Their Back!

Guards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and led to a criminal investigation by the F.B.I., a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile Congressional hearings.

But after an intense public and private lobbying campaign, Blackwater appears to be back to business as usual.

The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.
blackwater

 

Mother

queen for a day

 

Hillary Quits!

.
She has ruled it out, but a prompt withdrawal from the contest for the Democratic nomination offers Sen. Hillary Clinton the prospect of major rewards.

One of the most inviting is the near certainty that the Obama campaign would agree to pay back the $11.4 million she has loaned her own bid, along with an estimated $10 million to $15 million in unpaid campaign expenses.

quit

prediction: if she cuts the deals she will hang up the pantsuits by the end of the week

 

McCain

Outside his advanced age, health concerns and his flip flopping John McCain has problems on a whole host of issues, Mr. “Straight Talk” has a lot of splainin‘ to do.

Here’s the short list, a taste, of potential political problems for McCain:

McCain and the Keating Five - the 1980 S&L Scandal - bad timing all around, especially during this latest housing crisis.

Confessing to the Enemy - John Kerry was destroyed telling the American people what he thought of Vietnam 30 years ago, McCain actually confessed to the enemy. The Swift Boating of John Kerry opened the door to the Swift Boating of John McCain.

McCain- Feingold Campaign Finance Reform- Not popular with his own party.

Cindy McCain, John’s wife, won’t release her tax returns - They have filed Separately for 28 years. So what are they hiding? First Lady Hillary Clinton is probably wishing she would have done the same.

McCain’s Religion - From Episcopalian to Baptist. Though McCain attends the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona, when he’s in town, he has never been baptized in the church. In order to be a Baptist it is essential to actually undergo baptism. Then there’s the anti-Catholic Rev. John “The Great Whore” Hagee

McCain’s mob ties

McCain’s bad temper

McCain’s Immagration

McCain’s adultery

McSame

 

Hillary Is Done.

too soon? probably not.

She will receive some concessions (under negotiations) within the Senate Power Structure.

 

F.B.I. Raids Office of Special Counsel

The office of the official responsible for protecting federal workers from political interference was raided by F.B.I. agents on Tuesday as part of an investigation into whether he himself mixed politics with official business.

he raid took place at the office of Scott J. Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Computers and documents were seized by agents trying to determine whether Mr. Bloch obstructed justice by hiring an outside company to “scrub” his computer files, The Associated Press reported. Investigators also searched Mr. Bloch’s home in suburban Virginia after obtaining a subpoena.

“It is not clear to us what they are searching for,” James Mitchell, a spokesman for the office, told Reuters. “We are cooperating with law enforcement.” Mr. Mitchell said about 20 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation took part in the raid.

The Office of Special Counsel gives advice to federal employees on which activities are proper and which are not allowed under the Hatch Act, which is supposed to guard against direct political interference in governmental affairs. Mr. Bloch’s duties including shielding whistle-blowers who disclose such political meddling.

Mr. Bloch was in the news a year ago when his office began to look into political briefings given to employees of several agencies by aides to Karl Rove, who was then President Bush’s chief political adviser. The White House insisted at the time that the briefings met the definitions of allowable activities.

Mr. Bloch’s critics quickly accused him of announcing an inquiry into the Rove-inspired briefings simply to draw attention away from his own shortcomings. At the time, he was the target of a complaint filed by a group of employees who accused him of trying to dismantle his own agency, of illegally barring employees from talking to journalists and of reducing a backlog of whistle-blower complaints by simply discarding old cases.

Mr. Bloch has denied wrongdoing. Last week, the White House forced out Lurita A. Doan, the head of the General Services Administration, after Mr. Bloch’s office determined that she had improperly mixed politics with government business. Mr. Bloch was nominated for his post by President Bush on June 26, 2003. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Dec. 9, 2003, and sworn in to a five-year term on Jan. 5, 2004. His agency’s Web site states that he has more than 17 years’ experience litigating “employment, lawyer ethics, and complex cases before state courts, federal courts and administrative tribunals.”

The agency’s Web site praises conscientious rank-and-file federal employees, “the great heroes, ordinary heroes who have the courage to blow the whistle, who are helping to bring our government to greater accountability.”

 

Free Gas! & UBS takes 11b loss - Massive lay offs - Oil! - 500

UBS takes 11 billion loss - here we go folks! hold on to your hats!

