Slightly more than half of scientists (52%) describe their own political views as liberal, including 14% who describe themselves as very liberal. Among the general public, 20% describe themselves as liberal, with just 5% calling themselves very liberal.

Most scientists identify as Democrats (55%), while 32% identify as independents and just 6% say they are Republicans. When the leanings of independents are considered, fully 81% identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 12% who either identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP. Among the public, there are far fewer self-described Democrats (35%) and far more Republicans (23%). Overall, 52% of the public identifies as Democratic or leans Democratic, while 35% identifies as Republican or leans Republican.

The survey also compared views on scientific issues with those of the general public. You have to take such questions with a grain of salt as a survey which gives a choice of agreeing or disagreeing could obtain different results with changes in wording. The survey found far greater belief in evolution among scientists than the general public:

Scientists were also more likely to believe in a human role in global warming and see this as an important problem:

A large majority (85%) of Americans says that the earth is warming, but they are more divided on the cause of climate change than are scientists. About half of the general public (49%) says the earth is getting warmer “mostly because of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels,” while 36% say warming is occurring “mostly because of natural changes in the atmosphere.” About one-in-ten (11%) say “there is no solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer.”

By contrast, 84% of scientists say the earth is warming because of human activity. Scientists also are far more likely than the public to regard global warming as a very serious problem: 70% express this view, compared with 47% of the public. Public attitudes about whether global warming represents a serious problem have changed little in recent years.

It would also be helpful to have a break down by field. Typically when conservatives quote scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change such views are from scientists in other fields while there is a high degree of agreement among those actually in the field. Differences in opinion in the general population were strongly related to political affiliation:

The strongest correlate of opinion on climate change is partisan affiliation. Two-thirds of Republicans (67%) say either that the earth is getting warmer mostly because of natural changes in the atmosphere (43%) or that there is no solid evidence the earth is getting warmer (24%). By contrast, most Democrats (64%) say the earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity. Nearly half of independents (49%) say human activity is causing the earth to warm, while 47% say either that the earth is getting warmer due to natural atmospheric changes (38%) or that there is no solid evidence that the earth is warming (9%).

The divide is even larger when party and ideology are both taken into consideration. Just 21% of conservative Republicans say the earth is warming due to human activity, compared with nearly three-quarters (74%) of liberal Democrats.

There also are significant differences in views about climate change by education. More than half of college graduates (58%) say climate change is occurring and caused by human activity while those with no more than a high school education are more divided in their opinions; 45% say the earth is warming because of human activity and 40% say it is due to natural changes in the atmosphere.

Scientists were more likely than the general public to be concerned about the suppression of scientific findings by the Bush administration:

Most scientists had heard at least a little about claims that government scientists were not allowed to report research findings that conflicted with the Bush administration’s point of view. And the vast majority (77%) says that these claims are true. By contrast, these claims barely registered with the public – more than half heard nothing at all about this issue. Only about a quarter of the public (28%) said they thought the claims were true.

If Peter simply wants to separate such differences of opinion on public policy from personal attacks I totally agree with this. While I would be reluctant to vote for a ticket containing either a Palin or a Clinton, there are many grounds to criticize them without resorting to many of the attacks which they have been subjected to. I not only agree with Peter in criticizing the comments claiming Hillary Clinton was pimping her daughter, I wrote a post defending Clinton on this while opposing her candidacy. When posting about the many lies of Sarah Palin I noted regret that personal issues were mixed in.

What bugs me about the way that Peter lumps together the attacks on both Palin and Clinton in such a manner is that it implies that only female politicians are treated this way. Gender differences do make it inevitable that there will be some differences in the nature of the attacks, but plenty of male politicians have also been treated quite unfairly. One example from each party in a presidential campaign quickly comes to mind–the attacks of the Swift Boat Liars on the honor of a war hero in their false claims about John Kerry in 2004 and the Daisy Ad used by Lyndon Johnson against Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Unfair treatment is a fact of life in politics. It would be great if it could be eliminated but it cannot. Most politicians take their lumps and continue. They do not run away and hide like Sarah Palin.

The deal with doctors could come at a steep price: a $250 billion fix to a 12-year-old provision in federal law intended to limit the growth of Medicare reimbursements. The American Medical Association and other doctors’ groups have sought to change or repeal the provision, and they are likely to try to extract that as their price for boarding the Obama train, people tracking the negotiations said.

