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Spare Parts for Humans: Tissue Engineers Aim for Lab-Grown Limbs, Lungs and More | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 15, 2011 | PBS
“Just because we don’t regenerate doesn’t mean that we can’t regenerate. It just means that we don’t.”
Public Broadcasting System’s PBS NewsHour had a segment on regenerative medicine, reviewing the very impressive progress we’ve made in the last few years. The mere fact that PBS and scientists will state these facts in public is almost as huge, in terms of world view change, as the fact that the matrices plus stem cells work.
I was at a American Bioethics and Humanities annual convention when Yamanaka’s induced pluripotent cells first made the news. The Powers That Be for that group were angry and refused to allow any hopeful conversation that the iPSC’s would replace the need for research on destructive, embryonic stem cells. Damage control included scolding world authority figures *on* the panels for daring to bring up the subject in any serious way.
I’m convinced that the whole embryonic stem cell mess was more about the need to prove that abortion is wonderful and that there is no Creator. In fact, that’s exactly what one of the Clinton/Obama “bioethicists,” Robin Alta Charo, said about cloning in at least one meeting I attended in July, 2006. (More, here.)
Ms. Charo who introduces morality and her anti-religion bias into the conversation, by making it a matter of personal opinion whether or not embryonic humans are humans. The species of human embryos is a matter of taxonomy, since it’s scientifically documented and verifiable that the offspring of a given species are members of that species. Discrimination between the amount of protection given to some members of a species is much more a “religious” or moral decision than whether or not a given individual is a member of that species.
I’ve said it many times before, but: Break the egg of a bird, turtle, or lizard on the Endangered species list and it won’t matter that the animal couldn’t survive or was an embryo or fetus. The Feds know that an embryonic pelican is a pelican. We don’t have the same protection for our own children of tomorrow that we give lesser species, although we are the only species having the conversation in the first place.
CMS overturns Texas’ abortion provider exclusion @GovernorPerry
The Houston Chronicle article (not available when I wrote this earlier post) implies that the ruling from CMS is much more far-reaching than I’d thought. Our laws prohibiting State funds going to anyone who provides abortions may be overturned. This looks like it goes farther than simply disapproving of the priorities we placed on allocating our funds. It appears that Obama has decided that we can’t continue to make recipients of Texas funds sign a contract to not perform or refer for abortions.
If this is true, women can get prenatal care and teen girls can get their vaccinations in the same building where their neighbor is having her unborn baby killed! Or Texas can refuse Medicaid funds.
Texas will no longer be allowed to prohibit Medicaid recipients from receiving care at family planning clinics that perform abortions, the federal government informed the state Monday.
Arguing that the Social Security Act prohibits states from excluding such clinics, the federal agency that runs the program informed Texas that next year it will not approve an agreement like the one now in place in Texas.
“The issue is … whether a state can restrict access to a qualified health provider simply because they provide other services Medicaid doesn’t pay for,” Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, said in a phone interview with reporters. “The law does not permit this.”
Mann stressed that Medicaid “does not pay for abortions and will not pay for abortions.” She said the agency will extend Texas’ current agreement through March while negotiating a new one.
In a statement, Gov. Rick Perry responded that President Barack Obama is making women “pay the price for its pro-abortion agenda.”
“I am concerned the Obama Administration is playing politics by holding women’s health care hostage because of Texas’ pro-life policies, sacrificing the health of millions of Texas women,” said Perry.
Since 2006, Texas has provided low-income women 18 to 44 with family planning exams, related health screenings and birth control through the Medicaid Women’s Health Program. Last year, it provided services to more than 180,000 women, with 90 percent of its funds coming from the federal government and the rest from the state.
via Texas abortion provider exclusion blocked – Houston Chronicle.
Obama to Texas: Fund PP or no Well Woman money
The Obama Administration has told Texas that our State is not allowed to decide who will provide medical care under Title X Family Planning and Well Woman funds. The Administration has recently ruled in a similar manner for other States. (
This in spite of the fact that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) did give Texas a waiver allowing Texas to move all Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries to doctors in managed care plans. The managed care plans, along with cooperative coalitions between hospital systems and the doctors they will pay for seeing managed care patients, is consistent with the plans laid out in “Obamacare.” Evidently, so is Planned Parenthood’s survival.