$40 ha! not before they clean you out.

Get a bike

FYI - Fortune 500 - 2008

 

Art For Sale

 

Yahoo

 

Another 100 Days

not subscribed, you should be

 

Do What You Love

Love What You Do

rated R language

 

The Federalist Papers No. 40

The Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained
To the People of the State of New York:

THE SECOND point to be examined is, whether the convention were authorized to frame and propose this mixed Constitution.

The powers of the convention ought, in strictness, to be determined by an inspection of the commissions given to the members by their respective constituents. As all of these, however, had reference, either to the recommendation from the meeting at Annapolis, in September, 1786, or to that from Congress, in February, 1787, it will be sufficient to recur to these particular acts.

The act from Annapolis recommends the “appointment of commissioners to take into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise SUCH FURTHER PROVISIONS as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the federal government ADEQUATE TO THE EXIGENCIES OF THE UNION; and to report such an act for that purpose, to the United States in Congress assembled, as when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every State, will effectually provide for the same.”

The recommendatory act of Congress is in the words following:”WHEREAS, There is provision in the articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, for making alterations therein, by the assent of a Congress of the United States, and of the legislatures of the several States; and whereas experience hath evinced, that there are defects in the present Confederation; as a mean to remedy which, several of the States, and PARTICULARLY THE STATE OF NEW YORK, by express instructions to their delegates in Congress, have suggested a convention for the purposes expressed in the following resolution; and such convention appearing to be the most probable mean of establishing in these States A FIRM NATIONAL GOVERNMENT:

“Resolved, That in the opinion of Congress it is expedient, that on the second Monday of May next a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose OF REVISING THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such ALTERATIONS AND PROVISIONS THEREIN, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the federal Constitution ADEQUATE TO THE EXIGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.”
40

 

YouTube-Google & Yahoo Corporate Whoring

Playback
7 November 2007

A US congressional committee has launched a blistering attack against the founders of internet giant Yahoo, describing the company’s chief executive as an ‘immoral pygmy.’ Tony Cheng reports. It told Yahoo’s chief executive his company is an ‘immoral pygmy’ for revealing information that led to the jailing of a Chinese journalist.

Shi Tao was jailed for 10 years in 2004, after distributing an email from the Chinese authorities - ordering journalists not to report any protests over the 15th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre.

yahoo - alibaba

The Censors Take Down YouTube and Google News in China. How Will Google Respond?
17 March 2008
Amid the recent protests and violent crackdown in Tibet, the Chinese government is closing off all media access to the region and censoring reports about Tibet inside China. That includes not just CNN, but YouTube and Google News. Both Google sites have been blocked from the Internet in China. News reports about the protests and images that appear to come from inside Tibet are available on YouTube (see the slide show embedded below—warning it shows graphic images of bodies in the streets—and a CNN report). To prevent its citizens from seeing these videos or reading about them, the Chinese government has taken down all of YouTube and Google News inside China.

This isn’t the first time YouTube has been censored. Last month, Pakistan ended up taking down YouTube worldwide for a couple hours because of some supposedly “blasphemous” videos on the site. And in September, Myanmar blocked the entire Internet during a period of political unrest.

The question is: What will Google do to restore access to YouTube and Google News inside China? China is a big market that Google needs to be a player in. Will it voluntarily strip out all videos or news items about Tibet? Or will the Chinese government just figure out how to strip them out itself? There is a precedent here: in China you cannot find a lot of information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising on the Web, including the famous image of the lone man standing in front of the line of tanks. Most young Chinese have never seen that image.

I am speculating here—there is no indication that Google has been asked to remove information about Tibet or that it would do so. But if it were to do so, then it would become complicit in China’s censorship. That might have to be the price it has to pay to give the Chinese access to all the other information on YouTube and Google News. The alternative might be a permanent ban.

Which option is the lesser evil for a company that has pledged itself to do none whatsoever?
see article and videos

Video of Thai King removed from YouTube
5 April 2007
The government of Thailand blocked access to the YouTube Web site on Wednesday because of a video that it deemed insulting to the nation’s revered monarch.

The video was taken down from the site on Thursday, apparently by the user who posted it, but it was unclear if access to YouTube had been reinstated inside the country.

