GOP Targets 45 Rules To Overturn Washington Post

Lyme Disease Vaccine’s Safety is Questioned. The possibility that there have been more than a hundred dire reactions to the Lyme vaccine since its FDA approval two years ago “have renewed a debate on the risks and benefits of vaccines for illnesses, such as Lyme disease, that are treatable or avoidable by other means.” Critics claim that the vaccine is being “grossly overpromoted” in parts of the country without a significant incidence of the illness, and that it is less than acceptably effective, requiring frequent booster shots to maintain at best imperfect immunity. Members of the preapproval FDA advistory committee expressed concerns about the vaccine’s potential to provoke arthritic reactions in some recipients, but what they did with these misgivings was to ask for post-approval followup by the vaccine’s manufacturer. Washington Post There is a raging debate, however, about whether Lyme disease is underdiagnosed, whether it may be responsible itself for a broader range of symptoms than generally accepted, including serious neuropsychiatric complications; and whether these serious complications really do readily respond to treatment, as is accepted in the infectious disease mainstream. I keep up on the literature about this partly because a former high school classmate of mine got in touch with me several years ago to describe how he is at the thick of the controversy because he claims he’s been debilitated by effects of Lyme disease that the medical establishment will not acknowledge. Several of the specialists by whom he’s been treated have been discredited, including, coincidentally, someone with whom I was in graduate school before either of us became a psychiatrist. The possibility that the long-term effects of Lyme infection are more dire, more common, and less-treatment-responsive than acknowledged, of course, would tip the risk-benefit calculations in favor of the vaccine.

Nemesis: Does the Sun Have a ‘Companion’? A UC Berkeley physicist is not letting go of the discredited idea that our sun has a companion red dwarf whose periodic approaches are responsible for recurrent episodes of mass extinction on the Earth. “Give me a million dollars and I’ll find it.” space.com

Working Mom? With Gov. Paul Cellucci confirmed as Bush’s ambassador to Canada, Massachusetts is abuzz about the promotion of Lt. Gov. Jane Swift, pregnant with twins. Wendy Kaminer: “We’ve
gotten used to no-show governors. Bill Weld played squash for six years; Paul Cellucci went on trade missions.
Considering the record of her predecessors, it will be hard to criticize Governor Swift if she stays home with her babies.
But living down to low standards shouldn’t make her a feminist role model. Women who want to be taken seriously as
officeholders had better take their offices seriously.” The American Prospect

Start Making Sense: “Eighty miles southwest of here, a small group of writers is plotting
to overthrow a common enemy: the monolithic, ever-oppressive New
York Literary Establishment. Tired of McSweeney’s, M.F.A.s, and
literary mooning, the Underground Literary Alliance (ULA) promotes a
straight-talking, street-smart prose of yesteryear (think Dickens)
designed to supplant the perceived products of postmodernism
(think Foster Wallace) that flood our bookstores. ULA founder and
promoter Karl “King” Wenclas disdains the “literati” for being like
“French kings and Russian czars”–out of touch and producing work
that’s irrelevant beyond New York City. He boasts that his “lowest of the low” ULA-ers (dishwashers, army
enlistees, skid-row dwellers) write with a “raw power” that’s absent from literature today.” Village Voice

Season of Carbon Action Freezerbox

Season of Carbon Action Freezerbox

Season of Carbon Action Freezerbox

The Stories You Probably Didn’t Read All About Last
Year Baltimore City Paper

“The new century’s most
important and confusing big-power dance will arguably be
between the United States and China. ” International Herald Tribune News Analysis: Both Sides in Uncharted Territory: ” ‘Americans only know one international pattern – Cold War or
friendship,’ said Robert Ross, a specialist in foreign policy at
Boston College who happened to be in Beijing last week during
the standoff. But neither path, many argue, is inevitable or
perhaps even likely with China – or, indeed, with other nations,
as complex and ambivalent ties become the norm in a world
with a globalized economy and one true superpower.”

