Author: Ezra Grant

I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!

Categories
Health

Human Embryonic Stem Cells Successfully Cloned

Next step… cloning babies. Not sure if I’m ready for that step.

Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University have successfully created human embryonic stem cells by cloning.

By doing so, the science community has taken a giant step toward developing replacement tissue to treat diseases and could also be a step toward the day when cloned babies could be a possibility.

The scientists took skin cells from an eight month old baby with a genetic disease and combined them with donated human eggs. The result was human embryos that were genetically identical to the baby. They were then able to extract stem cells from these created embryos.

This technique is basically the same process that was used to create Dolly the sheep and many of the cloned animals that have followed although in those cases the created embryos were implanted in the womb of surrogate mothers.

Dolly was a domesticated sheep and the first mammal to be successfully cloned. She was the only lamb that survived into adulthood of 227 attempts.  She died at age six even though the life expectancy of her breed of sheep is usually 11 or 12. She died of a progressive lung disease which is fairly common in sheep.  If is not believed that her early death was related to her creation process but there will always be some doubt.

The Oregon researchers, led by Prof. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, did not implant their human embryos and said they had no intention of doing so. Despite the fact that dozens of animals have been cloned using this technique, called nuclear transfer, human cells have remained stubbornly resistant to the process.

 

Categories
Beauty

50 Crazy Facts about Hair

And you thought you knew it all… Ha!

Categories
Benghazi Benghazi Politics

Emails Reveal No Wrong Doing by White House on Benghazi Crisis

There was an active investigation going on in reference to what happened and who was responsible for the embassy attack in Benghazi.

The emails show that the State Department and the CIA wanted to use the correct language, to allow the investigation to proceed without opinions on what might have happened.

The Obama administration released 100 pages of emails Wednesday that reveal differences between intelligence analysts and State Department officials over how to describe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya.

The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the emails, which were provided to Congressional intelligence committees several months ago.

Since the assault that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Republicans have accused President Obama and his senior advisers of mischaracterizing the attack, largely to prevent political repercussions during what was then a close re-election campaign.

Much of the Republican concern has focused on whether administration officials acknowledged early enough that an Islamist terrorist organization was behind the attack, rather than groups of demonstrators participating in anti-American protests outside many U.S. diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa.

According to the emails and initial CIA-drafted talking points, the agency believed the attack included a mix of Islamist extremists from Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaeda affiliated group, and angry demonstrators.

White House officials did not challenge that analysis, the emails show.

Categories
Politics

Schools In Pennsylvania Now Allowing Students To Be Armed In Class

What could possibly go wrong?

Five of Pennsylvania’s state universities — Kutztown, Shippensburg, Edinboro, Slippery Rock and Millersville — will now allow students to carry firearms at school, due to advice from attorneys in the governor’s office and state higher education office claiming that “blanket firearms bans were vulnerable to constitutional challenge and exposed the universities” to lawsuits. Penn State, the largest university in the state, is maintaining its ban on weapons on campus, with exceptions for hunting or other recreational firearms stored with police.

Last year, a similar narrative played out in Colorado, when the state Supreme Court held that students with concealed carry permits must be allowed to carry weapons on campus due to a state law. University of Colorado’s Boulder and Colorado springs campuses reacted by creating special dorms for students wishing to keep a concealed weapon in their room, but no one wanted to live in these dorms as of late last year.

Under the federal Constitution, at least as interpreted by the five conservative justices in District of Columbia v. Heller, guns may be banned “in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”

h/t ThinkProgress

Categories
Featured

Man Comes Back To Life at His Funeral

Mourners freaked out when a dead man came back to life at his own funeral.

Friends and family “jumped out of their skins” and “ran for their lives” when Brighton Dama Zanthe, 34, started moving in his coffin last Monday.

They thought their buddy — who they thought died following a long illness — had come back to haunt them.

Lot Gaka, the Zimbabwean transport worker’s boss, somehow managed to keep his cool – springing into action to save his pal.

