Which ads are Obama running and can you use factcheck.org on them?

Summary
An ad released jointly by the McCain-Palin campaign and the RNC claims Obama "rewards his friends with your tax dollars" and calls his actions "unethical." Some of what the ad says is false or misleading. Here are the facts:

The ad claims that Obama supporter and Chicago real estate developer Allison Davis received $20 million in taxpayer money. That's false. Davis didn't get this money. Instead, the federal grant went to the Chicago Housing Authority, replacing money it had already put forward for a mixed-income housing project on which Davis was a developer. The grant didn't go to Davis, nor did it help him pocket any additional funds.


The ad says Obama gave Tony Rezko $14 million of taxpayer money. That's misleading. It's true the housing project Rezko was working on cost $14 million in taxpayer cash. Rezko and his partner netted $855,000 in fees.

Obama worked to get Kenny Smith a $100,000 grant to build a park, which Smith later failed to complete. Smith has since caught the attention of the state attorney general. But, according to reports, Obama isn't under investigation for helping Smith get the grant.
The RNC and McCain may consider Obama's actions to be "unethical"; that's a matter of opinion. But the fact is, as far as these three incidents are concerned, Obama has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing, and there's been no report that his actions are the subject of any official investigation.

Analysis
The joint ad from the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee accuses Sen. Barack Obama of being "unethical," citing instances in which individuals connected to Obama received federal or state funds. Sen. John McCain's campaign and the RNC have spent $5.9 million so far airing the ad in 17 states, including Pennsylvania, where $1.2 million has been spent on the ad, and North Carolina, where it has aired a total of 1,629 times, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence. The ad started airing on Oct. 14.

RNC/McCain-Palin Ad: "Unethical"
Announcer: Obama rewards his friends with your tax dollars. Tony Rezko, fourteen million. Allison Davis, twenty million. Kenny Smith, one hundred thousand. That's unethical. Congressional liberals promise to raise your taxes to reward their friends with wasteful pork. Taxes for you. Pork for them. Who's gonna' stop 'em? Congressional liberals? Or him.

McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

$20 Million? Try Zero
The ad claims that real estate developer Allison Davis received $20 million of taxpayer money thanks to Obama. But that's false. Davis didn't get any of this money. The ad cites a story from The Washington Times, but the article says that "city housing authorities confirmed" that the "grant money won't go to Mr. Davis or his company."

According to documentation provided by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), a letter was ghostwritten for Obama, Sen. **** Durbin (D-Ill.) and others by the CHA in support of a project called Stateway Gardens – an urban revitalization effort to transition crime-ridden high-rises into mixed-income housing. The letter was sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in an effort to acquire a fiscal year 2008 grant of $20 million to support the project, of which Davis, a supporter of Obama, was one of the developers.

We spoke with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spokeswoman Donna White, who told us that the money was not awarded to Davis, but to the Chicago Housing Authority:
Donna White, spokeswoman for HUD: The Chicago Housing Authority competed for [the Hope VI] grant. The housing authority applies for the funding, they select a developer. ... It's common for congressional members to submit letters of support when they know that a housing authority in their jurisdiction is competing for a grant.

We also spoke with William Little, executive vice president of development for CHA, who reiterated that the HUD grant was not awarded to Davis, but to the CHA, and that the grant allowed the CHA to reallocate funds it had already directed to the Stateway project. Davis did not see a profit as a result of the HUD grant, according to Little, nor did the budget for the Stateway project increase. When we asked Little about the charge in the ad that Obama "reward[ed]" Davis with $20 million, he told us:

William Little, CHA: That's totally false. HUD awarded CHA $20 million in a Hope VI grant, which allows CHA to reallocate funds it had previously earmarked for that particular project to other projects. The overall budget for the project did not increase. Allison Davis gets none of it.

A portion of the Stateway development is devoted to market-priced housing, and Davis stood to profit from the sales of those homes. But he did not pocket any of the HUD grant, which went to construction of low-income units.

Tony Rezko (Again)
The ad also claims that Tony Rezko got "fourteen million," because of Obama. But he didn't.

A 2007 report from The Chicago Sun-Times is the source, but the article goes over territory we've addressed before: that Obama wrote letters to state officials supporting a low-income senior housing complex Rezko was trying to have built. Both men say Rezko did not solicit the letters. The Sun-Times quoted Obama spokesman Bill Burton as saying Obama didn't write the letters as a favor but "in the interests of the people in the community who have benefited from the project."

Regardless, the ad is wrong to imply Rezko pocketed millions. The project cost $14 million of taxpayer money. But, as we've reported, Rezko and his partner, who was Allison Davis, received $855,000 in fees. It's not peanuts, but it's not $14 million either.

Kenny Smith's $100,000 Garden
The ad then claims Kenny Smith received $100,000 in taxpayer money as a "reward" from Obama. This claim holds more water than the rest, but it's still a leaky vessel.