CMS claims in this letter to Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission that we’re limiting the choices of the women because the State prioritized where to spend our money and who to pay for healthcare, beginning with county clinics and hospital districts, followed by doctors and clinics that provide comprehensive, continuing care. Since we only have so much money, our Legislature decided to support the most vital care givers. Even though we don’t specifically write in law that “Planned Parenthood, Inc., need not apply,” CMS doesn’t like our plan.
CMS was asked to give a “waiver” to Texas since the funding is outside normal Medicaid rules, because it funds care for adults who are not at the rock-bottom income levels. Texas also has a waiver in order to use funds for prenatal care, justified by counting the unborn child. (The pro-aborts have protested over and over that the mother, not her child, should be the one we count and that she should be allowed to use the money for any “reproductive services,” including abortion, that she wants.)
Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life have both issued statements opposing the CMS ruling.
From Joe Pojman, Ph.D., TAL’s Executive Director:
“We believe the State of Texas has every right to deny millions of tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, which is what the Texas Legislature and Governor Perry has chosen to do,” he said. “Senate Bill 7, passed last summer during a special legislative session, prohibits Medicaid tax dollars under the Women’s Health Program from going to abortion providers and their affiliated organizations.”
“This bill excludes several dozen Planned Parenthood sites from the Women’s Health Program, but it does not exclude any other hundreds of Women’s Health Program providers in Texas. Many of the other providers offer comprehensive primary and preventative care to low- income women in addition to family planning, which Planned Parenthood is unable or unwilling to provide,” he continued. “By threatening to cancel the Women’s Health Program in Texas, the Obama Administration is showing it would sooner deny tens of millions of dollars of medical services to low-income women rather than allow the State of Texas to cut off tax funding to Planned Parenthood.”
Addendum: this article from the Houston Chronicle (I quoted from it here) which implies that the ruling may go so far as to overturn our long-standing law that requires providers to sign a contract affirming that they don’t perform or refer for abortions.
Conservatives on my mind (Revision of earlier post) @governorperry
Conservatives understand that we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Personally, I’m reluctant to criticize Republican candidates before even one vote is cast in the Primaries. But Conservatives also know that if we ignore our principles for expediency, we risk losing both. if we learned anything in 2008, that is.
Even Erick Erickson of Red State says he’s ready to go “none of the above.” But “none of the above” won’t cut it this year. We are fighting an incumbent that is almost guaranteed the black, gay and pro-abort vote, not to mention all of the many people who can only survive by the redistribution of tax money!
We have an opportunity to vote our principles in Rick Perry. If you can’t bear Governor Perry or don’t believe his experience in governing Texas is indicative of his ability to govern the United States, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum are good options. In contrast, Gingrich or Romney would just be the latest version of “it’s his turn.” We need the consistency and the radical DC outsider that is Rick Perry.
I know that many Conservatives have either been divorced and remarried or have loved ones who have been divorced. Others have family members who are homosexuals. We might even have family members who have been convicted of crimes – and I’m not saying that either of the first two are crimes. However, we understand that messy personal lives are not the ideal, and we prefer that our leaders be someone that we can not only admire, but who will demonstrate that they hold – and live – our principles as their own.
The Newt is everything that we have been fighting since McCain was nominated. The ability to debate does not equate to the ability to govern.He has been selling himself as the next in line, ever since Obama’s inauguration, according to the report in the Real Clear Politics’ Election 2012: the Battle Begins. The story is that Gingrich hosted a dinner for Republicans on the night of the inauguration.
Worse, if Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee, we won’t have the family values and principles that the base of the Conservative Republicans have rallied ’round. I’m not sure his history of serial adultery can stand up to opposition of same sex marriage. If marriage is plastic enough to support Newt’s history, then why not?
I’d like to believe the Catholic conversion that went along with this latest marriage is a good place to reset Newt’s sexual morality and ethical credentials. However, Gingrich can’t even stay on point on when life begins, telling us one thing on Friday and begging Catholics to tell us he meant something else on Sunday.
