Tom Faranda's Folly

NY Post op ed "Why Rep. Kennedy is Wrong"

An excellent explanation! hit the link for the full essay - it's not very long.

You have to love Mario Cuomo's comment. People wouldn't vote for Catholics because Catholics might "be guided by [their] faith." Horrors! 

Less of a Catholic - NYPOST.com#ixzz0YMJEAd8m#ixzz0YMJEAd8m#ixzz0YMJEAd8m#ixzz0YMJEAd8m

News broke this week that Thomas Tobin, the Catho lic bishop of Providence, RI, had in 2007 asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy to refrain from receiving Communion because of the congressman's support for legalized abortion. The ensuing howls of protest almost universally missed the point.

Some Catholic writers charged that Tobin was sowing division within the church and "politicizing" the sacrament. On the pro-choice left, Tobin was flayed for everything from "religious blackmail" to -- inexplicably -- violating the separation of church and state.

Perhaps the strangest comment came from former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who predicted that if pols like Kennedy started listening to the bishop, "nobody would vote for Catholics" because voters would fear they'd "be guided by [their] faith."

Yet Tobin's stand has practically nothing to do with wielding political power -- and everything to do with preserving a coherent definition of what being Catholic means in the first place.

And, if he succeeds, it might go a long way toward returning some thoughtfulness to America's public discourse.

 

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, on her breast cancer

This is interesting. Fiorina is a pioneer woman in the business world - she got fired from HP, even as her business plan started to turn the company around.

I have her book, "Tough Choices", about her business career, but have not read it. I've always found her interesting Carly Fiorina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and a little off-beat. For instance her college degree is in philosophy and medieval history, and she actually started working as a secretary.

Now she's eyeing a run for Senator from California.

Interview with Carly Fiorina: She Wants to Reboot California - WSJ.com

When Carly Fiorina sat down to speak with me recently, I was briefly taken aback. The former CEO of Hewlett Packard and current candidate for U.S. Senate from California was sporting a close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hairdo. Having completed six months of treatment for breast cancer, the 55-year-old Ms. Fiorina has dispensed with the auburn wig she'd been wearing as her hair grows back.

She says her health is now fine, and that "after chemotherapy Barbara Boxer isn't that scary anymore," referring to the three-term Democratic incumbent she wants to unseat in 2010. She laughs when I suggest her new 'do may get her a hearing in precincts like Berkeley and San Francisco. On a more serious note, she says that "in these hard times, a lot of people across the spectrum will listen to my message—that California can only recover if we encourage economic growth and restrain spending and job-killing regulation."

Attacking rugby: end of year N. hemisphere tours - New Zealand vs. France

Whew.

If the video doesn't open, here's the url. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2dRrIybklg

Climategate fallout

The Wall Street Journal nails it -

Climate Change Emails Reveal Rigged 'Consensus' - WSJ.com

We don't doubt that Mr. Jones would have phrased his emails differently if he expected them to end up in the newspaper. He's right that it doesn't look good that his May 2008 email to Mr. Mann regarding the U.N.'s Fourth Assessment Report said "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?" Mr. Mann says he didn't delete any such emails, but the point is that Mr. Jones wanted them hidden.

The furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or whether climatologists are nice people. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at, and how a single view of warming and its causes is being enforced. The impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.

According to this privileged group, only those whose work has been published in select scientific journals, after having gone through the "peer-review" process, can be relied on to critique the science. And sure enough, any challenges from critics outside this clique are dismissed and disparaged.

And two from the UK -

Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws – Telegraph Blogs

But the real car crash for Obama is on Capitol Hill where it is now confidently believed his Cap and Trade climate legislation is toast. It was always problematic; but with a growing awakening to the scale of the scientific imposture sweeping the world, as far as the Antipodes, the clever money is on Cap and Trade laws failing to pass, with many legislators sceptical and the mid-term elections looming ever closer.

And this from a climate "change" fanatic!

Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away | George Monbiot | Environment | guardian.co.uk

I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.

The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.

Back from my 25 hour solo Appalachian Trail overnighter

As I mentioned here. Off on a 24 hour adventure

It was excellent. Some of the terrain today was very rugged, and being totally leaf-covered made it that much trickier.

Much more to follow, but here's where I stayed last night, and my Friday evening self-portrait.

 

My neighbor Sue Konig - her county election is still not settled

From yesterday's Journal News. Sue is nine votes behind ...

Poll site snafu disrupts Westchester County board outcome | LoHud.com | The Journal News

“We’re asking the court to preserve the results of the election until the situation in election District 11 gets sorted out,” Konig said. “A judge will have to decide whether any voters were denied their opportunity to vote on Election Day.”

Burton, who is completing his second term, had little to say on the mix-up other than, “Let’s follow the law and let the cards fall where they may.” He received 4,843 total votes to Konig’s 4,834 votes, according to unofficial results.

