Two British children were punished for not kneeling down and praying to Allah:

Irate parents said a religious education teacher at the Alsager High School in England told students to wear Muslim headgear during a lesson on Tuesday. “But if Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion, there would be war,” the grandfather of one of the students said.

The two boys belong to a class that includes 11- to 12-year-olds, and after their refusal to participate they were given detention, the story says.

Another parent, Karen Williams, told the Mail: “Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right. They’d never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language.”

Deputy Headmaster Keith Plant said the teacher has given her version of the incident but he declined to elaborate.

According to a statement from the Cheshire County Council on behalf of the school: “Educating children in the beliefs of different faith is part of the diversity curriculum on the basis that knowledge is essential to understanding.

Still looking for the story where Islamic students were punished for not lighting the Menorah or doing the Sign of the Cross.

Hat Tip: Kai

Sometimes marriages just don’t work. Someone cheats on someone, or someone is beating someone, or whatever. Divorce is an option that is available to those couples that can no longer stand to be together.

It is an option that is probably abused, or used as an escape when things get to difficult in the marriage, but I don’t think this is the solution:

Texans would have to wait two years to get a divorce — unless they take a class designed to save their marriage — under a proposal a key state lawmaker says he plans to revive.

State Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, sought to get a similar measure passed in 2007. He said he’s planning to bring it back as one of his priorities for the legislative session that begins in January.

“The deal is, we need to take marriage more seriously,” said Chisum, who in October will celebrate his 51st wedding anniversary.

I want to know one thing from Rep. Chisum. How much credit can the government take for your marriage lasting 51 years?

Just another reason why the government shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all. It is a religous institution, not a government institution. I can understand the government recognizing the marriage in terms of it being a contract between two consenting adults, but nothing more than that.

The responsibility for the success of the marriage fall on the two people in the marriage, not the government.

Happy Fourth of July!

In celebration of our independence, I thought I would embed five great classic war movies, celebrating the fighting spirit that originated when our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, ensuring war with Great Britain.

Enjoy!

Von Ryan’s Express

Amazon.com
Forget Indiana Jones. This 1965 high adventure stars Frank Sinatra as the leader of a mass escape from a World War II POW camp in Italy. That mission accomplished, Old Blue Eyes has sundry adventures camouflaging the freed men as German soldiers, trying to fool the Gestapo, and finally doing battle with enemy planes and ground troops while trying to get a hijacked train through a blocked tunnel. Sinatra is in great form and director Mark Robson handles the endless chain of action set-pieces with panache. A great pulse-quickener. –Tom Keogh

Guadalcanal Diary

Amazon.com
One of the greatest war movies of all time, combining action-packed, high-caliber battle sequences with quintessential foxhole-buddy camaraderie. Released in 1943, its authenticity and power remain undiminished.

The story follows one squad of Marines through the bloody assaults on the Solomon Islands during the opening stages of the war in the South Pacific. There’s the tough sergeant (Lloyd Nolan), a cab driver from Brooklyn (William Bendix), a Mexican (Anthony Quinn) and a chaplain (Preston Foster). A battle-weary narrator reads from a diary, commenting on the typical grunt’s everyday life, and death. Battles and dates of engagement are named, putting the explosive action into a solid historical context.

Halls Of Montezuma

Amazon.com
Richard Widmark leads an all-star cast of leathernecks (Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden, Richard Boone, and Jack Webb) into battle on a heavily-fortified enemy island. Their objective is a Japanese rocket sit in the island’s interior, and the combat-packed story follows the squad from beachhead to battle, as they pick their way trough enemy-infested jungles. Along the way, Widmark is transformed from a former school teacher into a combat-wizened leader, and his disparate squad of men is forged into a cohesive fighting unit.

