News Clips

hunterkirk - News Clips

[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]

December 21st, 2008

12:53 am

[Link]

News Clips
1) Fat Tax... Liberalism/Taxes/Loss of Freedom
2) Rush Strikes Back at 'Turncoat' Colin Powell... Blue Blood/Conservative/Republicans
3) Volcanoes, Not Asteroid, May Have Killed Off Dinosaurs... Science/Enviroment
4) Chinese crack down on dissidents, again... Communism/Political Oppression
5) Ice storm creates state of emergency in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and parts of Maine... "Man Made Global Warming"
6) Obama to pick Arne Duncan as Education secretary... Education/Liberalism
7) Woman told to remove Christmas lights to avoid offending non-Christian neighbours... Anti Christian Activity
8) Lethal 'Lint Brush' Captures And Kills Cancer Cells In Bloodstream... Cancer/Health
9) No Respite as Wintry Storms Spread Over Nation... "Man Made Global Warming"

1) Fat Tax... Liberalism/Taxes/Loss of Freedom
http://www.timesunion.com/ASPStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=750267

December 14, 2008
New taxes, deep cuts to education and health care, and a restructuring of the state's economic development programs will be hallmarks of Gov. David Paterson's first budget plan to be released in two days, according to interviews of people briefed on components. The plan will come with a host of revenue raisers — increased taxes on hospitals and insurance policies, for instance — and at least one new assessment, a so-called obesity tax on non-diet soda to raise $404 million. The governor also is contemplating requiring new license plates to raise cash, reviving sales tax on clothing purchases, removing the tax cap on gasoline and threatening to require Indian retailers to collect taxes on sales to non-Indians by signing into law a bill passed earlier this year by the Legislature.

Paterson will unveil the spending plan, aimed at closing a $12.5 billion deficit for next year, on Tuesday. The total size of the Paterson budget is unknown. There is no word on Paterson's plans for the state work force, although he has said he will adhere to a strict hiring freeze while looking to consolidate some components of government. The cuts will be across the board and will build upon a deficit reduction plan Paterson proposed in November as he attempted to close the $1.5 billion shortfall in the $120 billion budget negotiated for this year. The plan was inherited from the executive budget introduced last January by Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The health industry will be particularly upset, although Paterson's cuts will raise blood pressure throughout. He will call for about $3.53 billion in health care cuts, not including federal share of matching Medicaid dollars, which could be another $2 billion in cuts. The biggest hits will be to insurance companies, which will be asked to come up with about $855 million in extra assessments. Those amount to more taxes on health insurance plans, increased sales tax on hospital discharges and more shifting of general fund costs to the Insurance Department so that insurance companies pay for programs such as Timothy's Law, the mandated coverage of mental health treatments. Further, the governor also will propose a new tax on some physician services to raise $50 million. The bottom line will be a net increase in costs that ultimately get paid by subscribers, thereby increasing the cost of coverage at a time that most upstate insurers are struggling. Hospital cost saving initiatives will amount to $700 million next year and $50 million this year. Some of that will come from a 0.7 percent tax on gross receipts and Medicaid rate reductions. Graduate medical education funds will be redirected to save $141 million and another $23 million will be cut through reforming reimbursement. Nursing homes will be cut by $4.2 million this year and $420 million next year. Home care will be cut $190 million next year. A number of other public health programs will come with savings by, for instance, taxing non-diet sodas under an "obesity tax" that will raise $404 million. Prescription drug costs, a hit on pharmacies and drug makers, will cut by $111 million. Among the reductions in education spending, public colleges will be directed to raise tuitions. But despite the cuts, Paterson will try to make it easier for SUNY schools to partner with private developers who want to build on campus property. The public/private initiative is seen as a way to stimulate construction of private housing for campus residents.

The Empire Zone program will be cut by at least 50 percent, saving the state tens of millions by not extending benefits as liberally. The budget will come a day after Senate Republicans vote on a bill to stimulate the economy by phasing out the Empire Zone program through 2011 and using the savings as tax breaks for companies. The governor has contemplated instituting a different pension system for new employees, but the so-called Tier 5 program may not make it to the budget. He is also expected to reiterate a call for greater health care payments from retirees and the closure of some juvenile detention facilities.

