William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

Apparently Lance Armstrong; Margaret L. Kripke, and LaSalle D. Leffall Jr., didn’t get the memo - the Bush Administration doesn’t believe in regulations of any type on anything, be in mine safety or food safety or the tobacco industry. If the free market decides that people will die of cancer, than so be it. That’s what America is all about.

President’s Cancer Panel: Cut Risks
Trio Calls Tobacco, Food, Beverage Industries “Disease Vectors” And Urges Regulation

The President’s Cancer Panel calls for U.S. leaders to “summon the political will” to reduce Americans’ cancer risks — and slams the tobacco, food, and beverage industries as “disease vectors.”

Appointed by the President Bush, the panel’s three members are cancer survivor and cycling champion Lance Armstrong; Margaret L. Kripke, Ph.D., chief academic officer at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and panel chairman LaSalle D. Leffall Jr., M.D., professor of surgery at Howard University in Washington.

It’s the panel’s job to tell the president how the nation’s war on cancer is going. According to this year’s report, it’s not going very well at all.

Research continues to move forward — but thwarting major progress is the unhealthy lifestyles of millions of Americans.

Individual responsibility is important, the panel notes. But the panel finds that cancer prevention efforts “are compromised by federal, state, and local policies that have decreased the availability and affordability of healthy foods, limited physical education in schools,” and created an “environment that discourages physical activity.”

Perhaps even more importantly, the panel says, are “ineffective policies” that fail to regulate the marketing practices of “disease vectors” — the tobacco, food, and beverage industries.

Mincing no words, the panel report singles out the tobacco industry as “a vector of disease and death that can no more be ignored in seeking solutions to the tobacco problem than mosquitoes can be ignored in seeking to eradicate malaria.”

The report by the Cancer Panel was immediately filed next to the Iraq Study Group’s report. The main thing this report will prove to the current batch of Republicans is this - stop sending people out to do reports.

–WKW

There are consequences in electing a religious extremist President that believes the separation of church and state is merely a suggestion, and a bad one at that. Here are some recent examples of how the trickle-down theory of theocracy has been such a boon for Christianists:

Texas names Creationist as chairman of State Board of Education

The best we can say about Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to appoint Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education is that the Bryan dentist was not the worst choice — given the list of candidates on the board.

While we’re not enthused about Perry’s selection, McLeroy has an opportunity to demonstrate that he can rise above ideology to represent the broad interests of Texas’ 4.5 million public school students. He should grab that opportunity and make the most of it.

…

In 2001, McLeroy and a majority of the board rejected the only Advanced Placement textbook for high school environmental science because its views on global warming and other events didn’t comport with the beliefs of the board majority. The book wasn’t factual and was anti-American and anti-Christian, the majority claimed. Meanwhile, dozens of colleges and universities were using the textbook, including Baylor University, the nation’s largest Baptist college.

In 2003, McLeroy voted against approving biology textbooks that included a full-scale scientific account of evolutionary theory. The books were approved.

‘Scientists Say Bush Administration Muzzles Them on Stem Cells, Climate, Birth Control’

Malicious, vindictive and mean-spirited. These are words that might surface in divorce court.

But they have been lobbed in the course of a different estrangement: the standoff between the Bush administration and the nation’s scientific community.

The relationship, which has been troubled since the dawn of the Bush presidency, hit a new low last month when Richard Carmona, surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, lashed out at his former colleagues in testimony before a House committee.

Joined by former surgeons general C. Everett Koop and David Satcher, Carmona said public health reports are withheld unless they’re filled with praise for the administration. “It was Surgeon General Koop who pointed out and still says today … ‘Richard, we all have fought these battles, as have our predecessors going back over a century, but we have never seen it as partisan, … as vindictive, as mean-spirited as it is today, and you clearly have it worse than any of us had.’ “

‘The Pentagon Sends Messengers of Apocalypse to Convert Soldiers in Iraq’

Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore’s sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days.

Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a “Military Crusade in Iraq” in the near future.

“We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region,” OSU declares on its website about its planned trip to Iraq. “We’ll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq.”

S.C. low-income students denied - but Bob Jones Univ. gets $2.5 million

State lawmakers shot down a request for extra financial help for low-income students who will attend South Carolina’s public colleges and universities next year.

Meanwhile, they approved $2.5 million to help low-income students attend Bob Jones University, a private school in Greenville.