This is not actually a new cost as the provision was so badly written that it is overturned every year. The idea was to tie physician reimbursement to overall health care costs under the assumption that this would give physicians an incentive to keep health care costs down. A formula was written to determine physician reimbursement under Medicare which would pay more if health care costs were kept down but pay less if costs rose.

While in theory this might make sense the formula has not worked. Individual doctors have very limited control with regards to overall health care costs which have increased with increasing technology and an aging population. The price of injectable drugs, primarily administered by Oncologists, has been responsible for much of the increases which would have triggered pay cuts to all doctors. In recent years the formula would have cut physician reimbursement by double digits every year. Realizing that this would cause physicians to be unable to afford to see Medicare patients, every year Congress has acted to block the cuts which the formula would enact.

The formula is highly flawed and pretty much everyone recognizes this. The formula is thrown out every year and has not brought about any cost savings. The formula should be thrown out once and for all rather than having to wait for Congress to act every year. Claiming there is a $250 billion cost to this is misleading as Congress has already been overturning the cuts which the formula would have brought about every year.

Yglesias points to a report on a plan proposed by Richard Nixon back in 1974 which is similar to what the Democrats are proposing today:

“It was an extremely extensive plan, as I remember, that would have given universal coverage” for health care, recalled Rudolph Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic official in the Ford administration.

Nixon introduced his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act on Feb. 6, 1974, days after he used what would be his final State of the Union address to call for universal access to health insurance.

“I shall propose a sweeping new program that will assure comprehensive health-insurance protection to millions of Americans who cannot now obtain it or afford it, with vastly improved protection against catastrophic illnesses,” he told America.

Nixon said his plan would build on existing employer-sponsored insurance plans and would provide government subsidies to the self-employed and small businesses to ensure universal access to health insurance. He said it wouldn’t create a new federal bureaucracy.

The Nixon plan won support from a Time magazine editorial on Feb. 18, 1974, which noted that “more and more Americans have been insisting that national health insurance is an idea whose tune (sic) has come.”

Considering his support for HMO’s I would have reservations about a plan advocated by Richard Nixon without seeing further details, but it is remarkable that we are still struggling this many years later over a way to do what every other industrialized country manages to do and enable all citizens to have access to affordable health care. The plan was not killed by conservatives but by those on the left who hoped for something better:

Despite the heated politics of Watergate, national health-care legislation was proceeding in Congress thanks to a compromise brokered by a young Democratic senator from Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy, a Nixon nemesis.

But then, according to a 1974 political almanac published by Congressional Quarterly, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers lobbied successfully to kill the plan. Unions hoped to get a better deal after the next elections.

Yglesias concludes by saying essentially the same thing I have said on this topic in previous posts:

In retrospect, that particular iteration of the progressive block strategy doesn’t look so smart. And it’s possible that this time around, too, it’ll turn out that the votes aren’t there for a bill with a strong public option and the votes aren’t there for a bill without one either.

In retrospect, Emanuel was right and the liberal bloggers attacking him were wrong when Emanuel stated his concentration on the goals of health care reform as opposed to any specific path. For the past eight years we criticized George Bush and the Republicans for governing from the extreme right without compromise. Similar demands from the extreme left are no more rational.

Bush couldn’t reform Social Security because his plan was unpopular. Obama won’t be able to deliver a health-care bill ideological Democrats want, because what they want is unpopular and legislators know it. So Congressional Democrats want something they can cast as “victory” while doing nothing that could hurt their noble struggle for ongoing political self-preservation. Right now, strongly ideological media liberals like Klein have to decide whether they’re going to (a) act as enforcers, sending the signal to the powers-that-be that they will vocally and publicly count a “trigger” plan as a pathetic failure, or (b) sigh and prepare to declare whatever legislation passes a profound victory for ordinary Americans that shows just how great Democrats are.

I’ve noted many times before, there is widespread support in polls for health care reform, including a public option. Wilkinson is also at least partially correct in commenting:

Reform is very popular in the abstract. Even a government-run system. But most people are quite satisfied with their current plans. So support for systemic changes turns out to be shallow. This is what Clinton learned. As soon as people get the sense a new policy will force a change in their own situation, they break off. That’s what Obama’s people are worried about, and why the constantly return to the “you won’t have to change anything” refrain, even though the goal is to have everybody change into the government plan sooner or later.

When we write about the need for health care reform it only makes sense to concentrate on the millions who are uninsured, under-insured, or have been screwed by the insurance companies. The fact remains that millions of other people are happy with their current plan and prefer to remain in their plan as opposed to being forced into a government-run plan. They might be wrong, such as in thinking they have good coverage only because they have not yet run into a situation where their insurance company has tried to deny coverage, and they might be falling for untrue claims about government-run plans, but they will still vote based upon such beliefs.