Me: So as usual the democrats are promoting taxes to improve the economy... never worked before and will not work now. And now as usual they are seeking to control human behavior with a "fat tax" arguing no doubt that it is a health care issue, but at the same time cutting health care. Do liberals and democrats ever hear themselves?

2) Rush Strikes Back at 'Turncoat' Colin Powell... Blue Blood/Conservative/Republicans
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/limbaugh_powell_feud/2008/12/16/162405.html?s=al&promo_code=74A4-1

December 16, 2008
Talk show legend Rush Limbaugh wasted no time in answering Colin Powell after the former secretary of state said on CNN that the Republican Party should stop listening to the radio host. On Monday, Limbaugh told his 20 million listeners that what Powell was doing was telling the GOP to throw them under the bus. "I think Powell's premise is all wrong," Limbaugh said. "The Republican Party needs to stop listening to me. Basically, what that means is the Republican Party's gotta throw you overboard. The Republican Party can't win as long as it is defined by people like you and me, those of you in this audience." Powell is a bit late in telling his party to stop listening to him, Limbaugh said, noting that the party had already stopped listening to him. "The simple fact of the matter is, folks, what makes this funny to me is that the Republican Party's not listened to me in the last two years," he explained. "And you might even say in matters of policy and so forth, the Republican Party hasn't been listening to me for the last six years. And you might even say that the Republican Party is in the situation it's in precisely because of the people like Colin Powell and John McCain and others who have devised this new definition and identity of the party which is responsible for electing Democrats all over this country." After recalling that Powell voted for Barack Obama, Limbaugh charged that the Bush administration's first secretary of state was upset because he said that Powell's endorsement of Obama was about race. "These things are supposed to go unsaid," Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh also took aim at GOP presidential candidate McCain. "The Republican Party nominated Powell's perfect candidate. The guy's going after moderates, independents, Democrats, a guy who is not conservative at all, McCain, didn't stand up for much conservative [principles], and he's out there now saying he won't support Palin if she seeks the presidency again, or he might not."

Turning back to Powell, Limbaugh said Powell "insists that conservatives and Republicans support candidates who will appeal to minorities like I guess McCain who led the effort for amnesty. He insists that conservatives and Republicans move to the center like McCain, who calls himself a maverick for doing so. "General Powell insists that conservatives and Republicans provide an open tent to different ideas and views, like I guess McCain, who repeatedly trashed Republicans and made nice with Democrats. I mean, their tent's big, they just don't want us in it." Having been what Limbaugh described as Powell's ideal candidate, after McCain won the GOP at the last moment, Powell switched sides. "Once McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate, largely by independents and Democrats voting in Republican primaries, Colin Powell waited 'til the last minute, when it would do the most damage to McCain and the Republicans, and endorsed Obama. And when I said it was largely about race, that's what set 'em all off. You're not supposed to say these kinds of things. This is supposed to go unspoken. Let me get this straight," Limbaugh said. "The guy who has supported the Republican candidate for president should be thrown out of the party. That would be me. But the guy who bolted and sabotaged the Republican nominee by endorsing the Democrat candidate should stay in and be part of the team that determines what the Republican Party is going to be. The turncoat, General Powell, is the one who the party is gonna listen to? McCain's a moderate. I supported McCain. Powell, who wants a moderate, did not support McCain."

Me: Powell should understand the praise he is getting for Democrats and such is the same kind of praise McCain is, that of a good little toady. You are welcome to the party as long as you follow orders and not get the idea that you will ever be in power again.

