568 Voters who throw away their vote

A local radio news program this morning reported that 93,000 Ohio punch card ballots were thrown out, but that's better than in 2000 when 95,000 were not counted. When I think of the long lines of people waiting to vote, many in the rain--70% of registered voters, lower than in some other states, but high for Ohio--it makes me sad. I think I have heard that the reason we don't have the Florida hanging and pregnant chad problem, is that our laws clearly state what will be counted and what won't. I believe at least 2 holes have to be clearly punched in order for the ballot to be valid.

I used a punch card this year because we voted absentee, and I was surprised by how easy it was to have one or two not push through. I held it up to the light several times and found hanging chads.

The provisional ballots are not so serious--most of those will be thrown out anyway. But registered, valid voters getting it wrong out of carelessness--that's unfortunate.

567 Post Election Media

After flipping through the channels Tuesday night, I went to bed about 10 p.m. I got up about 3 a.m. and watched the returns. I skipped CBS when I saw Dan Rather, so I have no comment about its coverage. O'Reilly at Fox says Rather was the best of the MSM--but they are friends. Peter Jennings seemed to be behaving himself; I saw no facial tics or sneers when he mentioned the President. Brokaw just looked tired, even that early. Fox just reported, and for news, I think they do a better job of balance. They include bombastic left talking heads on their opinion shows, like Susan Estrich, who all but called Kerry the winner based on Exit Polls. Liberals don't see Fox as a viable alternative because they are always in shock to see a different viewpoint.

But the day after, when it became apparent that counting Ohio's provisional votes (we had many counties with more registered "voters" than we had adults eligible to vote, and guess who had signed them up) wouldn't make any difference, I clicked through again. Really, the main stream media was practically in a state of grief. They put the most negative spin possible on what was good news to 51% of the voters.

This morning CNN is covering at great length the obsurd coverage of far left newspapers in Britain, like the Guardian which tried to influence the vote in Clark County, Ohio and called (jokingly, they said) for Bush's assassination. One paper pondered how 60,000,000 people could be so dumb. I think I can see through CNN's little game here. And they practically have a catch in their collective throats when they rerun Kerry's concession speech. Now the news babe (looks like a model) is whining that the media get blamed, when all she wants to do is give us information--this after she expressed her own disbelief at the number who said they thought Bush could unite the country (a CNN poll).

I watched Kerry's speech. For the first time I believed him--when he spoke of his sadness and dashed hopes. On this he probably won't change his mind, and we can only hope he doesn't turn into a raving sorehead like Al Gore.

566 Salty Snacks and Rebuilding Iraq

“In 2004, the U.S. spent 4 percent of our GDP on national defense. That is far less than the 10 percent of national output consumed by military efforts during the Vietnam War. It is but a drop in the bucket compared to the 38 percent of GDP eaten up by defense during World War II.

Last year when Congress was wrangling over the request for $20 billion to help rebuild Iraq, I went searching for baselines against which I could measure that mind-numbing sum. I did some math and discovered that Americans will spend $37 billion this year on salty snacks like pretzels and potato chips. We'll collectively spend $31 billion on candy. Can we afford $20 billion to help set a free Iraq on its feet? We might better ask whether we can afford not to. Particularly when you consider that just the immediate damages done to the U.S. by the attacks of 9/11 have been estimated at $161 billion.”

Here for the rest of the essay by Karl Zinsmeister

565 Be Prepared with something useful and beautiful

Sweet Earth Casket and Cradle Shop of Kalispell, Montana, will create for you a simple wooden casket of pine or mahogany and if you wish to get some enjoyment out of it, you can buy it with shelving and use it before you go, for books, guns, file cabinet, mementoes or photos. Included with the purchase is a book on how to have an alternative, simple funeral.

564 The Deer Kill

Last April I blogged about seeing the dead deer in the median of the Interstate west of Columbus on our way to Illinois. Saturday on our way to Indianapolis, I counted 14 between the west side of Columbus and the exit at Richmond, Indiana. After that, I saw none, or the counties had been more aggressive about picking them up. It is very sad to see, but according to the information I found the last time, 500,000 are killed on the high-ways annually in the US, and about 31,500 just in Ohio, but more are killed in fences and by dogs.

563 Blog topics, free to a good home

Cryptic notes. What did I plan to write? Must have sounded good at the time. Throw aways. See what you can do. Or check back.

I ran into my "step-sister" Gloria at Panera's. We worked together in 1985 in a program called Ohio STEPS. Great lady.

