MaroonBlog

Frist blew any '08 chances out the window with his declaration today supporting embryonic stem cell research, and dealt permanent damage to the pro0life movement. Two mistakes here: (1) Frist, a doctor, gets his science wrong, at least partially. Virtually all promising cures, to date, have come from adult stem cells and the like, and embryonic stem cell possibilities are vastly exaggerated . Bone marrow stem cell transplants have been in use for decades, in fact. Despite these advances, however, proponents continue to clamor for embryonic stem cell research, a strange position indeed.

(From the Donald R. May article)
With all this scientific success and with more than 15,000 patients benefiting from SCR each year, why are some people apoplectic? The answer is both simple and perplexing. The scientific breakthroughs and the medical therapies have all come from adult stem cells and none as yet have come from embryonic stem cells. Rather than welcoming the results and pursuing support for what works, there are paradoxically increasing demands for the recognition and funding of embryonic SCR.

A dangerous combination of political and social ideology is determined to make embryonic SCR succeed. The problem is an apparent obsession with destroying human life to provide medical therapies. Looking from the outside, one might imagine that embryonic SCR supporters are advocating a pagan ritual of human sacrifice to treat disease?

See also this fascinating article from Scripps on the subject of another adult cell alternative, called reversine, that has gone virtually unreported in the mainstream media:

Stem cell therapy would be most effective if you could use your own stem cells, since using one's own cells would avoid potential complications from immune rejection of foreign cells... A third approach [which may be developed from Ding's research] is to use one's own specialized cells and dedifferentiate them.

And (2), Frist has managed to alienate himself from a large portion of would be 2008 supporters: pro-life Americans. The move seemed to have the desired effect on Democrats, where it functioned as an attempt to garner support as a "moderate." Frist, predictably, garnered lavish support from Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid. Ted Kennedy made lofty references to the hypocratic oath, seeming to indicate that the realm of ethics does not encompass the unborn, desired or not, or the drowning mistress for that matter. But how will this play out with a Christian base so enthused by the issues of life and death? Not well, in my opinion. Anyone, and Frist in particular, must recognize the hypocrisy inherent in supporting embryonic stem cell research, and condemning abortion. Pro-life groups are already speaking out:

The Christian Defense Coalition lambasted Frist's change of position.

"Senator Frist should not expect support and endorsement from the pro-life community if he votes for embryonic research funding," it said.

If Frist truly valued the lives and well beings of so many innocent people, which he probably does, and wanted to help all human life, he would recognize the incredible scientific possibilities already available through ethical, adult stem cell research. Such moral equivocation on subjects of abortion and stem cell research will ultimately collapse. What becomes of the unborn fetus that needs urgent stem cell transplants to combat a prenatal disorder? Protecting life means protecting all life, senator, even at the cost of Ted Kennedy's admiration. Shame on you for misleading the American people to the contrary.

At least the ones from the 7/21 bombing are. Hopefully they will provide insight into whether or not the bombings are related to 7/7, and if so, perhaps lead to more arrests for that blast. British Police aren't wasting any time, which is a good thing, considering the amount of time the British people have wasted trying to cater to radical Islamofascists and "main stream" Muslims, who refuse to denounce terror and suicide bombings:

Muslim leaders and scholars condemned the London bombings Friday but stopped short of criticizing all suicide attacks, with some of them saying those targeting occupying forces are sometimes justified.

(And noting this can get you suspended indefinitely from talk radio) These are the same Muslim organizations who demand increasing "tolerance," and protection from hate crimes from a government that, while a staunch ally in Afghanistan and Iraq, would have bent over backward for Osama bin Laden if he were already in Britain, probably paying him an undisclosed libel settlement. Don't get me wrong, Islam itself is not the problem, at least directly, and most Muslims abhor these terrorists. But the actions, and often the inaction, of Muslim organizations in the west only fuel bigotry and encourage a new generation of Muslim youth to suicide bomb the hand that feeds it. Now that Muslim organizations have stepped forward today (in the US, mind you) and condemned ALL violence against civilians in a new fatwa, we seem to be moving in the right direction. But no such noise from the other side of the pond, where the issue should be much fresher in many minds. We all know, of course, that the bombings on 7/7 were Tony Blair's fault (See, for reference, the post on Bush and Blair's Big Iraqi Haliburton Oil Bonanza). It's really worrisome when Arab News Sources are more on target with their assessment of foreign policy than the British people.
Regardless, its nice to see that the authorities across the pond are vigorously pursuing the attackers, and let's hope that the British people continue to share this newfound zeal for defending the enemies of freedom, not funding their social healthcare.