 

Federla Reserve crackdown on credit-card industry looms (maybe)

OTS Advances Proposal on Unfair and Deceptive Practices - Proposed rule related to credit cards and overdraft services

Washington, D.C. — The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) today approved a proposal to prohibit savings associations from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices regarding credit cards and overdraft services that violate the Federal Trade Commission Act.

The OTS began the current public discussion about unfair and deceptive practices by issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on August 6, 2007. In that notice, the OTS sought public comment on a broad array of issues and practices, including practices related to the marketing, originating and servicing of credit cards. Many of the resulting comments urged a uniform approach across the federally regulated financial services industry.

To address those comments, the OTS, Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) have joined to each issue an identical proposed rule. The OTS rule will apply to savings associations, the FRB rule will apply to banks and the NCUA rule will apply to federal credit unions. The agencies have also consulted with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Trade Commission.

Today’s proposal addresses practices that have raised concern about fairness and transparency. For credit cards, the proposed rule would address: (1) unfair time periods for making payments; (2) unfair payment allocations; (3) unfair interest rate increases on outstanding balances; (4) unfair fees from credit holds; (5) unfair methods of computing balances; (6) unfair security deposits and fees charged to an account for the issuance of credit; and (7) deceptive offers of credit. For overdraft protection services on deposit accounts, the proposed rule would address: (1) a consumer’s ability to opt out of overdraft services; and (2) unfair fees for debit holds.

The FRB and the NCUA are expected to approve the proposal shortly. Once all three agencies have approved, each will post the proposal to its website. Upon publication in the Federal Register, the notice will be open for public comment for 75 days. The agencies expect to finalize the rule by the end of the year. A summary is attached.
Attachment pdf
full pdf

office of thrift

too little too late

“By the time the Fed gets around to finalizing its regulatory proposals, countless more cardholders could be facing sky-high interest rates that will bury them in mountains of inescapable debt” - Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Chair - House Financial institutions

Maloney also introduced Credit Cardholders ‘Bill of Rights”

 

OIL!

the MSM drolls!
the MSM is in shock!
the MSM can’t get their heads around the concept!

“My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East. That will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.” -John McCain

If McCain doesn’t find a was to weasel out of this statement, IOW say, “yeah, what are you stupid? Of course we’re there for oil, have you seen the gas prices!” my respect for him will grow,
but somehow I don’t think he’s… well, let’s just say he probably won’t.

I was thinking, maybe McCain said what he said, not because he believes it or mis-spoke, maybe this was his way to send a message to big oil, “Look, if you guys want my support you better give my campaign more money than what you’re giving the democrat.” nah, that would be too cynical, crazy thinking, no one in politics would think that way, would they?

note: wind

 

Google Google Google

Google continues its quest to take over the world

Google diving into 3D mapping of oceans


We’ve got Google Earth and Google Sky. Next up will be a map of the world below sea level–Google Ocean.

The company has assembled an advisory group of oceanography experts, and in December invited researchers from institutions around the world to the Mountain View, Calif., Googleplex. There, they discussed plans for creating a 3D oceanographic map, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The tool–for now called Google Ocean, the sources say, though that name could change–is expected to be similar to other 3D online mapping applications. People will be able to see the underwater topography, called bathymetry; search for particular spots or attractions; and navigate through the digital environment by zooming and panning. (The tool, however, is not to be confused with the “Google Ocean” project by France-based Magic Instinct Software that uses Google Earth as a visualization tool for marine data.)

Asked to comment on Google Ocean, a Google spokeswoman said the company had “nothing to announce right now.”

Oceanography researchers, however, say such a tool would be incredibly useful.

“There is no real terrain or depth model for the ocean in Google Earth,” said Tim Haverland, a geospatial application developer at the Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “You can’t get in a submarine and in essence fly through the water and explore ocean canyons yet.”

Google Ocean will feature a basic layer that shows the depth of the sea floor and will serve as a spatial framework for additional data, sources said, adding that Google plans to try to fill in some areas of the map with high-resolution images for more detail.

Additional data will be displayed as overlying layers that depict phenomena like weather patterns, currents, temperatures, shipwrecks, coral reefs, and algae blooms, much like the National Park Service and NASA provide additional data for Google Earth and Google Sky.