The Sand Pebbles

Amazon.com
Following the success of The Sound of Music, director Robert Wise chose to film Robert McKenna’s prize-winning 1962 novel, The Sand Pebbles–an ambitious choice for a director at the peak of his career. Shot in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the film combines historical sweep and intimate human drama in several parallel stories, all revolving around U.S. Navy machinist’s mate Jake Holman (Steve McQueen). Holman is a skillful but fiercely independent sailor who joins the “sand pebble” crew of the U.S.S. San Pablo, a Navy gunboat patrolling the Yangtze River on the eve of the Chinese revolution in 1926. The San Pablo’s inexperienced captain (Richard Crenna) obsessively defends the Navy’s mission–however unnecessary or unwanted–to protect American missionaries and businessmen, blind to the more dangerous implications of American involvement with China’s opposing political factions.

The Longest Day

Amazon.com
The Longest Day is a vivid hour-by-hour recreation of this historic event. Featuring a stellar international cast and told from the perspectives of both sides it is a fascinating look at the massive preparations mistakes and random events that determined the outcome of one of the biggest battles in history. Winner of two 1962 Oscars® (Special Effects and Cinematography) The Longest Day ranks as one of Hollywood’s truly great war films.

There is nothing I can say that will trump what they are saying by this action:

More than 1,100 servicemembers stationed in Iraq will celebrate the nation’s birthday tomorrow by re-enlisting, the senior enlisted leader for Multinational Force Iraq said today.
Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin L. Hill said 1,157 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will re-enlist at the Al Faw Palace at Camp Victory, in Baghdad. This may be the largest re-enlistment ceremony since the all-volunteer force began in 1973, Hill said via phone from Baghdad.

This is becoming an annual blockbuster event for the command. Last year, 588 servicemembers re-enlisted.

“We are extremely proud of the accomplishments we have made in security on the ground as well as proud of all of our great warriors for the work they are doing since they arrived in theater,” Hill said. “We recognize the sacrifices they make and the sacrifices their families and communities make as they serve in Iraq.”

These servicemembers know the cost of war and they are still re-enlisting, Hill said. Some serve in “the most austere conditions — meaning they are in patrol bases and combat outposts,” he noted. Some of the re-enlisting servicemembers are in places where the troops “hot-bunk it” — that is, they take turns using limited sleeping space — and burn human waste because they lack plumbing. Others are based in more comfortable surroundings.

The vast majority of the servicemembers tell Hill and others that they are re-enlisting because “they are doing what they joined the military to do,” he said.

For a grateful nation, I say thank you.

Do you know what this plant is?

This post has absolutely nothing to do with politics. Nothing.

But I want you all to know about this plant. This picture was taken on the north side of my property, an area that borders a wooded area. I hadn’t done my upkeep in this area, because frankly, it is outside the city limits and I never, ever go down there.

But about a week ago I did.

In shorts.

This is Poison Ivy.

It is a very nasty plant:

For those who are affected by urushiol, it causes a very irritating rash. In extreme cases, corticosteroids can be needed to treat rashes and severe itching. The first symptom of contact is a severe itching of the skin that develops into reddish colored inflammation or non-colored bumps, and then blistering of the skin occurs. In severe cases, clear fluids ooze from open blistered sores. Once the urushiol poison has had contact with the skin, it is quickly bound to the skin.

The oozing fluids released by itching blisters do not spread the poison. The appearance of a spreading rash indicates that some areas received more of the poison and reacted sooner than other areas. The blisters and oozing result from blood vessels that develop gaps and leak fluid through the skin; if the skin is cooled, the vessels constrict and leak less. If poison ivy is burned and the smoke then inhaled, this rash will appear on the lining of the lungs, causing extreme pain and possibly fatal respiratory difficulty. If poison ivy is eaten, the digestive tract, airway, kidneys or other organs can be damaged.

There is a picture of what this plant can do to your skin if you are severely allergic to it. It is disgusting. I’m not kidding. If you have eaten anything that can be easily regurgitated, do not look at this picture.

Here is the Mother of All Skin Rashes.

I thought I had a bad case until I saw that picture. Now I feel kinda like a big baby. Here is the complete gallery from Poison Ivy.org.

Another really good site for poison ivy info is the Poison Ivy, Oak and Sumac Information Center. Their section on care and control of the itch lead me to “Extra Strength Benadryl Cream containing 2% Diphenhydromine Hydrochloride…” This stuff is a blessing. As the site says, look for 2% Diphenhydromine Hydrochloride. (As a funny aside, I can’t help but mumble “It puts the lotion on the skin” as I coat my legs in this stuff. I know…psycho.)

