The immense loss of life and absolute devastation caused by last weeks earthquake and tsunami is heartbreaking and serve as the culprits in this unimaginable tragedy. The tension, felt by its citizens and far beyond the countrys borders, centers most immediately on what happens next at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility.
Reports of radioactive contamination and a potential meltdown at the complex have many Americans wondering how prepared our own government would be in the event something similar occurred here. More specifically, could the the health of residents living near a severely damaged nuclear reactor in the U.S. be ensured?
Thanks to the advanced work of the men and women who develop our nations military medicine, the answer is yes but only if the government now takes the necessary steps.
Long op-ed piece continues from here. If you go to the Onconova Therapeutics website here there's a short summary of the progress with the drug. The drug companies are heavily regulated by the FDA as to what they can say about drugs in development so what you have here is the bare minimum.
An abstract to a 2009 article in the journal Radiation Research makes clear that Ex-Rad works by a mechanism different than the usual radio-protective drugs, which function as free-radical scavengers or cell cycle arrestors.
Very interesting, and in an emergency like in Japan, one could see a scenario in which a nuclear plant worker hit with a lethal dose of radiation might get the drug even though it hasn't been completely tested, let alone approved.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/17/2011 00:00 ||
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There is a drug called Galavit used in Europe but not approved in the US yet that may also offer some hope to those exposed. Galavit is derived from compounds known as phthalazine diones. One of its main substances is amino-tetrahydrophthalazinethe same component in the Luminol used by crime scene investigators to detect traces of blood.
An article in the Spring 2009 Johns Hopkins Memory Bulletin1 said the history of this drug can be traced to the 1960s Soviet space program. The first Russian cosmonauts traveled through space in capsules that did not provide proper safeguards against radiation. Doctors noticed that many of these space pioneers developed serious health problems from radiation exposure, such as leukemia, lymphoma and skin cancers. As the cosmonauts' medical problems became more pronounced, the military dedicated itself to finding an effective treatment. Gslavit improves results of traditional cancer treatment(surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy). In Russia, Galavit has also been prescribed to treat a wide range of chronic inflammatory diseases, including illnesses with an autoimmune componentsuch as Crohn's disease, liver diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcers and ulcerative colitis and to treat immune deficiencies arising as side effects of radiation and chemotherapy.
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Obama's agenda is not compatible with any thing, but what he thinks will help HIM. Utter stupidity is an app description of his so called reasoning.
(But Big Oil isn't really who you think it is) When Greens and Big BIG Oil get together-LOOK OUT!!!!
President Obama and some of his congressional Democratic allies have recently trotted out the old familiar argument that oil companies have millions of acres worth of leases on federal lands that they haven't used yet, so they ought to quit complaining about growing government delays in auctioning new leases.
It sounds like a logical argument until it runs into the reality provided by the answer to two basic questions - How much federal land is actually off-limits and who benefits from those lands being kept off limits?
Based on government data, the answer to the first question is this: Ninety four percent of federal onshore lands are off-limits to oil and gas exploration, while 97 percent of offshore federal lands are off-limits.
So virtually all of the public lands now owned by the American people but controlled by the federal government isn't even eligible to be placed on the auction block for bidding by U.S. companies for energy exploration rights leasing.
Who benefits from this lockup of virtually all of America's public lands from American energy companies? Well, here's the top beneficiaries:
National Iranian Oil Company
Saudi Arabian Oil Company
Iraq National Oil Company
Qatar General Petroleum Corporation
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (UAE)
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation
Petroleos de Venezuela.S.A.
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
National Oil Company (Libya)
Sonatrach (Algeria)
Those are the ten biggest oil companies in the world. Notice what they have in common? They are all state-owned enterprises, including more than a few in states run either by monarchies or tin-horn dictators. All of them are subject to deep political unrest and many have rulers and/or populations that hate the U.S.
Here's something else they share: When the U.S. government prevents domestic energy firms to explore and develop this country's incredibly abundant resources - we are "the Saudi Arabia of coal" and could be swimming in cheap gas if we developed our plentiful oil shale resources - Americans are forced to import more foreign oil.
That's why we currently import nearly three-fourths of all the oil we consume. And guess where most of that foreign oil comes from? You got it, those Top 10 companies listed above. So every time Obama delays another lease or drilling permit, oil potentates like King Faisal, Hugo Chavez, and Ghadaffi grin from ear-to-ear because they know it means more dollars coming to them.
And just to put these facts into further clarifying context, America's biggest energy company is ExxonMobil, which is second on the Fortune 500 and is currently valued at approximately $153 billion. The Saudi Arabian Oil Company that is the world's second largest owns the world's largest reserves and is valued at more than $2 trillion.
So when politicians talk about "Big Oil," ask them if they know where ExxonMobil ranks among the world's 10 biggest oil companies. Chances are excellent they won't have a clue that the answer is "nowhere."
As Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research notes about recent comments by several senators pushing new "use-it-or-lose-it" regulations for federal leasing:
"These senators are attempting to portray energy producers as hoarders of taxpayer-owned lands. The truth is that the federal government only makes 3 percent of these lands available for leasing, while the remaining 97 percent are off-limits for energy exploration and production."
"As long as the federal government continues to hoard these energy-rich, taxpayer-owned lands and keeps them off limits to the American people, the U.S. will continue to rely on foreign state-owned oil companies. No amount of rhetoric from Washington will change that fact."