A public plan could be advocated either as a way to keep the insurance companies honest or as a back door path to a single payer plan. Those who are pushing for it as a way to get to a single payer plan are unlikely to compromise. For those of us who are more concerned with changing the behavior of insurance companies, it makes sense for Emanuel to stress goals rather than drawing a line in the sand with regards to the public option.

The “strongly ideological media liberals like Klein” might only have the two options Wilkinson mentioned. Personally I chose an alternative option. I have long suspected that we will wind up with a compromise which falls short of what the progressive wing of the Democratic Party wants. The question is not whether they get everything but whether we have a bill which has positive results with regards to improving access to health care and making it more difficult for insurance companies to deny coverage. Even a watered down plan is likely to be far more comprehensive than what the Democrats were running on in 2004.

It isn’t a matter of declaring victory or proving “just how great Democrats are” but in being realistic in hoping for some improvements without expecting perfection. Our political system was set up to prevent the ideological extremes from usually getting everything they want. Sometimes this might be frustrating, but this reality was also beneficial when George Bush was in office.

One area that might be explored is whether big wireless carriers are hurting smaller rivals by locking up popular phones through exclusive agreements with handset makers. Lawmakers and regulators have raised questions about deals such as AT&T’s exclusive right to provide service for Apple Inc.’s iPhone in the U.S. Big carriers say limiting exclusive deals would hurt innovation.

The department also may review whether telecom carriers are unduly restricting the types of services other companies can offer on their networks, one person familiar with the situation said. Public-interest groups have complained when carriers limit access to Internet calling services such as Skype.

Through a spate of consolidation and organic growth, AT&T and Verizon have become the two dominant players and have a great deal of clout with equipment makers. Combined, they have 90 million land-line customers and 60% of the 274 million U.S. wireless subscribers. They operate large portions of the Internet backbone.

Past antitrust regulation played a major role in shaping the telecom sector. The U.S. pursued a landmark antitrust case against AT&T, resulting in the 1984 breakup of the “Ma Bell” telephone monopoly into regional carriers. One of those, SBC Communications Inc., later led a merger roll-up, and by 2006 had reconstituted the giant now known as AT&T Inc.

Verizon, created in 2000 in a merger of GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp., bulked up through deals such as its 2006 acquisition of MCI Inc. Its wireless unit, a joint venture with Vodafone Group PLC, acquired Alltel Corp. early this year.

Some antitrust experts said the U.S. would have a tough time opening a Sherman Act case against telecom providers and showing a company was abusing market power. “It would be a very hard case to make,” said Donald Russell, a Washington attorney who reviewed a number of telecom mergers as a DOJ antitrust lawyer in the Clinton administration. “You don’t have any firm that’s in a dominant position.”

“Investigations don’t necessarily lead to court cases,” said Ketan Jhaveri, an attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP who once worked on the Justice Department’s telecom antitrust task force. He noted that antimonopoly litigation consumes a lot of resources…

The debate over exclusive handset deals has been escalating. The Federal Communications Commission said last month it will investigate them. That followed a congressional hearing that spotlighted the complaints of small carriers that said they are being shut out.

“This is the outcome of indifference on the part of the government to the concentration of power in the hands of a few,” said Jack Rooney, chief executive of Chicago-based U.S. Cellular, in a recent interview. U.S. Cellular has 6.2 million customers, mostly in rural areas.

AT&T, with the iPhone deal, isn’t alone in striking exclusive arrangements. Verizon is the exclusive provider of Research In Motion Ltd.’s touch-screen BlackBerry Storm in the U.S. Sprint Nextel Corp. will be the only carrier with the Palm Inc. Pre until early next year.

The carriers say such exclusives enable them to take risks on expensive new smart phones and bring them to market at discounted prices. The deals limit the ability of manufacturers such as Palm, Apple and HTC Corp. to distribute their devices widely. But some analysts say those companies benefit by getting a significant share of a carrier’s marketing and sales resources.

“If you are launching an absolutely new product to the market, pairing up with a Tier 1 carrier gives you instant visibility and buzz and a first-rate marketing campaign,” said Andy Castonguay, a wireless analyst at Yankee Group.

I doubt that it would have been a risky move to bring the iPhone to market without the exclusive deal with AT&T.

