Gingrich Hates Free Speech

Here is what good ole Newt thinks:

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

I have a question.....whatever happened to "Give me liberty or give me death?"

People in our own government are afraid of you and me. They tell us the Constitution is not a suicide pact or you can't have a Constitution if you are dead. They've convinced millions of us that this bullshit is true and that we need to be afraid, very afraid. Well, those people can just bite me!

I'm far more afraid of people in my own government, who have supposedly sworn to uphold the Constitution, than I am of any third world terrorist. There is absolutely nothing patriotic about giving up your freedom of speech or freedom to peacefully protest. Being patriotic is all about defending our liberties that are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

People in this country have got to start standing up to assholes like Newt Gingrich and his ilk. They were too cowardly to serve in the armed forces and they are too cowardly to defend our Constitution.

Asthma Epidemic (and Hygiene Hypothesis)

In todays NY Times health section, the topic of asthma is discussed.

In any case, about 20 million people in the United States have asthma today, including at least 6 million children, and 5,000 people a year die from it. Children in the inner cities seem to be especially hard hit, with exposure to cockroaches and diesel fumes suspected as the culprits. But the cause is not known for sure.

The article discusses some reasons for the increased prevalence of asthma. Diet, obesity, exposure to allergins and air pollution and my favorite topic the hygiene hypothesis

One theory that has received attention recently is the “hygiene hypothesis,” the idea that children today are raised in homes that are too clean and that asthma is somehow caused by the lack of exposure to infections and bits of microbes early in life. Under this theory, germs are supposed to help the immune system develop normally, and without them the system may overreact to other substances in the environment, producing allergies and asthma.

There is some evidence to support the idea. Studies find that children raised on farms are less prone than others to asthma, maybe because they are exposed to plenty of microbes in barns and stables. But the connection is still not fully understood, and some viral infections clearly make asthma worse.

The entire NYT article is based on paper recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled: The Asthma Epidemic by Waltraud Eder, M.D., Markus J. Ege, M.D., M.P.H., and Erika von Mutius, M.D. (2006, 355(21):2226-2235).

This is figure 4 from the journal article. It shows the various ways in which different types of exposures interact with different economic living conditions, resulting in variations in the prevalence of asthma.


Figure 4. Effect of the Interaction between Various Types of Exposures and Various Genetic Backgrounds in a Range of Racial and Ethnic Groups on the Prevalence of Asthma through Pathways Involving Atopy, Airway Inflammation, Airway Hyperresponsiveness (AHR), or Other, Unknown Factors.

Unfortunately, both articles give short shrift to the involvement of helminth infections in the hygiene hypothesis.

Chronic infestation with helminths may also confer protection, but short-lived episodes of infestation may exacerbate atopic disorders.

This article: Allergy, Parasites, and the Hygiene Hypothesis published in "Science" provides the reasoning behind helminth infections and the hygiene hypothesis. Full text is not freely available but since it's in "Science" you should be able to find it in your local library.

An interesting article entitled Eating Dirt by Gerald N. Callahan can be found here at the CDC.

A few hygiene hypothesis links:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/4/l_104_07.html

http://www.respiratoryreviews.com/jan03/rr_jan03_hygiene.html

http://www.ucsfhealth.org/childrens/health_library/reuters/2005/
09/20050923elin024.html

http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/8_14_99/bob2.htm

http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/news/Jul2000/TheHygieneHypothesis.html

Church Street, Burlington, VT

Picture of the Day

I never noticed this cool chimney before.

Iraqi Kid Runs For Water

One reason we shouldn't have our kids fighting a war. Let us old guys do it. I still suggest no one should fight in a war unless they are at least 50 years old.

Citizens for Fair Assessment?

I agree completely with Mr. Burpoe. Yes the NYS property tax system is broken, but waterfront property owners in the Saranac Lake area have never wanted to pay their fair share of taxes, especially in the Lake Kiwassa area. Mr. Burpoe's letter to the editor is reprinted below.

I feel compelled to write this letter following the Open Letter to All Harrietstown Taxpayers written by the Citizens for Fair Assessment in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise on Nov. 15, 2006.

I hear and understand people complaining about their assessments and the tax levies that are distributed across the assessment roll. In these last years since Harrietstown completed its 2001 revaluation, market values have soared. Some property values have increased at greater rates than others. If you looked at the shift in the tax burden, the residential portion has decreased while the waterfront burden has increased. An example of this, as everyone knows, is the almost logarithmic increase in waterfront property values. Now, in the letter written by the Citizens for Fair Assessment, it appears that the group is not only taking issue about their assessments but also is taking exception to assessed values placed on state land. This is the land that makes up approximately 68 percent of the town.