Off on a 24 hour adventure

Today and through tomorrow I am back on the Appalachian Trail. This afternoon I'll resume my walk where I ended on August 15th My past Sunday solo hike on the Appalachian Trail, getting on the trail where it intersects Rte 55 west of Pawling and walking about 3.3 miles west to the Morgan Stewart Memorial Shelter. This is a lean-to type shelter, where I'll overnight. Then on Saturday I'll walk 8.75 miles west on the trail to where it goes underneath the Taconic State Parkway.

So just over 12 miles in total, as I continue to try and do all 81 miles of the AT that runs through NY State. Brigid is dropping me off and picking me up.

I'm not worried about the weather (famous last words!); I have good equipment. I am hoping to take some good pictures, and a video ot two.

Brigid took this yesterday next to the Thanksgiving table, as I got my stuff together. That's a mountainsmith backpack. Background cages are for guinea pig and chinchillas.

The pope on the "communion of love"

The url is - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KD7DSUd6A0

Thanksgiving fun

Well, a little fun.

Answer the multiple choice question below this picture.

These people are

1. In New York, celebrating the Yankees winning the World Series 
2. In Indianapolis, Indiana for a Sarah Palin book signing
3. In Kansas City at a Eucharistic procession through the city 
4. Exiting from the vampire movie, "New Moon" in Los Angeles

The answer, of course, is #3. a total of 22,000 attending the NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference) in Kansas City. More pictures here - The Catholic Key Blog: Big NCYC Picture Post

End of year North Hemisphere rugby tours: Scotland vs. Australia

includes the last several minutes of the match.

Here's the url if the video doesn't open  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y90sK-X85J8

WSJ on Liberalism and mammograms

Loved this editorial - the subtitle is "Rationing? What Rationing?"

Excerpts below the link, but read the whole thing.

Mammogram Flap Portends ObamaCare's Rationing - WSJ.com

The political duck-and-cover was also on display in that vanguard of ObamaCare known as the New York Times, which ran at least four much-ado-about-nothing items even as it endorsed the reduced screening. On the same day as an editorial and op-ed, a front-page "news analysis" lectured that what the public really needs is "a transformational shift in thinking" about the "evidence-based" medical future that the mammogram decision portends. Yes, and no doubt the Times will tell us what "evidence" to follow.

Even more revealing was Princeton's Uwe Reinhardt, a leading liberal health-care economist, writing on the New York Times Economix blog. Mr. Reinhardt sees the task force's handiwork as an exemplar of "rational decision-making" that had nothing to do with cost analysis, even as he claimed that rationing based on cost is inevitable.

You have to admire Mr. Reinhardt's partisan dexterity. He knows that no government task force is ever going to justify a treatment denial with an overt claim to costs. Instead, the task force found a sneaky way to use clinical data to take costs into account without admitting it. It cites all sorts of harm associated with the problem of "overdiagnosis"—i.e., too many costly procedures. This is a reference to mammograms that lead to further tests and treatments that in hindsight are unnecessary.

The HHS task force concludes that this harm outweighs the benefits of saving lives through early detection, yet this makes little sense unless financial costs are a priority. For instance, the panel cites patient anxiety from false positives, yet the literature also shows overwhelmingly that women would rather risk a scare than allow a cancer to progress—especially considering that about 75% of all breast cancers develop in women who do not have special risk factors.

>>>>>>

What's really going on here is that the left knows its designs will require political rationing of care, but it doesn't want the public to figure this out until ObamaCare passes. Then it will begin the campaign to instruct the rest of us that we must follow the guidance of Princeton professors about what medical care we can receive. Americans will simply have to accept that the price of government-run health care in the name of redistributive justice is that patients and their doctors must bow to the superior wisdom of HHS task forces.

Navy SEALS capture major terrorist and give him a bloody lip. Now facing assault charges

BUT the big question - did they read him his Miranda rights?

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist - Iraq | War | Map - FOXNews.com

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Walmart vs. Amazon: battle of the retailers

Here's a really interesting feature in the NYT business section. i thought that online purchases were much more then 4% of retail sales. We certainly buy more online then 4%.

For Wal-Mart and Amazon, the First Round of a Price Fight - NYTimes.com

Of course, Wal-Mart and Amazon are fundamentally different companies, and for now, at least, Amazon poses little immediate threat to the behemoth from Bentonville, Ark.

Wal-Mart, with $405 billion in sales last year, dominates by offering affordable prices to Middle America in its 4,000 stores. Amazon is a relative schooner to Wal-Mart’s ocean liner, with $20 billion in sales, mostly from affluent urbanites who would rather click with their mouse than push around a cart.

This fight, then, is all about the future. Rapid expansion by each company, as well as profound shifts in the high-tech landscape, now make direct confrontation inevitable. Though online shopping accounts for only around 4 percent of retail sales, that percentage is growing quickly. E-commerce did not suffer as deeply as regular retailing during the economic malaise, and it is recovering faster than in-store shopping. People are also shopping on smartphones and from their HDTVs.

Global Warming Update - research scandal

UPDATE: Climate Emails Stoke Debate - WSJ.com

Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications.