While antitrust action might not be the way to accomplish this, I wish that Verizon wouldn’t do things to cripple their phones and force users to pay more to use Verizon services. Verizon replaces the software which originally comes with phones with their own software. In the past I was able to connect my Palm to a cell phone to go on line with the Palm’s browser and email programs as opposed to using the more limited programs on their phones. For the past several years they have changed the phone to prevent this. They also prevent transfers of music clips from the data card to the phone to use them as ring tones to attempt to force users to purchase the ring tones from Verizon. Should you change phones it is then necessary to purchase a new set. (Of course there are some ways around this such as sending a ring tone attached to a text message and programs available on some boards to directly load ring tones onto the phone.)

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed to have said, “Thanks, but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere; in fact, she openly campaigned for the federal project when running for governor.

Palin lied when she denied that Wasilla’s police chief and librarian had been fired; in fact, both were given letters of termination the previous day.

Palin lied when she wrote in the NYT that a comprehensive review by Alaska wildlife officials showed that polar bears were not endangered; in fact, email correspondence between those scientists showed the opposite.

Palin lied when she claimed in her convention speech that an oil gas pipeline “began” under her guidance; in fact, the pipeline was years from breaking ground, if at all.

Palin lied when she told Charlie Gibson that she does not pass judgment on gay people; in fact, she opposes all rights between gay spouses and belongs to a church that promotes conversion therapy.

Palin lied when she denied having said that humans do not contribute to climate change; in fact, she had previously proclaimed that human activity was not to blame.

Palin lied when she claimed that Alaska produces 20 percent of the country’s domestic energy supply; in fact, the actual figures, based on any interpretation of her words, are much, much lower.

Palin lied when she told voters she improvised her convention speech when her teleprompter stopped working properly; in fact, all reports showed that the machine had functioned perfectly and that her speech had closely followed the script.

Palin lied when she recalled asking her daughters to vote on whether she should accept the VP offer; in fact, her story contradicts details given by her husband, the McCain campaign, and even Palin herself. (She later added another version.)

Palin lied when she claimed to have taken a voluntary pay cut as mayor; in fact, as councilmember she had voted against a raise for the mayor, but subsequent raises had taken effect by the time she was mayor.

Palin lied when she insisted that Wooten’s divorce proceedings had caused his confidential records to become public; in fact, court officials confirmed they released no such records.

Palin lied when she suggested to Katie Couric that she was involved in trade missions with Russia; in fact, she has never even met with Russian officials.

Palin lied when she told Shimon Peres that the only flag in her office was the Israeli flag; in fact, she has several flags.

Palin lied when she claimed to have tried to divest government funds from Sudan; in fact, her administration openly opposed a bill that would have done just that.

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed that troop levels in Iraq were back to pre-surge levels; in fact, even she acknowledged her “misstatements,” though she refused to retract or apologize.

Palin lied when she insisted that the Branchflower Report “showed there was no unlawful or unethical activity on my part”; in fact, that report prominently stated, “Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.”

Palin lied when she claimed to have voiced concerns over Wooten fearing he would harm her family; in fact, she actually decreased her security detail during that period.

Palin lied when asked about the $150,000 worth of clothes provided by the RNC; in fact, solid reporting contradicted several parts of her statement.

Palin lied when she suggested that she had offered the media proof of her pregnancy with Trig to “correct the record”; in fact, no reports of her medical records were ever published; and the letter from her doctor testifying to her good health only emerged hours before polling ended on election day, even though there was nothing in it that couldn’t have been released two months earlier.

Palin lied when she said that “reported” allegations of her banning Harry Potter as mayor was easily refutable because it had not even been written yet; in fact, the first book in that series was published in 1998 – two years into her first term – and such rumors were never reported by the media, only circulated as emails.

Palin lied when she denied having participated in a clothes audit with campaign laywers; in fact, the Washington Times later confirmed those details.

Palin lied when asked about Couric’s question regarding her reading habits; in fact, Couric’s words were not, “What do you read up there in Alaska?” or anything close to condescension.

Palin lied when she mischaracterized the “$1200 check” given to Alaskans as the permanent fund dividend check; in fact, that fund had yielded $2,069 per person, and she claimed otherwise to obscure the fact that Alaskans also received a $1200 rebate check from a windfall profits tax on oil companies – a tax widely criticized by Republicans.

Palin lied when she claimed to be unaware of a turkey being slaughtered behind her during a filmed interview; in fact, the cameraman said she had picked the spot herself, while the slaughter was underway.