"The fashion of torn jeans is an insult to all those who must wear clothes with holes in them for lack of better ones. . .No doubt, laborers toil somewhere in the Third World to produce those careful rips--the rich do the poor no favor by wearing rags, even by famous designers." Theodore Dalrymple. I have no idea who this is or what I'd planned to say about it.

TV story about the men and women who drive supply trucks in Iraq. Some like the risks and excitement. Some like feeling a part of something important. One 54 year old black grandmother says she does it for the Iraqi people.

The top 1% of tax payers pay an average rate of 27.25%, and the Kerrys pay 12.4%, and they are billionaires. Kerry's proposed tax rate increases would have the effect of making his wife more wealthy because when tax rates rise, so do the value of tax-exempt bonds, thus increasing the value of Kerrys' portfolio.

A blonde woman wearing a large pin that said "DORK" was giving a tour at Panera's to eight nicely dressed 20-somethings.

An ad for eton shortwave radio said, "Be an informed voter from BBC to NPR, get all the international and domestic news from different angles." Different from what? Certainly not each other.

Live-in Nanny--$27,664/year
Live-out Nanny--$30,000/year

German study published in NEJM shows traffic can bring on health problems.

"The herd of independent minds," describing I think, academe. Ruth Wisse?

Donations from lawyers: Kerry $21,781,718; Edwards $11,491,519. Club for Growth ad.

Flu kills 36,000 and hospitalizes 200,000 each year. How does that compare with HIV/AIDS?

Low carb fad is fading.

Average weight of Americans is up 25 lbs. since 1960.

Jaguar ad in booklet form is rubber cemented into strips in glossy magazines with a page each for: 1. Lust. 2. Greed. 3. Pride. 4. Sloth. 5. Envy. 6. Wrath. 7. Gluttony. I guess sex doesn't sell anymore.

Ad for diamonds: "Your left hand loves candlelight. Your right hand loves the spotlight. Left--commitment. Right--independence. Women of the world, raise your right hand."

Ad for Jenn-Air: "To some, they're just magazines. But to you, they read like romance novels." Shows a wall magazine rack in a stainless steel kitchen with all storage below the counter so you can see the ocean.

Amy Tan's quote about having a brain sounds like it took all the effort of a junior high insult on the playground. And she calls herself a writer?

I didn't know Columbus had a Bible College until the women's dorm was evacuated for carbon monoxide poisoning last week.

Undisconnectibility--internet election addiction. But what an interesting word.
net--from the word for knot
com/con--to bind, with
connect--to join or fasten together
dis--apart
disconnect--to sever a connection
un--not, do the opposite
-ible and -ity--suffixes handy for converting verbs to nouns,
-ibility--overkill suffix for making an adjective into a noun

This week we've had phone calls from Rudy Giuliani, Laura Bush, G.W. Bush, John Glenn and a few unknowns, some still calling election day.

Thirty known STDs are not blocked by condom use.

The Asian Carp can eat 40% of its body weigh in a day and grow to 150 lbs.

T.D. Jakes has marketed his new film "Woman, thou art loosed" through hair dressers because hair stylists talk to a lot of people.

562 Small World

Book Club met tonight. Evensong by Gail Godwin, a prolific writer born in 1937 who often writes about strong women and weak men. Abandonment. Depression. She's got issues. Anyway, there is a character in the book named Tony. As the story unravels, we learn Tony had spent some time in prison while in the service, specifically Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis. That's where the reunion was Saturday night. Not in the prison of course, but Fort Harrison is no longer a military base and is being used for commercial and community development.

561 The Reunion of the SLOBS

Last night we attended the 50th anniversary of a high school social club called the SLOBS (they aren't supposed to tell their wives what the acronym stands for). The club was "chartered" (they kept a scrapbook and minutes of their meetings) in 1954 and my husband was the first pledge. The last meeting appears to have been in 1959 with the class of 1961, the class of 1956 being the largest and most active of the members. This all male club now has female members, the widows of some of the members, some of whom attended wearing their husbands' SLOB pins, and a sister of one member.

Entertainment after dinner was reading from the minutes and the scrapbook which included a lot of paper memorabilia and photos. With a few guys chiming in with the memories, the minutes were really hilarious, and I paraphrase a 15 year old secretary (they changed officers every quarter), "I'm not sure what happened because I was in the kitchen eating sandwiches." After dinner when the guys went in the next room to have their photo taken, I leafed through the scrapbook and found photographs of my mother-in-law who must have been about 39 years old, blond, leggy and glamorous as a movie star, with all the boys at my in-laws cabin in Brown County, Indiana.