If Conservative bloggers are willing to go with pretty talk, will Conservative voters follow? I don’t think so. I believe that the TEA Party has proven that we are outside the influence of Party politics. We work from the Republican Party only as long as the Republican Party will honor our principles and at least appear to support *us.*
I am somewhat afraid that the TEA Party is too busy deciding whether personal lives and a true understanding of first principles – life, liberty, “first do no harm” – are important if their property is secured. I’ve watched in disbelief as uncertainty about the flavor of the month’s views on abortion, when life begins, true marriage and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is justified because of some mistaken idea that giving up ideology will give us the White House.
It’s indeed time to make the decision to support principles or not. But few of us will vote in New Hampshire, Iowa or South Carolina. Our choice of which candidate to support is only urgent if we are blogging, writing, advocating and donating money.
Whether your biggest fear is that Obama wins, or that Romney wins, the next 2 or 3 months are the time to support Conservatives. Don’t choose to advocate for or donate to the “electable” candidate long before your own before your primary, for pity’s sake!
Edited at 15:00, 12/8/11 to add last 3 paragraphs, and on December 25 to correct mispelling.
@GovernorPerry to Blitz: “You guys are a bigger pain than the back surgery.”
Governor Rick Perry was grilled by Wolf Blitzer on CNN‘s Situation Room on Wednesday, December 7, with frequent interruptions and repetitious questions. (Full transcript, here.) “Blitz” once again earned the nickname given to him by Herman Cain.
The Houston Chronicle, which leans far to the left, reported on the interview in a blog entry entitled, “Perry talks about pain meds, gay Scouts and the VP job”
[Perry] Asserted that his July spine surgery, which he noted involved the use of his own stem cells, was “incredibly successful.”
Blitzer’s question included the issue of pain medication, and Perry said, “I’m back running again, three to four miles, four to five times a week and I was off for 10 weeks. I probably took pain medication for the first 10 days, two weeks. And after that, the surgery has been awesome. … You guys are a bigger pain than the back surgery.”
But of course, the real problem for both Blitz and the Chronicle’s blogger is the Governor’s statements concerning pro-life, faith-based Catholic hospitals and adoption services, the lawsuits against the Boy Scouts who refuse to admit openly gay scout leaders and the limits on Catholic aide to victims of human trafficking. The Chronicle and Blitz each call these acts of “discrimination.” Blitz even asked Governor Perry whether “separation of church and state, does that mean anything to you?”
Perry pointed out the difference between “freedom *of* religion” and “freedom *from* religion. The question should be whether the First Amendment phrase “and the free exercise thereof” means anything.
Under the Bush Administration, Catholic Charities and hospitals weren’t forced to provide adoption services for homosexual couples or to pay for abortifacients like EllaOne or refer to abortionists in order to provide adoption assistance or prenatal care.
The Obama Administration is doing just the opposite. On top of the policies of the States of Illinois, Massachusetts, and others that are limiting Christian, pro-life adoption agencies, the Obama Administration is moving forward on regulations to severely restrict conscience.
Must every agency that receives tax money provide an absolutly full range of services? Lay aside the fact that adoption and abortion are not compatible with one another. It seems evident that birth mothers and and adoptive parents that go to Catholic charities and adoption agencies would have a pretty good idea about the philosophy of the group based on religious tenets.
That’s probably the fear of the prospective gay adopters: as the Governor says, “People will vote with their feet.” Why would a prolife Catholic girl who finds herself an unplanned pregnancy – who admittedly has most become pregnant by committing what she considers a sin – “choose” to have her baby raised in a home that doesn’t share her values? And why on earth would she ever “choose” to seek care for herself and her baby from a doctor who also kills the babies of other women?
The advocates for choice must, in fact, hate choice – they certainly fight to prevent it, even to demand that we act against our own “choice” and conscience.
@Governor Perry, @Freedom2Care: Abortion Ideology Trumps Aid for Victims of Human Trafficking
Regarding Governor Perry’s comments about the Obama Administration’s war on religion:
A grueling December 1 hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee revealed the disturbing answers to these questions, in the process infuriating Republican committee members and others concerned with aiding victims of human trafficking.