Ivarest is also a good product, but I need a lot and it comes in such a small tube. I have relied quite heavily on Calagel Maximum Stregth Anti-Itch Gel. This is some good stuff.

Anyway, I guess I just want you all to be aware of this evil plant. Yeah, I said evil. Know this plant and know these sayings:

• “Leaves of three, let it be; berries white, danger in sight.”
• “Leaves of three let it be; hairy vine, no friend of mine.”
• “Leaves of three, let it be; berries white, run in fright”

Run in fright? Take a look at the Mother of All Skin Rashs and tell me I’m being hysterical.

When the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 was unveiled in September 2005, these six high profile conservative bloggers were instrumental in raising the public protest that forced the Memorial Project to agree to a redesign. Charles Johnson stayed with the story until the summer of 2006, and Ace has done two links since 2005, but for the most part, these conservative heroes seem to have decided that the “circle of embrace” redesign is okay.

It is NOT okay. Architect Paul Murdoch described his original Crescent of Embrace design as a broken circle. The redesign is still described as a broken circle, and the unbroken part of the circle (the crescent) remains exactly as it was in the original design.

In particular, the giant crescent still points to Mecca, and the repetition of this Mecca orientation in the crescents of trees that surround the Tower of Voices part of the memorial proves that the Mecca orientation is intentional. That makes the giant crescent a mihrab: the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built.

The planned memorial is a terrorist memorial mosque. This is an enemy plot, every bit as ambitious in its own way as the 9/11 attacks. To stop this re-hijacking of Flight 93, we need our frontline bloggers to rejoin the fray!

The only change: the design now includes a broken off part of the circle

The design drawings were recolored to make it look as if significant changes were made, the but only actual change was the inclusion of an additional arc of trees, said to represent a broken off part of the circle:

Crescent of Embrace left. Circle or Embrace right. The only actual change is the additional arc of trees on the west side of the memorial. (Click for larger image.)

Notice that this extra ark of trees sits to the rear of a person facing into the giant central crescent. That is the equivalent of laying down a Muslim prayer rug (called a small mosque) in front of some trees. The prayer rug is unchanged. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want to. It will still be a mosque.

“Broken circle” is Park Service’s official story

In the original design, the broken off part of the circle was removed entirely. Now, as Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley reiterated last week, a broken off part of the circle is included:

The trees surrounding this “circle of embrace” are missing, or broken, in two places; first, where the flight path of the plane came overhead (which is the location of the planned memorial overlook and visitor center) and second, where the plane crashed at the Sacred Ground (depicted by a ceremonial gate and pathway into the Sacred Ground).

She is describing the two ends of the additional arc of trees. It is broken at both ends.

Both the theme and the geometry of the original Crescent of Embrace design remain as they were. The terrorists still break our circle, and they still turn it into a giant Mecca oriented crescent.

Those who raised the hue and cry about the original design ought to be equally concerned that the original design remains completely intact in the phony redesign. Come on heroes. Your help is NEEDED!

Animation superimposes the redesign, then withdraws all but the changes. (Click for larger version.)

Come to the August 2nd meeting

If you can make it to Somerset PA on Saturday August 2nd, come help Tom Burnett Sr. tackle the hijacker! (Mr. Burnett announced trip, and his willingness to go to jail if necessary, in this audio clip from the Mancow Muller radio show (25 seconds. And here is Tom talking about the heroism of his murdered son, Tom Jr. Audio 45 seconds).

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

While a lot of my conservative friends disagree with me, I think the War on Drugs is a waste of money. Over $400 billion dollars since the 1970s. What do we have to show for it?

Americans are world’s top drug users: study

Americans are the world’s top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine.
The study, released Monday, revealed that 16.2 percent of Americans had tried cocaine at least once, and 42.4 percent had used marijuana.

In second-place New Zealand, just 4.3 percent of study participants had used cocaine, and 41.9 percent marijuana.

You want to really control this area? Legalize it. Think that is a bad idea?