The State Commission on Higher Education had requested $10 million to increase grants for some needy students attending public colleges and universities. Last year, low-income public school students received, on average, $1,158 in grants while their private-school counterparts received $3,100, nearly three times as much.

Conferences Will Equip Faith-Based Groups

The White House is holding conferences to help faith-based and community groups understand the ins and outs of partnering with the government.

The first event is in Minneapolis next week. Gatherings in Washington, D.C., Indianapolis and Los Angeles are coming up.

The conferences will be an introduction on accessing government money to help with ministries, such as food pantries or shelters for unwed mothers.

Jedd Medefind, deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, told Family News in Focus the conferences will equip groups that are addressing pressing needs of their communities.

Just another way an impotent, unwilling-to-fight Congress has let down Americans - by allowing George W. Bush to take such dramatic steps in his attempt to make the “Handmaid’s Tale” a reality.

–WKW

Perhaps years from now, the term “Bushiness of Human Evolution” will have a different meaning. As for now, however, it has little to do with the bible-thumping, science-defying U.S. President, and everything to do with the “branches” of human evolution.

New Fossils Illustrate “Bushiness” of Human Evolution

Fossils support the separate evolution of Homo habilis and Homo erectus, point to a gorillalike social structure for the latter

By JR Minkel

The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould used to rail against the notion of a ladder of perfection rising from early humanlike species to Neandertals to Homo sapiens at the pinnacle. Two new fossils unearthed near a lake in Kenya bear out Gould’s preferred metaphor for human evolution—that of a bush with many branches.

The first specimen, a jawbone assigned to the hominid (roughly: human ancestor) species Homo habilis, dates to a time 1.44 million years ago when the more recent species Homo erectus also roamed Ileret, a site east of Kenya’s Lake Turkana where the fossil was excavated.

Researchers have often assumed that H. habilis evolved into the larger H. erectus, from which our species likely branched. But if the two early species coexisted, it is much more plausible that they evolved separately from a common ancestor, as opposed to habilis simply giving way to erectus, according to a report in Nature.

The oldest habilis and erectus fossils found in East Africa date to 1.9 million years ago, indicating that they cohabitated in the region for half a million years, the researchers say. “The problem is there was not a clear date for the last occurrence of Homo habilis,” says study co-author Fred Spoor, professor of evolutionary anatomy at University College London.

Spoor says it is still possible that erectus evolved from habilis in places other than Lake Turkana, where the older species would have reencountered the newer one.

But if not, the species’ shared ancestor would have had to live two million to three million years ago, he says. And the only remains from this time are fragments of stone tools and a few teeth, he notes, leaving up in the air whether the ancestor was much different from both species or more like the older habilis.

Of course, George W. Bush and those like him won’t leave any fossils. They’ll be magically beamed to heaven in human form to have an eternity of seafood buffets and golf outings with Jesus himself after the Rapture.

–WKW

You know in the movie “Happy Feet” how the plucky penguin survives and manages to save the whole species? Well, here in the real world we drown penguins in oil as we rapidly work to kill them all off because the little buggers are just getting in the way of progress.

Hundreds of Oil-Covered Penguins Surface in South America

Hundreds of oil-covered Magellanic penguins have surfaced off the Atlantic coast of South America in the past few weeks, according to an animal welfare organization.

Magellanic penguins are medium-sized South American penguins. The species is classified as “near threatened” because of its vulnerability to oil spills, which kill tens of thousands of the animals yearly off the coast of Argentina.

Oil spills harm numerous types of marine life, including seabirds. Oil interferes with their waterproofing abilities. This forces penguins, which are birds, out of the frigid waters in a state of hypothermia, leading to dehydration and sometimes starvation.

A continuous stream of oil from spills has created a chronic problem across South American waters and other parts of the world, said Rodolfo Silva of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the agencies helping to treat the penguins.

This week, 36 Magellanic penguins were being treated at the Society for the Conservation of Biodiversity in Maldonado (SOCOBIOMA) center in Uruguay, where more than 40 of the penguins surfaced.

“After being stabilized and fed, the washing process is in full motion right now, and we expect to be able to release them back to the ocean in about 15 days or so,” said Lourdes Casas of SOCOBIOMA.

–WKW

When a manic Tom Cruise told Matt Lauer “You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do,” on the Today Show, it was easy to ridicule and ignore the Mission Impossible star. Years of being hemmed in by his own mammoth fame, and his deep involvement with Scientology had given him his own sense of reality.