The ad cites a New York Post report that details how Obama, then a state senator in the midst of a race for a congressional seat, worked on Smith's behalf in 2000 in an effort to raise $1.1 million in state funding for the "Englewood Botanic Garden Project." Smith, head of the nonprofit Chicago Better Housing Association and a volunteer for Obama's congressional campaign, planned to rehabilitate a plot of land in a Chicago neighborhood. He was awarded a $100,000 state grant to do so, a far cry from the $1.1 million he had hoped to receive.

But Smith never built the park. And, according to a report from The Chicago Sun-Times, state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a Democrat who backs Obama, has started to look into whether or not taxpayer money was mishandled. While questions have been raised about how Smith spent the money, according to the Sun-Times, the paper notes that "neither Smith nor his wife are accused of any wrongdoing." The Post report cited by the ad said that "officials in Madigan's office said Obama's actions in giving out the member item aren't under investigation."

Democrats "Promise to Raise Your Taxes"
The ad swings away from the taxpayer hand-outs and claims: "Democrats promise to raise your taxes to reward their friends with wasteful pork." That linkage doesn't sound like a promise any sane politician would make.
The ad cites a Nov. 2007 article from The Washington Times, which chronicles a bill introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). The bill would have amended the tax code to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax and limit deductions that could be claimed by taxpayers making more than $250,000 a year, among other measures. But Rangel's bill, introduced a year ago, never cleared the Ways and Means Committee.

As for the "wasteful pork" claim, the fact is that securing earmarks is a popular practice among both Democrats and Republicans. Two oft-cited earmark recipients are longtime Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Both were listed in Porkbusters.org's "Hall of Shame" in 2006 and have been singled out as "Porker of The Month" more than once over the last eight years by the organization Citizens Against Government Waste – proof that, promise or not, Democrats and Republicans send money home for projects whether taxes go up or down.

Republished with permission from factcheck.org.

Sources
Novak, Tim. "Obama's Letters for Rezko." 13 June 2007. The Chicago Sun-Times. 22 August 2008.

McElhatton, Jim. "Obama sought HUD grant for donor's project." 6 Oct. 2008. The Washington Times.

Miller, S.A. "Democrats' Plan Taxes All." 8 Nov. 2007. The Washington Times.


© 2008

NEW YORK -- "Joe the Plumber" is lashing out at the media for analyzing his personal life since he suddenly became a focal point of the presidential race last week.

Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio, told Mike Huckabee on his Fox News talk show Saturday that he is upset by the attention and has been unable to work with reporters crowded on his front lawn.

"The media's worried about whether I've paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America," Wurzelbacher told the former Republican presidential hopeful on his show, "Huckabee."

Wurzelbacher said he felt terrible after reading some of the criticism of himself posted online.

"I felt about that small," he said. "I mean I really did."

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been portraying Wurzelbacher as emblematic of people with concerns about Obama's tax plans.

Wurzelbacher became famous after he met Obama and said the Democrat's tax proposal could keep him from buying the two-man plumbing company where he works. However, reports of Wurzelbacher's annual earnings suggest he would receive a tax cut rather than an increase under Obama's plan.

"You know, I am a plumber," Wurzelbacher said. "Just a plumber."

The Iraq parlaiment is now in position to ratify a security pact with the US that "would require U.S. forces to leave by Dec. 31, 2011 unless Iraq asked some of them to stay."

"A copy of the draft accord obtained by The Associated Press specifies that U.S. troops must leave Iraqi cities by the end of June and be gone by 2012. It gives Iraq limited authority over off-duty, off-base U.S. soldiers who commit crimes."

"U.S. Congressional approval is not required for the pact to take effect, but the administration is trying to build maximum political support anyway."


But apparently the Iraqi people are uninformed of the terms and are protesting.
"Several of the Sunni and Shiite clerics who wield considerable influence in shaping public opinion, also spoke out during Friday prayer services against the draft, complaining that the Iraqi public knows little about the terms."

Al Sadr, who currently resides in Iran, doubts the the pact will give Iraq sovereignty and has called for protests.

""If they tell you that the agreement ends the presence of the occupation, let me tell you that the occupier will retain its bases. And whoever tells you that it gives us sovereignty is a liar," al-Sadr said. "I am confident that you brothers in parliament will champion the will of the people over that of the occupier ... Do not betray the people.""

WASHINGTON - One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee composed of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the coming midterm congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s his firm, Davis & Manafort, was kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who was widely expected by 2006 to run again for the White House.

Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafort for the duration of the campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to share in its profits. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

A Freddie Mac spokeswoman said the company would not comment. Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, did not dispute the payments to Mr. Davis’s firm. But she said that Mr. Davis had stopped taking a salary from his firm by the end of 2006 and that his work did not affect Mr. McCain.

“Senator McCain’s positions on policy matters are based upon what he believes to be in the public interest,” Ms. Hazelbaker said in a written statement.

The revelations come at a time when Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama are sparring over ties to lobbyists and special interests and seeking political advantage in a campaign being reshaped by the financial crisis and the plan to bail out investment firms.