“Google will basically just provide the field and then everyone will come flocking to it,” predicted Stephen P. Miller, head of the Geological Data Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “There will be peer pressure to encourage people to get their data out there.”
yes, there’s more

A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search
Google researchers say they have a software technology intended to do for digital images on the Web what the company’s original PageRank software did for searches of Web pages.

On Thursday at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, two Google scientists presented a paper describing what the researchers call VisualRank, an algorithm for blending image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar.

Although image search has become popular on commercial search engines, results are usually generated today by using cues from the text that is associated with each image.

Despite decades of effort, image analysis remains a largely unsolved problem in computer science, the researchers said. For example, while progress has been made in automatic face detection in images, finding other objects such as mountains or tea pots, which are instantly recognizable to humans, has lagged.

“We wanted to incorporate all of the stuff that is happening in computer vision and put it in a Web framework,” said Shumeet Baluja, a senior staff researcher at Google, who made the presentation with Yushi Jing, another Google researcher. The company’s expertise in creating vast graphs that weigh “nodes,” or Web pages, based on their “authority” can be applied to images that are the most representative of a particular query, he said.

The research paper, “PageRank for Product Image Search,” is focused on a subset of the images that the giant search engine has cataloged because of the tremendous computing costs required to analyze and compare digital images. To do this for all of the images indexed by the search engine would be impractical, the researchers said. Google does not disclose how many images it has cataloged, but it asserts that its Google Image Search is the “most comprehensive image search on the Web.”
more google

oh, look what google’s older brother can do!
Xerox touts erasable paper, smart documents
The hi-tech paper can be reused up to 100 times

Xerox Corp.’s research arm yesterday showcased its latest innovations, including erasable paper and tools that make documents “smart” by adding a deeper meaning to words and images.

Since its establishment in 1970, the Palo Alto Research Center Inc. (PARC), funded by Xerox, has created numerous technologies now available on PCs, including Ethernet, the graphical user interface (GUI) and the computer mouse. The laboratory, with other Xerox research facilities, is now trying to help its parent company and other start-ups by focusing on printing and other innovations to access, use and secure electronic documents.

Scientists demonstrated paper that can be reused after printed text automatically deletes itself from the paper’s surface within 24 hours. Instead of trashing or recycling after one use, a single piece of paper can be used a second time, and reused up to 100 times, said Eric Shrader, area manager at PARC.
xerox

Learning from the Virtual You
How you appear in the virtual world could affect your behavior in real life, according to researchers at Stanford University. Andrea Seabrook speaks with Stanford’s Jeremy Bailenson about his research into how people interact psychologically with their virtual-reality representations.
NPR
the more or less you you

 

Brief: Health

Salk study links Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease
Diabetic individuals have a significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease but the molecular connection between the two remains unexplained. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies identified the probable molecular basis for the diabetes – Alzheimer’s interaction.

In a study published in the current online issue of Neurobiology of Aging, investigators led by David R. Schubert, Ph.D., professor in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, report that the blood vessels in the brain of young diabetic mice are damaged by the interaction of elevated blood glucose levels characteristic of diabetes and low levels of beta amyloid, a peptide that clumps to form the senile plaques that riddle the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Although the damage took place long before the first plaques appeared, the mice suffered from significant memory loss and an increase in inflammation in the brain. “Although the toxic beta amyloid peptide was first isolated from the brain blood vessels of Alzheimer’s patients, the contribution of pathological changes in brain vascular tissue to the disease has not been well studied,” says Dave R. Schubert, Ph.D., professor and head of the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory. “Our data clearly describe a biochemical mechanism to explain the epidemiology, and identify targets for drug development.”

Alzheimer’s and diabetes are two diseases that are increasing at an alarming rate within the U.S. population. Alzheimer’s affects one in 10 Americans over 65 years of age and nearly 50 percent of those over 85 years old. Similarly, 7 percent or approximately 20 million Americans have diabetes, with the vast majority of these individuals being over 60.

Recent epidemiological studies have shown that diabetic patients have a 30 to 65 percent higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared to non-diabetic individuals. The increased risk applies to both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, which share hyperglycemia as a common pathogenic factor.