"This is horrible," said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. "This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn't questionable practice, this is unethical."

No surprise. Political correctness, of course, runs amok. And there's a lot of Grant money at stake. So what's a little dishonesty?

In the trenches on climate change, hostility among foes - washingtonpost.com

In one e-mail, the center's director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.

"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who comes under fire in the e-mails, said these same academics repeatedly criticized him for not having published more peer-reviewed papers.

"There's an egregious problem here, their intimidation of journal editors," he said. "They're saying, 'If you print anything by this group, we won't send you any papers.' "

Mann, who directs Penn State's Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of "vigorous debate" researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. "We shouldn't expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they're speaking in public," he said.

Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who has questioned whether climate change is human-caused, blogged that the e-mails have "the makings of a very big" scandal. "Imagine this sort of news coming in the field of AIDS research," he added.

Indeed...

NY City - the police do care

My humor consultant Karen was in fine form yesterday, with several emails. This was the only one that got past the censors.

The Police find a man's body in the East River just south of the Manhattan bridge

The dead man's name will not be released until his family has been notified.

The victim apparently drowned due to excessive beer consumption.
He was wearing black fishnet stockings, a red garter belt, a pink g-string,
purple lipstick, and an Obama T-shirt.

The police removed the Obama T-shirt to spare his family any unnecessary embarrassment.

NYC Police do care.

Healthcare reform financing

With community rating, as envisioned by the reformers, cost flows from the old to the young.

Robert Samuelsen has done a great job in the past few months exposing the nonsense.

Robert J. Samuelson - Robert J. Samuelson on the health bill's burdens for the young - washingtonpost.com

One of our long-running political stories is the economic assault on the young by the old. We have become a society that invests in its past and disfavors the future. This makes no sense for the nation, but as politics it makes complete sense. The elderly and near elderly are better organized, focus obsessively on their government benefits and seem deserving. Grandmas and Grandpas command sympathy.

Hit the link for the whole column - it's short - and excellent.

Two articles: Sarah Palin doesn't play well in San Francisco; but in other places ...

interesting contrasts -

Bay Area not maverick enough to read Palin book

The new autobiography by moose hunter and failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is harder to find in the Bay Area than a hockey mom. Some bookstores figure it's one of those grit-your-teeth First Amendment deals that principled booksellers must put up with from time to time.

But many nonchain bookstores won't handle it.

"Our customers are thinking people," said Nathan Embretson, a bookseller at Pendragon Books in Oakland. "They're not into reading drivel."

There's not a single copy on the shelf. Embretson said no one has asked for it except for one guy, who was kidding.

"He said he wanted to look at it but he also said he didn't really want to read it," Embretson said. "Anyway, he certainly didn't want to buy it. I think he regarded looking at it as a kind of punishment."

There are no copies of the book at Cover to Cover Booksellers in Noe Valley, either.

Then, there's this:

Enthusiasm for Palin, and Echoes of 2008 Divide - NYTimes.com

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — When tickets to see Sarah Palin in Michigan ran out, people drove to her appearance here, three hours away.

Thousands had lined up overnight, starting nearly 24 hours before she was to begin signing books, camping out in 39-degree weather for a moment with the woman many see as the great conservative hope, a role model, “one of us.”

They brought their sleeping bags, their children, homemade chocolate Cheerios bars, and balloons to twist into animal shapes and hats for the crowd. And they brought their anger — about bailouts, jobs and health care.

>>>>>>

The crowds included stray disaffected Obama voters, as well as hard-core conspiracy theorists insisting that the president is a Communist who wants to send everyone to re-education camps.

But mostly, people were upset about ballooning budget deficits and health care.

“I was willing to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt, but the spending is out of control,” said Gloria Taylor, 54, as she waited in line in Grand Rapids. “It’s going to be our downfall.”

She and her sister-in-law, Robin Pintar, said they had liked Mr. Obama’s campaign promises for their transparency. But they said they were suspicious now, after a government Web site claimed jobs had been created in Congressional districts that do not exist. And they were bothered by health care proposals that seem obscured in thousands of pages of legislation.

“You hear snippets,” Ms. Pintar said, “but you don’t know what the big picture is, except the price, and that’s terrifying.”

End of year rugby tours: England vs. New Zealand

A well-constructed try, scored by the scrum half (I'm biased).

Here's the url. if the video below doesn't open up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZACHYz9E8iI

New Zealand hasn't given up a try in their northern hemisphere end of year tours since 2006.

Like tricky football plays? Check this one

never seen this before ...

Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to do a deal together?

This is cool, as the media wars go on - a battle of the heavyweights -

hit the link for the full article in the Financial Times (UK)

FT.com / Media - Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact

Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.

The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.

However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.

News Corp and Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, declined to comment.

One website publisher approached by Microsoft said that the plan “puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them”.

Microsoft’s interest is being interpreted as a direct assault on Google because it puts pressure on the search engine to start paying for content.

“This is all about Microsoft hurting Google’s margins,” said the web publisher who is familiar with the plan.