Long history of cultivating allies
Mr. McCain’s campaign has been attacking Senator Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, for his ties to former officials of the mortgage lenders, both of which have long histories of cultivating allies in the two parties to fend off efforts to restrict their activities. Mr. McCain has been running a television commercial suggesting that Mr. Obama takes advice on housing issues from Franklin D. Raines, a former chief executive of Fannie Mae, a contention flatly denied by Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign. Freddie Mac’s roughly $500,000 in payments to Davis & Manafort began immediately after Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in late 2005 disbanded an advocacy coalition that they had set up and hired Mr. Davis to run, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

Between 2000 and the end of 2005, Mr. Davis had received nearly $2 million as president of the coalition, the Homeownership Alliance, which the companies created to help them oppose new regulations and protect their status as federally chartered companies with implicit government backing. That status let them borrow cheaply, helping to fuel rapid growth but also their increased purchases of the risky mortgage securities that were their downfall.

On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and the New York Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about Mr. Davis’s role in the advocacy group by saying that his campaign manager “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Such assertions, along with McCain campaign television ads tying Mr. Obama to former Fannie Mae chiefs, have riled current and former officials of the two companies and provoked them to volunteer rebuttals of what they see as the McCain campaign’s inaccuracy and hypocrisy. The two officials with direct knowledge of Freddie Mac’s post-2005 contract with Mr. Davis spoke on condition of anonymity. One is a Democrat and the other a registered independent. Four other outside consultants, three Democrats and a Republican also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that it was widely known that Mr. Davis was being paid though his firm.

As president of the Homeownership Alliance, Mr. Davis got $30,000 to $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis, along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have characterized the alliance as a coalition of many housing industry and consumer groups to promote homeownership, but numerous current and former officials at both companies say the two mortgage companies created and bankrolled the operation to combat efforts by competitors to rein in their business. They dissolved the group at the end of 2005 as part of cost-cutting in the wake of accounting scandals and, at Freddie Mac, a lobbying scandal that forced out its former top Republican lobbyist.

At least two other people associated with Mr. McCain have ties to either Freddie Mac. The lobbying firm of the Republican that Mr. McCain has enlisted to plan his transition to the White House should he be elected, William Timmons Sr., earned nearly $3 million from Freddie Mac between 2000 and its seizure, federal lobbying records show. Mr. Timmons is founder of Timmons & Co., one of Washington’s best-known lobbying shops. The payments were first reported by Bloomberg News.

Mark Buse, Mr. McCain’s chief of staff for his Senate office, also is a Freddie Mac alumnus. He and his former lobbying employer, ML Strategies, registered to lobby for the company in July 2003, and received $460,000 before the association ended after 2004.

Mr. McCain and his advisers have argued that whatever connections Mr. Davis and other McCain campaign officials have had to the mortgage giants, Mr. McCain in the Senate has been an advocate for reforming them. And they have suggested that Mr. Obama is linked to the companies through donations from their employees ties to former officials there, including James Johnson, another former chief executive of Fannie Mae who was the head of Mr. Obama’s vice presidential search team until stepping aside after coming under criticism for getting a mortgage on favorable terms.

In an interview Tuesday with conservative talk-radio host Neal Boortz, Mr. McCain said, “I remember warning at that time that Fannie and Freddie were out of control and that they needed to be reined in. And, frankly, I warned that this kind of thing could lead to serious problems. Now, in full disclosure, I didn’t foresee something this huge, but certainly I saw the fundamentals there for serious problems when you have a quasi government agency acting the way they did.”

When Mr. Boortz noted approvingly that Mr. McCain had co-sponsored a Senate bill to mandate new regulations, Mr. McCain said, “I remember it very well.”

But a Freddie Mac official said Mr. McCain “never took on the role that some other Republicans did” to try to limit the companies. He named instead Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, all of whom were on the banking committee during recent years. “I remember working against a number of amendments and they were always introduced by Hagel and Sununu. John McCain was never anywhere to be found.”

A check of the records for the legislation that Mr. Boortz mentioned shows that Senator Hagel was the original sponsor on Jan. 26, 2005, and Senators Sununu and Dole were co-sponsors then. Mr. McCain did not sign on as a co-sponsor for more than a year, on May 25, 2006.

WASHINGTON - This week's tumultuous events on Wall Street have immediately commanded center stage in the presidential race. But the debate is being framed too narrowly.

It's understandable that the first reactions from Barack Obama and John McCain centered on whether Washington is effectively regulating the financial markets. That's a natural focus for Obama, who delivered a detailed speech at Cooper Union in March urging a comprehensive modernizing of financial regulation. Coming from McCain, a demand for tougher oversight is more jarring. Although he has occasionally banged heads with individual industries over specific policies, he has generally presented himself as a "small government ... less regulation" conservative.

Yet neither presidential nominee has yet connected the gales on Wall Street to the generation-long changes in the American social contract that have exposed average families much more directly to the effects of such upheavals. Over the past quarter-century, America has engaged in a fundamental transfer of the responsibility for managing everyday financial risk from employers and government to individuals and families. In his 2006 book, University of California (Berkeley) political scientist Jacob Hacker memorably terms this The Great Risk Shift.