3) Volcanoes, Not Asteroid, May Have Killed Off Dinosaurs... Science/Enviroment
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,467764,00.html

December 17, 2008
Scientists have found even more evidence that volcanism, not a space rock, may be the culprit behind the dinosaurs' demise. The first well-supported theory for what wiped out all large dinosaurs involved a space rock that created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. But climate change and volcanism have been suggested in recent decades, too. A set of new studies further shifts the blame away from the impact and toward volcanism, a position that geologist Gerta Keller of Princeton University has taken in recent years. Keller and others now say more about the life-extinguishing work of a massive series of sulfur dioxide-spewing volcanic eruptions that occurred in what is now India at the time of the dinosaur-destroying K-T mass extinction (the shorthand given to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction). The asteroid-impact "theory is now facing perhaps it's most serious challenge from the Deccan volcanism and perhaps the Chicxulub impact itself," Keller said Monday during a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Society in San Francisco. The K-T extinction ended the dinosaurs' reign on Earth and caused the extinction of 70 percent of life on the planet at the time.

Competing theories
The asteroid-impact theory was controversial when first posited in 1980 by physicist Luis Walter Alvarez, who said that such an impact could explain an unusual abundance of iridium associated with the geological boundary of the K-T extinction. Geophysicist Glen Penfield found the Chicxulub crater while searching for oil; the crater was dated to about 65 million years ago, about the time of the K-T event. The other leading potential culprit, the colossal volcanic eruptions, occurred between 63 million and 67 million years ago. The huge volcanic explosions created the Deccan Traps lava beds in India, whose original extent may have covered as much as 580,000 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers), or more than twice the area of Texas. Both the impact and the volcanic explosions would have spewed sulfur dioxide, dust and other emissions into the atmosphere, altering the Earth's climate. Sulfur dioxide can react in the atmosphere to form sulfate aerosols that can cool the surface of the planet and create acid rain. Tying the dates of either of these events firmly to the dinosaurs' extinction has been tricky, with scientists continually refining their dates. Some researchers have said it may well have been a combination of events that caused the mass extinction; in that scenario, the asteroid impact is often thought of as the final nail in the coffin.

Before and after
Keller and her colleagues most recently looked at the geological records in India, Texas and Mexico to help pin down when the impact and volcanism occurred in relation to the K-T event. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation. By examining sediment layers, the team found that the crater impact appears to have occurred about 300,000 years before the K-T boundary, with virtually no effects to biota.

"There is essentially no extinction associated with the impact," Keller said. In contrast, the main thrust of the Deccan volcanism occurred "just before the K-T boundary," said geophysicist Vincent Courtillot of the University of Paris, who also spoke at the news conference. After the first flow, "the species disappear; we have essentially very few left," Keller said. The two subsequent flows prevented any recovery, and "by the fourth flow, the extinction is complete," Keller said. Courtillot did work that compared the amounts of sulfur dioxide emitted by the crater impact and the Deccan volcanism and found that the volcanoes spewed out significantly more sulfur dioxide (and that the lava flows occurred over a much shorter time span than initially thought). For comparison, the 1991 Pinatubo eruption, which cooled Earth's climate for several years afterward, sent about 0.017 billion tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere.

The Chicxulub crater put anywhere between 50 billion to 500 billion tons of sulfur dioxide in the air. The entire Deccan traps spewed on the order of 10,000 billion tons in the atmosphere, Courtillot said. Based on these comparisons, Courtillot and his colleagues think that the Deccan traps are a much more likely culprit than the asteroid impact. "If there had been no impact, we think there would have been a mass extinction anyway," Courtillot said. "Deccan volcanism is the likely culprit behind the K-T mass extinction," Keller added, saying that she thinks the biological effects of that volcanism have been underestimated, while those of the crater impact have been overestimated.

Me: Hey enviromentalist we STILL have volcanoes and they still produce more co2 then all of man kind. So when do you apply laws against volcanoes?

4) Chinese crack down on dissidents, again... Communism/Political Oppresion
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24804317-2703,00.html

December 16, 2008
THE Chinese Government is cracking down on human rights groups and individuals to ensure the economic turmoil inside the country is not matched by political instability. The last big challenge the ruling Communist Party faced came in 1989 when rampant inflation helped propel a nationwide protest movement that ended in a bloodbath in Tiananmen Square. The latest spurt of political activism began on Wednesday, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under the aegis of the UN. Chinese police arrested dozens of people who had gathered outside the country's Foreign Ministry urging action under the declaration on a wide range of claimed abuses, including land stolen with the connivance of local officials, illegal detentions and home demolitions. The Foreign Ministry is drawing up a draft human rights report for the Government. But the most ominous challenge, from the Government's perspective, was the launch of the "08 Charter" calling for human rights, democracy and - the crucial line that the signatories dared to cross - an end to the dominance of the Communist Party.