But the biggest beneficiary of the tussle could be the newspaper industry, which has yet to construct a reliable online business model that adequately replaces declining print and advertising revenues.

Government public option on life support?

It appears that too many Democrats oppose the "public option"for it to pass.

Democrats hold line, but cracks show - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com

In a 60-39 vote on strictly partisan lines, the Senate sent the $848 billion health care bill to the floor for debate after the Thanksgiving break, but not before a clutch of moderates served notice that they couldn’t back the bill in its current form.

One key provision – for a government-run insurance plan that would allow states to opt-out of coverage – effectively died in the Senate chamber Saturday, as the last two Democratic holdouts demanded changes to the bill. s

“I am opposed to a new government administered public health care plan as a part of comprehensive health care reform, and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by Leader Reid as it is written,” said Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), the last Democrat to commit to a vote for opening debate. Two hours earlier, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) had said much the same thing.

Their comments signal that weeks of negotiations remain on a bill Obama once hoped to have on his desk by Christmas – and even raised the prospect that splits in the party over the public option, abortion and other aspects of the bill could scuttle passage altogether. 

Catholic Bishops letter to every Senator: Senate health bill "is not true health reform"

The letter was sent Fridy to every Senator. And the objections are to more then the government funding of abortion and lack of conscience protections.

The bishops find it objectionable not only on the basis of its inclusion of state-funded abortion, but also for its exclusion of immigrants from care, and amazingly, for its failure to adequately address accessibility and affordability for the poor – presumably the reason we’re engaged in this reform effort in the first place.

Hit the link for the full letter -

The Catholic Key Blog: USCCB Letter to Senators: Reid-Care "is not true health care reform"

Colbert skewers Glenn Beck: "Glenn Beck Is As Sincere As I Am"

While I've never seen Beck on television, I do sometimes listen to him on his mid-morning radio show.

This is pretty funny. If it doesn't play below, here's the url: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200910090006

Olberman exhibits his sparkling sense of humor (?) as he discusses Palin

This video was sent around by newsmax.com, after Olberman (in the video) makes fun of Palin for reading newsmax.

When I'm in the gym in the evening, I frequently channel surf between Olberman, FOX and CNN. I admit that in small doses his oily, humorless, snakiness, is fascinating. He continually reaches ever new lows.

Accountability Journalism

This is off "Best of the Web Today" In Praise of Inexperience - WSJ.com

An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We'd like to compare this dispatch to the AP's dispatch earlier this week "fact checking" Sarah Palin's new book. Here goes:

Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
   • ObamaCare bills: 2
   • Palin book: 11

Number of pages in document being covered:
   • ObamaCare bills: 4,064
   • Palin book: 432

Number of pages per AP reporter:
   • ObamaCare bill: 2,032
   • Palin book: 39.3

On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to the memoir of a former Republican officeholder as to a piece of legislation that will cost trillions of dollars and an untold number of lives. That's what they call accountability journalism.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Sarah Palin's book tour kicks off in Grand Rapids, Mich. - washingtonpost.com

It's like a rock concert -  Click here: The Indianapolis Star | Sarah Palin "Going Rogue" in Noblesville

But also see this, sent to me by one of my factcheckers, Dennis. Fox News again accused of airing misleading video - Yahoo! News

Poll data - Democrats and independents most likely to be unemployed

Interesting.

Democrats & Unaffiliateds More Likely To Be Unemployed Than Republicans - Rasmussen Reports™

they don't say this in the analysis, but perhaps it's because Republicans tend to have more self-employed people in their ranks, and it's difficult to be unemployed when you're self-employed. Whose going to fire you?

Attorney General Holder gets demolished

The obvious questions - and shows the absurdity of the administration's position on trying terrorists in the U.S. court system. Hadn't the attorney general expected these questions? Just in case the video doesn't run, here's the url. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG7lm8Sfbo4&feature=player_embedded

Even NPR covered this - Would U.S. Need To Read Bin Laden His Miranda Rights? - The Two-Way - Breaking News, Analysis Blog : NPR

Dom DeLuise on Carson Tonight Show - the Egg Trick

Sent by my humore consultant Ellen - an oldie (the video, not Ellen)

CNN abortion poll

Good news if you're pro-life.

Poll: Majority favor abortion funding ban - CNN.com

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning indicates that 61 percent of the public opposes using public money for abortions for women who can not afford the procedure, with 37 percent in favor of allowing the use of federal funds.

And by a 51 percent to 45 percent margin, those questioned in the survey think that women who get abortions should pay the full costs out of their own pocket, even if they have private health insurance and no federal funds are involved. The 6-point difference is within the poll's sampling error.

>>>>>>

"Roughly one in five Americans who oppose the House health care bill do so because it is not liberal enough," said CNN polling director Keating Holland. "The abortion issue may be one reason why. But for most Americans, potential restrictions on abortion may not be a deal-breaker."

