Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

"The irony is that I was too medicated. I was dyskinesic," Fox told Couric...

His body visibly wracked by tremors, Fox appears in a political ad touting Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill's stance in favor of embryonic stem cell research. That prompted Limbaugh to speculate that Fox was "either off his medication or acting."

Fox told Couric, "At this point now, if I didn't take medication I wouldn't be able to speak."

I have seen him many times on TV but never have I seen him as he appears in the ads. I read from his own book that he will not take his medications before certain appearances (Senate, 1999) in order to illustrate the ravages of Parkinson's, which I understand and applaud. So the concept of manipulating meds has been stated by Mr. Fox, which is what caused me to question his appearance in his ads.

"Thanks, Katie, I'll try to make it simple:

"I believe Democrats have a long history of using victims of various things as POLITICAL spokespeople because they believe they are untouchable, infallible. They are immune from criticism. But when anyone enters the POLITICAL arena of ideas they forfeit the right to be challenged on their participation and message.

"I have not met Mr. Fox, do not know him. I have admired his work in film and TV and his appearances on Letterman were howlers. I have nothing personal against him. But I believe his implication that only Democrats want to cure disease(s) is irresponsible (as I believed about John Edwards assuring voters Christopher Reeve would walk if only John Kerry were elected). I think this is ultimately cruel and gives people who suffer these terrible afflictions false hope.

"As of now there is NO EVIDENCE that embryonic stem cells even hold promise, while other approaches, such as adult stem cells, already have yielded results. Michael's TV spots mislead and misinform on this. (You might ask him about the gene therapy research at a Chicago hospital which has produced encouraging results on Parkinson's patients. A VIRUS is inserted in the gene, which is then inserted in the brain. The Michael J. Fox Foundations has committed $1.9 million to further research on this . . . story from earlier this month.)

"I did NOT mock or make fun of Mr. Fox. I have seen him many times on TV but never have I seen him as he appears in the ads. I read from his own book that he will not take his medications before certain appearances (Senate, 1999) in order to illustrate the ravages of Parkinson's, which I understand and applaud. So the concept of manipulating meds has been stated by Mr. Fox, which is what caused me to question his appearance in his ads.

"He is stumping for Democrats, in the political arena, and is therefore open to analysis and criticism as we all are. His suffering is NOT fair game and I am sorry if people drew that conclusion about my comments, but I believe this happens precisely because NO criticism of victims is ever allowed, at all, which as I say is the Democrat strategy in putting them forward."

Having said all that Iraq may yet become "another Vietnam" in only one sense. The Americans may still decide to snatch defeat from the jaws of military victory just as they did in Vietnam. There are many in the US political and cultural elite who want Iraq to fail with an almost pathological ardour solely to get at George W Bush and his supposed cabal of "neoncons". A Democrat controlled Congress could cut the budget for the US troops in Iraq, forcing their withdrawal.

A precipitous US withdrawal from Iraq is certain to complicate matters for the newly created democratic system.

But it would not mean a seizure of power by Al Qaeda and the Saddamites. The terrorists and the insurgents could continue killing people and causing mayhem for many more years just as their counterparts did in Algeria, Egypt and Turkey among others. But one thing is certain: Al Qaeda and Saddamites will never rule in Baghdad.

President Bush was the first president of the United States to authorize federal funding for any embryonic-stem-cell research. In correcting a writer from The New Republic back in 2004, my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out, "Actually, Bush provided funding for the first time. Congress had essentially banned funding, the Clinton administration issued preliminary regulations getting around the ban, and then Bush imposed a policy of funding with restrictions."

Further, embryonic-stem-cell research is currently legal and completely unrestricted in both Maryland and Missouri, and in the vast majority of other states. It is largely personal and institutional ethics that keeps scientists from cloning research. The debate we're having is almost always about government funding or radical measures like the one currently on the ballot in Missouri (Amendment 2), which would write a right to cloning into the state constitution.