Since the 1970s, the share of employers providing defined-benefit pension plans that guarantee workers a set income upon retirement has shriveled. Instead, most workers now rely on defined-contribution plans--primarily 401(k) accounts--in which employers commit only to providing funds that workers can invest, and the amount of money available upon retirement depends entirely on the workers' skill (and luck) in navigating the financial markets. Defined-contribution plans undeniably provide workers with more control over their retirement investments, but they also expose employees to far more risk, as those hoping to retire soon were painfully reminded when their 401(k) plans plummeted this week. A similar transfer of risk is evident in health care, because fewer employers offer insurance to their workers, and even those that do shift more of the cost onto employees.

Although neither McCain nor Obama has framed the situation this way, their reactions to this transfer of risk and responsibility represent a fundamental dividing line between them. Like President Bush, who touted an "ownership society," McCain has welcomed these shifts of responsibility as giving individuals more control over their financial future. On several fronts, McCain in fact wants to accelerate these trends.

Today, most Americans still receive their health insurance through group coverage (either from government or employers) that shares risk and cost between the healthy and the sick. Relatively few obtain insurance in the individual market, which exposes consumers to much wider variations in cost and coverage depending on their health. McCain's proposal would push more people toward the individual market (perhaps 20 million more, according to an independent study released this week) by replacing the tax break that promotes employer-based coverage with an individual tax credit.

Likewise, McCain wants to allow workers to divert part of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts, as Bush unsuccessfully proposed in 2005. Any system of private accounts would require future reductions in guaranteed Social Security benefits (because it would consume payroll taxes that are otherwise used to pay the benefits for retirees) and would make workers even more dependent on financial markets for retirement. "I think your money is probably better invested in America's economy than ... by a federal bureaucrat," McCain said last year. That might not seem so obvious after this week's eruptions.

Obama, by contrast, wants to strengthen the institutions that promote the sharing of risk. His health care plan aims to buttress group-based coverage, either through employers or new government-sponsored purchasing networks. He adamantly opposes private accounts under Social Security and would instead offer tax incentives for workers to invest for retirement in accounts intended to supplement Social Security's guaranteed benefits.

In all these respects, the McCain-Obama contest represents a fork in the road that will likely determine whether the nation continues to shift more financial responsibility to individuals, or seeks opportunities to restore more sharing of risk. This week's chaos on Wall Street, which rattled millions of workers relying on the markets to fund a decent retirement, shows how much average Americans have at stake in that choice. "This is a critical watershed moment," Hacker correctly notes, "because it really captures in sharp relief both the stakes and what the core of this debate is."

Wouldn't it be safe to say that all knowledge, all the sciences evolved from the "first" science of physics with the big bang being the catalyst. Physics being the foundation of all the other sciences and sciences are the results or conditions permitted by physics.

But then again not all knowledge is science. Know who is Paris Hilton dating is knowledge but it is not a all a science. Mythology, for example, is knowledge but it is not a science: it is man's first attempt at science and philosophy. Knowledge seems to include at worst irrational thoughts or at best creative ideas, AND science.

I hear conservatives create fear out of some socialist ideas but the American govt provides services that are socialist and you wouldn't think of it being communist.

The police system is socialist, it's a service that if privatised would create private armies that only the rich could afford and control. They would only protect some not all.

Firehouses is a socialist instintution. Firefighters used to be exclusive to voluteers but the voluteer only joined to protect their property, they would only put out fires if their house was burn not anyones elses. Also fire codes were non-existent. They would only protect some not all.

The public school system is socialist. In other countries education is not a right; you have to pay to send your child to school. And if you can't afford schooling then you send your child to work or have him or her roam the streets. It would educate some not all.

Public Libraries are socialist. You could read the paper, reseach information, take out a book, and have a quiet place to study. And the cost: FREE!

The Department of Sanitation. Without it you would have to haul your trash away yourself or pay some one else to haul it away and who wants to deal with garbage? Have the govt. do it.


Is is socialism all bad? If you look at the services you take for granted the answer is no.

Look at what your saying. You worry about Big Government yet you support a bill that increases Big Government. Even worse this bill only stengthens one branch of government when the Founding Fathers intended checks and balances.

Define traitor, the Founding Fathers are consider traitors to the English. The Founding Father were revolutionaries, hence American Revolutionary War.

New treatment may finally kill herpes virus
Approach offers potential cure for stubborn infections, researchers say

updated 9:45 a.m. ET, Thurs., July. 3, 2008
WASHINGTON - U.S. researchers reported they may have found a way to flush out herpes viruses from hiding — offering a potential way to cure pesky and painful conditions from cold sores to shingles.

They discovered that a mysterious gene carried by the herpes simplex-1 virus — the one that causes cold sores — allows the virus to lay low in the nerves it infects.