The original draft was signed by 303 people from a cross-section of Chinese intellectual society, many of them nationally prominent, including retired party officials, former newspaper editors, lawyers, academics and artists, as well as some who describe themselves as "peasants" and "workers". Police took Liu Xiaobo, a former philosophy professor at Beijing Normal University, from his home last week, and his whereabouts remain unknown, even to his wife. Professor Liu, aged 53, was jailed for 20 months in 1989 for supporting the democracy movement, and was sentenced to three years at a re-education camp in 1996 for challenging rule by a single party. He was one of the drafters of the new charter, which takes its name from Charter 77, a petition written in 1977 in Czechoslovakia by intellectuals and activists, which contributed to the undermining of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe. Leading European intellectual Vaclav Havel, one of the drafters of Charter 77, became president of the Czech Republic. Last week, he hosted a visit to Prague by the Dalai Lama, another touchstone of Beijing anxiety. The Chinese Government recently cancelled an annual summit with European leaders, just four days before it was due to be held in Lyon - because the Dalai Lama was dueto address the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A range of prominent European products have since been barred at Chinese ports, including Belgian chocolates. News of the latest Chinese charter swiftly spread online, before the "net police" clamped down, and 440 more people - from many occupations, and across the country, deepening the Government's anxiety - have since publicly signed it. The charter urges a new constitution that guarantees human rights, including taxpayer rights, requires public officials to be elected, expands freedom of religion and expression and ends the Communist Party's dominance of the army, the courts and the Government. It also seeks the abolition of the criminal code that imprisons people for "incitement to subvert state power" - the charge that is looming over Professor Liu. Others who signed the charter, including constitutional expert Zhang Zuhua and scholars Chen Xi and Shen Youlian, have also been taken in by police for questioning and to be warned, but most have been released within 24 hours. The charter covers a broad range of topics including tax reform, environmental protection and the need for China - the world's only large country with a unitary political structure - to consider federalism. It amounts to a form of political manifesto, regarded by Beijing as even more dangerous because its authors extend far beyond the "usual suspects" comprising veteran dissidents.

Me: Well I guess the China had a "Fairness Doctrine" as well. Why is the left of the political spectrum so against freedom of speech and beliefs?

5) Ice storm creates state of emergency in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and parts of Maine... "Man Made Global Warming"
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24797494-401,00.html

December 14, 2008
THE north-eastern United States is recovering from a major ice storm that has left as many as one million people without power. A state of emergency was declared in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and parts of Maine after the cold snap, which authorities described as the worst in a decade. With temperatures clinging below freezing, officials warned it could take days to restore electricity as utility companies struggled to repair power lines downed by ice-coated tree branches across the region.

"Customers currently without power should plan on the possibility of being without power for several more days," the Public Service of New Hampshire said on its website. In New Hampshire, 313,000 customers remained without power at 1300 GMT (0000 AEDT Sunday), it said. "The damage is extensive and assessment is a challenge due to many impassable roads," the utility company said. "The magnitude of the damage is similar to that experienced in the January 1998 ice storm, but covers a much more widespread area -- the entire south of the state has been impacted."

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch declared a state of emergency on Friday, committing all resources to fighting storm damage. In the far north-eastern state of Maine, nearly 172,000 people were without power on Saturday at 1500 GMT, a spokesman told AFP, as utility trucks worked to restore power. "It's going to be a few days, that's their best guess," a Central Maine Power Company spokesman said. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick also declared a state of emergency to mobilise the National Guard "and conduct other emergency business to assist local communities is their response to and recovery from ... this winter storm", his office said. As many as 350,000 households were left without power in Massachusetts after the storm, which combined rain and freezing spells.

"The whole north-east of the United States is suffering," said Jeff Tilghman at Northeast Utilities. "The rain and the ice caused the problem. Ice is problematic because it stays on the branches and they come down breaking the power lines."