Additionally, embryo-destroying stem-cell research is by no means the only or the most promising stem-cell research. Alternative research — including cord-blood research and adult-stem-cell research — is already working, unlike the embryonic-stem-cell research we're all focused on as if it were a proven cure-all. As Princeton professor Robert P. George, who sits on the president's bioethics commission, tells National Review Online:

In the first commercial, Fox, who is clearly increasingly suffering from the effects of Parkinson's disease, makes inaccurate generalizations about stem cell research.

"In Missouri, you can elect Claire McCaskill, who shares my hope for cures," Fox tells viewers urging them to support the pro-abortion, pro-cloning candidate.

"Unfortunately Senator Jim Talent opposes expanding stem cell research," Fox claims. "Senator Talent even wanted to criminalize the science that gives us a chance for hope."

Though the ad makes it appear Talent opposes all kinds of stem cell research, he has voted in favor of spending millions in federal funds for adult stem cell research, the only kind of research that has ever cured a single patient.

What Talent has opposed is forcing taxpayers to pay for studies using embryonic stem cells, which can only be obtained by destroying human life.

In the new spot, Fox vouches for Senate hopeful Ben Cardin, a current Congressman, in his bid against pro-life Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele.

"Cardin fully supports lifesaving stem cell research and that's why I support Ben Cardin," Fox says.

However, Cardin voted against a bill that would have authorized the federal government to search for embryonic stem cell research alternatives that don't involve the destruction of human life. The measure would have promoted some types of research that could possibly have been palatable to both sides of the debate.

The Passion of the Christ star Jim Caviezel entered the escalating election battle on embryonic stem cell research yesterday. He appears in an ad clip countering campaign ads by Michael J. Fox who is urging voters to support election candidates backing the research...

In the one minute response ad Caviezel is joined by celebrities that include Cardinal's pitcher Jeff Suppan and Patricia Heaton, star of the TV comedy Everybody Loves Raymond and honorary chair for Feminists for Life. After explaining the facts of the issue they in turn state, "Don't be tricked", Don't be deceived", Don't be fooled", with Caviezel ending the ad telling Missouri voters, "You know now. Don't do it. Vote no on (Amendment) 2", the ballot initiative that would permit research using human embryos in the state.

Although the amendment appears to ban the buying and selling of human eggs, women who "donated" their eggs would be permitted "reimbursement" by fertility clinics or sperm banks. The ban on buying and selling would not apply to reimbursement for the cost of "the removal, processing, disposal, preservation, quality control, storage, transfer, or donation of human eggs, sperm, or blastocysts, including lost wages of the donor."

On the ground: Eco-champ Brad is yet another Prius-lover, and he reportedly has several hybrids in his stable.
In the air: Los Angeles/Namibia, 9,400 miles in a private jet.
Gas guzzled: 11,000 gallons of jet fuel.
Prius penance: Brad burned enough fuel to take a Prius to the moon.

Ummm... I wonder how much fuel TMZ and other papparazzi burn up chasing celebrities for these stupid stories?
Those who live in glass houses...

As for the need for private jets...I flew business class from Ireland to Chicago, and sat just in front of a star of far greater magnitude than any mentioned in the article...Paul Newman. He was not only gracious to all who said hello to him, but was generally not bothered by anyone. The idea that a "star" needs to be secluded on a private jet is really more a reflection of a hyperextended ego than a need for privacy. Has anyone flown first class on an international flight? The cabin is secluded, the passengers need never interact with the main cabin, and all those believing they need privacy get it, whether needed or not. Here's to Leo for understanding what the substandard so called "stars" don't get.

"I'm here to change peoples' minds on the climate crisis and to support Prop 87," Gore called to a group of reporters after he emerged from the "100 miles per gallon" Toyota Prius that brought him to a noontime rally in a sun-drenched park behind Berkeley's City Hall.

His motorcade also included three motorcycles, two limousines and a Dodge Ram 1500 light duty truck.

The Nebraska city's elected leaders and police department are urging residents who see violations to call the 9-1-1 emergency system for an immediate response.

Omaha banned smoking in public Oct. 2. Penalties are $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second and $500 for the third and subsequent infractions.