It does so via microRNAs, little pieces of genetic material that regulate the activity of many viruses, the researchers report in the journal Nature.

It may be possible to "wake up" the virus and then kill it with standard antiviral drugs such as acyclovir, said Jennifer Lin Umbach of Duke University in North Carolina, who worked on the study released Wednesday.

"We are trying to go into animal trials," Umbach said in a telephone interview.

The Duke team is discussing a potential collaboration with Regulus Therapeutics LLC, a joint venture between Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc that specializes in microRNAs.

Herpes viruses cause permanent infections. They head straight to nerve cells, where they stay latent for the life of an animal or person, often causing periodic outbreaks.

Herpes simplex 1 or HSV-1 causes cold sores, HSV-2 causes genital herpes, while varicella causes chicken pox and returns in middle or old age as herpes zoster to cause shingles.

Acyclovir and related drugs can suppress symptoms but only when the virus is active.

Impossible to kill
"Inactive virus is completely untouchable by any treatment we have. Unless you activate the virus, you can't kill it," said Bryan Cullen, who oversaw the research.

Umbach said that for still unknown reasons, viruses infecting different neurons in the same body activate at different times, making it impossible to eradicate an infection.

Her team found that a gene called LAT controls microRNAs that turn off other genes in the virus.

"The presence of these active microRNAs keep the virus dormant," Umbach said. "When the virus is activated by stress like UV (ultraviolet) light or a wound, production of (other) genes goes up."

Then LAT is overwhelmed and unable to keep the virus in check. It wakes up and causes an outbreak.

A drug that would turn off the microRNAs could drive the virus out of hiding and allow all copies of the virus to be killed with acyclovir, she said.

"You would have one cold sore but you would get rid of it," she said. Curing something more painful, such as shingles, might be a little trickier, she added.

One class of drug called an antagomir might work, Umbach said. These chemically engineered oligonucleotides are short segments of RNA that can be made into mirror images of a targeted bit of genetic material — such as the herpes microRNAs. They would attach and "silence" the microRNA.

The potential market is large. An estimated one in five Americans have genital herpes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 100 million have the HSV-1 virus that causes cold sores.

The CDC estimates there are a million cases of shingles every year in the United States alone.

A drop in demand of light, sweet crude oil drop prices for September delivery at $125.49

Americans used 2.4 percent less fuel over the past four weeks than they did last year, the latest figures by the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration show. While that may not sound like much, industry experts say it represents a significant shift by the world's largest energy consumer. A bigger-than-expected increase in gasoline supplies only added to concerns that drivers are cutting back.

At the gas pump, prices continued their retreat. The national average for a gallon of regular dropped more than a penny and a half to $4.026 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Retail diesel is down nearly half a cent to $4.788.

"We've grounded airplanes. People are driving less, they're trading in their SUVs," said James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com. "For the foreseeable future — at least for the next 6 to 12 months — we have demand destruction."

Cordier predicted prices could yet drop further, with oil possibly falling as low as $110 a barrel by September.

"People have changed their driving habits, and they're not going to change back anytime soon," he said.

Falling prices at the filling station reflect the concern of many energy traders that the weakening U.S. economy is hurting demand. Analysts say that is helping keep oil prices from racing back higher.

Oil tumbled $3.98 to settle at $124.44 a barrel, its lowest finish since June 4. Crude has fallen in six of the previous seven sessions, and is now trading nearly 15 percent below its peak above $147 a barrel earlier this month.

Natural gas fell after the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that natural-gas inventories held in underground storage in the lower 48 states rose by 84 billion cubic feet to nearly 2.4 trillion cubic feet last week.


By simply becoming more energy efficent you cause a gas prices to drop without new drilling. Stop giving big oil more money. Give up gas guzzlers, insulate your home for winter, keep your themostat at 65 degrees in the winter, 75 degrees in the summer.
Unplug your appliances (TV, A/C) when not in use. You pay less in energy costs and keep more in your pocket. The less demand, the lower the cost.

When I was 14, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend.

When I was 16 I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.

In college I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.

When I was 25 I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so dull that I decided that I needed a girl with some excitement.

When I was 28 I found an exciting girl, but I couldn't keep up with her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find girl with some real ambition.

When I turned 30, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground, so I married her. She was so ambitious that she divorced me and took everything I owned.

I am older and wiser now, and am looking for a girl with big tits.

By Tom Curry
updated 5:05 p.m. ET, Thurs., July. 3, 2008

WASHINGTON - It could turn out to be one of the most significant comments of the 2008 campaign — but coming just ahead of a holiday weekend, it isn’t getting much notice.

Upon his return from a visit to Israel and Europe, the nation’s highest ranking military officer warned Wednesday that a military strike on Iran would be a very bad idea.

“This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more unstable,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen.

He added pointedly, “we haven't had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time,” seeming to imply that the Bush administration should be talking to the Iranian government.

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has said that if elected, he would begin talks with Iran, without any precondition.

The Bush administration has insisted that before talks can begin, Iran must cease its nuclear enrichment — a step toward building nuclear weapons.