James Ridgeway: China Conflict: The Profit Motive “The Bush administration’s great China standoff has less to do with a
downed American spy plane and a missing Chinese pilot than it does with U.S. and China competing
for control of the world oil routes that cross through southern Asia. Also at stake is an electronics
gravy train for the corporate interests of Silicon Valley.

In seeking to protect shipping lanes for oil tankers, the U.S. has considered equipping nations along
the Asian routes—including Taiwan—with the military might needed to defend the surrounding seas.
China, which is also seeking greater access to fuel, has expressed anger over the transfer of arms to
neighboring Taiwan.” Village Voice Do the Illegitimate Son and his handlers understand anything as subtle as the importance of saving face in “getting to ‘yes’ ” in political negotiation, especially with China?

U.S. knew China pilot as ‘cowboy’ who taunted Americans. “The missing
Chinese pilot who collided with
a U.S. surveillance plane had
been flying extremely close to
U.S. reconnaissance aircraft for
months, even once flashing a
sign with his e-mail address on
it, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The pilot, identified in state-run
Chinese media as Wang Wei,
became so reckless that Washington twice complained to the
Chinese government, most recently in a diplomatic protest in
December, defense officials said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity.” Or at least this is the ‘spin’ the US government would be planting now to justify evading its own responsibility, at least to apologize. Seattle Times

1628 people and counting: We’re sorry! “Well, if you’ve been keeping up on the news, you
know all about the spy plane incident in China.
Apparently, China demanded an apology – nothing
more – and Bush refused! So, now exists this page,
apologizing to the entire world for our stupid fucking
president.”

dangerousmeta pointed to this New Republic piece about the budget crisis in Texas, attributable in large measure to Little George’s tax cut mania. Pity more attention isn’t given to this in the current debate.

At least Dubya’s presidency will be of unprecedented assistance to the arts!

And the New York Times today suggests that Dubya’s unsubtle pandering to the right since his inauguration ought to be reinfusing almost every facet of the left end of the American political spectrum with outrage and resolve. Let’s hope progressives, and Democrats in general, can do something with it. I worried after Dubya’s ascendency to the throne that political memory is too short, conciliatory tendencies too strong, and Bush’s handlers too unscrupulous and disingenuous for an effective opposition to grow just when this country (and the world) need it most.Now glimmers of hope, to the contrary, that Bush just might continue to be an effective collaborator in the process. Continue to follow me on this emotional roller coaster ride between political encouragement and despondency…

Barbra Streisand’s call for stepped-up Democratic Oppositon to Bush Agenda: “In late March, Barbra Streisand sent a personal memo to a limited group of leading Democratic
legislators, urging that a more forceful effort be made to resist the rush of legislative proposals and
presidential edicts from the Bush administration which threaten to undermine 30 years of progress in civil
rights, environmental protections and Political process. Since this memorandum was leaked to the
press, primarily the D.C. magazine Roll Call and The Drudge Report, and since it has been angrily
misreported by a wide range of right wing media, we felt visitors to BarbraStreisand.com would like to
read the updated text of her thoughts.” And here‘s Tom Daschle’s response [grin].

The Village Voice, usefully, collects links to all its vitriolic coverage of GB2’s early days in this ‘peek into (his) honeymoon suite’. And the Booknotes weblog neatly sums it all up, with the newfound authority the inauguration has conferred on Molly-Ivins-loving commentators from Texas:

“I just had a horrifying thought. The Bush administration might be up to
something. They spend their 100 day honeymoon ramming though their real
agenda and paying back their money backers, igonoring the polls. Then
they spend the next 3+ years polishing their image for the next election. The
American population is famous for quickly fogetting what at one time
enraged it. Think about it.
And don’t stop thinking about it until you get a chance to vote again.”

After all, somebody’s going to get inaugurated in around 45 months…

Season of Carbon Action Freezerbox