He desperately pulled the blankets off Zanthe’s body and called an ambulance.

Rushed to the nearby Gweru Provincial Hospital, he spent two days in intensive care before being discharged last week.

“I don’t know what happened, and I only remember being on a life support system in hospital,” NewZimbabwe.com reports him as saying.

He added: “Everything is history to me. What I can only confirm is that people gathered at my house to mourn but I was given another chance and I am alive. I feel okay now.”

Categories
new york knicks Sports

Game 4: Knicks Couldn’t Rebound The Ball If Their Season Depended On It

Yep. That’s the takeaway from Game 4 of the New York Knicks game vs the Indiana Pacers. The stats don’t lie folks, and rebounding is the reason the Knicks lost the game by 11 points – Pacers 93, Knicks 82.

The Pacers out paced New York in every aspect of the game, but take a look at these stats. Indiana had 54 rebounds, Knicks had 36. Offensive rebounds also favored the Pacers, as they pulled down 16 to the Knicks 11.

Indiana shot 41% on 31/76 shooting. New York shot 36% on 31/87 shooting.

No one for the Knicks really stood out. Carmelo had 24, but he took 23 shots in the process and only made 9. And for the three pointers, Melo took 6 shots making just 2 of them.

J. Smith is still thinking about that flagrant foul and the one game suspension he had earlier in the playoffs. He hasn’t played his same level of basketball since returning from his suspension and tonight’s game wasn’t any better. Smith had 19 points, but he took 22 shots from the field, making just 7 of them. He also attempted 10 three pointers, making just 3 of those.

Indiana was much more well rounded, with five players in double figures. If the Knicks thought this Indiana team was going to just lay down and take their beatings, then they have another thing coming as the teams return to New York for what could be their last game of New York’s playoffs. If Indiana wins on Thursday at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks would watch as the Pacers celebrate moving on to the third round of the Playoffs on their home court.

I haven’t given up on the team, but I’m putting away my Knicks jersey till next season…

Categories
Featured

Man On Honeymoon Gets Arrested For Soliciting Prostitution

To all you newlyweds take note. Here is something you should never, never do especially on your honeymoon. Leave the prostitutes alone!

The 21-year-old was one of scores of men arrested in a prostitution sweep conducted last week by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. According to investigators, the alleged john answered an online ad posted by an undercover detective posing as a hooker.

Seen in the adjacent mug shot, Ahmed was arrested when he arrived for his paid liaison.

Ahmed, an Illinois resident, was in the Sunshine State on his honeymoon when busted for soliciting prostitution and pot possession.

When Ahmed did not return to his bride at the Omni Hotel, she called police to report him missing. The woman was subsequently told by cops that her husband was not MIA, that he had been arrested. For seeking to pay for sex from a hooker while he was celebrating his nuptials.

Categories
democrats Politics

Remember Something Called The Economy?

Remember the economy?

The election year was dominated by talk about jobs and the economy, but neither the administration nor Congress seems to have any grand ideas for jump-starting a still sluggish recovery — and they’re not even talking about it much.

President Obama sought to turn attention back to economic issues with a speech last week in Texas on manufacturing, but that’s already long since been forgotten. A cascade of scandals has driven the issue entirely off the Washington radar.

Even before Benghazi, the IRS and the Department of Justice controversies started heating up, the economy had consistently taken a back seat to issues such as immigration and gun control.

“The economy is by far the most important issue for voters,” says Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s not unusual for Washington preoccupations to be different than those of the public.”

She says that the public is skeptical that Washington can provide economic answers at this point. Politicians themselves seem a little dubious.

Categories
News sandy hook shooting

Four Year Old Kills Six Year Old Playmate – Father Gets Arrested

His son is only 4 years old and the son had a six-year-old playmate. That playmate is no longer alive because the four-year old found a gun in the house and killed his friend. Now the four-year old’s father is under arrest.