Drug use “does not appear to be simply related to drug policy,” the researchers wrote, “since countries with more stringent policies toward illegal drug use did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies.”

In the Netherlands, where drug policy is more liberal than the United States, 1.9 percent of survey participants said they had used cocaine and 19.8 percent marijuana.

During Prohibition, the mob grew due to liquor sales. Today, we have the Mexican drug lords sending their mercenaries across or border to shoot up homes of American citizens.

It isn’t working.

From the Washington Post:

Prohibition gives narcotics huge added value as a commodity. Once traffickers get around the business risks — getting busted or being shot by competitors — they stand to make vast profits. A confidential strategy report prepared in 2005 for British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet and later leaked to the media offered one of the most damning indictments of the efficacy of the drug war. Law enforcement agencies seize less than 20 percent of the 700 tons of cocaine and 550 tons of heroin produced annually. According to the report, they would have to seize 60 to 80 percent to make the industry unprofitable for the traffickers.

Not only is it not working, but it is costing us huge amounts for no gain:

Over $19 billion was spent on the war on drugs by the federal government in 2003, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This equates to $600 per second. Of this money, 61% went to criminal justice, and 30% went for treatment and prevention programs (”What Does The Drug War Cost?” New Times, June 24, 1999). Another $30 billion was spent by state and local governments.

According to the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, it costs approximately $450,000 to put a single drug dealer in jail. This cost includes the costs of arrest, conviction, room, and board.

To put that in perspective, while we spend $19 billion in 2003, more than $400 billion since the 1970s, “The syndicates that control narcotics production and distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400 billion to $500 billion.” All that money, going where?

In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban’s most effective recruiter in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s Muslim extremists have reinvigorated themselves by supporting and taxing the countless peasants who are dependent one way or another on the opium trade, their only reliable source of income. The Taliban is becoming richer and stronger by the day, especially in the east and south of the country. The “War on Drugs” is defeating the “war on terror.”

It’s time to try something different. This “War on Drugs” isn’t working. Even National Review said this, 12 years ago.

Rumors are flying that President Bush may be closing down the prison at Guantanamo Bay:

High-level discussions among top advisers have escalated in the past week, with the most senior administration officials in continuous talks about the future of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay–and how it will be dramatically changed and/or closed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that gave detainees there access to federal courts.

Sources have confirmed that President Bush is expected to be briefed on these pressing GTMO issues–and may reach a decision on the future of the naval base as a prison for al Qaeda suspects–before he leaves for the G8 on Saturday. An announcement, however, is not expected before he leaves the country.

High-level administration officials say the Court’s decision dramatically changes the legal landscape–and raises questions about whether the government has solid evidence to present to federal judges to justify ongoing detentions.

That evidence, much of it classified and obtained by military and CIA personnel on the battlefield, is not the standard kind of proof judges are accustomed to seeing in regular criminal cases here, administration officials say.

I personally hope they keep it open, take all these folks through the legal system, and show the American people who exactly is being held down there. These folks are not there for singing too loud in church. Some have already been released, only to return to the battlefield to try to kill more American military members.

For example:

• Fahd al-Utaibi a/k/a Naif Fahd Al Aseemi Al Utaibi arrived in Saudi Arabia May 18, 2006 from Guantanamo, along with 14 others released by the US. He is currently on trial in Yemen for forging travel documents in order to join the jihad in Iraq.

  Yemenis comprise one of the largest contingents of foreign fighters in Iraq, and it is said that they are aided by some in the military and intelligence services. President Saleh is a great fan of the resistance.

  (Source.)

• Ajmi was released from Guantanamo Bay and was searching for “a way to reconnect with the jihad.” He claimed he was tortured while at Guantanamo Bay.

  Ajmi “is seemingly responsible for an earlier truck bombing at the Iraqi Army HQ in the Harmat neighborhood of Mosul on March 23, 2008,” said Kazimi. The attack occurred at Combat Outpost Inman, an Iraqi Army base that served as the headquarters for the 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Iraqi Army Division.

  Thirteen Iraqi soldiers were killed and 42 were wounded after Ajmi drove an armored truck packed an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of explosives through the gate of the outpost and detonated in a spot between the three main buildings of the compound. The blast destroyed the facades of the three buildings, including the building housing the battalion headquarters.