Palin lied when she denied having rejected federal stimulus money; in fact, she continued to accept and reject the funds several times.

Palin lied when she claimed that legislative leaders had canceled a meeting with her to hold their own press conference; in fact, they only canceled it after being told she would not participate, and the purpose of the press conference was very different from the meeting’s.

Palin lied when she announced on the news that she never holds closed-door meetings; in fact, she had just attended a closed-door meeting with the legislature earlier that day.

Palin lied when she said that former aide John Bitney’s “amicable” departure was for “personal” reasons; in fact, Bitney said he was fired because of his relationship with the wife of Palin’s friend, plus a Palin spokesperson later claimed “poor job performance” for his firing – without elaborating.

Palin lied when she said she kept her running injury a secret on the campaign trail; in fact, her bandaged hand was clearly visible in photographs and the story was widely talked about.

Palin lied when she claimed that Alaska has spent “millions of dollars” on litigation related to her ethics complaints; in fact, that figure is much, much lower, and she had initiated the most expensive inquiry.

Palin lied when she denied that the Alaska Independence Party supports secession and denied that her husband had been a member; in fact, even the McCain campaign noted that the party’s very existence is based on secession and that Todd was a member for seven years.

Palin lied when she said the dismissal of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, had nothing to do with his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten; in fact, the Branchflower Report concluded that she repeatedly abused her power when dealing with both men.

I wouldn’t bother with some of these, such as the questions about Trig. Even if Sullivan’s allegations should turn out to be correct I wouldn’t be terribly concerned if she lied about being the mother to cover up a family scandal. I’m far more concerned with the lies which show her abuse of power.

Several of these could use further elaboration which is often provided in the original post which the list links to. The Harry Potter item appears trivial as posted but it relates to a more important point. Palin had attempted to ban books which were offensive to the religious right. Besides the legitimate news stories on the subject which contained factual information, there was also a mass emailing which continued untrue claims, such as that she had attempted to ban Harry Potter. When asked about her attempts to censor books, Palin would routinely respond by saying that the claims in the mass email are incorrect. This was her way of evading answering questions about her actual attempts to ban books.

Palin might not know much about public policy issues, but she is clever at misleading those who look into her past. Besides this evasion on her attempts to censor books, she practiced similar dishonesty when the reports on Troopergate came out. Although the report showed that she had abused her powers, Palin spun the report to deny this finding. When the real, bipartisan report on Troopergate showed she was guilty of abuse of powers, Palin arranged to have a sham report appear to clear her just before the election. Of course these lies are not really “odd lies.” They were calculated lies to cover up past.

It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said.”The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest,” he said in an interview. “The goal is non-negotiable; the path is” negotiable.

President Barack Obama has campaigned vigorously for a full public option. But he’s also said that he won’t draw a “line in the sand” over this point. On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement reiterating his support for a public plan.

“I am pleased by the progress we’re making on health care reform and still believe, as I’ve said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest,” the president said in the statement. “I look forward to a final product that achieves these very important goals.”

While some have drawn lines in the sand, Rahm Emanuel gets it right. What is important is the final result and that solutions be offered to problems.  Some on the left have concentrated too much on the path, threatening to vote against bills which achieve the desired goals if they do not do it in the manner they prefer.

If a perfect health reform bill was passed which imposed the necessary restrictions on insurance companies it would not be necessary to have a public  plan. It might be argued that to demand a public plan is to be conceding that the health care legislation will not produce the needed reform. Of course this is also a realistic position, knowing that there is a strong chance that insurance companies will find ways to circumvent regulations to maximize profits regardless of what laws are written.

Many liberal bloggers such as Ezra Klein question why any compromise is needed with the Democrats controlling the White House and both houses of Congress. If Congress can pass legislation which contains a public plan then this whole discussion of compromise becomes irrelevant. The reason that it does remain a matter of discussion is that it is not yet certain whether the Democrats will remain united to pass a bill with a public plan. Moderate Democrats might join the Republicans in voting against a public plan.  It is then that we should remember Rahm Emanual’s stress on the goal rather than the path and still push for legislation which prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to those who need it in order to maximize profits.

Update: Will Wilkinson comments on Ezra’s Klein’s response to Emanuel. I have commented further on Wilkinson’s post here.

In the wake of Governor Palin stepping down from her job, new allegations have surfaced today in Alaska charging Palin with additional violations of the Alaska Executive Ethics Act.

