Dick Cheney indicted by Texas grand jury

November 19, 2008 Dick Cheney, Politics, U.S. Law and Policy No Comments

A grand jury in Texas indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

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Can a Bone-Marrow Transplant Halt HIV?

November 13, 2008 Health and the Environment No Comments

FROM TIME.com

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a pathogen so wily and protean that
researchers rarely talk about “curing” infected patients, focusing instead
on treatment or prevention. But in an announcement that caused a flutter of
excitement and a wave of prudent skepticism, Berlin-based hemotologist Gero
Huetter claimed Thursday that he has cured a 42-year-old man of an HIV infection through a
bone marrow transplant.

The patient, an American citizen living in Germany, was suffering from
advanced leukemia and HIV two years ago when Huetter decided to treat the
cancer with a bone marrow transplant at Berlin’s Charité hospital. As a
side experiment, he inserted the bone marrow of a donor naturally resistant
to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. (Researchers have long known that about
1% of Europeans carry a genetic mutation that makes their cells resistant to
HIV infection.) Bone marrow produces the cells that HIV attacks. So, the
thinking went, inserting marrow that produces HIV resistant cells might
endow the patient with a means to repel the infection. Twenty months after the
transplant, Huetter says, the man shows no signs of carrying the virus. (See stories of people surviving with HIV.)

So is this a viable cure for HIV? Not by a long shot. Even Huetter says that
bone marrow transplants, which kill around a third of patients, are so
dangerous “that they can’t be justified ethically” in anything other than
desperate situations like late-stage leukemia. Nor is it clear that
Huetter’s claim to have cured his patient is yet justified. HIV has a
frustrating ability to hide in hard-to-detect “reservoir” cells in various
parts of the body. Current anti-viral drugs, for example, can lower a
patient’s “viral load” to the point that HIV is undetectable in his or her
bloodstream. But as soon as such patients are taken off anti-virals, the
virus comes storming back.

Huetter’s patient has not received anti-virals for two years, and remains
virus-free even in the known HIV-hiding spots of brain and rectal tissue,
according to Huetter’s tests. But many researchers remain skeptical as to
whether these tests have been thorough enough. Dr. Andrew Badley, director
of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic, told the
Associated Press, “a lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological
samples would be required to say it’s not present.”

But there might be a glimmer of hope in the case. If the transplant does
prove to have been a success and can be replicated, researchers say gene
therapists might one day be able to re-engineer a patient’s cells in such a
way so as to change their bone morrow in the same way as a transplant,
except without the dangers. Such a breakthrough, if it proves possible at
all, would be “decades rather than years away,” according to Ade Fakoya, a
London-based clinician and senior advisor to the nonprofit Aids Alliance.
The treatment would also likely prove too expensive to implement in
developing countries where HIV rates are highest, although some proponents
of gene therapy say it could eventually be done cheaply through an
injection, like a vaccine. (Read a TIME cover story on AIDS.)

Rest of article Here

More Change: This time in Jerusalem

November 13, 2008 Elections, Politics No Comments

The entire world is changing. Seems the millennium paradigm shift we all expected around Y2K is more than a few years late. We have seen Barack Obama (the first African American) elected to the US presidency and now a former high-tech business executive has become Jerusalem’s Mayor!

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Obama’s Plans for Pakistan…

November 13, 2008 Obama, Obama's Staff, US Foreign Policy No Comments

Obama named his top adviser on Pakistan, ex-CIA analyst Bruce Riedel

Based on the interview at the real news network  Bruce Riedel has a military solution to Pakistan.
The current political environment is to have peace talks and negations about what should happen in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

How much of a foreign policy change is this for the Obama Administration?

Your Comments?

Following Through on a Promise

November 12, 2008 Obama, Obama's Staff No Comments

Following Through on a Promise

Before
Barack Obama was President-elect — from the very beginning of his
campaign — he pledged to change the way Washington works. That meant
not accepting any financial contributions from lobbyists or political
action committees.

Voters often said this was one of the major reasons they supported
Barack, and they’ve been writing to the Transition to tell us how
important they think it is that this commitment continues.

Lexington from San Diego, CA, wrote:

“When I first learned of Barack Obama, I was encouraged by
his thoughts [on] ending the power of lobbyists and the negative effect
of the revolving door on the White House. I’d like to see an agenda
that focuses on promoting transparency and getting people into
government who sincerely want to serve the interests of the nation over
their own careers.”

John from Seattle, WA wrote, “I am so tired of special interests
getting the best of us all. I support you and hope that you will allow
the common guy to have a say in how we are to be governed from now on.”

Now Barack has taken the first step, with new rules
that restrict how lobbyists can participate in the transition — just
as he restricted how they could participate in the campaign.

The new policy, which ethics experts have praised as a bold step
forward, was only announced yesterday — but already people have
written in to show their support.

Sarah from Brockport, NY, wrote, “Today I read about the tough new
rules for lobbyists and it just further solidified the faith I have in
this administration to bring about a real change….I am feeling real
patriotic and in tune with my government for the first time in my 46
years.”

Carmen from Olympia, WA wrote simply: “Thank you for the transition ethics. Thank you.”

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————RULES———————

During a briefing today at the Presidential Transition Team
headquarters, Obama Transition Co-Chair John Podesta announced the
strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in
history. The rules are:

  • Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.
  • Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.
  • If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied.
  • If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the
    Transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12
    months on matters on which they worked.
  • A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.

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