What gets me about the whole Article 78 proceeding is:

1. The group wants the 2006 assessment roll to be declared null and void and to go back to the 2005 assessment roll. This group is also asking the people of the town to support them. By reverting back to the 2005 assessment roll, a larger burden of the real property tax will be shifted back to the non-waterfront property owners. The result will be that the residential landowners’ (your and my) real property taxes would go up, while those of the people who have filed the complaint, of whom a majority appear to be waterfront owners, would go down. Why would non-waterfront landowners go for this when the marketplace says that waterfront values have gone up and have gone up tremendously?

2. The attorney representing the Citizens for Fair Assessment is complicit in the entire process. He was the general counsel and deputy executive director of the former NYS Division of Equalization and Assessment, now called the Office of Real Property Services. He helped formulate and enforce the entire process that is being used today! If anything, he should be called as a witness for the town, county and school in which he is suing on behalf of the group.

3. The cost of this Article 78 to the taxpayers is going to be tremendous! Who are the beneficiaries of this complaint? The only beneficiaries will be the attorneys involved in defending and executing this complaint. One of the attorneys helped to create/perpetuate this mess in the first place. There will be no positive results of the complaint. The assessor for the town of Harrietstown followed the process that was created by the associates of Robert L. Beebe and the successors to the NYS Division of Equalization and Assessment.

The bottom line is this: The group suing the town, county and school is going to cost us, the taxpayers, a lot of money. They are fighting a process that is broken and outdated, and their attorney is complicit in the breakdown of the entire process. The real property system needs an overhaul, or it should be changed to an income tax-related method. Our system of real property taxation should be based entirely on a person’s “ability to pay.”

Thank you for listening.

Timothy Burpoe

Franklin County legislator, District 7

Saranac Lake

NYS to Revamp Town and Village Courts

It's about time.

The justice courts are a sprawling system of more than 1,200 courts that are often the first—and frequently the only—stop in the state legal system for people in the 57 counties outside New York City. Dating from Colonial times, the courts occupy something of a time warp, with often poorly trained justices, sometimes convening in town firehouses or highway department garages — or their own kitchens — and dispensing a form of justice unlike any other in the state.

More classroom training for justices, more professional staff for consultation, word-for-word transcripts of proceedings and annual audits of court books

More here.

Toxoplasma gondii and Sons

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that can cause serious problems in the fetus during pregnancy. It causes less serious problems in adults, but once infected you are infected forever with the parasite cysts living in your brain. That means if you are going to receive immunosuppressive therapy for cancer or transplantation treatment, you probably should get tested for toxoplasmosis. Above is a photomicrograph of the rapidly dividing 'tachyzoite' stage of the parasite. Some of the parasites are being taken up or invading a macrophage.




You become infected with toxoplasma primarily by eating poorly cooked meat although getting it directly from cat feces when changing the litter box can also happen. The life cycle of the parasite is above. The sexual cycle of the parasite life cycle takes place in the cat or other felines. The asexual stage occurs in almost any other warm blooded creature. 20% to well over 50% of some human populations are infected with T. gondii.

So what? Well, an interesting article has come to my attention through the Faculty of 1000. The title is "Women infected with parasite Toxoplasma have more sons." The work is out of Charles University in the Czech Republic. These researchers have reported that women infected with T. gondii have more sons than daughters, a lot more. For every 260 boys born, there are only 100 girls born to women infected with T. gondii. Even more interesting, this phenomenon correlates with high anti-T. gondii antibody levels.

The full text of the article can be found here.

Why Bush Hates Going Overseas

"How can a guy swagger in an outfit like this?" (click on the pict)

Promises

Michael Moore makes some promises on behalf of liberals to conservatives:

1. We will never call you unpatriotic.
2. You can marry whomever you want.
3. We won't spend your grandchildrens money
4. We will bring your children home from Iraq along with ours
5. You will be included in any Universal Healthcare plan, regardless of whether you can pay
6. If a terrorist kills 3,000 people in the USA you can be sure that all resources will be used to track him down
7. We won't spy on you in your bedroom
8. We won't take away your hunting guns, even if you do need automatic weapons to hunt deer
9. We will raise the minimum wage of your employees as well as ours
10. When we clean up the air, you can breathe it too
11. We will respect your religious beliefs even when you don't practice them
12. We will not tolerate corrupt politicians

Rep. John Sweeney and NYS Police

Yes, he still represents us until January. And, yes he was able to get the NYS police to do his bidding concerning his wife abusing incident:

The full report on the domestic incident was concealed because of concern it could be used against Sweeney during his re-election campaign this fall, the source said.

Wife abuser Sweeney has gotten his revenge however.

There are no allegations that Capt. Frank Pace, 53, who has supervised the region's State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation for several years, was behind the leaked document.

Yet the 28-year veteran of the force this week received a letter from First Deputy Superintendent Preston Felton relieving him of his prestigious investigative post and reassigning him from the Loudonville Troop G headquarters.

Pace was also involved in investigating Rep. Sweeney's son in a beating charge.

This is not the first time Pace has clashed with Sweeney. After the August 2004 arrest of Sweeney's son, John J. Sweeney, then 18, on felony assault charges, Sweeney and his attorney accused State Police investigators, including Pace, of an undisclosed political vendetta.