“Many studies have focused on altered insulin signaling in the brain as a possible mechanism for the association between Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes but researchers paid much less attention to the direct affects of increased blood glucose levels on brain function and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s,” explains lead author Joseph R. Burdo, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral researchers in Schubert’s lab and now an assistant professor at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

Diabetes and Alzheimers

‘Destruct’ triggers may be jammed in tumor cells, UF geneticists say

Tumor cells living in the cross hairs of radiation or chemotherapy may be able to escape death because their self-destruct mechanisms are jammed, say University of Florida scientists writing in a recent issue of Developmental Cell.

Scientists studying fruit fly cells discovered that slight changes in the protein scaffolds that support the genes “reaper” and “hid” — aptly named for their roles in triggering cell death — cause the cells to become naturally resistant to X-rays during early development.

“It turns out that a piece of DNA that is required for mediating this process of cell death is blocked,” said Lei Zhou, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the UF College of Medicine. “When it is blocked, the cells just don’t die, even when subjected to heavy doses of radiation. This may be what is happening in some resistant cancer cells. The pro-apoptotic genes cannot be induced to cause cell death.”

The study may be the first to link apoptosis, the gene-driven process that leads to the necessary destruction of old, damaged, or infected cells, with epigenetics — the study of how gene function changes even when the genes themselves don’t change.

Scientists believe that defects in cell death regulation may be responsible for tumor formation and the spread of cancer, because the cells escape the safeguards that normally clean up malignant cells.

In their experiments, UF researchers found the location of the DNA sequences known to trigger reaper, hid and other genes related to cell death in fruit flies. Similar genes exist in humans.

By monitoring gene activity levels and changes in chromatin — the protein spools that the genes wrap around — researchers were able to detect factors that made the cells resistant to radiation.

Scientists first noticed drastic changes in sensitivity to radiation in developing fruit fly cells in the mid-1970s. Similarly, a sensitive-to-resistant transformation takes place in people during the development of brain cells, which are extremely sensitive to radiation in their formative stages but more durable once they grow into adult neurons.

However, the underlying cellular and molecular causes of the transformations were undetected. The latest findings suggest that like the fruit fly cells, tumor cells may have a degree of epigenetic protection from radiotherapy or chemotherapy.
tumors

 

On Censorship

Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression

If your idea of censorship is an anonymous bureaucrat in a government office exercising prudish control over “offensive” art and speech, wake up and smell the conglomeration.

Censorship today is just as likely to be the result of a market force or a bandwidth monopoly as a line edit or the covering of a nude sculpture, and the current system of new technologies and economic arrangements has subtle, built-in mechanisms for suppressing free expression as powerful as any known in other centuries.

You Tube Google blocked the Hack - which calls for technology to take up arms and strike back. ITMT, while tech comes up with a plan use TOR to access blocked materials in the US.

And write a letter to Google and your Congress Person, remind them this is the US not China.

Another way you can help is to call your local library and ask them to purchase this book.

pssst… remember Google, do no evil.

 

Lost Kitten

If you find him…

 

Republicans Get Camera Shy

What are they afraid of?

 

Music Builds Bridges in the Brain

Making music lessons can strengthen connections between the two hemispheres of the brain in children, but only if they practice diligently, according to a study reported here 14 April at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. The findings add to a long-running debate about the effects of musical training on the brain.

In 1995, a study led by neurologist and neuroscientist Gottfried Schlaug found that professional musicians who started playing before the age of 7 have an unusually thick corpus callosum, the bundle of axons that serves as an information superhighway between the left and right sides of the brain. Schlaug and colleagues saw this as evidence that musical training can bolster neural connections, but skeptics pointed to the possibility that the musicians had bigger corpora callosa to begin with. Perhaps their neural wiring had enhanced their musical pursuits instead of the other way around.

To investigate further, Schlaug, now at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues including Marie Forgeard and Ellen Winner at Boston College, studied 31 children. The researchers collected detailed magnetic resonance images of the children’s brains at age 6 and again at 9. Of the original group, six children faithfully practiced at least 2.5 hours a week in the time between the scans. In these budding musicians, a region of the corpus callosum that connects movement-planning regions on the two sides of the brain grew about 25% relative to the overall size of the brain. Children who averaged only an hour or two of weekly practice and those who dropped their instruments entirely showed no such growth. All of the children practiced instruments, such as a piano or a violin, that required two hands.

