October 31, 2006

Scientists Use Abortion-Free Stem Cells Successfully

British scientists grow human liver in a laboratory:

British scientists have grown the world's first artificial liver from stem cells in a breakthrough that will one day provide entire organs for transplant.

The technique that created the 'mini-liver', currently the size of a one pence piece, will be developed to create a full-size functioning liver.

Described as a 'Eureka moment' by the Newcastle University researchers, the tissue was created from blood taken from babies' umbilical cords just a few minutes after birth.

Documentation that Universities Convert Students to Liberalism

I've heard acquaintances say that yes, our university professors are wildly liberal, but they aren't likely to actually persuade students to change parties or to vote differently. Some documentary evidence has appeared to show otherwise. From Michael Barone:

In 2004, the electorate that went to the polls or voted absentee was, according to the adjusted NEP exit poll, 37 percent Democratic and 37 percent Republican.

...At this stage of the campaign, pollsters try to screen their respondents and report only those who answer a series of questions in ways that suggest they are actually going to vote. Many polls find that a higher proportion of Democrats than Republicans pass the screen. Others find similar proportions do. But pollsters of both parties will admit that polls do a poor job at projecting turnout.

That was particularly true in 2004, when both parties conducted massive turnout drives. Democrats concentrated on black neighborhoods in central cities and on university towns, where they could be sure of getting 80 percent to 90 percent of the vote. They achieved their goals in just about every target state, with big turnouts in Cleveland and Madison, Wisc., in St. Louis and Gainesville, Fla. Nationally, John Kerry got 16 percent more popular votes than Al Gore had in 2000.

That seems pretty compelling - Dems were 37% nationally, but in university towns, votes were 80% - 90% for Dems.

Kessler: “Democrats Threaten Patriot Act”

From Ronald Kessler:

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents and CIA officers will tell you that their single most important tool for hunting down terrorists and avoiding another 9/11 attack is the Patriot Act. Yet the Patriot Act will likely be the first law the Democrats will try to eviscerate if they gain control of Congress.

This year alone, the Democrats overwhelmingly voted five times to kill the Patriot Act. When that didn't work, they filibustered. Last December, after the vast majority of Senate Democrats voted against renewing the Patriot Act, their minority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., boasted to a cheering crowd of political supporters, "We killed the Patriot Act."

On the House side, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., along with a majority of House Democrats, voted on March 7 against re-authorizing the Patriot Act.

If Democrats take control of the House, Pelosi is said to be determined, as House speaker, to move up Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, R-Fla., to chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. According to Hastings, "The Patriot Act has given the government new powers to bug telephones, monitor e-mails and internet use, and search public databases. This is completely unacceptable."

In 2004, Sen. John Kerry, running for the presidency, called the Patriot Act "an assault on our basic rights."

Just what rights are they talking about?

Before President Bush proposed the Patriot Act, because of what was known as "the wall," FBI agents working the same case could not talk to each other about it because some were working it as a criminal case and others were working it as an intelligence case.

"We had to report violations when criminal and intelligence agents talked to each other," Barry Mawn, who was assistant FBI director in charge of the New York field office, told me. "The assistant special agent in charge over both sides had to try to keep it all separate in his head. My guys were always coming to me and complaining that they weren't allowed to share information between intelligence and the criminal side."

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald recalled that when he worked on a criminal investigation of Osama bin Laden in New York in early 1996, "We could talk to citizens, local police officers, other U.S. government agencies, foreign police officers . . . We could even talk to al-Qaida members, and we did." But, he said, "The FBI agents across the street from us were assigned to a parallel investigation of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. We could not learn information they had gathered. That was the wall.'"

The wall also prohibited sharing of information between the FBI and the CIA. The 9/11 commission report tragically recounted how the distinction between criminal and intelligence matters precluded the FBI from taking the one step that might have led to unraveling the 9/11 plot before it took place.

On August 29, 2001, Ali Soufan, an FBI agent in the New York field office, pleaded with headquarters to approve a criminal investigation so that the full resources of his squad could be used to find Khalid al-Mihdhar, who turned out to be one of the 9/11 hijackers.

When told that the wall prohibited taking that step, Soufan responded by email: "Someday someone will die - and wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective . . ."

On September 11, al-Mihdhar boarded American Flight 77, which took off from Washington's Dulles Airport en route to Los Angeles and crashed into the Pentagon at 9:40 a.m., killing 189 people. After the attacks, Soufan learned that al-Mihdhar was one of the hijackers. The agent informed his supervisor, who reassured him, "We did everything by the book."

The Patriot Act tore down the wall which tied the counterterrorism effort in knots. It also gave the FBI the tools it needed to hunt down terrorists quickly before an attack occurs.

Read the whole thing.