“Those few abortionists were shot, or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure with a rifle performed on them. I’m not justifying it, but I do understand how it happened…. The number of deaths attributed to Roe v. Wade: about 40 million aborted babies and seven abortion clinic workers; 40 million to seven is also a pretty good measure of how the political debate is going.” –Ann Coulter
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The online futures exchange Intrade.com has created a market in Libby pardon futures.

“There’s good interest in the market already,” John Delaney, Intrade’s chief executive, said by telephone from Dublin. He said traders so far had collectively predicted a 23 percent chance of a pardon by the end of 2007 and 63 percent by the end of President Bush’s term.

Read original by SCOTT SHANE, New York Times

NILAND, Calif. — Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones and her husband, David Jones, are betting their careers and personal fortunes that they can grow masses of the slimy organism and use its natural photosynthesis process to produce a plentiful supply of biofuel.A few companies are in a race to be first to convert algae to fuel on a commercial scale, and it will require not a small amount of money, luck and biotech tweaking.

“You have a vintage here that you are not sure is going to mature into anything good, and you are putting money into it on the off chance that it might,” Ms. Morgenthaler-Jones, acknowledged during a drive the other day to an algae-filled catfish farm in this secluded desert town.

Go to original by CLIFFORD KRAUSS New York Times
Published: March 7, 2007

The agents informed the Wetzels that they were interested in their car, a 1986 Volkswagen Golf, that David Wetzel converted to run primarily from vegetable oil but also partly on diesel.
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Christopher A. Warner says he considers himself something of a maverick, a caring physician willing to challenge medical orthodoxy in order to help women.

That’s why the 39-year-old board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist recently opened the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Washington in a red brick townhouse off Washington Circle. There, he is building a business as the first area physician to perform controversial procedures that use a laser to enhance sexual gratification by repairing tissue damaged by childbirth, to give women a “youthful aesthetic look” or to make those who are not appear to be virgins.

Warner’s fledgling rejuvenation practice, experts say, exemplifies physicians’ entry into what some have termed the “last frontier” of plastic surgery — a realm where medical ethics collide with culture, commerce and technology.

Go to original by Sandra G. Boodman, Washington Post Staff Writer

Go to original by WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer

Prisoners who endure poor or degrading treatment suffer much of the same long-term psychological distress as do captives who are tortured, suggests a study published Monday.

The study was based on interviews with victims of ill treatment and torture while imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia, and experts said the findings underscored the need for a broader definition of torture.

“What is the basis for the distinction between torture and other cruel and degrading treatment? Science should inform this debate,” the study’s lead author, Metin Basoglu of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College in London, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Steve H. Miles of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics, who was not involved in the study, said the findings “show that the severity of long-lasting adverse mental effects is unrelated to whether the torture or degrading treatment is physical or psychological.”

“The wrongness of these inflicted harms is compounded by the fact that most abused prisoners, including those in the present war on terror, are innocent or ignorant of terrorist activities,” Miles said.

Invocon, Inc., one of dozens of companies expected to showcase their wares at the “Navy’s 07 ‘Opportunity Forum” for small businesses, is advertising a weapon that boasts the ability to go through walls and incapacitate everyone in a room by making them lose their balance. “Second order effects would be extreme motion sickness,” the company notes.

Go to original by Sharon Weinberger

  CLEVELAND (AP) — Diebold Inc. saw great potential in the modernization of elections equipment. Now, analysts say, executives may be angling for ways to dump its e-voting subsidiary that’s widely seen as tarnishing the company’s reputation.

Though Diebold Election Systems – the company’s smallest business segment – has shown growth and profit, it’s faced persistent criticism over the reliability and security of its touch-screen voting machines. About 150,000 of its touch-screen or optical scan systems were used in 34 states in last November’s election.

In the calm after the November midterm elections, Tom Swidarski, Diebold’s chief executive officer, told analysts in a conference call that the company plans to announce its long-term strategy for the elections unit early this year.

Swidarski declined an interview request to shed more light on the voting segment’s future.
But in an annual report filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Diebold’s discussion of its election systems business pointed out various ongoing concerns. Diebold acknowledged that complaints about its voting products and services have hurt relations with government election officials.

Read original by M. R. Kropko

“The president says, ‘I don’t care.’ He’s not accountable anymore. He’s not accountable anymore, which isn’t totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment.” –Chuck Hagel
Go to original by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire.

The Pentagon’s top civilian official in charge of military healthcare wanted more money for bullets and bombs, and fewer benefits for soldiers.
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The verbal venom usually gives the imposters away. They have a strong tendency to revert to name-calling and intentional distortion of verbal statements or writings by Democrats.
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There is evidence not of a few tragic isolated problems, but of systemic neglect that is nearly crippling the U.S. veterans’ health system.
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