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Under the statehood act, New Mexico can not directly use revenue generated from taxes on natural resources. Rather, it has to invest that money and derive the profits from the investments for use. The state has become in effect another one of the Big Oil guys. It profits as the price of oil rises. However, it doesn't stop the usual political suspects from denouncing Big Oil even while they spend the increased revenue with abandon. The prior governor, Bill Richardson (D) played the game well while putting more land off limits to exploration and exploitation, at the same time draining the surplus the previous governor, Gary Johnson (R), had built for the state. Meanwhile, the Holder's Justice Department drop the investigation and prosecution case against former governor Richardson in a Pay-4-Play scandal involving kickbacks from investment firms to handle the state's hefty resource generated investments, which did at least catch two former state Treasurers [guess that party] prior to the shut down.
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Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία, oligarkhía[1]) is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, corporate, or military control.
[Arab News] The issue of Shariah is gaining momentum as an increasing number of Mohammedans are living in Western societies. Despite its multicultural society, the United States is the least accommodating toward its Mohammedan population. England on the contrary, by accepting the presence of Mohammedan schools, charities, banks and Islamic arbitration tribunals, has been the least biased toward its Mohammedan citizens. As a result, Mohammedans in the UK are increasingly turning to Islamic courts mainly to resolve family disputes.
Back in 2006, a study revealed that 85 unofficial Shariah courts were already operating out of mosques all over the United Kingdom. The largest of them, the Islamic Shariah Council in Leyton, set up in 1982, has handled 7,000 divorce cases. Mufti Barkatullah, one of its founders explains:
"People who live in the United Kingdom undertake and abide by the law of the land, but they regard those laws as administrative laws, not a divine law. The matters of marriage and divorce don't fall into the state domain. It is a religious matter."
The first Mohammedan Arbitration Tribunal, the first official Shariah law court in the UK was set up in December 2007 by scholars and lawyers at Hijaz College Islamic University in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The Mohammedan Arbitration Tribunal has binding legal status because it operates in tandem with the British legal system and decisions challenged by the losing party will be upheld by a county court bailiff or high court sheriff.
The advances made by Islamic law into Britain hit the headlines when in February 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams ... sometimes known as the Archdruid of Canterbury, an indifferent theologian and a poor communicator, so obtuse as to occasionally be mistaken for brilliant but chock full of bland New Agey Feel-Goodisms ... , said in a public lecture, at the Royal Courts of Justice: "my aim is only... to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state, with a few thoughts about what might be entailed in crafting a just and constructive relationship between Islamic law and the statutory law of the United Kingdom."
These comments caused a firestorm and more than 250 articles appeared in the world press within a month. The polarized debate that followed triggered the idea for this book which explores the conflict between Western secularism and the demands of Islam as well as the issues of equality before the law and parallel jurisdictions in a multicultural society. "Shari'a in the West" is a collection of essays by leading scholars representing different political viewpoints and faith traditions.
In their introduction, the editors, Rex Ahdar and Nicholas Aroney, admit that the question whether Shariah should be recognized and incorporated into the legal systems of the liberal democracies of the West is an imposing one: "The issue has become a proverbial 'hot potato' in the corridors of power, as well as the more commonplace cafes, cyberspace chat rooms, bars, and living rooms of society. Hardly a week goes by in the West without a controversy erupting over some aspects of Mohammedan ritual, symbolism, belief, or practice."
On the one hand, critics fear that secularism, liberalism and individualism in Western democracies are under threat because the Shariah involves all the aspects of our life from the intimately personal, spiritual and familial, through to the management of interpersonal relations at a communal level. Shariah is also feared in the West where it conjures images of harsh physical punishments. On the other hand members of non-Christian faiths invoke the principles of Western liberalism supposed to grant the right to practice freely different religions.
Wael Hallaq (quoted by Rex Ahdar and Nicholas Aroney) makes an interesting point when he says that the Western colonization of the Islamic world during the 19th and early 20th century's led to the creation of 'sovereign' nation-states and the enactment of positive legal codes embodying secular legal values. This resulted in the severing of the institutional and social roots of the old Shariah based rule of law which in time resulted in a fundamentalist resurgence with an emphasis on the reinstitution of Islamic law.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/17/2011 00:00 ||
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We can't have two systems of law in a country. We have enough trouble with one system of law.
#5
Let me make my feelings a little more clear. No way in hell do we want sharia law in our country. It is incompatible with our culture, our way of life, and our laws.
Summit Entertainment and Participant Medias long-delayed film starring Mel Gibson and directed by his longtime pal Jodie Foster, The Beaver, premiered tonight at The Paramount Theatre during the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. Gibson did not attend, but Foster flew in for the screening and Q&A that followed. Film execs and fest staff milled about anxiously waiting to see how Mel's comeback movie would play for the first time in front of a public audience. The line to get a seat snaked around the building. Attendees told me that Jodie intro'ed the film and received a round of applause. When Mel came on screen for the first time, there were no boos. Laughter occurred at the right moments and the audience appeared engaged. The film received what was described to me as a very strong ovation at the end. As one attendee tells me, "People were really moved by it. They were rapt. He's phenomenal. People were really surprised they cold let go of all the other stuff with him. It went as good as it could have been."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Rowan Williams