And there's more, but you have to dig through the poll results here http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/11/17/rel17f.pdf to find that only 36% of those polled think abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, while 63% think it should be legal in (only) a few circumstances, or "illegal in all circumstances".

Proposed mammography guidelines: "Lives will be lost with proposed changes..."

The following article was sent to me by a woman physician friend of ours -

The article itself is co-written by three women physicians who are radiology oncologists. Hit the link below for the whole article - I excerpted about half.

Lives Will Be Lost With Proposed Changes to Mammography Guidelines - FOXNews.com

Editor's note: The following letter from BreastCancer.org founder Dr. Marisa Weiss was orginally posted on BreastCancer.org. For more information, click here.

To the Breastcancer.org community:

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended dramatic changes to current breast cancer screening guidelines. Breastcancer.org is strongly opposed to these recommendations.

The proposed new guidelines recommend starting regular screening mammograms at age 50, rather than at age 40 as current guidelines recommend. They recommend screening before age 50 only for women with a much-higher-than-average risk of breast cancer. The proposed new guidelines also call for mammograms to be done every other year instead of every year, as recommended by current guidelines.

The proposed new guidelines are based on research that looks at the effect of breast cancer screening on society from a public health perspective. This means the researchers were looking at how changing breast cancer screening guidelines would affect the overall public, rather than individual women. In proposing the changes, the task force members said that starting mammograms later in life and doing mammograms less often would save a large amount of money. It also means that about 3% more women would die from breast cancer each year. The task force members felt that the amount of money saved (from fewer mammograms and side effects of extra biopsies and treatment) was greater than the value of more lives saved (3% fewer women surviving breast cancer).

At Breastcancer.org, we are deeply troubled by both the analysis that led to these proposed guideline changes and the effect these proposed changes would have on the health and lives of women.

So, a government cost-benefit analysis - and remember, there are no death panels.

More on the Yankees and their money

I already posted about this here Yankee players and Yankee money from the Washington Times.

This is another good piece -

Click here: Andrew Zimbalist: The Yankees Didn't Buy the World Series - WSJ.com

It's a little surprising, but the statistical relationship between a team's winning percentage and its payroll is not very high. When I plot payroll and win percentage on the same graph, the two variables don't always move together. In other words, knowing a team's payroll does not enable one to know a team's win percentage.

More precisely, depending on the year, I find somewhere between 15% and 30% of the variance in team win percentage can be explained by the variance in team payroll. That means between 70% and 85% of a team's on-field success is explained by factors other than payroll. Those factors can include front office smarts, good team chemistry, player health, effective drafting and player development, intelligent trades, a manager's in-game decision-making, luck, and more.

>>>>>>

Since 1996, MLB has had a growing revenue-sharing plan and a luxury tax on teams with very high payrolls. In 2009, the Yankees will pay around $150 million into baseball's revenue-sharing and luxury-tax systems. The next biggest payor into these systems will contribute less than $90 million. These payments are shared with teams in smaller markets, such as the Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies. One might as well argue that the Yankees bought these teams their playoff opportunities in 2008 and 2009.

A cursory look at postseason television ratings should make it clear that it is in baseball's interest to have its popular teams from populous cities appear in the playoffs. Since there are more people in big-city markets, there are more fans who tune in when the big-city teams play. The fact that certain teams, such as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox, have very strong brands, due to their history and promotion, reinforces this tendency.

A little on Sarah P: I'm reading her book AND Newsweek has a Palin problem

So "Going Rogue" arrived tonight from amazon - two copies actually as I'm lending one out. I hope to finish the first chapter, which is about 6o pages long, tonight.  

Meanwhile Newsweek, in an effort to gin up it's feeble circulation has this cover -

 

Newsweek stole the image from a Runner's World feature awhile ago. Here's an article about Newsweek's fight for survival  Newsweek, fighting for survival, drifts toward irrelevancy -- DailyFinance . I actually posted three times in the past few months about Newseek - here are two of them:  Newsweek mails it in and Newsweek not doing well

And here's what Palin herself wrote:

The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this "news" magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

- Sarah Palin

 

There are no "death panels" - but no need for a mammagram ...

UPDATE: Was thinking about this. I knew a woman who I met through business and who I got to know pretty well - after several years found out she was married to a classmate of mine in high school. When she turned 40 she had a baseline mammogram - and they found cancer. She lived for another six or seven years. How long would she have lived without the early diagnosis? Those were important years - she had three relatively young children.

AND, don't bother doing a self-exam!

New recommendation, OPPOSED by the National Cancer Society -

Note that it's a government panel - what a coincidence ...

Federal panel recommends reducing number of mammograms - washingtonpost.com

Several patient advocacy groups and many breast cancer experts welcomed the new guidelines, saying they represent a growing recognition that more testing, exams and treatment are not always beneficial and, in fact, can harm patients. Mammograms produce false-positive results in about 10 percent of cases, causing anxiety and often prompting women to undergo unnecessary follow-up tests, sometimes-disfiguring biopsies and unneeded treatment, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

But the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology and other experts condemned the change, saying the benefits of routine mammography have been clearly demonstrated and play a key role in reducing the number of mastectomies and the death toll from one of the most common cancers.