Anthony Senatore, 33, was arrested Monday evening and charged with several counts of endangering the welfare of children, the acting prosecutor in Atlantic County, Jim McClain, announced in a statement.

According to the charges, which also include one count of being a disorderly person for allegedly allowing minors to access a firearm, Senatore had at least three weapons in his house in addition to the rifle that his son was holding on April 8 when he fatally shot his neighbor, Brandon Holt, in the head.

The other guns in the house, where three children ages 4, 8 and 12 live, included two Harrington & Richardson shotguns and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, officials said. All were found “unsecured and in close proximity to ammunition and accessible to Senatore’s own children,” McClain said.

Senatore was released during the night on $100,000 bail.

The NRA would say that the way to fix this problem would be to give the six year old his own gun.

Categories
Movies

Angelina Jolie Removes Both Breasts to Avoid Cancer

In an op-ed on the New York Times the 37 year old award winning actress, wrote that she underwent the surgery because of her six kids, and watching  mother die from breast cancer.

“My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.”

“They have asked if the same could happen to me.”

Doctors told Jolie that she had an 87% chance of getting the deadly disease after the BRCA1 gene that causes breast cancer was found in her system.

Jolie hopes that by making this information public, she would be able to help other women facing the same decision.

“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

Categories
Sports

O.J Simpson Back in Court Hoping for New Trial

The problem, according to Simpson and his new lawyers, is the lawyer that represented the football great in the trial that landed him in jail in the first place. That lawyer they claimed, had personal reasons for sending OJ to orison, was ill equipped to handle the case and failed to gave OJ the proper representation.

“To me, the claims are solid. I don’t know how the court can’t grant relief,” said Patricia Palm, the Simpson appeals lawyer who produced a 94-page petition dissecting Galanter’s promises, payments and performance as Simpson’s lawyer in the trial that ended with a jury finding Simpson and a co-defendant guilty of 12 felonies.

Galanter declined to comment ahead of his is scheduled testimony.
Of the 22 allegations of conflict-of-interest and ineffective counsel that Palm raised, Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell has agreed to hear 19.

The proceedings, technically neither a trial nor appeal, are expected to take all week before Bell decides whether Simpson deserves a new trial. It’s not clear whether she’ll rule immediately.
Some who’ve watched the Simpson saga say he might have a chance.

Categories
ObamaCare Politics Repeal

Another Republican Attempt to Deny You Health Care Coverage

Republicans are so intent on making sure Americans lose their health care and that heath insurance companies make as much profit as possible, that they are willing to anything to accomplish their goal.

Besides wasting taxpayers money with fruitlessly attempting to repeal the law over 37 times and counting, Republicans have now come up with another plan – stop the implementation of the law by refusing to provide a committee necessary for the full implementation of the law.

In a letter to President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) noted their original opposition to Obamacare, reiterated their intent to repeal it entirely, and declared that they would not make any appointments to the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

The IPAB is a 15-member panel whose members must be confirmed by the Senate. The President selects three members himself and is required by law to seek three recommendations each from the top Democrat and Republican in each chamber. With Thursday’s letter, Boehner and McConnell refused to make any recommendations.

The IPAB will be stood up in 2014 by Obamacare and tasked with making cuts to Medicare provider payments (it may not touch benefits) if costs exceed economic growth plus an additional percentage point in any given year. Congress can override it by passing equally large cuts with a simple majority or waiving the cuts entirely with a three-fifths majority.

“Because the law will give IPAB’s 15 unelected, unaccountable individuals the ability to deny seniors access to innovative care, we respectfully decline to recommend appointments,” Boehner and McConnell wrote in the letter.

But there is a catch: if IPAB fails to do its work for any reason, the Health and Human Services secretary must order the cuts herself. So in a way, Boehner and McConnell are surrendering some of their power in order to appear as though they’re thwarting Obamacare — when in reality they’re merely turning over more control to the executive branch.

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