I wrote about Arsenal Technical High School in 540 "Two Classes One Reunion," however, I learned last night that after a few years, the boys began pledging guys from other high schools in Indianapolis, like Washington, Manual and Scecina and a some lived out of the district but attended Tech. Considering the distance they all lived from the school (my husband rode a city bus) , a once a week meeting with fines for not attending seems pretty ambitious for a teen-age boys social club.

The schools sponsored many clubs for many interests--but these were under the radar. The main activity of the guy social club was having "exchanges" with girls' social clubs from Howe, Broad Ripple, Shortridge and Tech, and apparently the Indianapolis Star of that era included a column for "subdebs and squires" where they printed up the events the groups had. These little clippings were carefully pasted in the scrap book. The groups had names like PIMZ, CHIX, ZEBZ, SPARKZ, KIMZ, JINX, ZEALZ, PRIMS, MICAS, EBBZ, ALGES, ELITES, HUNZ, TARAS, TYTANS, CROWNS, COUNTS, FAROS, and BARONS. The dues for the SLOBS were a quarter a week, and with this money they had parties, and a few philanthropic events, and even bought one share of stock in the Indianapolis Indians baseball team.

After all the laughs, the men went around the table and in 3 or 4 minutes each told about their lives after high school--and being typical guys, careers were the story, not family, church or hobbies. It was a wide range--two architects, a few engineers, an airline pilot, an actor/poet, a civil war historian you can see on TV, the mayor of the town where we met, television and radio, and sales.

A really nice bunch of SLOBS.

-----------

Update 2007: The 1957 class reunion.

560 Just a few days

A few more days and I won't have to be hitting the mute button on the TV remote, or turning off the car radio every 5 minutes. If you are not in a swing state, you haven't heard or seen the ads we get in Ohio. If you are in a swing state, you know exactly how monotonous this gets.

Last night we went down to Nationwide Arena to hear President George W. Bush and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a packed house of very enthusiastic supporters. The President asked us each to call or speak to three people about voting (for him) on Tuesday. This morning at Caribou Coffee I talked to six. Four Democrats and two Republicans. We have so many people registered in our county (20,000 more than we have adults), some may even vote twice!

You're welcome, Mr. President. For you, I've given up my title as "last Ohioan who has never seen the candidates of 2004." But, I still have my four wisdom teeth, so I hope to hold on to that record.

559 Offensive Defense

Reviewers' favorite schtick: people will be offended if they want to be, but it's their problem. If you want to justify violence or sex or terrorism, just go on the offensive and blame the viewer, not the producer, director, writer or actor. Say they are small minded, uninformed or perverts. I haven't seen the movie Birth with Nicole Kidman, but the review was offensive, not for the scene described, but the condescension of the writer.

"Driven by her intense love for the husband she lost, she spends more time with the boy--including sharing a bath, a scene that is unsettling but not sexual, although some people, for contrasting reasons, might prefer to think it is."

Huh? It's unsettling? Contrasting reasons? It's not sexual when a 40 year old woman takes a bath with a 10 year old boy? Pedophiles might, in fact, find it quite pleasing to watch this scene. On the other hand, it might cause parents to screen older babysitters better. Yes, reactions might be different, but what planet did Frank Gabrenya (Columbus Dispatch) grow up on?

558 Stolen Honor; Wounds that Never Heal

I'd been trying to think positive about the election. So if John Forbes Kerry becomes President, would it be so awful? He's so totally lacking in character, charisma, love of country and has horribly dishonored his fellow Vietnam veterans, but can he lead?

Then this afternoon, I watched Stolen Honor, wounds that never heal. It's the one that the Kerry camp successfully raged about and got off the TV schedules last week. But it is available in full on the internet. Hold on to your lunch; it's pretty awful.

It is scene after scene of interviews with men who served 4, 5, 6 or 7 years in POW cells, who were brutally tortured, who were forced to listen to Jane Fonda tapes telling them they were scum and criminals, who had John Kerry's testimony read to them. There is scene after scene of Kerry's testimony in that clipped, private European prep school accent.

What hurt more than torture was wondering why their government had abandoned them or why the American people were listening to the lies of a man who had served a fraction of the time they had.