"Tens of thousands of lives are being saved by mammography screening, and these idiots want to do away with it," said Daniel B. Kopans, a radiology professor at Harvard Medical School. "It's crazy -- unethical, really."

The new guidelines also recommend against teaching women to do regular self-exams and concluded that there is insufficient evidence to recommend that doctors do the exams or to continue routine mammograms beyond age 74.

Men over 40: one in eight chance of sudden cardiac death over the rest of their lives

Uh-oh.

For Men at 40, Risk of Cardiac Death 1 in 8 - WSJ.com

Researchers said men at age 40 in the U.S. have a one-in-eight chance of suffering sudden cardiac death over the rest of their lives, a stark indication of the toll cardiovascular disease exacts on society.

For women, researchers said, the risk is 1 in 24.

Hey, how fair is that?

And here's an, uhh, cheery chart -

End of year rugby tours: Ireland vs. Australia

A great two minute video.

If embedding is disabled, go here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pff_iNiRVNY

The Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador - 20th anniversary of the murders

Click here: Remembering the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador on Independent Catholic News

The Society of Jesus throughout the world is remembering the six Jesuit priests who were killed 20 years ago today in El Salvador, along with their housekeeper and her daughter.  On 16 November 1989, a military death squad besieged the campus of the Jesuit-run University of Central America in San Salvador, and murdered Fathers Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin Baro, Juan Ramon Moreno, Amando Lopez, Joaquin Lopez y Lopez and Ignacio Ellacuria, as well as  their housekeeper Elba  Ramos and her 16 year old daughter Celina.

The British Jesuit Provincial, Fr Michael Holman SJ, says the only reason for their murders was because they were bearing witness to the Gospel: 'It is evident that the killings were entirely motivated by the desire of the ruling elite to be rid of these men who powerfully and unequivocally demonstrated their commitment to Christ and his Church, by working for some of the poorest and most oppressed people in their country.  We can be grateful that their deaths still inspire many people to live the Gospel, no matter what the cost.'

 

House healthcare bill "would sharply reduce benefits to senior citizens"

As long as I can remember, going all the way back to Ronald Reagan, the democrats could be counted on claiming that the repulicans - the great Boogiemen - were going to slash social security and medicare benefits for senior citizens.

Soooo, the democrats are in charge the Presidency and both federal legislative branches, and here's the result - kind of an "Only Nixon could go to China scenario". Only the democrats can cut medicare.

 Nonpartisan agency says House bill would reduce senior care - washingtonpost.com

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

>>>>>>>>

The report offers the clearest and most authoritative assessment to date of the effect that Democratic health reform proposals would have on Medicare and Medicaid, the nation's largest public health programs. It analyzes the House bill, but the Senate is also expected to rely on hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts to finance the package that Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to take to the floor this week. Like the House, the Senate is expected to propose adding millions of people to Medicaid.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administers the two health-care programs. Foster's office acts as an independent technical adviser, serving both the administration and Congress. In that sense, it is similar to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which also has questioned the sustainability of proposed Medicare cuts.

End of year rugby tours: world champs South Africa in France

The southern hemisphere countries are all on their end of year tours to Europe.

If you can't see the video, go here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZAeUcJDwjE

France vs. South Africa - good game!

Good feature on preventive medicines for cancer - what may work and what don't

There's more to this then the title suggests. But I do disagree with this quote from the fifth paragraph:

As the nation’s war on cancer continues, with little change in the overall cancer mortality rate ... 

As a matter of fact, the cancer death rate has dropped in the last several decades - from a cure rate of one in three to a cure rate of one in two. And many cancers that are not "curable" (like my lymphoma, supposedly) are "treatable", with dramatic increases in life expcetancy.

given that caveat, the article is very good -

Forty Years' War - Medicines to Deter Some Cancers Are Not Taken - Series - NYTimes.com

But prevention has proved more difficult than many imagined. It has been devilishly difficult to show conclusively that something simple like eating more fruits and vegetables or exercising regularly helps. And, as the response to the prostate drugs shows, people are not enthusiastic about taking anticancer pills, or are worried about side effects or not really convinced the drugs work. Others are just unaware of them.

And prostate cancer is not unique. Scientists have what they consider definitive evidence that two drugs can cut the risk of breast cancer in half. Women and doctors have pretty much ignored the findings.

Companies have taken note, saying that it makes little economic sense to spend decades developing drugs to prevent cancer. The better business plan seems to be looking for drugs to treat cancer. That is a sobering lesson, said Dr. Ian M. Thompson Jr., chairman of the urology department at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

“A scientific discovery that is very clear cut and that is not implemented by the public is a tragedy,” he said.