More rain or snow was forecast for isolated areas of central New York state and north-east Maine on Saturday while the rest of the region was expected to remain dry but bitter cold, the National Weather Service said. New York state also saw 300,000 households and businesses left without power, the state emergency management office said. "Mother Nature dealt New York state a crippling blow yesterday and overnight," said Governor David Paterson.

In Connecticut, 16,700 customers were left without power but that was reduced to 4400 on Saturday, Connecticut Light and Power reported. Emergency officials warned residents to keep away from potentially lethal fallen power lines and advised against using candles at home because of the added fire hazard.

Me: We need to do something about this problem... make more co2!

6) Obama to pick Arne Duncan as Education secretary... Education/Liberalism
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-education16-2008dec16,0,3099898.story?track=rss

December 16, 2008
Reporting from Chicago -- Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan, who over seven years maintained a positive story line for the troubled district, will join longtime basketball buddy Barack Obama's Cabinet as secretary of Education, a transition source said. Obama's nomination is to be announced today during a joint appearance at Dodge Renaissance Academy here. Since 2001, when Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley plucked Duncan from obscurity to head the country's third-largest school district, Duncan has gained a reputation as a reformer who isn't afraid to rankle the teachers union and punish underperforming schools.

His decisions to pay students for good grades, back an unrealized plan for a gay-friendly high school and consider boarding schools often polarized the community while bolstering his renegade image. "He has the brains, courage, creativity and temperament for the job," said former Chicago schools chief Paul Vallas, who hired Duncan as his deputy chief of staff in 1998. "And he's very close to the president, which is an important thing too." Duncan, who grew up in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood not far from Obama's home, was among the architects of Obama's education policy. The two have been friends for more than a decade, and Duncan was among the group of friends who played basketball with Obama on election day. Duncan did not return calls seeking comment Monday. Under Duncan's watch, 53 new public schools were opened and the graduation rate has jumped nearly 6 percentage points.

"Arne has always seen education as a civil rights issue," said Phyllis Lockett, president and chief executive of the Renaissance Schools Fund, which assists the district with its efforts to shutter and revamp low-performing neighborhood schools. Chicago's public schools have seen increases in some state test scores for the last seven years, though they continue to lag behind the Illinois average. Overall, 65.4% of the city's elementary-school students met or exceeded state standards, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from 2007. Many describe Duncan as a conciliatory character, open to new ideas and realistic about disconcerting trends -- but he has not always avoided controversy in Chicago's politically charged educational system. Community organizations have expressed frustrations over disparities in test scores between minority and low-income students and students at predominantly white and affluent schools. Some school reformers have questioned Renaissance 2010, a program to close and redevelop low-performing neighborhood schools. Under Duncan's watch, hundreds of teachers have lost their jobs when he overhauled struggling schools and forced the staff members to reapply for their positions. When Duncan took over the schools chief position, he had limited management and financial experience beyond a few years running a small, nonprofit education program. He spent three years working under Vallas, but never had a high enough post to merit his own secretary. Like Obama, Duncan attended Harvard, where he took a year off from his sociology studies to become a tutor. A co-captain of Harvard's basketball team and a first-team Academic All-American, Duncan bombed a tryout with the Boston Celtics before heading to Australia, where he played pro ball for four years. Janega and Sadovi write for the Chicago Tribune. Tribune reporters Stacy St. Clair, John McCormick, Tara Malone, Darnell Little and Hal Dardick contributed to this report.

Me: You mean the guy in charge of education worked with Obama and Ayers? "Education a civil rights issue"? Education should be a education issue period and nothing more.

7) Woman told to remove Christmas lights to avoid offending non-Christian neighbours... Anti Christian Activity
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3759858/Woman-told-to-remove-Christmas-lights-to-avoid-offending-non-Christian-neighbours.html

14 Dec 2008

Dorothy Glenn, who claims a jobsworth housing association worker told her to take down her festive outdoor Christmas lights display in case it offends non-Christian neighbours. Pictured outside her home with some of her supportive neighbours.