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has said that his rival's willingness to hold direct talks, without preconditions, reveals "the depth of Sen. Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment.”

Adm. Mullen, much like Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, is one of those powerful unelected officials whose words could, at times, have as much effect on the campaign as Obama and McCain themselves.

It’s unusual for a military officer, especially the nation’s highest ranking one, to warn in such explicit terms of potential military action and to so emphatically call for diplomacy.

“What struck me about the comments was that he called for dialogue with Iran in his preliminary statement, even before he was responding to (reporters’) questions,” said Jon Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Alterman pointed to Mullen’s opening statement in which he said, “I'm convinced a solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure. There is a need for better clarity, even dialogue at some level.”

Not ruling out use of military force
President Bush, McCain, and Obama, all say they would not rule out the use of military force to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

But Mullen appeared to be edging toward saying that military action, either by Israel or the United States, or both, would be catastrophic.

He also warned that the United States would be hard pressed to conduct operations against Iran, given the commitment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“From the United States' perspective, the United States' military perspective, in particular, opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us,” Mullen told reporters. “That doesn't mean we don't have capacity or reserve, but that would really be very challenging.”

And, he added, “The consequences of that (military action) sometimes are very difficult to predict.”

Mullen explained, “Just about every move in that part of the world is a high-risk move. And that's why I think it's so important that the international piece, the financial piece, the diplomatic piece, the economic piece be brought to bear with a level of intensity that resolves this.”

The Israeli air force staged a large-scale drill last month that some observers saw as a warning of a possible Israeli attack on Iran.

But Mullen assured reporters Wednesday that “the Israeli press reported fairly widely that…those exercises were planned and routine.”

In 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. The Israeli government believed Saddam Hussein's regime was planning to use the plant to make nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel.

An attack on Iranian nuclear sites could cause the Iranian regime to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s total daily oil demand is carried.

Oil prices hit a record high of nearly $146 a barrel on Thursday. As Americans drive during this July 4 vacation, one reason they're paying more than $4.50 a gallon in some parts of the country is the growing tension over Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in an interview with The Associated Press Wednesday that the United States and Israel would not risk such an attack.

“The Israeli government is facing a political breakdown within itself and within the region, so we do not foresee such a possibility for that regime to resort to such craziness," Mottaki said. “The United States, too, is not in a position where it can engage in, take another risk in the region.”

In Congress, some members have expressed their fear that the Bush administration might launch a unilateral attack on Iran.

But last year the House rejected, by a vote of 288 to 136, an amendment offered by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D- Ore., that would have prohibited funds being used to take military action against Iran without specific authorization from Congress — unless Iran had first attacked the United State

Why stop at the bible? You could teach the torah which is Bible 1.0, the New Testament which is the Bible 2.0 and the Koran which the Bible 3.0, and then there's the Book of Morrmons which is the bible 2.1, the book of "Scientology" which say that people are decendants of aliens. The fact of the matter is there are many versions of creationism.

Intelligent design is not science. it's people looking at nature not understanding the science behind it and jumping to the conclusion that an intelligent being must have a hand in it.

People used to believe the Sun was a god, even the king of gods. When you look at the the nature you might think God is the sun. The sun warm the earth, warms the the oceans and air and creates the global climate patterns, the solar energy made by the sun is used by plants to not only convert carbon dioxide to oxygen but grow food that we eat. By these fact you would conclude the sun is God. Heck why don't we worship the sun by this reasoning.

This is of course a misterperation of the facts. Luckly today most people would say that the sun is giant nuclear fire ball of gases.

If you were to teach intelligent design you allow the misterpertation of the facts, allow ignorance to halt the progression of science in favor of religious theology.

The enbargo should be lifted, there was a report recently that Cuba developed a cancer drug that extended the life of lung cancer patientes. When your waiting for a lung transplant that means a world of difference.

Timmi Ryerson, a San Diego stock market analyst, says her left hip actually works again, thanks to an orthopedic specialist in India.

Stacie Mason, a civil rights worker from West Virginia, couldn’t fully appreciate her 170-pound weight loss until a plastic surgeon in Panama removed 20 inches of excess skin from her stomach and back.

And Ford Davies, a firefighter from Roseville, Calif., sports a realigned jaw and a mouthful of straight, strong teeth courtesy of a dentist in Mexico.

What's new about these procedures is not the exotic locales the three chose, but the way they paid for their far-flung surgeries.

While at least 150,000 Americans travel abroad for medical care every year, according to the American Medical Association, Ryerson, Mason and Davies represent a small but growing category of medical tourist: patients whose insurance companies have agreed to foot at least part of the bill.

“I think that’s the solution to our health care crisis," said Davies, 53, whose company plan, Delta Dental, maxed out his dental benefit, about $2,500, toward the $30,000 he spent to repair damage caused by years of grinding his teeth, a procedure that would have cost an estimated $80,000 in the United States.

Increasingly, some of the nation’s larger employers and leading health insurers agree.