Looking back, however, the obvious conclusion is that Cruise is but another overprotected simpleton sucked into a corrupt cult. A corrupt cult that has no qualms about sending people off on murderous rages.

Accused family killer was ‘denied treatment by Scientologist parents’

A woman accused of killing her father and sister and injuring her mother was denied psychiatric treatment by her parents who were Scientologists, a court heard yesterday.

They declined the treatment after the 25-year-old woman, who cannot be named, was diagnosed with a psychotic illness last year and instead gave her medication they got from America.

Dr Mark Cross, consultant psychiatrist and clinical director of the Liverpool and Fairfield Mental Health Services, said it was not “psychiatric in nature”.

The woman, who is accused of murdering her 53-year-old father and 15-year-old sister in Revesby, south-west Sydney last Thursday, and stabbing her 52-year-old mother, appeared briefly before a magistrate yesterday. She is said to be too ill to be properly interviewed.

Dr Cross said the woman was diagnosed with a severe psychiatric illness in 2006 but follow-up treatment was “declined by her parents because of their alleged Scientology beliefs”, he said. The woman did, however, see a psychiatrist, who prescribed anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs. In January, after moving back home with her parents following the end of a relationship, she grew depressed.

“She stated that her parents did not want her to take the prescribed medication she had been on in 2006, and apparently started her on medication they got from America - which was not psychiatric in nature,” Dr Cross said.

It is one thing that, based on freedom of religion, the world allows this elaborate pyramid scheme of the soul to exist. But when this money-making plot with its archaic, nonsensical, pseudoscientific belief system becomes a conduit for murder, then perhaps it’s time the world woke up to the fact that just because an organization believes it should be treated as a religion, doesn’t mean it is. And while you can say the same for nearly every religion, the evidence of Scientology being an outright fraudulent scam from its moment of conception is readily available.

L. Ron Hubbard invented a scam to fleece idiots out of their money. And Hubbard’s beliefs apparently have directly led to two people being violently murdered.

Laugh at the bizarre stories of Thetans and Lord Xenu all you like, but remember - Scientology kills. It has before, and it will again.

–WKW

Crossposted at Shakesville

Fox News, like the National Review and countless other right-wing outlets, have proven time and time and time again that ideology trumps all, even facts. Whether you’re speaking of war, health care or the environment, the good Bushie will always do or say whatever it takes to make sure their ideology looks good, truth be damned.

Here’s a video from Robert Greenwald (”Outfoxed”) showing you what so many Fox News viewers fervently believe - that Global Warming is a big hoax:

Get involved: The Sierra Club has a petition to sign asking Home Depot to stop advertising on FOX News

And while you’re at it, take Teh Portly Dyke’s 30-Day Angst-Loss Challenge.

In a world where fraudulent snake-oil hucksters like Kevin Trudeau and Sylvia Browne capture people’s imaginations and dollars with ridiculous and dangerous pseudoscience, and while many U.S. politicians outright deny science, it’s with a heavy heart we say good bye to Don Herbert.

Thank you, Mr. Wizard, for helping so many youngsters understand science and reality.

TV’s ‘Mr. Wizard’ Don Herbert dies at 89

Don Herbert, who as television’s “Mr. Wizard” introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science, died Tuesday. He was 89. Herbert, who had bone cancer, died at his suburban Bell Canyon home, said his son-in-law, Tom Nikosey.

“He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist,” said former colleague Steve Jacobs. He worked with Herbert on a 1980s show that echoed the original 1950s “Watch Mr. Wizard” series, which became a fond baby boomer memory.

–WKW

People have the the right to believe anything they want. But when they use their child to try and prove their beliefs, they become killers.

Cancer treatment battle: boy loses his fight

CANTON — An eleven-year-old Canton boy whose parents fought to treat his leukemia with an unconventional method has died.

After five years of battling the blood cancer, Noah Maxin died Thursday at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

In 2002, parents Greg and Theresa Maxin won the right to abandon Noah’s chemotherapy, because they were concerned about the long-term effects.

Stark County child welfare officials had accused the couple of neglect when they gave up the chemo for a doctor specializing in holistic medicine.

But, in a case believed to be the first of its kind in Ohio, a family court judge ruled the Maxins were free to choose their son’s
care.

When the parents took their child off chemo, his odds of survival dropped from 80 percent to 40 percent. Could the child have died if he had continued chemo? Definitely.

But by choosing pseudoscience and mythological cures, his parents made it much more likely that he would die. And he did.

Useful Links:

–WKW