By the end of an over three-hour long grilling of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials, one message had become clear about the Obama administration’s criteria for receiving the $4.5 million in federal grants for trafficking victims services:
Pro-life groups need not apply.
via Freedom2Care: Abortion Ideology Trumps Aid for Victims of Human Trafficking.
The regulations were written to prevent any pro-life group from receiving grant money:
The funding opportunity announcement for the “competitive” grant stipulated:
Translation: Participate in abortion or forget the grant.
Rick Perry Ad on “Faith” @TeamRickPerry
Rick Perry, “Faith” My Texas Governor Rick Perry is not ashamed of his faith.
Perry Appeals Congressional Map Fight to U.S. Supreme Court – Businessweek
The Court in San Antonio re-drew all of Texas’ Congressional Districts and even created a new one in Tarrant County. From my right wing perspective, it appears that the Judges were protecting the minor Party, rather than minor voters.
The judges ignored the true voting record of Comal County, at least, by leaving the Hispanic neighborhoods in New Braunfels in CD 21 and pulling out Schertz-Cibolo and the rural area between San Antonio and New Braunfels for a neighboring district. They protected Lloyd Doggett’ CD 25, for pity’s sake – just about as whitebread as you can get!
Perry previously asked the high court to block the use of judicially created election maps in Texas’s 2012 legislative races after a panel of lower-court judges in San Antonio refused his request. Today, Perry added the state’s races for the U.S. House of Representatives to his Supreme Court bid for emergency stay.
The San Antonio court that created interim election maps “went out of its way to give no weight whatsoever to the duly- enacted election map enacted by the Texas Legislature,” Paul Clement, the state’s appellate attorney, said in Texas’s Supreme Court filing yesterday.
“Legal, delayed elections are preferable to legally flawed, timely elections,” Clement said. Candidates began registering for Texas’s March 6 party primaries yesterday, based on the court-drawn maps.
Texas is fighting to implement new voter boundaries created this year by the Republican-controlled Legislature and approved by Perry after the state gained four new congressional seats on population growth. Texas added nearly 4.3 million new residents since 2000, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Roughly 65 percent of the new Texans are Hispanics.
via Perry Appeals Congressional Map Fight to U.S. Supreme Court – Businessweek.
Occupy Whatever!
Naomi Wolfe has written a screed for the UK’s Guardian, “The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy,” that is sympathetic to the OccupyWhatever movement, in response to several events where occupiers where pepper-sprayed or arrested. She claims to have received emails that list the wishes of the occupiers and to be privy to a government conspiracy to “suppress” the movement.
I believe that the wish list is Wolfe’s, and that she has inflated the cohesiveness of purpose around her favored agenda:
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
(The Wall Street Journal reports a much less focused OccupyWhatever, today.The demands among various New York State occupiers include reparations for slavery and local city political disagreements.College students from the New School, who have “occupied” an art gallery, are demanding gender-neutral bathrooms and no more tuition increases.)
Ms. Wolfe seems to miss the implication that it is her imagined “suppressors” are the powerful on the Left. She inflates the power of Congress, ignoring the true chain of command within the Department of Homeland Security, which is run out of the Executive Office of the Obama White House. Instead, she asks, “[W]hy on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents?”
But mostly, she ignores the fact that the Occupiers are not “peaceful,” innocent, or harmless activists. They are obstructing traffic, knocking down little old ladies and interfering with school children. They are incubating disease and violence among themselves, which spreads to anyone who comes near them. Private businesses in some of the cities have been harassed and shut down – for example, restaurants and food vendors who cannot give away their product and make a profit(horrors!) that allows them to stay in business and take money home to their families.
The video of the chanting at Walmarts on “Black Friday” are great examples of the ridiculous nature of the objections. Very young, well-dressed and -fed men and women (just look at those jeans and sweaters – where do you think they bought them?) telling the employees and the customers that they are slaves, and decrying consumerism is hypocrisy.