Once the province of the poor and uninsured, medical tourism is gaining attention of industry giants such as CIGNA, Aetna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who say they either have begun or are considering pilot programs that provide limited coverage for foreign care. One Montana firm, Employee Benefit Management Services Inc., recently began offering medial tourism plans to its 120 self-insured clients in the Northwest.

“That’s probably the big news in terms of all types of medical offshoring,” said Dr. Arnold Milstein, chief physician for Mercer Health & Benefits, an international health care consulting agency, and medical director for Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents 50 large regional employers.

“You’re beginning to see the point now that it’s changing from a market primarily of individuals without coverage or insurance to a circumstance in which this is going to be adopted by U.S. health insurance plans to extend to a much larger U.S. population.”

Lured by low-price luxury
It’s a trend applauded by insurers and patients lured by offshore prices that are a fraction of U.S. costs and care that advocates claim rivals luxury health spas.

But it also has sparked concerns among the nation’s doctors and wary insurance providers who worry about guaranteeing safety, quality and continued access to care when procedures are performed in foreign lands.

“It’s unclear at this time whether the risks outweigh the benefits,” said Dr. J. James Rohack, a board member of the American Medical Association, which recently issued first-ever guidelines for medical tourism.

Medical care outside the U.S. must remain an option, not a requirement, the doctors said. And incentives for offshore care should not be allowed to limit appropriate diagnosis, treatment or referral.

Patients should be referred only to institutions approved by the international arm of the Joint Commission, a key U.S. accreditation agency, or the International Society for Quality in Health Care, and they should have wide access to information about doctors' credentials and outcomes, the guidelines said.

It's important to plan ahead for follow-up care back home, the doctors warned. And patients should be advised about the risks of combining surgery with long flights and vacation activities.

"The concern is, you incentize patients to go someplace cheaper, they won't know all the risks," said Dr. Paul Sherman, a pediatrician and a medical director for Group Health Cooperative in Seattle.

Perks include air fare, lodging — for two
Insurers acknowledge they're considering a range of rewards aimed at motivating patients to choose foreign care.

"Basically, if you're going to present an option to an employee to get on a plane for five to eight hours, there will be a need to consider some sort of incentive," said Jackie Aube, vice president of product management for CIGNA.

Some plans may waive co-payments or reimburse patients for choosing less-expensive services. EBMS, the Montana firm, said that in addition to covering all medical costs, some plans will pay for air fare, lodging and other travel expenses for the patient — and a companion.

"The idea is if they choose to go offshore, the companion gets a little vacation," said Rick Larson, chief executive of EBMS.

Both proponents and critics acknowledge, however, that offering coverage could spark a medical tourism boom.

A May report by McKinsey & Co., a global consulting firm, estimated that if insurers began covering foreign medical care, between 500,000 and 700,000 Americans might head abroad for surgery each year.

Savings may top $20 billion a year
Savings for procedures performed on those patients could top $20 billion a year, the analysts said, providing a glimpse of the primary motive behind the burgeoning trend.

Countries such as India, Thailand, Singapore, Costa Rica and Korea offer medical procedures at a fraction of the cost of U.S. providers. A $130,000 heart-bypass surgery in U.S. may cost only $34,000 in Korea or as little as $6,650 in India, according to the newly formed Medical Tourism Association of West Palm Beach, Fla. A $20,000 hysterectomy in the U.S. might cost only $4,000 in Costa Rica — and it comes with a trip to Costa Rica.

No question, financial savings are at the heart of the interest, said Aube, of CIGNA, who noted that several large employers are considering offering coverage, but have not yet decided. But they're also motivated by the chance to provide more choice for consumers, she added.

That’s true, too, for Aetna, which has entered the market slowly, with a single employer, Hannaford Brothers, a Maine grocery store chain that has begun offering foreign coverage for hip and knee surgeries for its 27,000 employees. (So far, no one has taken them up on it, a spokesman said.)

And it’s behind the formation of Companion Global HealthCare Inc., a program of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of South Carolina, which provides overseas care as part of a package of health insurance plans. David Boucher, Companion’s assistant vice president of health care services, said he expects medical tourism to be a standard offering by 2015.

“I think the initial incentive will be for patients to avoid out-of-pocket costs and for employers to begin lowering their medical benefit costs a bit,” Boucher said. “But I am confident that what we will see is a steady stream of patients returning to the U.S. as true disciples of this opportunity.”

Top-notch care, a fraction of the cost
That’s certainly been the case for Mason, 43, whose $20,000 body lift in Panama last July included about $7,500 for surgery to remove a large flap of skin from her abdomen, a procedure called a panniculectomy. Because the excess flesh led to potentially dangerous skin infections, the surgery was deemed a medically necessary procedure, one that could be covered by her federal Blue Cross health insurance plan.

Mason paid the bill herself for the rest of the surgery, including breast augmentation and thigh lifts. Because her surgeries would have totaled $50,000 to $75,000 back home, she contracted with Planet Hospital, a California-based medical tourism service, to research the alternatives abroad.