  (Source.)

• The Afghan, who was about 15 when he was swept up along with hundreds of others and taken to Guantanamo Bay, is among a small number of former prisoners who have been killed or recaptured following their release by U.S. authorities, said Paul Rester, director of the Joint Intelligence Group at the detention center.

  (Source.)

Make a spectacle of the whole thing. Let the trials be televised. Show the people who is being held down there and what they are there for.

Duane was interviewed by Michael Savage for The Savage Nation and it aired today. The reason for the interview was Duane’s Ten Big Accomplishments in Less Than Ten Years article from last week.

It was a pretty good article, and we were happy to catch the notice of Michael Savage. If you didn’t hear the interview, we have the audio of his segment right here.

 

 Duane On Savage Nation [8:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As a refresher, the ten items on Duane’s list are:

1. A group of colonists organized and defeated the British Empire.
2. Built the Transcontinental Railroad
3. Built Hoover Dam.
4. Put a man on the moon.
5. Learned to fly.
6. Built the Panama Canal.
7. Won World War II.
8. Built the Empire State Building.
9. Built the Golden Gate Bridge.
10. Built both towers of the World Trade Center.

Our thanks to Dr. Savage and his producers for letting us bring this to a bigger audience.

I don’t know how many times I saw the video in this post while I was in the Navy. It is a very important part of U.S. Naval history. Not once in all those viewings did I ever hear anyone claim that John McCain was responsible for the fire.

Now I have. A Free Republic user warned of a smear campaign by Lane Anderson of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Lane, he said, was making the claim that John McCain started the USS Forrestal fire.

After a little searching, I found this:

More important than marital issues is his competance in military matters. Google {USS Forrestal Fire John McCain} to learn more about the pilot that lost five planes and set a supercarrier on fire!

Lane

If you click the link, you can see it is Lane Anderson.

Say what you want about John McCain, but he didn’t start the Forrestal Fire. Via the Chief of Naval Information:

It is not a story about just a few individuals. Or ten. Or twenty. Or fifty. It is the story of hundreds of officers and enlisted men who were molded by disaster into a single cohesive force determined to accomplish one mission: Save their ship and their shipmates.

It is the story of the acts of heroism they performed-acts so commonplace, accomplished with such startling regularity, that it will be impossible to chronicle all of them. It will be impossible for a very simple reason:All of them will never be known.

Lt. Cmdr. Robert “Bo” Browning one of the pilots due for launch with many others, he was seated in the cockpit of his fueled and armed Skyhawk; the plane was spotted way aft, to port. Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III said later he heard a “whooshy” sound then a “low-order explosion” in front of him. Suddenly, two A-4s ahead of his plane were engulfed in flaming jet fuel — JP-5 — spewed from them. A bomb dropped to the deck and rolled about six feet and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.

The awful conflagration, which was to leave 132 Forrestal crewmen dead, 62 more injured and two missing and presumed dead, had begun.

I thought that the left had reached rock bottom when they made the claims that McCain had it easy in the Hanoi Hilton and collaborated with the enemy. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

Blaming him for the death of 132 sailors is so far out there that it is beyond imagination.

Cross posted at Right Wing News.

The Washington Post is reporting that along with Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama got a sweeter than normal deal on his mortgage:

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a “super super jumbo.” Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama’s rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Nice. I wonder if everyone could get as sweet a deal as that. I’m not talking about the guy trying to scrape together a couple hundred thousand for a house. I talking about other richy-rich folks. Would they get the same deal as a former state senator who made it to the show?

Nope:

In Obama’s case, he received a lower rate than the average offered at the time in Chicago for similarly structured jumbo loans. He secured his final mortgage commitment on June 8, 2005, and during that week, rates on similar loans for which information is available averaged 5.93 percent, according to HSH Associates, which surveys lenders. Another survey firm, Bankrate.com, placed the average at 6 percent.

“It’s certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average,” said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president, noting that consumer rates vary widely. “It’s a good deal.”

