ignored the root causes of unemployment, Mr. Wolfe did something different: reporting." Wolfe had gone to the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein’s cocktail party, watched Park Avenue’s finest flatter themselves by sharing hors d’oeurves with Black Panthers, and wrote about it in scathing detail, first in New York magazine—the cover featured three white socialites in glittery cocktail dresses with raised fists—and later in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. In doing so, Friedersdorf believed, Wolfe had made a far stronger case for conservatism than the collected works of L. Brent Bozell. And Wolfe hadn’t had any need to work within the confines of a conservative shadow institution; writing in New York and Esquire, he had reached and potentially persuaded an audience that didn’t subscribe to Buckley’s National Review. In sum, Friedersdorf wrote, "the right must conclude that we’re better off joining the journalistic project than trying to discredit it."
Friedersdorf is neither the first nor only person to advocate for conservatives to leave the safe havens of conservative publications and think tanks to the outside world, but the idea is still true. Conservatives rail about liberal reporters, but they eschew jobs at newspapers and television stations for other careers.
The fact is, journalism will probably never be a bastion of conservativism, no matter how many moonbats argue about corporate ownership and manufactured consent. The sort of people who want to work in the news business approach life from a different viewpoint than, say, a Brent Bozell or Charles Krauthammer. But there are enough conservatives to write news in such a way that conservative views get a fair hearing.
I'm not proposing that conservatives suddenly start slanting news reporting to the right, but simply to ensure that both the successes of conservatism and the failures of liberalism get more airplay. Yes, it's very difficult to argue against housing subsidies when the other side constantly portrays all homeless as hapless victims unable to help themselves. But it's more effective to show how housing subsidies create generational governmental dependence and stifle freedom by showing those escaping those situations, as well as the liberals eager to keep people dependent because they are "helping the poor."
These are stories that need to be published in mainstream organizations, where independents and those in the mushy middle will have a chance to have their minds changed.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Pandagon Watch: Althouse Bashing
Leave it to idiots like Jesse Taylor to bash Ann Althouse for having the temerity to defend herself against leftwing slanders.
The tempest in a nutshell: Ezra Klein not-so-subtely accused Althouse commenters (and, by extension Ann herself) of anti-semitism because approximately commenter on her blog said something that could be interpreted as anti-semitic (my first reaction was that the commenter was being snarky, but perhaps I'm not *sensitive* enough). Althouse jumped on him with both feet, and that brought in sleezeballs like Jesse Taylor to Klein's defense.
I would never argue that the sort of blog you write tends to attract certain like-minded people. But the larger your audience, the greater the diversity of your readership. Pick a blog like Instapundit or Patterico and you will find as many differing opinions as there are commenters (of course, Pandagon long ago abandoned the idea that diverse opinions make for better informed readers by banning anyone not a mind-numbed robot and by requiring registration--and probably a blood sample and thumbprint--to comment there). The point of having comments on a blog is to stir debate and give viewpoints a chance to stand or fail on their own merits.
Nonetheless, a blog owner doesn't endorse every comment made any more than a political candidate endorses the views of every person who votes for him or her. That's why I tend to distinguish between posters and commenters when I discuss other people's blogs. And, to be fair, Klein didn't say that Althouse was an anti-semite. But by stating that "a lot" of her commenters were anti-semites, you get the impression that she must be saying something they agree with and that she approves of their comments.
That's not the case, as Legal Insurrection notes. And let's face it. We all get crank commenters and different blogs deal with those cases differently. Personally, I don't care if someone disagrees with me; just don't lie about my opinions, particularly when I've spent post after post articulating them.
But of course, it would require intellectual honesty on Jesse Taylor's part to actually note that commenters' opinions don't belong to the blog owner, and that sunlight is the best disinfectant. But intellectual honesty is something in very short supply at Pandagon.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Can't Say American Voters Weren't Warned
60 Minutes Ask’s Obama - “Are You Punch Drunk?”
We tried to tell them that Obama was woefully inexperienced and unprepared for the presidency, but they were all caught up in HopeNChange.
Here is a Hot Air post about Obama getting lost in his teleprompter.