Zane Henning — a conservative government watchdog from the governor’s hometown of Wasilla and an oilfield worker on Alaska’s North Slope — asserts in a letter to Alaska Attorney General Daniel S. Sullivan that Palin has “been charging and pocketing per diem to live in her home and has used the process for a personal gain since being elected.”

The Washington Post first broke this story last September during the 2008 presidential race, but until now, no formal ethics charges have been brought on the matter in Alaska.

In a detailed press release accompanying his complaint, Henning declared that:

“Palin’s use of the per diem is in direct conflict with Section 39.52.120. (a) of the Alaska Executive Ethics Act….More than a thousand state employees commute from the Mat-Su Valley daily and none of them get to pocket free money.”

Let me start by saying I don’t think this is likely. But given our experience with Larry Craig, I do think it’s worth considering. Remember, former Sen. Larry Craig came out and announced he was resigning his office. But folks who listened closely noticed that he only announced his ‘intent to resign‘. And later he decided that his ‘intent’ had changed and he wouldn’t resign after all. He ended up serving right through the last day of his term in January 2009.

Now, Palin’s situation is different in as much as Craig was under great pressure to resign and the ‘intend to’ workaround ended up just buying him time. Palin did this totally out of the blue. But given the thundering derision that has greeted her decision and exposure as a quitter of gargantuan proportions, is it possible she’ll reconsider? After all, if she’s resigning, why doesn’t she just resign? Why wait until the end of July?

This is not very likely as, while the announcement has generated a tremendous amount of publicity, to announce that she has changed her mind would make Palin appear even more ridiculous than she does now.  Such a move would wind up defining her, and we can imagine how the late night comics would find easy laughs by questioning if she plans to change her mind on every decision she should make.

Still, with Sarah Palin we cannot exclude the totally absurd. She often does act  impulsively and irrationally. In case Palin should decide to announce that she has changed her mind, Matthew Cooper has even written the start of her speech.

Stem cell research in the U.S. will expand under rules that allow federal government funding for scientists working with unused embryos created at fertility clinics, freeing hundreds of cell lines for study.

The final guidelines released today by the National Institutes of Health increase the number of stem cell lines available for research from 20 to more than 700, the acting director of the agency, Raynard Kington, said in a conference call. Funding for new lines require documents showing the cells were donated, and stem cells being used for research and those from other countries can be approved by an NIH working group.

Embryonic stem cells can grow into any kind of tissue and may accelerate research into cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. President Barack Obama on March 9 lifted restrictions on U.S. government funding for the research imposed in 2001 by former President George W. Bush. The NIH received more than 49,000 comments on the draft rules.

The new rules are “a big step forward,” said Susan Solomon, chief executive officer of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, in a telephone interview today. The absence of a working group option “may well have been an oversight in the draft version.”

An earlier draft of the guidelines released for public feedback in April would have excluded some existing stem cell lines that didn’t meet all the requirements. The new rules ban U.S. funding to scientists using stem cells from embryos created solely for research purposes.

With the first Star Trek movie by J.J. Abrams turning into such a hit, there has been a lot of speculation about his next Star Trek movie. In an interview with Colllider, Abrams says he is  open to anything:

Q:  I just interviewed Bob and Alex… they were talking about not having the typical movie villain but maybe having nature or…

Abrams: Oh! I see what you’re saying.  Well, I’m open to anything.  We’ve had some really interesting discussions so far but, you know – you have to be open to everything to find the right thing so the answer is sure, I’m open to that.  I think in a story it’s important to personify, somehow, what you’re up against so it’s a tricky one to figure out how to, like, fight evil wind! (evil look for emphasis).

Star Trek screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have also mentioned the possibilities open to them in recent interviews:

At issue: do they create a fresh plot with never-before-seen characters and scenarios or — because young Kirk and Spock are now part of an alternate timeline where the past has been altered — do they introduce 2.0 versions of such popular villains as the Klingons or Khan? Orci recognizes each approach has its own merits.

Rebooting familiar elements appeals instantly to fans and attracts the attention of “the media-sphere,” as he calls it.

Meaning that if you cast, say, Javier Bardem as the new Khan opposite Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, you’ve automatically excited fans and attracted the attention of the moviegoing public.

“But on the other hand,” he adds, “who doesn’t love an original story?”

That they’re even having this discussion is, they know, is no small feat. But the J. J. Abramsdirected Trek has rejuvenated a franchise once believed dead, grossing more than $245 million so far in North America. (Compared to the $49 million 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis earned.)

