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steve2470
steve2470's Journal
steve2470's Journal
February 27, 2014
(CNN) -- A promising way to stop a deadly disease, or an uncomfortable step toward what one leading ethicist called eugenics?
U.S. health officials are weighing whether to approve trials of a pioneering in vitro fertilization technique using DNA from three people in an attempt to prevent illnesses like muscular dystrophy and respiratory problems. The proposed treatment would allow a woman to have a baby without passing on diseases of the mitochondria, the "powerhouses" that drive cells.
The procedure is "not without its risks, but it's treating a disease," medical ethicist Art Caplan told CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday. Preventing a disease that can be passed down for generations would be ethical "as long as it proves to be safe," he said.
"These little embryos, these are people born with a disease, they can't make power. You're giving them a new battery. That's a therapy. I think that's a humane ethical thing to do," said Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center.
FDA considering '3-parent babies'
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/26/health/ivf-mitochondria/(CNN) -- A promising way to stop a deadly disease, or an uncomfortable step toward what one leading ethicist called eugenics?
U.S. health officials are weighing whether to approve trials of a pioneering in vitro fertilization technique using DNA from three people in an attempt to prevent illnesses like muscular dystrophy and respiratory problems. The proposed treatment would allow a woman to have a baby without passing on diseases of the mitochondria, the "powerhouses" that drive cells.
The procedure is "not without its risks, but it's treating a disease," medical ethicist Art Caplan told CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday. Preventing a disease that can be passed down for generations would be ethical "as long as it proves to be safe," he said.
"These little embryos, these are people born with a disease, they can't make power. You're giving them a new battery. That's a therapy. I think that's a humane ethical thing to do," said Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center.
February 27, 2014
The United States warned Russia on Wednesday against military intervention in Ukraine and said any incursion could lead to a broad international backlash.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry also pledged $1 billion in emergency U.S. loan guarantees to help Ukraine’s new, temporary government as it reels from the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych last weekend.
“I don’t think there should be any doubt whatsoever that any kind of military intervention that would violate the sovereign territorial integrity of Ukraine would be a huge — a grave — mistake,” Kerry said in a roundtable interview with reporters.
The United States, United Nations and others would react, Kerry said, without specifying how.
Kerry warns Russia that military action in Ukraine could lead to international backlash
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-warns-russia-that-military-action-in-ukraine-could-lead-to-international-backlash/2014/02/26/92a9834a-9f35-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.htmlThe United States warned Russia on Wednesday against military intervention in Ukraine and said any incursion could lead to a broad international backlash.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry also pledged $1 billion in emergency U.S. loan guarantees to help Ukraine’s new, temporary government as it reels from the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych last weekend.
“I don’t think there should be any doubt whatsoever that any kind of military intervention that would violate the sovereign territorial integrity of Ukraine would be a huge — a grave — mistake,” Kerry said in a roundtable interview with reporters.
The United States, United Nations and others would react, Kerry said, without specifying how.
February 27, 2014
House Democrats launched a discharge petition on Tuesday meant to force a vote on legislation to increase the minimum wage and also highlight Republican opposition to the measure.
The rarely successful parliamentary move would need 218 signatures to force a vote to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. The petition currently has 155 signatures, all of which are Democrats.
The effort, which was officially kicked off at a rally in the Capitol this afternoon, is expected to fail.
Since 1967, only 12 measures have obtained the necessary signatures using a discharge petition to force action on the House floor. In many cases, even if members of the majority party support a measure, they will not buck their own leadership and sign onto a petition filed by the minority.
Democrats Trying To Force Vote on Minimum Wage
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-trying-force-vote-minimum-wage-n39646House Democrats launched a discharge petition on Tuesday meant to force a vote on legislation to increase the minimum wage and also highlight Republican opposition to the measure.
The rarely successful parliamentary move would need 218 signatures to force a vote to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. The petition currently has 155 signatures, all of which are Democrats.
The effort, which was officially kicked off at a rally in the Capitol this afternoon, is expected to fail.
Since 1967, only 12 measures have obtained the necessary signatures using a discharge petition to force action on the House floor. In many cases, even if members of the majority party support a measure, they will not buck their own leadership and sign onto a petition filed by the minority.