I’m sure the Obamatons will excuse this as nothing out of the ordinary, even though “The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan.” Sure, usually you get a better deal than the people who have been banking there for years. That’s how it works.

See, the bank didn’t really treat him any differently than anyone else:

Unlike Countrywide, where leaked internal e-mails documented a special discount program for friends of chief executive Angelo Mozilo, Northern Trust says it has no formal program to provide discounts to public officials. Loan officers may consider a borrower’s occupation when establishing an interest rate, the bank said.

They just consider the occupation of United States Senator the same way they would, say, dog-catcher, or airline pilot. Oh, and then there is this:

Since 1990, Northern Trust employees have donated more than $739,000 to federal campaigns, including $71,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Probably nothing to that either.

Next big speech for Barack: “I will never question anyone’s mortgage, and I condemn anyone who does!”

Cross posted to Right Wing News.

As one of the supposed anti-science conservatives liberals are always yammering on about, I was glad when President Bush vetoed the increase in federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I wrote about the adult stem cell success stories, and since June of last year, there have been even more exciting treatments:

• A middle aged man in Colorado had his bone marrow cells harvested, multiplied in the lab and then injected into his back.
  

  “I think this is the beginning of a new era of surgery,” [Dr. Christopher Centeno] said. “We usually take out the offending piece but do nothing to repair the small damage we just created. This allows you to do both.”

• A study published in Canada shows how adult stem cells can help slow the progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease:
  

  “We were able to measure a prominent effect on stem cell mobilization and found no adverse effects in the patients,” said [Dr. Neil] Cashman. “There have been many misgivings in using stem cell stimulators in ALS patients but now we know we can safely do this. This is an important first step in providing a new treatment for ALS.”

• Headline: Autologous Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation After Immunosuppressive Therapy Effective and Safe in Multiple Sclerosis
  
  What that means is that doctors in France took MS patients, suppressed their immune system, injected them with their own bone marrow cells and found:

  “All patients appeared to respond to treatment”, reported Dr. Ionova. Improvement was seen in 62.3%, and stabilisation occurred in 37.7% of patients. Progression after improvement occurred in 7.1% and progression after stabilisation in 11.8% of patients.

  There were no deaths during the course of the study.

  Out of 26 patients included in the quality-of-life analysis, 24 exhibited a response and preserved a good quality of life during the follow-up. No unexpected treatment-related adverse events were observed.

  As Bioethics.com notes, “This confirms other studies.”

• Researchers in Australia have found that patients with Parkinson’s disease respond positively to the injection of adult stem cells:
  

  The Griffith University study published in the journal Stem Cells found that adult stem cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson’s patients gave rise to dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain of a rat.

  The debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s such as loss of muscle control are caused by degeneration of cells that produce the essential chemical dopamine in the brain.

  It’s also important to note that they have tried the same experiment with embryonic stem cells, only it resulted in the “formation of tumours or teratomas in the host rats…”

• Two Canadians suffering from a rare form of lung disease were treated with their own “gene-modified stem cells” in an experimental procedure:
  

  “These enhanced stem cells are given in a heart catheterization suite, and lodge in the lung where it is hoped they will stimulate the repair and regeneration of blood vessels in the lung,” explained Dr. Galipeau, Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology at McGill University.

  This procedure has cured laboratory rats with pulmonary hypertension, and this study in Canadian volunteers afflicted with pulmonary hypertension seeks to assess the safety of this type of stem cell treatment.

That is just five examples of many. There are articles showing that adult stem cells may “may force Crohn’s disease into retreat“, they can “improve healing of fractures,” and “are already giving some patients a new lease on life.”

But what of the embryonic stem cell? What about the issue that helped catapult Claire McCaskill into Jim Talent’s Senate Seat? You remember Michael J. Fox, don’t you? He helped Missouri liberals amend the state constitution with his commercial for Senator McCaskill. According to “the head of the UK National Stem Cell Network,” embryonic stem cell research is a flop:

Despite his own reservations that stem cell work may not live up to its hype, Lord Patel said he was hopeful of finding treatments for serious diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease and even disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

“Are there any signs that this could happen? Yes there are, particularly in animal experiments that suggest this might be possible,” Lord Patel said.