One former POW said, "If Kerry did what he said he did, he is a war criminal, and he hasn't found anyone who did the things he testified to. Why didn't the Americans stop it. "Good men who came back were spat upon because of what Kerry was doing," said one wife, "plus he was killing any chance of our husbands (the POWs) getting home. He lengthened the war."

This film is so awful (i.e. painful to watch), I am stunned that Kerry was ever elected to the Senate, that his rapacious ambition hasn't brought him down, or that some veteran hasn't arranged to meet him in a dark alley. If Kerry becomes President how will he ever look a wounded soldier in the eye or hand a folded flag to a mother, knowing the deaths and dishonor he brought over 30 years ago.

Now I can't even think positive thoughts. Watch it. Be prepared. This won't go away, whether he wins or loses. Too many people know now what kind of a man he really is.

557 Letter to Suburban News Publications (SNP) Columbus, OH

My husband left the SNP Upper Arlington News on the counter with the note, "Can you believe this?"

Although clearly labeled an editorial, it was really a diatribe against President George W. Bush, and much of that just inaccurate and awful reporting of misinformation. "Mean spirited and divisive?" Have you seen the 50+ hate Bush books that are in the book stores? Have you seen F-9-11? Have you heard the anti-Bush 527 ads?

So I read through the editorial to see what glowing endorsement of Kerry you had. "Kerry is thoughtful and practical." That's it? We're at war with Muslim fundamentalist fanatics and terrorists, and Kerry, who voted to go to war after seeing the information on WMD, Kerry who warned the nation many times in the late 90s about the dangers of Iraq and Hussein, is "thoughtful and practical?"

Today's Wall Street Journal has an editorial by Jack Welch, former Chair and CEO of GE, on qualities to look for in a President. He only lists six. He endorses no one. Bush is dead on for all six. Kerry doesn't come close on any of them. But the final one, is "Is he pro-business?" A free world's best hope is a thriving economy. Bush pulled us back from a recession that started in mid-2000 (I have my stock accounts to prove it). Kerry has done nothing but lie about the economy, and because he is so rich, he didn't even have parents who passed along tales of the Depression when unemployment was over 25% like I did. So he tries to tell us that 5.4 % unemployment is the worst in 75 years. But what is your excuse at SNP? No library? No internet for research? Letting bumper stickers and yard signs form your opinion and editorial?

You are like many of the Kerry supporters I've met, talked to or read. There actually were some decent, experienced, thoughtful candidates among the Democrats--the far left, anti-war wing drove them out, and Kerry became a Howard Dean stand in. You just hate Bush. That is the basis of your support. And you will support and vote for an empty, wooden, zero-charisma, no moral core, hyper-liberal Senator with a lack luster record, who sentenced thousands of Vietnam veterans to embarrassment and misery with his testimony of lies 30 years ago. You're supporting a man who can only say "I have a plan," but has never figured out what it is, because his only plan is to become President.

Senator Foghorn Leghorn

Although George Bush mangles the English language, Senator Kerry uses so much warm yeasty gas that he often doubles the script his people write for him. The Scotsman gives this example:

"During one speech, Mr Kerry’s script writers had crafted the concise pledge: "I will work with Republicans and Democrats on this healthcare plan, and we will pass it."

In the candidate’s hands it became: "I will work with Republicans and Democrats across the aisle, openly, not with an ideological, driven, fixed, rigid concept, but much like Franklin Roosevelt said, I don’t care whether a good idea is a Republican idea or a Democrat idea. I just care whether or not it’s gonna’ work for Americans and help make our country stronger.

"And we will pass this bill. I’ll tell you a little bit about it in a minute, and I’ll tell you why we’ll pass it, because it’s different from anything we’ve ever done before, despite what the Republicans want to try to tell you."

I think this is why people think he "won" the debates. Twice as many words to say half as much.

556 It’s not Moose Creek, Idaho, but. . .

It isn’t Moose Creek, Idaho, 95 miles south of Missoula, Montana, but it was darn purty around here yesterday. We had a wonderful walk around the condo property. Beautiful October sky, warm 70s, brilliant yellow color still on the maples, little critters peeking at us from the creek. The bushes along the water are still a rich green with bright red berries inviting the birds for dinner. The crunchy leaves from the cottonwood, ash and sycamore underfoot gave a little better footing in the steeper areas than we have in the summer. We could hear the traffic zipping past the golf course, but barely.