Darfur Update

One thing the Washington Post columnist surely got right - Dis no longer a "trendy, breathless global  cause" -

Michael Gerson - Michael Gerson on how U.S. policy fails Darfur - washingtonpost.com

Her story is in a recent, exhaustive, chilling report on Sudan written by a panel of experts at the United Nations. A U.N. official told me, "We have not talked to a single woman [in Darfur] who has not stated that sexual violence is their first concern." The panel documented sexual assaults against pregnant women and 12-year-old girls. Prosecutions are nonexistent. Local officials are indifferent.

The Darfur revealed in the report is a heavily armed state of nature. Uniformed troops, Janjaweed militias and rebel groups all abuse civilians. The Sudanese government routinely violates the Darfur arms embargo imposed by the U.N. Security Council in 2004, unloading weapons, according to the U.N. official, "openly, in front of you." Arms and ammunition manufactured by Chinese companies can be found everywhere. Child soldiers are recruited. Political dissent is repressed.

This is not, at present, the active phase of Darfur's genocide, involving mass attacks on civilians. Instead, it is the evidence of a genocide that has succeeded. The Sudanese regime achieved its policy aims -- targeting disfavored ethnic groups, destroying their way of life and forcing millions into camps. And now it is threatening to forcibly relocate these victims in 2010 -- a plan of Stalinist scale and brutality.

Bringing the terrorists to New York: "... decision to move a trial on war crimes to American soil is morally confused, dangerous and political to a fault."

The above quote is part of the subheading for the Wall Street Journal editorial.

Terrorists - who legally under the Geneva Convention are referred to as "illegal combatants" - have no rights to a trial under the rules of our civilian courts. They do have a right to a trial before a military tribunal, which is how they've historically been treated.

It's just a terrible, terrible decision, which has awful ramifications.

The Journal is 1,000% correct. Read the whole editorial, linked here.

Eric Holder to Try 9/11 al Qaeda Planners in NY Civilian Court - WSJ.com

Preview of Oprah's interview with Sarah Palin

A couple of short snips released - presumably to get people interested. Show is this Monday, the 16th.

Here's an op ed this morning - Matthew Continetti: Can Sarah Palin Make a Comeback? - WSJ.com

A blunt Washington Post article about China, abortion, and their one child/family policy

Still going on, with plenty of documentation, by multiple groups. Still horrendous.

Will Obama register a protest while he's in China in the coming days? Stay tuned. Remember, the Administration restored funding to the UNFPA a couple of days after Obama came into office, despite their documented complicity in coercive abortion, and sterilization.

Kathleen Parker - Kathleen Parker on China's abortion policy - washingtonpost.com

Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China's one-child policy "causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth."

I met Littlejohn for breakfast the day before the hearing. A petite wife and mother -- as well as a Yale-educated lawyer -- Littlejohn gave up her intellectual property practice in San Francisco after a life-altering illness to become a full-time activist for Chinese women. She is remarkably buoyant, considering the knowledge she has absorbed. Action, she says, is her way of coping with the unconscionable.

Here's the question Littlejohn insists we consider: What really happens to a woman who doesn't have a "birth permit" and has an "out of plan" pregnancy?

The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development.

Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: "What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?" ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure.

"Xuexia" wrote: "Actually, you should have punctured the fetus' skull." Another poster, "Damohuyang," wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and "would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days."

Quickie - "How to Make a Baby"

Now I find out I've been doing something wrong!

How to Make a Baby from Cassidy Curtis on Vimeo.

Still questions as to who brought down the Fort Hood murderer

UPDATE: in the words of Sgt. Todd - Second Officer Says He Brought Fort Hood Gunman Down - NYTimes.com

In the interview, Sergeant Todd said he and Sergeant Munley had pulled up to the scene in separate cars at the same time. He said they began running up a small hill toward the building that held the processing center where unarmed soldiers reported for check-ups and vaccinations before deployment. The gunman was already outside, Sergeant Todd recalled.

“That’s when the bystanders were pointing in his direction,” he said. “And when we popped up, he was standing there, and we shouted our commands — ‘Police, drop your weapons!’ — and he just opened fire on us.”

Sergeant Todd said he was slightly in front of Sergeant Munley on the hill. “Once we took fire, she broke right and I broke left,” he said.

Sergeant Todd said he did not see Sergeant Munley get shot. He said he started to circle around the building, but then backtracked as panicked bystanders told him of the gunman’s movements.

“As it unfolded, I went a different direction and he went a different direction, and we met up in the front of the building,” he said.

Sergeant Todd said he then saw Sergeant Munley on the ground, wounded. He shouted again at the gunman to drop his weapon.

“Once I came around the front of the building, I caught his attention again, started shouting commands, and then he opened up a second time,” Sergeant Todd said. “And that’s when I returned fire, neutralized him and secured him.”

Citing the ongoing investigation, Sergeant Todd declined to give more details about the precise positions of Major Hasan, Sergeant Munley and himself during the gunfight. He also would not say how many times he shot Major Hasan with his 9 mm pistol, or what Major Hasan was doing. The whole encounter lasted only 45 seconds, he said.

Sergeant Todd’s account agrees with that of a witness who was at the processing center when the shooting occurred.