Blade Runner anyone? This is too cool for words...

[Edit: Especially when you combine it with this]

Just a little tidbit that I noticed today: It seems that Yahoo! News just added The Huffington Post, the openly lefty opinion column source. Any sign of The Drudge Report on which the huffington post is modeled? Nope.

Yahoo! is proudly advertising the addition on the side panel of most of their news coverage, as shown below:


[EDIT:].. Note the dock at the bottom...MobyDock. Acts like a Macintosh Dock, a Windows taskbar, tells me the weather and takes screenshots(like the one above). Check it out.

On being told he was not a true Texan, since he wasn't born there, President Bush replied:

"No, I was not born in Texas, because I wanted to be close to my mother on that day."

(From George Bush's 2000 book, "A Charge to Keep." I encourage supporters and critics to read it, in order to understand how his policies and his convictions have not wavered, and are grounded in ideas and beliefs much deeper than many will concede.)

has become a target. Wonder how this will effect their willingness to co-operate with US operations... Spain anyone? More to come on this (certainly) as it develops, but it seems to me that, related or not, the message is the same: "..just because we are planning to kill you last doesn’t make you our buddy."

lays the smack down.

Just a quickie, since I'm at work... The Corner on National Review has a partial transcript of Howard's remarks this morning, which are really excellent (see the video below). Some sources now reporting Police calling it a copycat attempt... more to come as this all pans out.

Tony Blair and John Howard gave a great press conference earlier, Howard being in London to visit the victims of the 7/7 bombings. The video is available here, so I suggest you watch it (Hat Tip: GHA, obviously). The latest consensus seems to be that four explosions occurred, 3 of which malfunctioned or were incorrectly assembled, causing only the detonator to explode.

"We know that we've had four explosions or attempts at explosions. It is still pretty unclear as to what's happened.

"The bombs appear to be smaller than on the last occasion but we don't know the implications of all this yet and we're going to have to examine the scene very carefully.

My first thought has to be whether these were carried out by those responsible for the bombings two weeks ago (exactly two weeks). The problem with that theory is that the attacks this time around seem much less professional, and much more hurried. 3 out of 4 bombs malfunctioning doesn't sound like a successfully planned mission to me. This could be indicative, however, of progress on the investigatory front, since impending discovery could have pushed forward a timeline and resulted in the mostly botched attacks today.

[update:] Preliminary reports of 2 arrests are being filtered in via CNN, although no one seems to be able to tell what happened at the hospital (Check out Fox New's coverage, and the Corner for info on the explosions and the hospital \ arrest developments too):

Officers first rushed into the central London hospital amid reports they were looking for a man, possibly Asian, with wires protruding from his top.

They were stood down but witnesses told Reuters they saw police vehicles returning to the hospital later in what appeared to be a continuing operation.

A Scotland Yard spokesperson said two arrests were made in the Westminster area but said they were not necessarily linked to the attacks.

This is War, and we have to win.

His mock form letter on the Roberts nomination is right on, continuing a trend of recent good reads. Its sad to see that Democratic senators are scrambling for reasons to impede the confirmation process. Where exactly did they lose sight of the actual reason for the advice and consent mumbo-jumbo. Its not about tailoring your grievances to the nominee, or tailoring the nominee's record to fit your sacramental set of grievances , put so eloquently by Ronal Reagan as "Acid, amnesty and Abortion." When they need to look for reasons not to like the guy, and they actually go looking, one has to conclude that they are out of touch with the democratic process. What's wrong with actually engaging in some of the bipartisanship they demanded so fiercely from the President when he was selecting a nominee? Expect to see letters eerily close to the one Iowahawk jokingly publishes begin to circulate in the near future. Because if there's one thing NARAL hates, its losing. Even when they aren't playing.
[Update:]
While you're there, check out the down right hilarious Zarqawi Post that generated a lot of attention, and the even funnier follow up. And remember this, lefty readers(or, "East Village Rage Against My Allowance f**kwits in Fred Perry tracksuits," as he calls y'all) "..just because [They] are planning to kill you last doesn’t make you [Their] buddy." (Hat Tip to WMD for the Zarqawi posts)

to the supreme court, triggering the expected responses from those who would have oppossed any nominee. You get the feeling that NARAL would have opposed Santa Claus, simply on the grounds that he was a rich, fat, white guy who most people like. Stay tuned to Bench Memos for updates.