The doe and fawn we saw daily a few weeks ago have apparently moved further east into the ravines and woods to find more camouflage. If you need to choose between the mountains near by or your adult children near by, this is a good place to be. (Actually, I’ve never considered Idaho, but saw the ad in the paper this morning and thought it almost as lovely as central Ohio in October.)

555 The Women's Wage Myth

George W. Bush has freed millions of women in Afghanistan and Iraq, although feminist groups have been pretty silent about that. And John Kerry continues to promote the myth of the gender wage gap--I think he said $.76 to $1.00, but they haven't been silent about that. Actually he's wrong. There are many reasons women earn less. I stopped working from 1968 - 1978, then worked only part time until 1986. And I was in a low-paid, female dominated profession. Any profession with a large number of women has depressed wages. And even with all the laws and law suits, we still have women putting home and family before careers.

“. . . most studies of pay discrimination don’t weigh in such factors as experience and the desire of many married women with children to work shorter hours, and even seek less demanding jobs, so they can spend more time at home with their families. Studies that do account for those factors have concluded that across the board, the pay of unmarried men and unmarried women doing the same work are just about equal.” Independent Women’s Forum

I recall during the 1990s (I'll look for the citation), Pam Bradigan and Carol Mularski at Ohio State University Libraries wrote an article published, I believe, in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association that showed that male librarians really don't make more than female librarians--they publish more and relocate more often and are more likely to accept the more challenging jobs. That translates into better pay. If anything, the higher pay that male librarians are willing to go after pulls up the median. The women indirectly benefit from having more men in the field.

554 Filipina blogs her favorite recipes

While using the "next blog" feature today I came across a well-written and beautifully illustrated recipe page called Kusina ni Manang. Today's feature is about canning a tomato pasta sauce.

Manang writes: "This is a foodblog of a Filipina stay-at-home Mom married to an American, now living in a rural area. Posts include kitchen tips, health & nutrition issues, cooking & baking recipes, and occasionally canning recipes.

For those looking for authentic Filipino dishes, sorry but not all Filipino dishes featured here are authentically Pinoy. I had to modify some of them according to the availability of the ingredients. Some were accidentally "discovered" through experimentation."

She says there are a number of Filipina expats blogging recipe pages. I don't do much cooking, but most of these look interesting.

553 Big brother--literally

A young Chinese cashier/clerk bagged my groceries at Meijer's last Tuesday morning using the new turn style equipment that eliminated baggers (and probably gave the cashiers backaches from stooping).

"Are you studying engineering?" I asked.

"Why yes, how did you know," he smiled with slightly accented, perfect English.

"Your focus and the way you straighten up your work area--I'm married to an architect. Are you an OSU student?"

"Actually, I graduated in engineering and don't have a job," he replied.

I almost said something about the economy and that he had a job with good benefits, but, remembering he was probably Chinese, I said, "How many resumes have you sent out?"

"Oh, just a few."

"You need to send about a hundred to get a good job," I advised.

His jaw dropped. "Oh, I'm too lazy to do that. I'll probably go to graduate school."

Yup. There is an older brother paying his way, I thought. And if he gets a good job, he'll have to help his younger siblings. It is the Chinese way, and every Chinese student who ever worked for me had that sort of deal, whether the brother was a doctor in the USA or technician in China.

Big brother. So that's where that expression comes from.

This morning I asked my cashier/clerk Raiz (probably Indian or Pakistani) what had become of the "happy bagger," when the turn styles were installed. He was a middle aged, retarded man who was always laughing and smiling and reminding the customers loudly to smile. "Oh, he was fired," he said. "Did he find another job?" I asked, thinking that his talkativeness and his handicap might have made it difficult. "Yes, he did. It took two months but he found a new job and likes it very much."

So a man that couldn't even go to regular public school can find a job and be happy, but an OSU graduate in engineering can't. Interesting.

552 Harassment of Conservative Bloggers

Apparently, conservative blogs are being harassed too, with spam and e-mail problems. Jason, at Counter Column (Iraq Now) blog writes:

"Someone wants to shut down the conservative meme factory at just the right time -- eliminating the possibility that the blogosphere will uncover another Rathergate scandal or give legs to a story that would hurt Kerry's campaign which would otherwise go unnoticed.

Funny how all the scumbag dirty tricks this year are breaking the same way.

Dumbwits.

If they really wanted to help Kerry, they'd spirit Teresa Heinz off to an "undisclosed location" and try to shut down the UK Guardian."

