Maybe it's for the best

I had intended to make a post today lamenting the lingering, slow death of print journalism in this country. With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishing its final print edition today to go to a pure online format (a step taken late last year by the sorely under-rated Christian Science Monitor), and the Tucson Citizen closing up shop this weekend ... well, rumors of the death of newspapers may be exaggerated, but not by much. The patient is gout-ridden, racked by fever and cough, and clearly on the deathbed.

Instead, I find myself stunned at the reaction of various members of the Washington press corps to the exchange of words between Dick Cheney and White House press secretary Robin Gibbs.

For those who might possibly have missed it, Cheney was on the air last weekend busily deeming the Obama administration a failure, and ranting about how his decisions, particularly vis-a-vis Guantanamo, had weakened America's security. Considering he was in office when the greatest terrorist attack on American soil ocurred, one might recognize him as an expert on weak security ... but that's neither here nor there.

When asked about it during a press briefing yesterday, Gibbs responded "I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal." He subsequently added shots about how Bush and Cheney had failed in their duty to bring swift justice to the 9/11 perpetrators, and the importance of not taking advice from Cheney on the economy.

The admittedly sarcastic tone Gibbs used was immediately sized upon by various reporters, who complained about the manner in which the former Vice President was being addressed. Those complaining included Chip Reid of CBS and Rick Klein of ABC.

Seriously??!! I mean, seriously?? For years these folks allowed Cheney to oversee the virtual destruction of our Bill of Rights as well as instigating a wide-spread regime of torture, just two name two of the hideous innovations he was instrumental in instroducing to our country, yet hardly a peep could be heard. If anyone deserves to be treated with a distinct lack of respect, Cheney is near the top of the list, yet apparently it's more important to defend his dignity than to defend our nation's integrity.

I'm embarassed for my former profession ... all-in-all, maybe it's for the best it's a dying field.

Update: Shortly after posting this, I saw via Tedski at R-cubed the Citizen has been granted at least a temporary stay of execution.

Pluripotent possibilities

There has been great resistance in this country to using stem cells derived from embryos for medical research, even though the alternative for those stem cells is to see them simply be destroyed. I've never understood this viewpoint (it would make sense to me if there was some possibility the embryos in question might actually be brought to term ... ), but that doesn't change the fact the resistance is there.

Embryonic stem cells are prized because of their pluripotency, which in theory might allow them to be used for a wide range of difficult-to-treat problems, most notably spinal injuries. Partly because of the sheer amount of time it takes to go through the research process, and partly because of delay caused by the Bush administration's lack of support for the research, it was only this past January that the FDA granted approval for the first human trials involving embryonic stem cells. It will be at least a couple more years before any definitive conclusions can be drawn from this initial trial.

Meanwhile, recent years have seen the development of an approach which attempts to circumvent the resistance to use of embryonic stem cells. Termed induced embyonic stem cells, the approach involves taking normally non-pluripotent cells and transforming them to be pluripotent. This has been done by introducing various types of viruses into the cells. After a period of roughly a month, some small percentage of these cells exhibit pluripotency, and these cells can be separated out and cultured to grow more.

Until now, however, there has been concern about any serious use of these cells because of the use of potentially harmful viruses to create them - no one has been sure elements of the virus are not left behind in the cells.

However, in potentially big news, a team of researchers from Canada and Scotland announced yesterday they have succeeded in creating induced pluripotent stem cells using a non-viral process. If the procedure works out, it could remove any need for embryos, and thereby remove the primary sticking point for most of those opposed to their use.

That doesn't mean research using embryonic stem cells should stop - it's possible this process won't work well, or won't create cells as useful as embryonic strains. Still, it would be nice if the reason for resistance could be removed, and the research could move forward unfettered.

Settlement issues

I often hear the assertion Israel's West Bank settlements are illegal, and I expected to be able to find a clear statute, treaty or some such which the existence of the settlements unquestionably contravenes. However, after several days of research, and with the full understanding I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), while I still feel the weight of the arguments supports the claim the settlements are illegal, I am forced to concede there is more murkiness surrounding the issues than I expected.

What isn't murky is there will be no lasting peace in the region until those settlements are removed, and Israel's prospects for future security necessitate removing them.