February 26, 2014
The Senate's top Democrat criticized a pair of billionaire brothers in unusually harsh terms Wednesday, accusing the conservative duo of being "un-American," spreading lies about President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and lacking a conscience.
In a pair of appearances on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., became the latest Democrat this election year to denunciate Charles and David Koch — pronounced "Coke."
The brothers' representatives said Reid's attack was "disgraceful" and accused him of attacking people hurt by the 2010 health care law.
Reid's focus was on television ads that are being used against Democratic congressional candidates, commercials that he said misleadingly criticize the health care law.
Top Senate Dem (Reid): Koch Brothers Are Un-American
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/top-senate-dem-koch-brothers-american-22690010The Senate's top Democrat criticized a pair of billionaire brothers in unusually harsh terms Wednesday, accusing the conservative duo of being "un-American," spreading lies about President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and lacking a conscience.
In a pair of appearances on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., became the latest Democrat this election year to denunciate Charles and David Koch — pronounced "Coke."
The brothers' representatives said Reid's attack was "disgraceful" and accused him of attacking people hurt by the 2010 health care law.
Reid's focus was on television ads that are being used against Democratic congressional candidates, commercials that he said misleadingly criticize the health care law.
February 26, 2014
U.S. banking industry earnings increased nearly 10% last year to a record $154.7 billion, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., due mainly to banks setting aside less money to cover potential loan losses and litigation costs.
The FDIC said Wednesday that fourth-quarter profits at the nation’s commercial banks and thrifts rose 17% to a total of $40.3 billion from $34.4 billion in the final quarter of 2012.
It was the 17th time in the last 18 quarters that earnings have registered a year-over-year gain as the industry continues a slow but steady recovery from the financial crisis and housing debacle.
“Banks continue to put bad loans behind them and overall asset quality is remarkably strong,” American Bankers Assn. chief economist James Chessen said in a statement. “Going forward, problems loans will continue to fall, but at a slower rate.”
*end*
Somehow I don't think this is good news for we Americans, long-term.
FDIC: Bank profits at record levels due to lower loss reserves
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-fdic-bank-profits-20140226,0,5645362.story#axzz2uTB4qHWKU.S. banking industry earnings increased nearly 10% last year to a record $154.7 billion, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., due mainly to banks setting aside less money to cover potential loan losses and litigation costs.
The FDIC said Wednesday that fourth-quarter profits at the nation’s commercial banks and thrifts rose 17% to a total of $40.3 billion from $34.4 billion in the final quarter of 2012.
It was the 17th time in the last 18 quarters that earnings have registered a year-over-year gain as the industry continues a slow but steady recovery from the financial crisis and housing debacle.
“Banks continue to put bad loans behind them and overall asset quality is remarkably strong,” American Bankers Assn. chief economist James Chessen said in a statement. “Going forward, problems loans will continue to fall, but at a slower rate.”
*end*
Somehow I don't think this is good news for we Americans, long-term.
February 26, 2014
For a moment, when I read Danielle Pletka’s e-mail, I wondered if it might be a joke. Pletka, vice president of the conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, was writing to inquire whether “Vanity Fair would like to spend some quality time with His Holiness the Dalai Lama”. He, she went on, was going to be at A.E.I. for two days as its guest. He would be speaking there at a conference on “happiness, free enterprise, and human flourishing” at a private lunch and at several invitation-only discussion panels. I would be welcome to attend all of it, and could also expect an exclusive interview with him.
I had first met Pletka 12 years ago, when A.E.I., seen then as the intellectual command post of the neoconservative campaign for regime change in Iraq, welcomed another visitor from the East: Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, the purveyor of “intelligence” about Saddam Hussein that would later turn out to be bogus. The shift in emphasis seemed marked. It was always apparent that fulfilling Chalabi’s ambitions was likely to require a war. The maroon robes of His Holiness, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader and a lifelong advocate of nonviolence, are cut from very different cloth.
However, perhaps the most surprising thing about the Dalai Lama’s sojourn at the A.E.I., which took place at its downtown 17th Street headquarters on February 19 and 20, was that the relationship between spiritual leader and think tank began at his behest, not A.E.I.’s. In the very days last autumn, as Congressional Republicans were charging down the political blind alley of the government shutdown, Pletka and A.E.I.’s president, Arthur Brooks, were meditating with His Holiness at his base in Dharmsala, India, in the Himalayas. They were there at his invitation, which had been conveyed through mutual contacts at Radio Free Asia, the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster.