“We’d hear that people thought Star Trek was too cold, that women didn’t like it,” Orci says. “But if you look at that period in the 1980s — from Wrath of Khan to the Voyage Home — those movies were very warm; they were about a family.”

Using the Klingons makes sense as they were frequent enemies in past television episodes and movies. There has been a lot of speculation about retelling the stories with Kahn but there is less point in this. Kahn was the villian in one television episode of Star Trek and returned for one of the movies. I would rather see a new story than to retell the original television episode, and the movie with Kahn takes place far later in Kirk’s career.

IO9 discusses the possibility that the next Star Trek movie could include Yeoman Janice Rand:

…co-writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman tell io9 the next film could feature one of Trek’s most iconic women.

Yeoman Janice Rand, with her imposing blonde beehive, only appeared in a handful of Trek episodes before disappearing (reportedly because star William Shatner wanted Kirk to have more the opportunity to mack on different women every week.) But since she has a fairly major role in “Charlie X” and “The Enemy Within,” she’s always stood out as one of the most significant female characters on the show, up there with Uhura and Nurse Chapel.

Lost ended the fourth season with a lot of subplots to tie up. There are rumors that some of the characters who died will be returning. This could be in flashbacks or could be a consequence of the atomic bomb which might have changed history. The Hollywood Reporter says that they will be adding another episode on to the final season.

The Harry Potter books and movies have already come under frequent attacks from the religious right. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, has given them another reason in an upcoming interview to appear in Esquire. The Telegraph reports:

In an interview with Esquire magazine, Radcliffe risked the US box office prospects of the new Harry Potter film by declaring himself to be an atheist.

In a pronouncement that will dismay America’s religious Right, which has long voiced suspicions about Potter’s “anti-Christian” message, the 19-year-old actor said he did not believe in God.

He also expressed his admiration for Professor Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and bete noir of Evangelical Christians.

Radcliffe has been reticent on the subject of religion in the past, but in an interview to promote the latest instalment in the film franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, released on July 15, he said: “I’m an atheist, but I’m very relaxed about it. I don’t preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch.”

He joked: “There we go, Dan, that’s half of America that’s not going to see the next Harry Potter film on the back of that comment.”

JK Rowling’s stories of the schoolboy wizard are taken very seriously by some Evangelical Christians in the United States. One of the largest Christian groups in the country, Focus on the Family, denounced the books as “witchcraft”.

Conversely, the Church of England published a guide advising youth leaders to use Harry Potter to spread the Christian message, as the characters face “struggles and dilemmas that are familiar to us all”.

Prof Dawkins, author of best-selling book The God Delusion, is no fan of Harry Potter, once remarking that tales of witchcraft are “anti-scientific”.

Harry Potter does show a world in which magic is used in ways which defy the laws of science, but this is presented as fantasy and certainly should not be taken as a claim for the validity of magic.

I’m not certain about the story in an upcoming movie from Universal but the movie reportedly has a lot of scenes with Kristen Bell and Kristin Davis in bikinis and lingerie. Here is the synopsis:

Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Malin Akerman, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell and Faizon Love star in Universal Pictures’ upcoming comedy Couples Retreat. Based on an original idea of Vaughn’s, the comedy follows four Midwestern couples who embark on a journey to a tropical island resort.  While one of the couples is there to work on their marriage, the other three set out to jet ski, spa and enjoy some fun in the sun.  They soon discover that participation in the resort’s couples therapy is not optional.  Suddenly, their group-rate vacation comes at a price.  What follows is a hilarious look at real world problems faced by all couples.

Palin’s attorney has threatened to sue the press if they publish the “defamatory” stories that she might be facing embezzlement charges related to the building of a sports complex in Wasilla. The threat, contained in a four page letter, presented the controversy over the funding of the sports complex from her perspective. This guarantees that, if they hadn’t already, the media will see this as a story. Presenting her side of the case also increases the chances that publications will scrutinize her claims for any discrepancies.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the FBI’s Alaska spokesman has stated that Palin is not under investigation by the agency. This does not address rumored IRS investigations or the possibility that Palin resigned from office to prevent impeachment on ethics charges. With the large number of questions as to her ethical conduct in office and the irrational manner of her resignation, Palin is living in a different universe if she does not realize that her resignation will be taken by many as evidence of her guilt and as an attempt to limit further scandals.

There is no word as to whether Sarah Palin will be taking any legal action against  David Letterman or many other late night comedians who have mocked her over the past several months.