“In terms of embryonic stem cell therapy, there is currently no such therapy that is available in a large number of patients.

A recent Journal of the American Medical Association study done by “Richard K. Burt, M.D., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and colleagues” found, according to LifeNews.com, that adult stem cells are currently working with over 70 diseases.

Things are going so well on the adult stem cell side, that scientists are now able to manipulate stem cells still in the brain and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced recently that they would invest in adult stem cell research to help with “diabetes-induced retinal damage, a leading cause of blindness.”

When you look at the landslide of success found in adult stem cell research and compare it to the lack of success on the embryonic side, you really have to ask who is the anti-science party. The science is on our side.

Cross posted at Right Wing News.

Tell a liberal that you think there should be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and you can expect to hear that it will take 10 years to get that oil out of the ground. TEN years! Which is far too long of course, because in ten years, crude oil will be useless to the world. Right?

That’s the mantra from the left, though. Ten years will pass before we see anything from ANWR. It’s hard to believe when you consider the following ten things were done in less than ten years:

1. A group of colonists organized and defeated the British Empire.

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence,[3] began as a civil war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies on the North American continent. Foreign nations allied with the American colonists and later declared war on Britain, making the conflict international. The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby the colonists overthrew British rule. In 1775, Revolutionaries seized control of each of the thirteen colonial governments, set up the Second Continental Congress, and formed a Continental Army. The following year, they formally declared their independence as a new nation, the United States of America.

Throughout the war, the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of the population lived) largely eluded them due to their relatively small land army. In early 1778, shortly after an American victory at Saratoga resulting in the surrender of an entire British army, France signed treaties of alliance with the new nation, and declared war on Britain that summer; Spain and the Dutch Republic also went to war with Britain over the next two years. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading to the surrender of a second British army at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

2. Built the Transcontinental Railroad

Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit, Utah. It was here on May 10, 1869 that Stanford drove the Golden Spike or The Last Spike, which is now located at Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, that symbolized the completion of the transcontinental railroad. In perhaps the world’s first live mass-media event, the hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide—the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial spike had been replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, “DONE.” The country erupted in celebration upon receipt of this message. Complete travel from coast to coast was reduced from six or more months to just one week.

3. Built Hoover Dam.

The dam, located 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, is named after Herbert Hoover, who played an instrumental role in its construction, first as Secretary of Commerce and then later as President of the United States. Construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1935, more than two years ahead of schedule. The dam and the power plant are operated by the Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, Hoover Dam was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985.

4. Put a man on the moon.

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. A number of political factors affected Kennedy’s decision and the timing of it. In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States “catch up to and overtake” the Soviet Union in the “space race.” Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space on April 12, 1961, greatly embarrassing the U.S. While Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, he only flew on a short suborbital flight instead of orbiting the Earth, as Gagarin had done. In addition, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in mid-April put unquantifiable pressure on Kennedy. He wanted to announce a program that the U.S. had a strong chance at achieving before the Soviet Union. After consulting with Vice President Johnson, NASA Administrator James Webb, and other officials, he concluded that landing an American on the Moon would be a very challenging technological feat, but an area of space exploration in which the U.S. actually had a potential lead. Thus the cold war is the primary contextual lens through which many historians now view Kennedy’s speech.

The decision involved much consideration before making it public, as well as enormous human efforts and expenditures to make what became Project Apollo a reality by 1969.

5. Learned to fly.

The Wright brothers, Orville (19 August 1871 – 30 January 1948) and Wilbur (16 April 1867 – 30 May 1912), were two Americans who are generally credited[1][2][3] with inventing and building the world’s first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on 17 December 1903. In the two years afterward, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed wing flight possible.

6. Built the Panama Canal.

The United States formally took control of the French property relating to the canal on May 4, 1904, when Lieutenant Jatara Oneel of the United States Army was presented with the keys; there was a little ceremony.

…

On October 10, 1913, the dike at Gamboa, which had kept the Culebra Cut isolated from Gatun Lake, was demolished; the initial detonation was set off telegraphically by President Woodrow Wilson in Washington. On January 7, 1914, the Alexandre La Valley, an old French crane boat, became the first ship to make a complete transit of the Panama Canal under its own steam.