551 Reporting from the trenches of the campaign

Elliot Fladen took his Mom to a Bush rally in Canton, Ohio, at the Palace Theater, then stayed outside and confronted the Kerry goons who stole his Bush Cheney sign. He thinks they were bussed in from other areas because of the accents he heard. It is a long and interesting first hand account, from someone who thought the Bush speeches not interesting enough to attend because the action was all outside. He concludes:

“The arguments went on and on. Many have not been put in this post, but I can't remember them at this time. The crowd grew larger and more calm as they heard my answers, but then new angry people would come in, demand answers to the same or similiar questions, and then start fighting with those that had heard my answers as they wanted more. In the end I don't know how many, if any minds I changed today. But I do know that one kid told my mother he learned more from listening to me in one day than he had by reading the BBC, the NYTimes, and other publications in the past year. Another high school teacher told my mom that she was going to make my blog required reading for her class so they could be better informed. So maybe I made a small difference after all.”

550 Lawrence O’Donnell screaming at John O’Neill

I don’t watch the Joe Scarborough show on MS-NBC, but I think the video of Lawrence O’Donnell screaming at a Swiftboat vet, John O’Neill is instructive. Captain’s Quarters comments on the behavior of Democrats trying to intimidate Republicans is indicative of the hate level.

“However, O'Donnell didn't just pull this strategy out of a hat. Democrats around the country have begun using intimidation and sheer rage to silence Republicans. Our local Bush/Cheney headquarters in St. Paul wound up being invaded by union thugs with bullhorns who tried scaring off families with small children from getting tickets to a Bush appearance earlier this month. They pushed their way into the offices, taking over the intercom system and refusing to leave, shouting and using the bullhorn to keep people from doing their jobs.

Nor was that an isolated incident. GOP offices around the country have had equipment stolen, people assaulted, and windows shot out. Bush hatred has deranged a significant segment of the Left in this country, to the point where their fascist leanings have come to the fore. Al Gore accused bloggers of being "digital brownshirts", but these people have become the real thing. They're using physical violence to intimidate their political opponents and deliberately ensuring that Republicans cannot speak in public to explain their positions. God help us if the Lawrence O'Donnells wind up in power again.”

According to his bio, Mr. O'Donnell was in government from 1993 through 1995, as the Democratic Chief of Staff of the United States Senate Committee on Finance. The Committee has jurisdiction over legislation involving taxation, international trade, health care, Social Security, Welfare, and other income security programs. In 1992, Mr. O'Donnell was Chief of Staff of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. But usually he is a writer, when he's not screaming at people on TV panels, particularly for the left leaning "West Wing."

549 Lies about Stem Cell Research

Only 27% of the U.S. electorate lives in television markets airing presidential campaign spots. Living in Ohio, I think I’ve seen them all. But one of the strangest, is Michael J. Fox, pleading for stem cell research, and saying he’ll support John Kerry because Bush’s policy on stem cell research is wrong.

This summer, the Democratic Party made embryonic stem cell research a central component of its election-year agenda.

“President Bush has rejected the calls from Nancy Reagan, Christopher Reeve and Americans across the land for assistance with embryonic stem cell research. We will reverse his wrongheaded policy. Stem cell therapy offers hope to more than 100 million Americans who have serious illnesses—from Alzheimer’s to heart disease to juvenile diabetes to Parkinson’s. We will pursue this research under the strictest ethical guidelines, but we will not walk away from the chance to save lives and reduce human suffering.”

Kerry and Edwards claim in their campaigning that the Bush administration has “banned” stem cell research, which is just a lie.

“John Kerry And John Edwards Support Lifting The Ban On Stem Cell Research” http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/health_care/stemcell.html

There are no restrictions at all on stem cell research, whether adult or embryonic, in the United States, making this country the most liberal in this bio-ethical mine field. Remarks by President Bush.

Researchers can do whatever they wish using private funding. Using public funds, they can use a fixed group of embryonic stem cells lines, where the embryos had been destroyed before the current policy went into effect. There are 22 embryonic stem cell lines available for federal funding and nearly 500 shipments drawn from these lines have already been made to researchers. The NIH provided about $25 million for embryonic stem cell research last year and spent another $180 million on ethically non-controversial adult stem cell work.

This definitely means the Democrats have found a new meaning for the word “ban.” It now means anything the government does not fully fund or anything where caution before proceding into murky waters might be advisable. It also means, pandering to the sick and disabled, because they and their families can vote.

(Except Terri Schiavo, of course, her the liberals would prefer to be starved to death.)