In every subject, the researchers found that the size of increase in the corpus callosum predicted the improvement on a nonmusical test that required the children to tap out sequences on a computer keyboard. Schlaug says the findings should settle the earlier debate by showing that musical training can enhance neural connections related to planning and coordinating movements between the two hands. His team is now following up with the same children to investigate whether their training had other benefits, such as improved memory or reasoning skills.

“I’m very excited about this,” says Steven Swinnen, a neuroscientist who studies movement control at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. “Everyone thinks musical training results in changes in brain structure and function,” Swinnen says, but so far the hype has exceeded the evidence. Although he’d like to see the findings replicated in more subjects, Swinnen thinks the study is one of the first to provide a strong suggestion that training of any kind can cause substantial changes to the axon bundles that link together far flung regions of the brain. Whether training later in life can change the brain in a similar manner is a promising topic for future study, he says.
music

 

John McCain is Full of Shit

 

Dead

Sonific Songspot - no more music

widget is gone, but a few

• nice muxi
• nice muxii

 

Heparin Contamination May Have Been Deliberate, F.D.A. Says

WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators believe that a contaminant detected in a crucial blood thinner that has caused 81 deaths was added deliberately, something the Food and Drug Administration has only hinted at previously.

“F.D.A.’s working hypothesis is that this was intentional contamination, but this is not yet proven,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center, told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in written testimony given Tuesday.

A third of the material in some batches of the thinner heparin were contaminants, “and it does strain one’s credulity to suggest that might have been done accidentally,” Dr. Woodcock said.

Two weeks ago, Food and Drug Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach told a Senate subcommittee that the contamination was done “by virtue of economic fraud,” but he quickly withdrew the remark, saying he had “probably gone too far.”

Dr. Woodcock’s statement on Tuesday was part of growing chorus that has labeled the heparin contamination as perhaps the most brazen poisoning episode since 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol that had been laced with cyanide.

The Tylenol case led to substantial changes in product packaging, and the heparin contamination has led both Democratic and Republican committee members to call for major changes in the way the F.D.A. functions and is financed.

Tuesday’s hearing was also the first in which family members of those who died were asked to testify.

LeRoy Hubley of Toledo, Ohio, described how both his 65-year-old wife and his 47-year-old son died within a few weeks of each other. Both suffered from a genetic kidney disease that required constant dialysis, for which heparin is routinely used.

“As Christmas music softly played in the background, we each said our goodbyes,” Mr. Hubley said, breaking down in tears. “Then my wife and love of 48 years drifted away.”

He did not know for weeks after their deaths that his wife, Bonnie, and son, Randy, had been given contaminated heparin.

“Now I am left to deal not only with the pain of losing my wife and son, but anger that an unsafe drug was permitted to be sold in this country,” he said.

David G. Strunce, chief executive of Scientific Protein Laboratories, the company that supplied contaminated heparin material to Baxter International, which manufactured and distributed the finished drug, described the contamination as “an insidious act” that “seems to us an intentional act upstream in the supply chain.”

The F.D.A. has identified Changzhou SPL, a Chinese subsidiary of Scientific Protein Laboratories, as the source of the contaminated heparin. A Congressional investigator said the contaminant, oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, cost $9 a pound compared with $900 a pound for heparin.

Mr. Strunce said that his company tried to find the original source of the contamination but was stopped by the Chinese authorities.

Robert L. Parkinson, Baxter’s chairman and chief executive, told the committee, “We’re alarmed that one of our products was used in what appears to have been a deliberate scheme to adulterate a life-saving medication.”

Chinese officials have disputed the F.D.A. contention that the contaminant caused death and injury, and they have insisted on the right to inspect American drug plants if the F.D.A. insists on inspecting Chinese ones.

David Nelson, a Congressional investigator, told the House panel that had the F.D.A. inspected the Chinese plant, the contamination could have been averted.

F.D.A. officials have admitted that they mistakenly failed to conduct an inspection of the Changzhou SPL plant but said that an inspection would not have been able to uncover the contamination.

The agency finally conducted an inspection of the facility in February and found so many problems that the F.D.A. blocked the plant from exporting to the United States. Mr. Nelson was even more critical of Baxter International, which bought heparin ingredients from Changzhou SPL from 2004 through 2008 but did not inspect the facility until September 2007.

The company sent one person who spent one day in the plant, Mr. Nelson said. Five months later, the F.D.A. discovered myriad problems, he said.

