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DLC’s Latest Screed

ArchPundit April 5, 2005 1 Comment

For the record, I quite like New Donkey, at least when he’s not complaining about Dean supporters.

But these two twits need to go. Arguing that ‘others’ in the party don’t contribute to a strong message misses that when they sit there and whine in the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times, they mix the message up. They create a sense of a disparate party with little in common. Criticism is useful, but when you run out and find the most obnoxious place to put that criticism and take joy in doing it, don’t be surprised when much of the party tells you to take a flying leap. For those of us who are closest ideologically, the New Democratic Network is far more appealing.

Just Vote

ArchPundit April 5, 2005 No Comments

Muni Elections today and I haven’t followed enough to offer recommendations with one exception

Rick Klau in Naperville.

Otherwise, just go vote and remember school board elections are the most important in your community.

Terrorists Stalking Hogs

ArchPundit April 1, 2005 6 Comments

Yep, it’s true. You know how I know, a great Misery Legislator has introduced a billl that bans taking pictures of farms:

IN THEIR TIRELESS, nay heroic, efforts to protect us from terrorists, some Missouri legislators want to keep us safe from terrorists sneaking around taking pictures of farm animals and puppy dogs. Feel safer?

This week, a House committee took up House Bill 666, sponsored by Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City. The bill would make it a felony to stand by the side of the road, on public property, and take unauthorized pictures of barns, pastures, even public land where cattle graze.

Mr. Guest, himself a hog farmer, thinks terrorists might use photos of agricultural operations to plan an attack of agricultural terrorism.

Uh-huh. Is anyone else imagining an attempt to round up cows for a stampede and they just stand there eating grass?

The Day Fox News Fell Into Self-Parody

ArchPundit April 1, 2005 3 Comments

John Edward, the ‘psychic’, declared that Terri Schiavo was aware the events surrounding her.

WTF? I always wondered why CNN allows King to put on these fruitbats, but on an actual news show?

Even better is the doctor who points out that the arguments circulated around about the actual medical tests were largely made up by charlatans and kooks. The entire deal surrounding the events in Florida appears to be built on the same kind of bizarre post modern view of science as creationism.

What’s worse is that a couple of quacks promoting treatments for which there is no scientific evidence have hijacked a tragic situation for a family and turned it into a sales job on quackery.

The Court record is incredibly damning on this point

Hyperbaric therapy has been in use for more than a century. It is used abroad far more than it is used domestically. Medicare recognizes only eleven procedures involving hyperbaric therapy while Russia recognizes almost seven times that many. Dr. Maxfield felt there was an 80% chance of improvement in Spect Scan results from hyperbaric therapy. He has seen such with similar patients. Also, he felt there was a significant probability Terry Schiavo would improve cognitive ability with hyperbaric treatment. Drs. Greer, Bambakidis and Cranford have all referred patients for hyperbaric therapy but none for this type of brain injury. They felt that such therapy would have no affect on Terry Schiavo. It is interesting to note the absence of any case studies since this therapy is not new and this condition has long been in the medical arena.

Dr. Hammesfahr feels his vasodilatation therapy will have a positive affect on Terry Schiavo. Drs. Greer, Bambakidis and Cranford do not feel it will have such an affect. It is clear that this therapy is not recognized in the medical community. Dr. Hammesfahr operates his clinic on a cash basis in advance which made the discussion regarding Medicare eligibility quite irrelevant. A lot of the time also was spent regarding his nominations for a Nobel Prize. While he certainly is a self-promoter and should have had for the court’s review a copy of the letter from the Nobel committee in Stockholm, Sweden, the truth of the matter is that he is probably the only person involved in these proceedings who had a United States Congressman recommend him for such an award. Whether the committee “accepted” the nomination, “received” the nomination or whatever, it is not that significant. What is significant, however, and what [undermines] his creditability is that he did not present to this court any evidence other than his generalized statements as to the efficacy of his therapy on brain damaged individuals like Terry Schiavo. He testified that he has treated about 50 patients in the same or worse condition than Terry Schiavo since 1994 but he offered no names, no case studies, no videos and no tests results to support his claim that he had success in all but one of them. If his therapy is as effective as he would lead this court to believe, it is inconceivable that he would not produce clinical results of these patients he has treated. And surely the medical literature would be replete with this new, now patented, procedure. Yet, he has only published one article and that was in 1995 involving some 63 patients, 60% of whom were suffering from whiplash. None of these patients were in a persistent vegetative state and all were conversant. Even he acknowledges that he is aware of no article or study that shows vasodilatation therapy to be an effective treatment for persistent vegetative state patients. The court can only assume that such substantiations are not available, not just catalogued in such a way that they can not be readily identified as he testified.