“It’s outrageous here, the cost of medical care,” Mason said. Additionally, many U.S. doctors seem to have forgotten that they’re providing a service, added Mason, who described one plastic surgeon she interviewed as “an egotistical ass.”

Not so with Dr. Louis Picard-Ami, a Florida-certified plastic surgeon who also practices in Panama. After checking out his credentials and the hospital’s safety record, Mason decided to go ahead with the surgery.

Not only was Picard-Ami technically proficient, he was kind and the amenities were luxurious, said Mason. Her hospital room was as lavish as any elegant hotel suite and her care included round-the-clock services of a private nurse.

“I just think that others need to be aware that they are able to have a safe procedure done out of the country for a price at a third the cost,” she said.

Ryerson, 61, said her private Blue Cross plan paid 80 percent of a $7,000 hip resurfacing surgery in Chennai, India, that would have been about $55,000 in the U.S. — if she could get it at all.

In 2006, the hip resurfacing device necessary for her surgery had just been approved for U.S. use by the federal Food and Drug Administration and not many domestic doctors had experience with it. Dr. Vijay Bose, her U.K.-certified surgeon in India, had performed the surgery more than 1,100 times.

“Doctors here didn’t know what they didn’t know and I didn’t want to be a guinea pig," she said.

While she was there, Ryerson also had cosmetic surgery and dental work done at her own expense.

‘I'm not going to Tijuana to get my teeth done’
Davies, the California firefighter, wasn’t sure he’d go ahead with extensive dental work until he met the dentist, Jorge Quintanilla, and toured the modern Mexican clinic where the procedures were performed.

“At first I thought, I’m not going to Tijuana to get my teeth done,” said Davies, a former paramedic who quizzed the staff about where they got their water, how they cleaned their instruments and what sterile procedures they followed.

The dental staff was well-trained and compassionate, he said. And the assistants anticipated every need, from picking him up at the airport and filling painkiller prescriptions to driving him back over the U.S. border.

"They gave me what I wanted," he said.

Individual anecdotes are one thing, but critics of medical tourism said they worry about encouraging large numbers of Americans to seek care abroad. One of the reasons foreign care is so cheap is because of limited recourse for medical malpractice claims, for instance.

“It sounds great, two weeks’ safari and my hip for half the price,” said Sherman, of Group Health. “But what happens if something goes wrong? You are up a creek.”

The Joint Commission International certifies about 170 hospitals and medical centers worldwide. And many of the doctors who practice in hospitals frequented by medical tourists have been trained and certified in the United States.

Call for caution
Still, patients and insurers should remain cautious, especially in the early days of the burgeoning trend, noted Milstein.

“Without a doubt, just like for American surgeries, there will emerge as volume increases some horror stories, a terrible outcome preceded by a terrible hospital malfunction,” he said. “On the day that happens, the patient is going to point the finger at the insurance companies.”

That idea doesn’t deter the hip patient Timmi Ryerson, who said she won’t use U.S. hospitals for future surgeries.

“I really will not because of the cost and because of the quality of the medical care,” she said.

In fact, she’s planning now for a medical trip to Costa Rica in a few years. She figures she’ll need a mini face-lift and her new husband will require some work on his neck and his knees as well.

“They’ve got a place where you can go for medical care and it’s like going to a spa for month,” she said. “Who wouldn’t want that?”

So how did you like the exorcism show?

ET, Sat., June. 28, 2008
FORT WORTH, Texas - The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices found that a lower court erred when it said the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God's First Amendment rights regarding freedom of religion did not prevent the church from being held liable for mental distress triggered by a "hyper-spiritualistic environment."

Laura Schubert testified in 2002 that she was cut and bruised and later experienced hallucinations after the church members' actions in 1996, when she was 17. Schubert said she was pinned to the floor for hours and received carpet burns during the exorcism, the Austin American-Statesman reported. She also said the incident led her to mutilate herself and attempt suicide. She eventually sought psychiatric help.

But the church's attorneys had told jurors that her psychological problems were caused by traumatic events she witnessed with her missionary parents in Africa. The church contended she "freaked out" about following her father's life as a missionary and was acting out to gain attention.

Abuse and false imprisonment?
The 2002 trial of the case never touched on the religious aspects, and a Tarrant County jury found the Colleyville church and its members liable for abusing and falsely imprisoning the girl. The jury awarded her $300,000, though the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth later reduced the verdict to $188,000.

Justice David Medina wrote that finding the church liable "would have an unconstitutional 'chilling effect' by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs."

But Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, in a dissenting opinion, stated that the "sweeping immunity" is inconsistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and extends far beyond the Constitution's protections for religious conduct.

'Intentional abuse'
"The First Amendment guards religious liberty; it does not sanction intentional abuse in religion's name," Jefferson wrote.

After the 2002 verdict, Pleasant Glade merged with another congregation in Colleyville, a Fort Worth suburb.

A message left for the church's attorney Friday evening was not immediately returned, and calls to two numbers listed in Schubert's name went unanswered.