Woman told to remove Christmas lights to avoid offending non-Christian neighbours. A woman was told to remove her Christmas lights by a housing association worker in case they offended non-Christian neighbours. Dorothy Glenn decorates her home in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, with hundreds of festive lights every year, including a giant tree and a 4ft Santa Claus. But this year she was astonished when an employee of South Tyneside Homes called at her house and informed her that the decorations she was displaying might be offending her neighbours.

The association has now apologised to Mrs Glenn and started an investigation but a spokesman insisted that removing Christmas lights was not part of their policy. Mrs Glenn, a 41-year-old mother-of-three, said: "I put the lights up in the first week of November and then recently a uniformed housing worker was outside, and it looked like he was counting my decorations.

"When I went outside he said that the lights were 'offensive to the community'. If I was offending anyone I could understand why he was telling me, but nobody has complained. My neighbours are Bengali and Chinese and I know that they love the lights, the children will always point them out when they walk past." Mrs Glenn, who has lived at the property for four years with son Owen, 19, and daughters Samira, 21, and Chelsea, 15, said she valued her close relationship with neighbours and enjoyed living in a community with people from different backgrounds. She said: "I told him that I am far from a racist and that I wouldn't be taking the lights down. I'm shocked, annoyed and upset. At the end of the day, it's the festive season and they're staying."

Independent councillor Ahmed Khan, who represents Mrs Glenn's ward, condemned the employee's actions. He said: "Every year this woman puts her Christmas lights up and I know how popular they are. It's great when people make an effort to decorate their houses. It's this kind of nonsense that sets race relations back 20 years. That woman did nothing more than decorate her house to celebrate Christmas."

A spokesman for South Tyneside Council said: "We would like to make it clear that South Tyneside Homes is happy for residents to put up Christmas lights to decorate their homes. Christmas lights bring a bit of festive cheer to everybody and we are delighted to see examples of tenants and leaseholders across the borough taking so much pride in the appearance of their homes. We have received no complaint about this alleged incident, but are investigating the matter and apologise for any upset this may have caused."

Me: I am glad the community was quick to stop this nonsense. I would love to know what in the world was going on in the head of the employee.

8) Lethal 'Lint Brush' Captures And Kills Cancer Cells In Bloodstream... Cancer/Health
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081211152518.htm

Dec. 12, 2008
In a new tactic in the fight against cancer, Cornell researcher Michael King has developed what he calls a lethal "lint brush" for the blood -- a tiny, implantable device that captures and kills cancer cells in the bloodstream before they spread through the body.

The strategy, which takes advantage of the body's natural mechanism for fighting infection, could lead to new treatments for a variety of cancers, said King, who is an associate professor of biomedical engineering. In research conducted at the University of Rochester and to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, King showed that two naturally occurring proteins can work together to attract and kill as many as 30 percent of tumor cells in the bloodstream -- without harming healthy cells. King's approach uses a tiny tubelike device coated with the proteins that could hypothetically be implanted in a peripheral blood vessel to filter out and destroy free-flowing cancer cells in the bloodstream. To capture the tumor cells in the blood, King used selectin molecules --proteins that move to the surface of blood vessels in response to infection or injury. Selectin molecules normally recruit white blood cells (leukocytes), which "roll" along their surfaces and create an inflammatory response -- but they also attract cancer cells, which can mimic the adhesion and rolling process. Once the cancer cells adhered to the selectin on the microtube's surface, King exposed them to a protein called TRAIL (for Tumor Necrosis Factor Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand), which binds to two so-called "death receptors" on the cancer cells' surface, setting in motion a process that causes the cell to self-destruct.