For decades now most parties have agreed a "two-state" approach is the only one which can be successful, and for a separate Palestinian state to be feasible Israel would have to cede control of the West Bank to a new, independent, Palestinian nation. Despite this general acknowledgment, however, the number of Israeli settlers in West Bank territories has continued to grow, from 110,000 in the early 1990's to nearly 300,000 today ... without counting East Jerusalem (which I see as a separate issue).

Not surprisingly, Palestinians view this continuing influx of settlers as tantamount to explicit sabotage of any peace negotiations. The logic is not hard to follow - if all parties agree peace requires a separate Palestinian state, and that state will be founded in the West Bank, yet Israel continues to actively claim more land in the West Bank, Israel must not seriously desire peace.

A number of Israelis have suggested any serious effort to forcibly remove the settlements might well lead to an Israeli civil war, which is not a pleasant prospect. It is, however, a threat which Israel has to stop tap-dancing around and confront the issue. Making a clear, large, concerted effort to remove the settlements would do more to promote peace and security in the region than any number of bombs dropped in Lebanon or Gaza.

The vast majority of Israeli settlers are themselves religious extremists, who hold the entire country hostage to their demands that Arabs be evicted from the "Promised land". Moderate Israeli's, by-and-large, seem fed up and exasperated with them, yet little is done to rein them in. Until Israel gets serious about dealing with its own extremists, why should they expect Palestinians to be serious about dealing with theirs?

One step closer

Back a couple years ago, embryonic stem cell research was a hot topic, with many posts and comments flying about both for and against.

One ofthe specious arguments often used by those opposed to the funding of said research was statements along the lines of "not one cure has ever been found using embryonic stem cells" - a textbook example of lying by omission, as the statement itself is true, so far as it goes. What gets left out, of course, is that given how recent the discovery of how to reliably culture these cells was, and the need to to basic research, then animal research, then limited human trials before anything can be okayed for general use, of course no "cure" had been developed yet.

For some reason the topic has moved off the back burner, but last week the FDA approved the first human trials involving embryonic stem cells, to be implanted in a small number of paraplegics who have no use of their legs. The primary aim is simply to see if the cells are safe for human use, but there is hope some use of the lower extremities might be restored.

We're still years away, if ever, from seeing wide-spread results. However, if this first trial at least can show the cells are not actively harmful, it will open the door wide to FDA approval to future human trials for a variety of possible applications. It's just another step down a long road, but it's a big step.

New Math

There has, of course, been a great deal of dialog about the Israeli assault on Gaza, a great deal of valid concern over the Palestinian civilian casualties while Israel persists in emphasizing the uninhibited rocketing of it's civilians over a number of months, and its intent to continue the assault until that capability is ended or, at least, severely diminished.

In particular, x4mr has posts here, here, here and here where he and people I generally find myself in agreement with emphasize the cruelty of the shelling and the civilian deaths ... and they are, of course, entirely correct - those deaths are cruel, regrettable, should have been preventable ... and they are, of course, correct that Israel has done much to encourage Hamas to fire rockets into Israel, including blockading food and medical supplies, doing nothing to about illegal settlements on Palestinian land, and so on. The list is long.

I still find myself disagreeing with them.

Ultimately, the calculus they apply seems to lay the responsibility of every civilian casualty, every death in Gaza, directly at the feet of Israel. This math, however, seems insupportable to me. While people might disagree as to how much effort Israel is putting into limiting civilian casualties in Gaza, I don't think anyone disputes they are, at least, making some effort. On the other side, though, the Hamas strategy seems predicated on willfully and intentionally creating the maximum possible number of civilian deaths.

I.e., Hamas is willfully sacrificing as many of their own population as they possibly can in order to place their blood on the altar of world opinion, a point which should have been made clear to all when Hamas joined Israel in rejecting Egyptian calls for a truce. Israel wants no truce until Hamas is broken, or at least more damaged than it is so far. Hamas wants no truce until they have managed to get more Palestinian civilians killed ... the more, the better.

Now, in terms of a military approach this is the best strategy they have available to them - certainly, Hamas can't hope to win a straight up fight against Israel. However, given they are the ones making the strategic decision to do so, why is Hamas not being held at least equally complicit in their deaths, if not more so, than Israel?

