GOP - Party of Herbert Hoover

Looks like any auto bailout deal is dead thanks to three idealist republican senators: Corker, Shelby, and DeMint. These three guys wanted pay cuts for unionized auto workers to take place next year rather than in 2011 when their contract expires.

Featherbrain Jim DeMint has actually predicted "more" riots if an auto bailout deal is passed.

“We’re going to have riots. There are already people rioting because they’re losing their jobs when everybody else is being bailed out. The fairness of it becomes more and more evident as we go along. The auto companies may be hurting,” he said, but “there are very few companies that aren’t hurting and they’re going to hurt. We don’t have enough money to bail everyone out.”

I keep a pretty close eye on the news, but I must have missed those riots that have already occurred. By DeMint's logic, the more people that lose their jobs, the less likely it is that they will riot because they unfairly lost their job. That sums up republican logic.

So we can look forward to a huge downturn in the stock markets today thanks to three guys who think believe cutting wages is the answer to saving our economy. It's a mystery why the rest of the republican congress went along with this madness - even G.W. Bush was in favor of this bailout. Dick Cheny, for gods sake, said "if we don't do this we will be known as the party of Herbert Hoover forever".

So, if we take the leaders of GM and Chrysler at their word, in a few weeks tens of thousands of auto workers and people who work for auto supply companies will be out of work. This should be great for the economy. But then again, republicans will have taught union members something about personal responsibility. I guess this is one way of busting unions and helping cut costs for big business.

It appears that only big finance companies and banks are worthy of being saved. Looks like Bush will need to use some of that $700 billion to save US automakers.

Illinois Scandal Will "Dog" Obama

Here is our liberal press:

President-elect Barack Obama hasn't even stepped into office and already a scandal — not of his own making — is threatening to dog him.

Obama isn't accused of anything. But the fact that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a fellow Democrat, has been charged with trying to sell Obama's now-vacant Senate post gives political opponents an opening to criticize him. A slew of questions remain. The investigation is still under way. And the ultimate impact on Obama is far from certain.

Yep, Obama isn't accused of anything. US Attorney Fitzgerald has stated as much. But our liberal press, who is in the pocket of Obama is going to dog Obama about the Blagojevich scandal. Afterall, Obama is from Illinois, so he must be in on the senate-seat selling scandal.

We can all hope that more of the liberal media goes bankrupt in the coming months.

Good-Bye George

We are only 12 hours away from only 40 days and 40 nights of the G.W. Bush presidency.

Tuesday's Big News - Almost

The big news yesterday, before Gov. Blog was arrested, was the report of the success of a new malaria vaccine.

The studies, published online Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine, were reported at a New Orleans meeting of tropical medicine researchers and were hailed as a significant breakthroughin the fight against one of the most intractable and deadly infectious diseases.

The paper, if you are interested in reading the actual results, is here.

Let's look at the headline of this report in FP Passport. The headline claims "New malaria vaccine more than 50 percent effective". Ok, so what does "effective" mean? Most vaccines that we get provide what is often called sterile immunity. They prevent occurence of a disease. For example, get vaccinated against the polio or measles virus and you most likely will never become infected with polio or measles.

This malaria vaccine does not provide sterile immunity. It is best described as an anti-disease vaccine. You still become infected, but with fewer parasite-infected red blood cells. This means you might suffer less severe symptoms of malaria. Also, a lower parasite burden may allow for a more effective immune response against the remaining parasites.

So why doesn't the new vaccine (it was actually designed in the late 1980's) provide sterile immunity? It's because of the malaria parasite's life cycle.



Parasites injected into the bloodstream of a host (you) rapidly penetrate liver cells - they become intracellular. The vaccine, RTS, S (with an adjuvant), specifically targets the mosquito-injected stage of the parasite called a sporozoite. The sporozoite is free in the blood for just minutes before they penetrate liver cells. So two types of immunity are necessary. Antibodies can bind to the sporozoites while they are free in the blood and prevent them from penetrating the liver. If no sporozoites reach the liver - you have no malaria and thus sterile immunity. The RTS, S vaccine obviously does not prevent sporozoites from penetrating the liver because vaccinated individuals.

Once the liver cells become infected, a type of immunity called "cell-mediated" immunity is required. Especially needed is a type of T lymphocyte that can kill parasite-infected cells - a CD8+ cytotoxic cell.



A single liver cell infected with a single malaria sporozoite results in hundreds to thousands of merozoite stages that burst out of the liver cell and infect red blood cells.



The RTS, S vaccine induces no immunity to these blood cell stages.

The paper actually reports that "clinical malaria" developed in 32 of 402 RTS, S vaccinated children compared with 66 of 407 children that did not receive the RTS, S vaccine. This is nothing to sneeze at. But how do the researchers define "clinical malaria"?

The primary end point was a clinical episode of malaria, defined as an axillary temperature of 37.5 (degrees C) or higher with a Plasmodium falciparum density or more than 2500 parasites per microliter. The presence of any faciparum parasitemia density with a temperature of 37.5 (degrees C) was a secondary end point.

50% effective means that about half of the vaccinated children did not show signs of a researcher defined "clinical malaria"

This is good for the children that were protected from a more severe case of malaria. This vaccine is likely to save the lives of many children. However, it's unlikely to have any significant effect on reducing the levels of malaria worldwide.

Right-Wing Bloviaters

The above video shows a bullying coward and a traitor bloviating about how the economy really isn't in too much difficulty. The liberal media is just making you think the economy is bad. Why would the liberal media do this? Well, it's to make Barack Obama look good. Are there words to describe these two disgusting creatures?