7. Won World War II.

The starting date of the war is generally held to be September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by the United Kingdom, France and the British Dominions;[7][8] some sources use other starting points, including the Mukden Incident (1931), the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), and the Attack on Pearl Harbor (1941). The Allies were victorious, and, as a result, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the world’s leading superpowers.

8. Built the Empire State Building.

Excavation of the site began on January 22, 1930, and construction on the building itself started symbolically on March 17—St.Patrick’s Day—per Al Smith’s influence as Empire State, Inc. president. The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk iron workers, mainly from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction.[12] Governor Smith’s grandchildren cut the ribbon on May 1, 1931.

9. Built the Golden Gate Bridge.

Construction began on January 5, 1933.[4] The project cost over $26 million.[19]

Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, he had placed a brick from his alma mater’s demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. He innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the construction site, which saved the lives of many otherwise unprotected steelworkers. Of eleven men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed (when the bridge was near completion) when the net failed under the stress of a scaffold that had fallen. Nineteen others who were saved by the net over the course of construction became proud members of the (informal) Halfway to Hell Club.[20]

The project was finished by April 1937, $1.3 million under budget.

10. Built both towers of the World Trade Center.

Groundbreaking for the construction of the World Trade Center was on August 5, 1966.[14] The construction was under the auspices of the semiautonomous Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Thirteen square blocks of low rise buildings in Radio Row, some of which predated the American Civil War, were razed to clear the site for construction.

…

In 1970, construction was completed on One World Trade Center, with its first tenants moving into the building in December 1970. Tenants first moved into Two World Trade Center in January 1972.[15] When the World Trade Center twin towers were completed, the total costs to the Port Authority had reached $900 million.[16] The ribbon cutting ceremony was on April 4, 1973.

Are we to believe that in the early 1900s, we could move “238,845,587 cubic yards of material” in Panama, creating the canal where the French failed, but we cannot get oil out of the ground in Alaska in the same time?

Are we to believe that we can build a railroad in the 1800s from Omaha to Sacramento in less than ten years, but it will take us longer to drill a hole in the ground and start pumping oil? ANWR is only 50 miles from Prudhoe Bay. Last I checked, Omaha was a little further than that from Sacramento.

It is hard to believe that with the infrastructure already in place, with the technology available to the oil companies allowing them to drill horizontally, that it would take ten years to start seeing any crude from ANWR. There are estimates that say it could take anywhere from 18 months to two years to see results.

We will need oil in two years and we will need oil in ten years. Why are we refusing to use the natural resources here in America while transferring billions and billions of dollars to nations that are our enemies? It defies logic.

Drill here. Drill now. Sign the petition.

UPDATE:

Linked up at Conservative Grapevine. Thanks, John. Welcome Grapeviners!

What they have sacrificed for America cannot be repaid:

Nine Soldiers received the Purple Heart in a ceremony held at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Friday.

The Soldiers represented nine different states with one common bond of uncommon valor - sacrifice for the nation, according to Lt. Gen. David H. Huntoon, Jr., director of the Army Staff, who awarded the Soldiers with their medals.

The Purple Heart is awarded to servicemembers wounded or killed in any action against an enemy of the United States or as a result of an act of any such enemy or opposing armed forces.

“I am truly honored to be here with you because you have taken up the call against terrorists and tyrants who want to destroy our way of life,” said Huntoon. “Thank you for your service-thank you to the families as well…you have also served your nation.”

The names of the soldiers are:

• Sgt. Francis Collins, III
• Pfc. David A. Knapp
• Capt. Andrew Lynch
• Pfc. Darrell Reid
• Capt. Robert Hinchman
• Spc. Hein Tran
• First Lt. David Woodard
• Spc. Anthony Norris
• Pfc. Frank Pierson

For a grateful nation, I say, “Thank you.”

I have discussed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before, both on the blog and on the podcast. I wish I had thought of attacking the topic the way The Bear at “The Absurd Report” has attacked it. The pictures really tell the story.

Check it out here.