A truly amazing story from one of the local papers about a man from my area who survived the Number 30 bus bombing in London. He was unbelievably close to being blown, literally, limb from limb:

Edwards said he started to ask a man in a striped shirt sitting one seat ahead of him for directions, but said the British can sometimes be standoffish, so he decided to go downstairs to get a closer look.
...
It was several minutes before enough debris was removed from his eyes to allow him to look around. First, he saw the carnage from people blown out of the top of the bus. Then, "I looked over and saw a decapitated body with a striped shirt by a tree," he said. It was the body of the man he was going to ask for directions.

The title quote seems to capture the feeling so perfectly: that one would think of the flash of a camera, not the explosion of a terrorist incendiary, only shows how good we in the US and Europe have had it, thanks in no small part to our continued pursuit of those who would commit these sorts of acts. Wonder what an Israeli Jew would have thought...

While on the subject, check out George's Miller's post on the nature of Islamic terrorism, following the bombings. He really cuts to the core of Europe's culturally backward "liberalism," and he is right on the money in calling for persons on all sides of politics to stand up and "call a spade a spade." It's short, so read it if you have time...

I don't see why the military doesn't put more money into energy weapons. A weapon that hits at the speed of light is magnitudes better than any conventional weapon.

Want a really well-written read on what drives celebrities crazy, with references to Ovid and Chaucer? Than read this.

Nerd link of the day (this is cooler than Batman's Microwave emitter)

The New York Times is reporting an infuriating set of comments by our old pal Arlen Specter, suggesting that Sandra Day O'Connor should be chosen for a temporary Chief Justice:

"I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program "Face the Nation." "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so."

Yeah... then what? This is nonsense, plain nonsense. Sandra Day O’Connor is praised for being unremarkable, that's it. Liberals like her because she continued to uphold broad application of Roe v. Wade, and conservatives enjoyed her "sometimes" traditional interpretation of the Constitution. The fact of the matter is that she was inconsistent, and often ruled against herself, as in her conflicting rulings on Sodomy laws (once for and once against) or affirmative action rulings, for example, in addition to the conflicting and confusing flow-chart-choose-your-own-misadventure booklet necessary to determine whether or not a religious display is constitutional (let me see... if the display includes the word "God" and is at least 3 feet in width, go to page 7, otherwise, color it mauve, move two feet to the left, and proceed to paragraph 26...).
Even more important, having her stay on "for a year of so" would only delay the problem of appointing new justices and a new chief justice. This isn't going to just go away if we push it back until the president's appointments become lame duck. "Moderates" like Specter are going to be the wild cards in this fight, since we know exactly how the lefties are going to react to any appointment short of Bill Clinton or Chairman Mao. The same people who authored the "Compromise" on the filibusters will be at work again, trying to flex non-existent muscle on the President's nomination choices. Perhaps Specter hopes to push back the appointments far enough that they become a bitter fight surrounding the next election. Then he can run for Pres in '08, and ride to the rescue with a set of "moderate," cop out, inconsistent judges of the late O'Connor brand. Otherwise, this appointment would make no sense. Even suggesting it reminds me that Specter needs to get with the program, instead of spending all of his time catering to the lefties who don't like him either. Choosing O'Connor would only delay and worsen the problem, and Specter knows it.

Life is back to normal over at Democratic Underground, where wackos are already declaring Bush and Blair's Big Iraqi Haliburton Oil Bonanza as the mysterious cause of the London Bombings. Not that they are the first ones; hours after the blasts took place, I commented on the inane ramblings of MP George Galloway, who declared a pre-emptive strike against the Iraq war by boldly indicting it as the root cause of the attacks. Nick Cohen at the Guardian's Observer (via Instapundit) soundly refutes the proposition, and excellent writing is available at National Review Here and Here on the topic.
My feelings at hearing that sort of conspiracy theory, anti-Western ,nonsense are mostly outrage, disgust, and utter perplexity. How can it be that people would actually believe that sort of drivel? Cohen writes:

On Thursday, before the police had made one arrest, before one terrorist group had claimed responsibility, before one body had been carried from the wreckage, let alone been identified and allowed to rest in peace, cocksure voices filled with righteousness were proclaiming that the real murderers weren't the real murderers but the Prime Minister. I'm not thinking of George Galloway and the other saluters of Saddam, but of upright men and women who sat down to write letters to respectable newspapers within minutes of hearing the news.

'Hang your head in shame, Mr Blair. Better still, resign - and whoever takes over immediately withdraw all our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan,' wrote the Rev Mike Ketley, who is a vicar, for God's sake, but has no qualms about leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban and al-Qaeda or Iraq to the Baath party and al-Qaeda. 'Let's stop this murder and put on trial those criminals who are within our jurisdiction,' began Patrick Daly of south London in an apparently promising letter to the Independent. But, inevitably, he didn't mean the bombers. 'Let's start with the British government.'