Money Well Spent?

Cost of the Iraq War - about $11 million dollars per hour!

Number of 5 year NIH medical research grants that could be funded with that amount of spending per day?

Well over 120 grants (including overhead costs).

UPDATE: Congress has already approved $70 billion dollars for the war in 2007. Looks like with the 'last big push' they will need another $127 -160 billion dollars.

Was the Past Better than Now?

A letter in todays Adirondack Daily Enterprise:

I grew up in the ’50s, and as I see what is happening to this country and even in this area, I wish I could just simply snap my fingers and return to a time that was much simpler, when people were happier and common sense was so much more prevalent than it is now.

I remember when our children could walk about without fear of predators, but then we didn’t have the ACLU sticking up for the rights of the monsters who would destroy the lives of the most innocent of our society.

I remember a time when one’s marriage partner was of the opposite sex, and our children didn’t have to see men in panties on floats in a parade, or two women making out with each other.

There was a time when NO ONE would dare to suggest that we rip a child apart in the womb of its mother, to say nothing of actually CREATING a child to kill so we can scavenge its cells.

I remember a time when you didn’t have to be “POLITICALLY CORRECT,” as just having some morals covered that area well.

I remember when lawyers were there for the existing laws and not there to try to rewrite them to get criminals off and stuff their pockets.

I remember when doctors actually cared for their patients and you never heard of one leaving a tool in somebody or removing the wrong part, and they wouldn’t let one die for a lack of money.

But most of all, I remember a time when God wasn’t a dirty word or a cross didn’t offend someone’s petty little feelings and they weren’t trying to remove all inferences to God or religion under the dishonest guise of free speech.

Anyone who grew up in that time area knows just by remembering that it was a much better time for the people of America and their children. Oh well, I guess that’s progress, OR IS IT!!!!

Yes children could walk the streets. Whether they were ever molested we won't ever know because people didn't talk about things like that back then.

Yep, you were married to someone of the opposite sex back in the good old days. And beating her wasn't against the law. Neither was raping her. Women knew their place back in the good ole days.

I pine for the good old days of institutionalized racism and segregated schools. Back when you couldn't go swimming because of the polio epidemic and there was no protective vaccine. No vaccines agains mumps, measles, flu, etc either.

It was actually fun attending those government 'civil defense' presentations at school. I mean who didn't want a really neat underground bomb shelter.

Doctors didn't do abortions back then. No, we left it those back alley types to do that for us, unless of course you were rich and connected. Back in the good ole days Doctors didn't let you die for lack of money....rather they let you die for lack of modern advances in medicine and drug treatments.

Yes oh yes, looking back at the good ole days through colored glasses is so much fun. Informative too.

GovTrack

I'm keeping a close eye on my reps in Congress. To do this use GovTrack.us. It's free and you can sign up to monitor specific senators, representative and bills. You even get email notification. I'm giving it a try.

Alcee Hastings to Head House Intelligence Comm.?

Alcee Hastings??? This guy was a United States District court judge for the Southern District of Florida....before he was impeached by the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives for bribery and perjury. On top of that...his middle name is Lamar! Has anyone ever heard of a good guy named Lamar?

I'm starting to get disillusioned very quickly.

Big Spender Hillary

This is really sad. Hillary Clinton spent $36 million dollars to get re-elected Senator of NY state. Does anyone even know who ran against her? Why did she have to spend $36 million dollars? I didn't see any TV ads and I don't remember even getting any mailings from her campaign. Just what was the money spent on?

Hillary still has loads of money in the bank for her presidential run. She could get the Democrat nomination but she doesn't stand a chance in hell of getting elected president because:

She is a woman
She is representing liberal New York
She is wishy washy on her political stances
Much of the country has an irrational hatred of her

BTW Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki have even a less chance than Hillary of getting elected president. They aren't near conservative enough.

Murtha Wrong for Majority Leader

Just to show I can be critical of Democrats albeit a conservative Democrat...I don't think Rep. Murtha is the right man for majority leader. He was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandel of the 80's and now he is implicated in "pay-to-play" politics that benefited his brother.

Cat Herding

It can be done!

Looks Like Rumsfield Has Some Legal Problems

Germany is seeking to prosecute Rummy, Tenet and Gonzales for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo prisons. It seems they may have broken some of the Geneva Convention rules.

USA #1? How About Health Care and Education?

USA in health care

WHO overall health care ranking - 37th
WHO health care fairness - 54th
Only developed country that does not provide health care to it's citizens
18,000 - number of persons in USA that die every year because they do not have health insurance
Childhood mortality - 41st
USA childhood poverty - 22nd, at least we beat Mexico who is 23rd

Amount of money spent on health care #1

USA in business

Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time
14 of 20 largest banks in the USA are European-owned banks
Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40% of our government debt
USA imports more food than it exports

We probably are number 1 in religion, scientific illiteracy, debt and in weapons export.