The TRAIL then releases the cells back into the bloodstream to die; and the device is left free to work on new cells. "It's a little more sophisticated than just filtering the blood, because we're not just accumulating cancer cells on the surface," King said. King's research showed that the device can capture and kill about 30 percent of cancer cells flowing past it a single time, with the potential to kill more in the closed-loop system of the body. Used in combination with traditional cancer therapies, King said, the device could remove a significant proportion of metastatic cells, "and give the body a fighting chance to remove the rest of them." The team also showed that a system in which the cancer cells "roll" over the target molecules - presenting their entire surface to the molecules - is four times more effective than a static setup in which the cells and proteins make contact at a single point. King's group tested the device on prostate and colon cancer cells, but noted that it could also be customized with additional peptides or other proteins to target other types of cancer cells. "And if you could reduce or prevent metastasis, pretty much any cancer would be treatable," he said. But translating the research into a clinical application will take time, he added, and is still likely years away. "The actual physical device, when it gets eventually tested in humans, will probably look a lot like an arteriovenous shunt [a small tube, or shunt, that diverts blood flow] with our protein coating," he said. "This has never been tried before. It's a whole new way of approaching cancer treatment," he added. "There's a lot of work yet to be done, of course, before this actually helps people -- but this is how it starts."

Other authors on the paper include Kuldeep Rana, a Cornell Ph.D. student, and Jane Liesveld, M.D., a clinician at the University of Rochester. The research was funded by New York state and the National Cancer Institute.

Me: A idea spawned by lint traps everywhere. I have one question how often do you change the filter out? More importantly would it run the risk of being a blockage in of itself?

9) No Respite as Wintry Storms Spread Over Nation... "Man Made Global Warming"
http://abcnews.go.com/US/JustOneThing/wireStory?id=6469408

December 16, 2008
Students went home for a snow day, stranded travelers waited at airports and drivers slid across icy roads in the second day of a bitter cold wave that blanketed much of the nation Tuesday. There was little relief in sight. Temperatures were forecast to drop below zero Wednesday in at least 12 states in the Midwest and West. A band of snow and sleet fell Tuesday from Minnesota to New Hampshire. Dozens of schools closed in Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee, and some school districts in Illinois sent students home early Tuesday. Up to a half-foot of snow had fallen in parts of Kentucky.

"It's pretty treacherous," said Jodi Shacklette, a Kentucky State Police dispatcher in Elizabethtown. "We're working wrecks just left and right." More than 300 flights were canceled at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and about 50 were canceled at Midway Airport, said Department of Aviation spokesman Gregg Cunningham. Police in northern Texas had to close some highway overpasses because they were so slippery with ice. In parts of Oklahoma, snow froze overnight and left a glaze of ice on roads, said John Pike, a weather service meteorologist. Ski resorts near Flagstaff, Ariz., reported 8 to 12 inches of snow Tuesday and strong rain showers covered residents in Phoenix. Flash flood watches were issued for central Arizona through Wednesday night. In Washington state, as much as 8 inches of snow was expected north of Seattle to the Canadian border and up to 2 feet of new snow was forecast in the Cascades. Some of the sharpest cold Tuesday was in northern Minnesota, where Hibbing bottomed out at 32 below zero and International Falls dropped to 28 below. In the middle of the state, St. Cloud fell to 24 below, breaking its old record of 21 below set in 1963.

The weather service posted winter storm warnings Tuesday for parts of the Southwest — where New Mexico had numerous school closings, including those in Albuquerque — and the Ohio Valley. In Oklahoma where daytime temperatures were mostly in the teens and lower 20s Tuesday, David McElyea complained that the cold made his construction work harder at an unheated home in Oklahoma City. "All the materials I carry around in my van — buckets of water and drywall — are frozen right now," McElyea said. Winter weather advisories were in effect across the Midwest and from Texas to New England, where utilities were still repairing power lines snapped by last week's devastating ice storm. New Hampshire utilities reported roughly about 106,000 homes and businesses still without power Tuesday, down from a peak of 430,000. Central Maine Power said fewer than 7,850 customers were still in the dark and a spokesman said it expected to have power restored Wednesday. About 70,000 customers are still waiting for service in Massachusetts, state officials said.

New Hampshire residents were warned Tuesday that some of them might have to wait until next week for electricity. "It's fair to say there may be some pockets of customers that would be (without power) beyond the weekend," said Tom Goetz, chairman of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. In places, he said, utility workers must still wait for other crews to clear fallen limbs and other debris before they can reach outages. Even Southern California was warned of temperatures falling into the mid-30s by late Wednesday. The cold wave and storms that accompanied had been blamed for at least 20 deaths, including 11 in traffic accidents.

Me: So more man made global warming?

Tags: news clips