“It really is impossible for a plant to have fallen that far out of compliance in five months,” Mr. Nelson said.

Under withering questioning, Dr. Woodcock said that the F.D.A. would need another $225 million annually to inspect every foreign drug plant every other year, the frequency most say is needed. The agency will spend $11 million this year on foreign drug inspections.

There is a growing bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill that the F.D.A. needs a rapid increase in its budget to ensure the safety of the nation’s drugs, medical devices and food.

The Bush Administration has proposed increasing the agency’s budget next year by only 3 percent to $1.8 billion, not enough to cover even its expected cost increases.
Herparin Contamination

 

Google Wants to Index Your DNA

The Web search giant’s investment in Navigenics is further proof it wants an early stake in direct-to-consumer genetic screening

Your DNA falls into the realm of “the world’s information,” and it seems that Google (GOOG), as part of its corporate mission, is making a play to organize that, too. The Internet giant received heavy press in 2007 when it invested at least $4.4 million (BusinessWeek.com, 11/29/07) in a genetic screening company, 23andMe, that was started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and her business partner.

Google’s interest in DNA doesn’t end there. It is also putting money into a second Silicon Valley DNA-screening startup, Navigenics. The company is also backed by star venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. For a spit of saliva and $2,500, your genetic test results are securely delivered to your computer screen with your genetic likelihood for 18 medical conditions, from Alzheimer’s to rheumatoid arthritis to several types of cancer. Navigenics aims to boost disease prevention by providing customers reports on their DNA that they can share with their doctors. The company addresses privacy concerns by encrypting customer identities, and screens only for conditions it deems to have scientifically sound genetic studies. The company also offers genetic counseling.

Much in the way it invested in 23andMe, Google wants to plant an early stake in a potentially large new market around genetic data. “We are interested in supporting companies and making investments in companies that [bolster] our mission statement, which is organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful,” Google spokesman Andrew Pederson says.

Size of Investment Not Disclosed
Calling 23andMe an example of a company “generating a whole new batch of information of interest to a broad range of people,” Pederson says Google wants to extend its search capabilities into genetic testing. The precise path and business contours of the emerging gene-testing market remain unclear, but if Navigenics succeeds it “will generate a lot of a very new type of information with potentially far-reaching value,” says Pederson. “We felt it was important to get involved now, at the early stage, to better understand the information generated by this fast-moving field.”

If genetic screening proves popular, the nascent technology also stands to benefit Affymetrix (AFFX), which not only invested in Navigenics but also makes the GeneChip system used in the testing and runs the lab Navigenics uses to analyze customers’ DNA. Other Affymetrix alumni hold key positions at both gene-testing startups: Sean George is chief operating officer and Stephen Moore is chief counsel at Navigenics; Linda Avey co-leads 23andMe. A former Affymetrix president, Sue Siegel, is also on Navigenics’ board.

Google’s interest in the company seems to be purely financial. Both Navigenics and Google refused to disclose the size of Google’s investment. “While Google is a financial investor in Navigenics, they don’t have access to our data; we do not serve ads,” says Amy DuRoss, head of policy and business affairs at Redwood Shores (Calif.)-based Navigenics.
GOOG

 

Belly Fat - Vitamin D and the Brain

Researchers in London, Canada identify new source of appetite stimulant

The extra fat we carry around our middle could be making us hungrier, so we eat more, which in turn leads to even more belly fat. Dr. Kaiping Yang and his colleagues at the Lawson Health Research Institute affiliated with The University of Western Ontario found abdominal fat tissue can produce a hormone that stimulates fat cell production. The researchers hope this discovery will change in the way we think about and treat abdominal obesity.

Yang identified that the hormone Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is produced by abdominal fat tissue. Previously, it was believed to only be produced by the brain. Yang believes this novel finding may lead to new therapeutic targets for combating obesity. Their findings were reported in a recent issue of The FASEB Journal.

The traditional view is that one of the main reasons why overweight people eat more food is because their brains produce the hormone NPY in excessive amounts. NPY is the most potent appetite stimulating hormone known, sending signals to the individual that they are constantly hungry. However, Yang, a Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Physiology & Pharmacology at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at The University of Western Ontario, has provided evidence that in obese rat models NPY is also produced locally by abdominal fat.