Evidently, it wasn't shots from the policewoman first given the credit ...

Fort Hood Hero Story Questioned - NYTimes.com

The witness, who asked not to be identified, said Major Hasan wheeled on Sergeant Munley as she rounded the corner of a building and shot her, putting her on the ground. Then Major Hasan turned his back on her and started putting another magazine into his semiautomatic pistol.

It was at that moment that Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, a veteran police officer, rounded another corner of the building, found Major Hasan fumbling with his weapon and shot him.

How the authorities came to issue the original version of the story, which made Sergeant Munley a national hero for several days and obscured Sergeant Todd’s role, remains unclear. (Military officials also said for several hours after the shooting that Major Hasan had been killed, although he had survived.)

Six days after the deadly shooting rampage at a center where soldiers were preparing for deployment, the military has yet to put out a full account of what happened.

On aging - "What is that"

this Greek video has been watched almost 1.7 million times. Slow paced but makes the point ... Very touching,

A British view of President Obama

Remember how (we were told) Europe hated Bush and loves Obama?

Here's a view from a major UK newspaper, The Telegraph - In a sign that the Obama honeymoon truly is over, I began to hear this week the first stirrings of a wistfulness about Mr Bush. "I never thought I'd hear myself say it," one Democrat told me. "But Obama makes you feel that at least with Bush you knew where he was on something."

 Bloodless President Barack Obama makes Americans wistful for George W Bush - Telegraph

When Mr Bush's Republicans were defeated in the 2006 mid-term elections, it was the President himself who stepped up and declared that his party had received "a thumpin'". The Democratic defeats on Tuesday were not on anything like the same scale but Mr Obama acted as if nothing at all had happened.

Mr Obama had campaigned for Jon Corzine, New Jersey's Democratic governor, five times, twice just last Sunday. But when Mr Corzine lost by four points in a state Mr Obama won by 15 last year - a 19-point swing to Republicans - White House aides just shrugged.

In Virginia, which Mr Obama won by six points last year, prompting Democrats to declare an historic political realignment in the state, the Democratic candidate went down by 17 points in the biggest landslide since 1961 - a 23-point swing to the Grand Old Party.

It took Senator Mark Warner of Virginia to admit that his party "got walloped". For three days, Mr Obama maintained a studied silence about the results while his aides blamed them on local factors that had nothing to do with the President. And to think that it was Mr Bush who was always accused of being "in denial".

More serious perhaps was Mr Obama's strange disconnectedness over the Fort Hood massacre of 13 soldiers by an Army major and devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had praised suicide bombing and shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire.

Maybe Mr Obama had been reading the American press, much of which somehow contrived to present the atrocity as a result of combat stress due to soldiers going on repeated war deployments (though Major Nadal Hasan had not been on any) and therefore, no doubt, Mr Bush's fault.

When the television networks cut to the President, viewers listened to him spend more than two surreal minutes talking to a gathering of Native Americans about their "extraordinary" and "extremely productive" conference, pausing to give a cheery "shout out" to a man named Dr Joe Medicine Crow. Only then did he briefly and mechanically address what had happened in Texas.

On Friday, when most of the basic facts were available, Mr Obama tried again. It was scarcely any better. He began by offering "an update on the tragedy that took place" - as if it was an earthquake and not a terrorist attack from an enemy within - and ended with a promise for more "updates in the coming days and weeks".

Completely missing was the eloquence that Mr Obama employs when talking about himself. Absent too was any sense that the President empathised with the families and comrades of those murdered.

It was a reminder that for the past 16 years Americans have had two Presidents who would often extemporise and express emotion. President Bill Clinton could certainly "feel your pain" while Mr Bush sometimes struggled to hold back tears. Mr Obama is more like President George Bush Snr, who famously communicated his concern for people by blurting out: "Message - I care."

And for a similar U.S. view, try this in the NY Times The President Whose Words Once Soared - NYTimes.com

Lou Dobbs leaves CNN

Here's his announcement from his final show, Wednesday night. Dobbs was one of the originals on CNN, going back to 1980. He had a popular business program but in recent years has been outspoken on other issues. He has an unrelated radio talk show (unrelated to CNN) in the afternoons, on WOR in NY.

Dobbs claims he's a "radical moderate." I could take him or leave him ...

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, 50th anniversary as a priest

I've written a few times about Fr. Groeschel, like here Tom Faranda's Folly: The official Guru of the Faranda family, featured in NY Times article .

Here is a fine, fine, tribute to him.

A little economics and investing

Two short videos, both worth watching. I check Donald Luskin's blog fairly often, and here are two appearances on Kudlow & Co. in the last week. He edits the videos so you pretty much only hear his opinions.

"Carry trade" refers to borrowing an asset at a low interest rate, and then buying something with the borrowed money that has a higher yield (or that you think is going to appreciate). It is an aggessive form of investing, and right now for big investors (like hedge funds), is a rational thing to do.

This from the Nov. 2nd show

and here from Nov. 9th