Ultimately, of course, Hamas' rockets into Israel were meant to provoke exactly the response it has. If Israel wants permanent peace, they will have to find some way to break the cycle of violence and show they are serious about helping Palestinians create a homeland. A good start would be, once they are done with their assualt on Gaza, to put a similar amount of effort into removing the illegal settlements in the West Bank, by force if necessary - then dare Hamas, Hezbollah and other such groups to go to the general Palestinian process and ask them if they are willing to continue the struggle, or if somehow a homelnd centered on the West Bank can be enough.

Boy, was Biden ever right

During the vice presidential candidates debate last October, Joseph Biden referred to Dick as "the most dangerous Vice President in our country's history".

This past week or 10 days, as he looks forward to leaving office next month, Cheney has been appearing in different venues unapologetically defending his views and the actions of the Bush administration for the last eight years, pressing the notion of the "unitary executive". He claims it was wrong for the Supreme Court to allow Guantanamo detainees to be allowed to challenge their continuing detention without charge in US courtrooms (since the SC is the ultimate arbiter of such matters, this claim is wrong by definition). He claims the US has not tortured prisoners, while subsequently admitting to a major role in causing prisoners to be water-boarded.

One of his claims in the Wallace interview which has been the subject of outrage is the following:

"(The President) could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

This looks worse than it is, since the preceding paragraph has generally been left out. Here is the comment again, in full:

"The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.

He could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

I think most people would agree that if our nation was hit with a massive nuclear attack there is not going to be time for Congress to meet before determining our response. However, this statement does do a lot to help explain Cheney's mindset - he's pushing the idea the nation has been in a constant state of emergency since 9/11, a state where the President essentially has ultimate power on all decisions.

This belief is, of course, horse shit.

The administration, largely at Cheney's urging, has consistently engaged in illegal activities, ranging from torture to illicit wiretaps. Cheney's recent appearances are almost brazenly daring his successor to do anything about these actions.

It's a challenge which must be accepted, or Biden will have been proven more correct than even he knew.

Perhaps now it will all become clear

When the Bush administration and numerous supporters found time to focus on things other than pursuing needless wars, placing political hacks into positions they were not vaguely qualified for and various ways to expand presidential fiat at the expense of civil liberties, they often complained about how Bush was not getting enough credit for the supposedly burgeoning economy.

For all the economic growth which took place during the Bush year's according to various economic measures, people consistently reported that, on the whole, they were dissatisfied with their lot. The Bushies never seemed to figure out why, even though economists such as Paul Krugman repeatedly explained to them all that extra money was either going to corporations or being amassed in the hands of a very limited few, and not, in fact, "trickling down" the the citizenry as a whole.

Today, the Associated Press had an article laying out the numbers about as clearly as they can be presented, comparing data from 3 million households a year in the years 2005-2007 to data collected during the 2000 census. The key findings in the article:

* Median household income dropped in 79 percent of the cities and towns. Incomes dropped in the wealthiest communities as well as the poorest. Charleston, Ill., home to Eastern Illinois University, saw the biggest drop - 31 percent - to a median household income of just under $21,000.

* Nationally, incomes dropped by 4.3 percent during the period, to $50,007.

*The poverty rate increased in 70 percent of the cities and towns. Athens, Ohio, home to Ohio University, had the highest poverty rate, at 52.3 percent, in the 2005-2007 period.

Nationally, the poverty rate increased from 12.4 percent to 13.3 percent since the start of the decade.

* The unemployment rate increased in 71 percent of the cities and towns. Muskegon, Mich., a city of about 40,000 near Lake Michigan, had the highest unemployment rate, at 22.1 percent.

Nationally, the unemployment rate increased from about 4 percent in 2000 to 6.6 percent in the 2005-2007 period.

* Median home values increased in 92 percent of the cities and towns studied - doubling and tripling in many cities, mainly in California. Nationally, the median home value increased 26 percent, to $181,800.

Let's see ... lower incomes, higher unmployment, greater poverty ... no, I can't possibly see why people would think the great Bush economy wasn't helping them. Of course, all those negatives were offset by large gains in home values.

How's that working out?