There was something, it seemed, about the A.E.I.’s message under Brooks’s leadership that had prompted the Dalai Lama to reach out. Part of it, I later learned, was Brooks’s assertion that the ultimate goal of public policy should be to maximize human happiness, not material wealth. Indeed, the title of one of Brooks’s books, published in 2008, is Gross National Happiness—a phrase that is also employed as the official metric of prosperity espoused by the rulers of the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan.
Why Was the Dalai Lama Hanging Out with the Right-Wing American Enterprise Institute?
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/dalai-lama-american-enterprise-instituteFor a moment, when I read Danielle Pletka’s e-mail, I wondered if it might be a joke. Pletka, vice president of the conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, was writing to inquire whether “Vanity Fair would like to spend some quality time with His Holiness the Dalai Lama”. He, she went on, was going to be at A.E.I. for two days as its guest. He would be speaking there at a conference on “happiness, free enterprise, and human flourishing” at a private lunch and at several invitation-only discussion panels. I would be welcome to attend all of it, and could also expect an exclusive interview with him.
I had first met Pletka 12 years ago, when A.E.I., seen then as the intellectual command post of the neoconservative campaign for regime change in Iraq, welcomed another visitor from the East: Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, the purveyor of “intelligence” about Saddam Hussein that would later turn out to be bogus. The shift in emphasis seemed marked. It was always apparent that fulfilling Chalabi’s ambitions was likely to require a war. The maroon robes of His Holiness, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader and a lifelong advocate of nonviolence, are cut from very different cloth.
However, perhaps the most surprising thing about the Dalai Lama’s sojourn at the A.E.I., which took place at its downtown 17th Street headquarters on February 19 and 20, was that the relationship between spiritual leader and think tank began at his behest, not A.E.I.’s. In the very days last autumn, as Congressional Republicans were charging down the political blind alley of the government shutdown, Pletka and A.E.I.’s president, Arthur Brooks, were meditating with His Holiness at his base in Dharmsala, India, in the Himalayas. They were there at his invitation, which had been conveyed through mutual contacts at Radio Free Asia, the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster.
There was something, it seemed, about the A.E.I.’s message under Brooks’s leadership that had prompted the Dalai Lama to reach out. Part of it, I later learned, was Brooks’s assertion that the ultimate goal of public policy should be to maximize human happiness, not material wealth. Indeed, the title of one of Brooks’s books, published in 2008, is Gross National Happiness—a phrase that is also employed as the official metric of prosperity espoused by the rulers of the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan.
February 26, 2014
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer met Wednesday with both supporters and opponents of controversial legislation that would protect business owners who refuse service to gays in the state, as pressure builds on her to veto the measure.
The meetings by Brewer, reported by the Associated Press, come with week’s-end deadline to veto or sign the bill looming. The legislation would protect people from lawsuits who cite their religious beliefs in refusing to serve gays and lesbians. It’s been criticized by gay rights groups, business leaders and a growing chorus of Republicans as discriminatory and damaging to the state’s image. Proponents tout it as protecting religious freedom.
Reports Tuesday indicated that Brewer, a Republican, is leaning against the legislation. She hasn’t tipped her hand, but on Tuesday night a post on her Twitter account read: “I can assure you, as always, I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona.”
Arizona’s Republican-controlled state legislature passed the bill last week, but three of the lawmakers who voted in favor of the bill have since backtracked. In a letter to Brewer on Monday they wrote: While our sincere intent in voting for this bill was to create a shield for all citizens’ religious liberties, the bill has instead been mischaracterized by its opponents as a sword for religious intolerance. These allegations are causing our state immeasurable harm.”
Read more: Jan Brewer of Arizona Holds Meetings on SB1062 Seen as Anti-Gay | TIME.com http://nation.time.com/2014/02/26/arizona-jan-brewer-bill-veto-meetings-sb1062/#ixzz2uT5Kuzp8
Arizona Gov Seeks Input on Bill Seen as Anti-Gay
http://nation.time.com/2014/02/26/arizona-jan-brewer-bill-veto-meetings-sb1062/Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer met Wednesday with both supporters and opponents of controversial legislation that would protect business owners who refuse service to gays in the state, as pressure builds on her to veto the measure.