Iranian leaders say they have obtained confessions from top reformist officials that they plotted to bring down the government with a “velvet” revolution. Such confessions, almost always extracted under duress, are part of an effort to recast the civil unrest set off by Iran’s disputed presidential election as a conspiracy orchestrated by foreign nations, human rights groups say.

Reports on Iranian Web sites associated with prominent conservatives said that leading reformers have confessed to taking velvet revolution “training courses” outside the country. Alef, a Web site of a conservative member of Parliament, referred to a video of Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who served as vice president in the reform government of former President Mohammed Khatami, as showing that he tearfully “welcomed being defrocked and has confessed to provoking people, causing tension and creating media chaos.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s representative to the Revolutionary Guards, Mojtaba Zolnour, said in a speech Thursday that almost everyone now detained had confessed — raising the prospect that more confessions will be made public. Ayatollah Khamenei is supreme religious leader.

The government has made it a practice to publicize confessions from political prisoners held without charge or legal representation, often subjected to pressure tactics like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture, according to human rights groups and former political prisoners. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of people have been detained.

They fear the confessions are part of a concerted effort to lay the groundwork for banning existing reformist political parties and preventing any organized reform movement in the future. “They hope with this scenario they can expunge them completely from the political process,” said Hadi Ghaemi, coordinator of International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based group. “They don’t want them to come back as part of a political party.”

Nobody really knows her real reasons, if this will hurt or help her in the long run, or if this is motivated by an upcoming scandal. Writing in The Daily  Beast (via Think Progress) Max Blumenthal speculates that the resignation was caused by an embezzlement scandal:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an additional $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

A recent news item also has the feel of a novel of this genre. The Wall Street Journal has a story involving secret codes going back to Thomas Jefferson:

For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson’s correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher — a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.

The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society — a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities — and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them.

In this message, Mr. Patterson set out to show the president and primary author of the Declaration of Independence what he deemed to be a nearly flawless cipher. “The art of secret writing,” or writing in cipher, has “engaged the attention both of the states-man & philosopher for many ages,” Mr. Patterson wrote. But, he added, most ciphers fall “far short of perfection.”

This cipher did appear unbreakable, until recently:

There is no evidence that Jefferson, or anyone else for that matter, ever solved the code. But Jefferson did believe the cipher was so inscrutable that he considered having the State Department use it, and passed it on to the ambassador to France, Robert Livingston.

The cipher finally met its match in Lawren Smithline, a 36-year-old mathematician. Dr. Smithline has a Ph.D. in mathematics and now works professionally with cryptology, or code-breaking, at the Center for Communications Research in Princeton, N.J., a division of the Institute for Defense Analyses.

We can only speculate as to why she suddenly announced this on a Friday of a holiday weekend (assuming she was not waiting until I got back to the Grand). Maybe this is part of a plan to begin campaigning very early for the 2012 nomination–although an early start certainly did not help John Edwards. She will hardly reassure those who believe she is not qualified for national office by running with less than a full term as governor of Alaska as experience.

Maybe she is resigning because of the way she has played fast and loose with the law, with a bigger scandal being about to break. Resignation is one way to generally prevent impeachment.  I’ll be back at Grand Hotel for a long Labor Day weekend–maybe we will have an indictment by then.

Incidentally there is another connection to the Republicans with our trips to the Grand. While I was in the same suite on the day when  John Kerry chose John Edwards in 2004 and John McCain chose Sarah Palin last year, as this was a suddenly planned brief trip it was too late to get our usual suite. Instead they placed us in the Eisenhower Suite. The last time we wound up in a different room from our usual suite we were in the Nancy Reagan Suite. In some ways the Eisenhower suite is preferable. The walls are pink in here, while the Nancy Reagan Suite is very bright red.

While these two suites are tied to the Republican Party, last summer I just missed a Democratic event. A few days before coming up last summer there was a Mackinac Island for Obama event. There is also another connection to both the Democrats and scandal and our trips here. One time when we were also up for a second time the same summer and did not get our usual suite we checked out who was staying there. We saw Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow coming out of the suite we generally stay in. Her use of the room (presumably with her husband) was the first thing I thought of when her husband was later caught with a hooker outside of Detroit.

While driving up north I listened to a few NPR podcasts. This included yesterday’s episode of Fresh Air which included an interview with Jeff Sharlet on his book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. This is the secret religious group which Mark Sanford and many other conservatives belong to. They believe certain political leaders were chosen by God. As they are chosen by God they are above conventional morality. This explains Sanford’s comparison of himself to King David, which he sees as justifying his affair and making resignation unthinkable to him.