Civil disobedience has always carried with it the very probable risk of being arrested and prosecuted. Frankly, those of us who have avoided certain parks or who have been heckled while minding our own business are not sympathetic to those arrested or pepper sprayed.
The agenda that Ms. Wolfe reports is not pure, either. For example, the Citizens United opinion supports and protects free speech. Just as the occupiers join in a group on the street or in the aisles of Walmarts across the nation, those of us who wish to do so, voluntarily give our money to support Political Action Committees (PACs) that represent our desired political speech in ads and to pay lobbyists. The difference is that I have to give my name and occupation when I donate, the PAC must organize and file reports. The OccupyWhatevers refuse to do so and since they don’t like the speech that my money enables, they try to limit my freedom to walk down the street, in addition to my organizing with others in political speech.
However, what concerns me the most is the purposeful submission of individuality by the OccupyWhatever organizations. There is nothing normal or healthy in the chanting and parroting of the words of a leader as the protesters do. They voluntarily turn themselves into interchangeable units of the mob, automatons who apparently do not think for themselves. Watch the videos of a leader who speaks a few words, which are then repeated in unison by the group.
Tell me Occupiers: are these speeches worked out in advance in a truly democratic manner? What happens if one of you has an original thought in reaction to what is going on around you?
Geron Awarded Grants (under ObamaCare Stimulus)
Just one more failed “stimulus” project? This past week, Geron announced they are no longer pursuing their research in embryonic stem cells. They laid off 66 employees.
The US government should never have been in the business of picking and choosing business winners and losers. We certainly shouldn’t be giving money for destructive embryonic stem cell research.
Included as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the QTDP program provided a tax credit to encourage investments in new therapies to prevent, diagnose, and treat acute and chronic diseases. Companies, such as Geron, that cannot currently use a tax credit were allowed to apply for a cash grant
in lieu of a tax credit.
To be eligible for the program, projects must show reasonable potential to result in new therapies to treat areas of unmet medical need; prevent, detect, or treat chronic or acute disease and conditions; reduce long-term health care costs in the United States; or significantly advance the goal of curing cancer within a 30-year period.
In addition, preference was given to projects that showed the greatest potential to create and sustain (directly or indirectly) high quality, high-paying jobs in the United States, and advance United States competitiveness in the fields of life, biological, and medical sciences.
Projects were selected jointly by the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
via Geron Awarded Grants Under Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program.
Thomas Sowell Interview on Human Events (video) @TeamRickPerry
Landmark interview with a brilliant man who possesses a brilliant mind.
Watch the whole thing, for a look back at this incredible man’s history and experiences. Beginning with an interview in 1981 with William Buckley, and moving on into the 2011 political climate. Dr. Sowell discusses his own evolution from Marxism to Conservativism. Segment 5 includes comments on President Obama and the current Republican Presidential rate.
Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge shows us his own brilliance by his questions and demeanor.
The Land of OZ (Cain explains Opportunity Zones)
Whatever happened to the Conservative idea of “Equal Opportunity for all? For that matter, what about free market principles and the idea that no one is “to big to fail?”
Are Conservatives comfortable with the promotion of special interest groups by our candidates, with distinctions made on the basis of race and ethnicity? How Conservative is it to propose a complicated new tax scheme based on rewarding failure and corruption?
In a bloggers’ forum sponsored by TexasGOPVote.com, Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain answered questions last night after the debate in Houston.
Mr. Cain was explaining his “Opportunity Zones,” which would help the “poorest Black Americans” and the “poorest Hispanics” (no other demographics were mentioned) when I heard myself blurt out, “How is that different from a bailout?”
Mr. Cain scowled and said Opportunity Zones are not a bailout because no money would be sent to the cities: the businesses and the people would get tax breaks and incentives, instead.
Okay, we wouldn’t send checks to the cities in Mr. Cain’s scheme. But those of us who pay 9-9-9 would subsidize the beneficiaries of the 3-3-3 and 9-0-9 tax categories. In the case of the cities, we would be rewarding them very same people who have destroyed those inner cities with their corruption. How soon would the “Chicago Way” corrupt OZ?
Empowerment Opportunity Zones
for Corrupt Inner Cities
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