The meetings by Brewer, reported by the Associated Press, come with week’s-end deadline to veto or sign the bill looming. The legislation would protect people from lawsuits who cite their religious beliefs in refusing to serve gays and lesbians. It’s been criticized by gay rights groups, business leaders and a growing chorus of Republicans as discriminatory and damaging to the state’s image. Proponents tout it as protecting religious freedom.
Reports Tuesday indicated that Brewer, a Republican, is leaning against the legislation. She hasn’t tipped her hand, but on Tuesday night a post on her Twitter account read: “I can assure you, as always, I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona.”
Arizona’s Republican-controlled state legislature passed the bill last week, but three of the lawmakers who voted in favor of the bill have since backtracked. In a letter to Brewer on Monday they wrote: While our sincere intent in voting for this bill was to create a shield for all citizens’ religious liberties, the bill has instead been mischaracterized by its opponents as a sword for religious intolerance. These allegations are causing our state immeasurable harm.”
Read more: Jan Brewer of Arizona Holds Meetings on SB1062 Seen as Anti-Gay | TIME.com http://nation.time.com/2014/02/26/arizona-jan-brewer-bill-veto-meetings-sb1062/#ixzz2uT5Kuzp8
February 26, 2014
(Reuters) - Britain's minimum wage should increase by more than the rate of inflation for the first time in more than five years, government advisors recommended, helping low earners regain a little of the ground they have lost to a rising cost of living.
Britain's Low Pay Commission (LPC) has proposed a 3 percent increase in Britain's minimum wage, which would be the first above-inflation increase since 2008, the government said on Wednesday. The government usually accepts the commission's recommendations.
The rise would take effect in October - around six months before the next general election, in 2015. Living standards are likely to be a key issue as Britain's economic recovery gains traction.
Inflation fell to 1.9 percent in January, undershooting the Bank of England's 2.0 percent target for the first time since November 2009. But in the intervening four years, it averaged 3.3 percent, eroding the value of incomes across the economy. During that same period, the minimum wage rose an average of just 1.9 percent a year.
Britain advised to hike minimum wage above inflation
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/26/uk-britain-economy-pay-idUKBREA1P1AI20140226(Reuters) - Britain's minimum wage should increase by more than the rate of inflation for the first time in more than five years, government advisors recommended, helping low earners regain a little of the ground they have lost to a rising cost of living.
Britain's Low Pay Commission (LPC) has proposed a 3 percent increase in Britain's minimum wage, which would be the first above-inflation increase since 2008, the government said on Wednesday. The government usually accepts the commission's recommendations.
The rise would take effect in October - around six months before the next general election, in 2015. Living standards are likely to be a key issue as Britain's economic recovery gains traction.
Inflation fell to 1.9 percent in January, undershooting the Bank of England's 2.0 percent target for the first time since November 2009. But in the intervening four years, it averaged 3.3 percent, eroding the value of incomes across the economy. During that same period, the minimum wage rose an average of just 1.9 percent a year.
February 26, 2014
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — President Barack Obama says spending $300 billion to upgrade roads and railways is a worthy investment that will attract businesses and put people to work.
Obama outlined his transportation proposal Wednesday while visiting a light rail and bus station in St. Paul. The proposal will be in the budget he sends to Congress next week.
Obama wants Congress to provide $302 billion for the federal trust fund that pays for surface transportation projects, such as rebuilding roads and bridges.
Funding is set to expire later this year if Congress doesn’t pass legislation in time.
Obama seeks $300 billion for roads, railways
http://www.boston.com/2014/02/26/obama-seeking-billion-for-roads-railways/r6jKxUEQ03sWnsmfHnZxBJ/story.htmlST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — President Barack Obama says spending $300 billion to upgrade roads and railways is a worthy investment that will attract businesses and put people to work.
Obama outlined his transportation proposal Wednesday while visiting a light rail and bus station in St. Paul. The proposal will be in the budget he sends to Congress next week.
Obama wants Congress to provide $302 billion for the federal trust fund that pays for surface transportation projects, such as rebuilding roads and bridges.
Funding is set to expire later this year if Congress doesn’t pass legislation in time.
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