And so it went on. At no point did they grasp that Islamism was a reactionary movement as great as fascism, which had claimed millions of mainly Muslim lives in the Sudan, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan and is claiming thousands in Iraq. As with fascism, it takes a resolute dunderheadedness to put all the responsibility on democratic governments for its existence. (Emphasis is mine)

Its disappointing to hear people so openly remove responsibility from where it should lie: the people who committed the acts. But never mind that; as one " Highly educated Jewish Atheist" reader reminds us so eloquently,

The US fuckes [sic] up Muslims in the Middle East. Muslims hate the US for that and cause 9/11. The US attacks Muslims for 9/11. British join the US. Muslims now hate British and attack them. I see no anomalies here.

Never mind the words of Osama himself (below sidebars, about 1/6 of the way down), as repeated by President Bush:

Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom.

Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others.

They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime who want to restore the old order.

They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake.

They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty as well.

And when the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate.

Here are the words of Osama bin Laden: "This third world war is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take.

Never mind the countless lives saved by our invasion and constant diligence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Never mind the many terror plots we never hear about, and some we do, that have been thwarted before they even developed. I realize that with the impending resignations on the supreme court, and the heroic actions of the four downed SEALS, there is lots to blog about, but I feel like this is more important. These animals will not stop at diplomacy and concessions, but only at the annihilation of the entire Western way of life. What will it take for people to realize that? We lost 3000 on 9/11, enough to awaken, grudgingly, the slumbering American giant, at least for a time, that had laid dormant during a careless Clinton regime content to raise taxes and traipse about the Oval Office fornicating while American embassies and ships burned. A little harsh? Maybe, but I shudder to think what will happen if we again allow ourselves to grow lax, to let our diligence wane, as some would have us do. How many lives lost are to many to stand? I think we know the answer: any.

A few hours have passed, and now that things have begun to calm down on the other side of the pond, we can begin to examine some conclusions and indications drawn from the attack.
Already, some are staking their claim as skeptics, ensuring the ability to ruthlessly criticize the administration and its response when the time comes. Questions at the press conference of heads of police in transit earlier on FoxNews Channel went so far out of hand asking about prior knowledge and speed of response the questions had to be interrupted and brought back to task. As shocking as it may seem, one of the most outspoken lefties in the UK has already spoken out, voicing exactly the conclusion that the bombers desired:

We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq and by turning its full attention to the development of a real solution to the wider conflicts in the Middle East.

Only then will the innocents here and abroad be able to enjoy a life free of the threat of needless violence.

This is disgusting, to say the least. Only someone completely blind to the face of the enemy and the resolve of his people would so willingly aid and encourage the enemy's cause. This attack is not about Iraq, although Iraq is involved. This is about the will of a free people to be self governed, not submitted to the rule of terror and the reign of evil these people seek to enact. These terrorists speak of crusades and holy wars, not diplomacy and territory. They don't want us out of Iraq, or peace in Israel; they want to destroy the new Iraqi government, annihilate the Jews and overtake Israel. They seek reprisal for 500 year old "crusades." They don't want the Spanish out of Iraq; they want the Spanish out of Spain. Statements like Galloway's only reveal his ignorance of the raw, unbridled hatred for our way of life that pervades the Islam fascist movement. If Britain submits, is turned back, Al Qaeda will not stop. The precedent will be set. If the UK submits once, they will be forever submissive. If we do not fight on, Britain and US alike, we will forever live in fear of bombs in the dark, and threats in the shadows. The enemy will not stop, so we must not falter. Our only conlcusion to be drawn from today's events is that they enemy must be so thuroughly defeated, so comletely destroyed, crippled and wiped out, that it can no longer threaten the free world. Shame on Galloway, and all like him, for saying otherwise.

from Fox




Here's a link to the report that a group has claimed credit. Sky News Reporting, via Fox News Channel, that a suicide bomber was onboard the bus that exploded...

Al Qaeda group claiming credit for attacks, and Israel Foreign Minister also denying previous rumors...

Terrorists rock at least 7 sites in London. Stay tuned to Foxnews.com and The Corner for streaming updates throughout the day.

There is little that can be commented on this early on, other than that the resolve of Britain, and the United States, will not be shaken by these mindless acts of terror. Tony Blair looked like he was near tears when he spoke to the public, but when he got to his address to the terrorists, his voice lost all quiver, and his tone was clear. Its a little strange that he is going back to Scotland tonight, but that may change... The validity of the "Israeli" rumors will have impact later, when those on the left begin to forget what happened today.

Stay tuned for liveblogging updates of news coverage