The new smoking ban applies to bars that serve food and those that don't have keno licenses. Some bars have applied for keno licenses to keep their smokers happy, and a few decided to give up food instead of smoking.

Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7 – a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week.

"They aren't even planning for if they lose," says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing.

The theocracy charge relies mainly on blowing Christian conservative positions out of proportion. Do Christian conservatives oppose the public funding of embryo-destructive stem-cell research? Well, then, Calvin's Geneva can't be far behind. Never mind that in opposing such funding, they are usually supporting the status quo. It's a little like saying that because Democrats oppose cuts in Medicaid, they favor a dictatorship of the proletariat...

The truth about Christian conservatives is that they support public-policy goals infused with a certain view of morality. This isn't unusual. The greatest reform movement of the 20th century - the civil-rights movement - was explicitly Christian. Today, the opposition to torture is based on a moral view that trumps all practical considerations (the inviolable dignity of the human person). A moral sense is often behind the liberal opposition to the Iraq War and to the death penalty.

National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru has pointed out that you can take all Christian conservative positions - including far-fetched ones like banning sodomy and contraception - and if they happened overnight they "would merely turn the clock back to the late 1950s. That may be a very bad idea, but the America of the 1950s was not a theocracy."

In awarding them the prize, the Nobel Committee said their efforts showed how working to eliminate poverty can result in a lasting peace.

Former Republican Rep. Mark Foley's electronic messages to congressional pages may have been vile, despicable and outrageous, as colleagues and critics have declared.

But was his conduct illegal?

If Foley had sex with a page in the District of Columbia, it wouldn't be a crime. In the capital, the age of consent is 16, as it is in many states. That, coincidentally, is the minimum age to be a page.

Many of the prizes for actually discovering something will go to Americans, and the prizes for doing things that make Europeans feel good will go to anti-Americans (Rigoberta Menchu, Peace, 1992; Yasser Arafat, Peace, 1994; Harold Pinter, Literature, 2005).

In the television series Firefly, the fictional character of River Tam is portrayed as having had her amygdalae 'stripped'. This operation, according to characters on the show, has caused her to be unable to suppress emotions, giving her a hypersensitivity that can come across as creepy and unsettling. She also exhibits possible signs of autism, a condition that has been proposed by some to be linked to amygdalae malfunctioning.

The rules were well-intended. The union was worried that principals would play favorites, hiring friends and family members while firing good teachers. If public education were subject to the competition of the free market, those bureaucratic rules would be unnecessary, because parents would hold a bad principal accountable by sending their kids to a different school the next year. But government schools never go out of business, and parents' ability to change schools is sharply curtailed. So the education monopoly adopts paralyzing rules instead.

The regulations are so onerous that principals rarely even try to fire a teacher. Most just put the bad ones in pretend-work jobs, or sucker another school into taking them. (They call that the "dance of the lemons.") The city payrolls include hundreds of teachers who have been deemed incompetent, violent, or guilty of sexual misconduct. Since the schools are afraid to let them teach, they put them in so-called "rubber rooms" instead. There they read magazines, play cards, and chat, at a cost to New York taxpayers of $20 million a year.

There was never a time in America when big business didn't get favors from government, which means the taxpayers. Canal and railroad companies loved the big government contracts. Corruption was rampant, and work was often shoddy, but the contracts paid handsomely. The politicians prospered, too. Only taxpayers and consumers lost out.

The history books say that during the Progressive era, government trustbusters reined in business. Nonsense. Progressive "reforms" -- railroad regulation, meat inspection, drug certification and the rest -- were done at the behest of big companies that wanted competition managed. They knew regulation would burden smaller companies more than themselves. The strategy works.

Regulation isn't the only form of protection that big business gets from government. Companies with political clout get cash subsidies, low-interest loans, loan guarantees and barriers to cheap imports.

Even foreign aid is a subsidy to big business because governments receiving the taxpayers' money buy American exports. Fans of foreign aid say those exports are good for the economy because they create jobs. Don't believe it. If the taxpayers had been able to keep the money, their spending would have created other jobs -- probably more jobs.