A fat cell cannot replicate itself. But the researchers found NPY increases fat cell number by stimulating the replication of fat cell precursor cells, which then change into fat cells.

Yang says “this may lead to a vicious cycle where NPY produced in the brain causes you to eat more and therefore gain more fat around your middle, and then that fat produces more NYP hormone which leads to even more fat cells.”

Being overweight, regardless of where the fat is located, is unhealthy. However, because of its anatomical location and its byproducts, abdominal fat or the apple-shape is known to be the most dangerous. People predisposed to the apple shape are at an elevated risk for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and some cancers.

Next, the researchers will be investigating whether NPY produced by fat is released into the body’s circulatory system. “We want to know if NPY could potentially be transported in the blood to the brain where it in turn has an impact on the brain to stimulate feelings of hunger,” says Yang. If the researchers find that NPY is in fact transported in the blood circulation then it may be possible to develop a simple blood test to detect increased levels of NPY. “If you can detect NPY early and identify those at risk for abdominal obesity we can then target therapy to turn off NPY. It would be much easier to use drugs to prevent obesity than to treat the diseases caused by obesity.”

~

Vitamin D supplementation for high risk groups may be warranted

In a definitive critical review, scientists at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland ask whether there is convincing biological or behavioral evidence linking vitamin D deficiency to brain dysfunction. Joyce C. McCann, Ph.D., assistant staff scientist and Bruce N. Ames, Ph.D., senior scientist at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) conclude that there is ample biological evidence to suggest an important role for vitamin D in brain development and function, and that supplementation for groups chronically low in vitamin D is warranted. Their conclusions will be published on April 22, 2008 in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal.

“This critical analysis of vitamin D function and the brain is a model of careful thinking about nutrition and behavior”, says Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal “One wishes that all studies of nutritional supplements or requirements were this thoughtful. Drs. McCann and Ames deftly show that while vitamin D has an important role in the development and function of the brain, its exact effects on behavior remain unclear. Pointing to the need for further study, the authors argue for vitamin D supplementation in groups at risk.”

Vitamin D has long been known to promote healthy bones by regulating calcium levels in the body. Lack of sufficient vitamin D in very young children results in rickets, which can be easily prevented by vitamin D supplements. Only recently the scientific community has become aware of a much broader role for vitamin D. For example, we now know that, in addition to its role in maintaining bone health, vitamin D is involved in differentiation of tissues during development and in proper functioning of the immune system. In fact, over 900 different genes are now known to be able to bind the vitamin D receptor, through which vitamin D mediates its effects. In addition to protecting against rickets, evidence now strongly indicates that a plentiful supply of vitamin D helps to protect against bone fractures in the elderly. Evidence also continues to accumulate suggesting a beneficial role for vitamin D in protecting against autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis and type I diabetes, as well as some forms of cancer, particularly colorectal and breast.
Vit D Brain

 

Food Riots

“…the world continue to protest the soaring prices of basic food items, the World Food Program has described the crisis as a silent tsunami.”

The U.S. Role in Haiti’s Food Riots: 30 Years Ago Haiti Grew All the Rice It Needed. What Happened?

Riots in Haiti over explosive rises in food costs have claimed the lives of six people. There have also been food riots world-wide in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivorie, Egypt, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

The Economist, which calls the current crisis the silent tsunami, reports that last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%, but since January rice prices have risen 141%. The reasons include rising fuel costs, weather problems, increased demand in China and India, as well as the push to create biofuels from cereal crops.

Hermite Joseph, a mother working in the markets of Port au Prince, told journalist Nick Whalen that her two kids are “like toothpicks” they’ re not getting enough nourishment. Before, if you had a dollar twenty-five cents, you could buy vegetables, some rice, 10 cents of charcoal and a little cooking oil. Right now, a little can of rice alone costs 65 cents, and is not good rice at all. Oil is 25 cents. Charcoal is 25 cents. With a dollar twenty-five, you can’t even make a plate of rice for one child.” cont.

Haiti

 

“Get Over It!”

What all Americans want to hear from a member of the highest court in the land.
Might I suggest not buying his books until it hits the $1.00 table. Oh, and save the phrase for the future.

 

Who Cares?!

Apparently not the VA or the American people

How long is this going to continue?

 

Syrian Nuclear

we knew Israel bombed Syria months ago

itchy trigger fingers - they will do the same to Iran
FAQ

update