Neither Dr. Hammesfahr nor Dr. Maxfield was able to credibly testify that the treatment options that they offered would significantly improve Terry Schiavo’s quality of life. While Dr. Hammesfahr blithely stated he should be able to get her to talk, he admitted he was not sure in what way he can improve her condition although he feels certain her can. He also told the court that “only rarely” do his patients have no improvement. Again, he is extremely short of specifics. Dr. Maxfield spoke of a “chance” of recovery although he stated there was a significant probability that hyperbaric therapy would improve her condition. It is clear from the evidence that these therapies are experimental insofar as the medical community is concerned with regard to patients like Terry Schiavo which is borne out by the total absence of supporting case studies or medical literature. The Mandate requires something more than a belief, hope or “some” improvement. It requires this court to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the treatment offers such sufficient promise of increased cognitive function in Mrs. Schiavo’s cerebral cortex so as to significantly improve her quality of life. There is no such testimony, much less a preponderance of the evidence to that effect. The other doctors, by contrast, all testified that there was no treatment available to improve her quality of life. They were also able to credibly testify that neither hyperbaric therapy nor vasodilatation therapy was an effective treatment for this sort of injury. That being the case, the court concludes that the Respondents have not met the burden of proof cast upon them by the Mandate and their Motion. Accordingly, it is

If these doctors had observed patients improving under such conditions they certainly would find it in their interest to publish professional articles on it. That they haven’t ‘bothered’ is incredibly telling about the type of medicine the two practice.

That Scarborough attacked the credibility of doctor who wasn’t promoting speculative therapies with no empirical support demonstrates that MSNBC can’t be considered a news channel either.

Weigand Running Oberweis’ Campaign

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 5 Comments

The interesting bit here is that Family Taxpayer Network founder and money guy Jack Roeser seemed to be leaning towards Rauschenberger early on–which was news at the time since Roeser was a supporter of Patrick O’Malley in 2002. In an article he referred to the smart money being on Rauschenberger I believe.

While Weigand joining up with Oberweis doesn’t necessarily mean Roeser is going with him, it’s an interesting tea leave to read. The Leader tracks down other personnel moves in the GOP Governor’s race.

The move by Oberweis to separate himself from Rauschenberger would be to run hard on vouchers, which Rauschenberger has strongly opposed in the past, but Roeser is a strong supporter.

Much of Rauschenberger’s role in attracting Alan Keyes to Illinois appears to have been done in consultation with Roeser, in an apparent bid to secure support for a run for Governor.

And Dan Curry has made appearances in comments on behalf of Joe Birkett.

Hynes’ Future

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 No Comments

Rich Miller covered Dan Hynes’ future a couple weeks ago in a good column.

While it might not seem like it to some of his campaign workers from the Senate primary, I really like Dan Hynes. He’s smart, honest by all accounts, and has been a strong steward of the state finances through two guys who always were looking for the easy way out.

What was baffling about about the Senate Primary campaign was why he ran without a reason. I’m sure he had strong reasons to run, but he certainly didn’t communicate them very well. His commercials with his wife were awful. Both are telegenic, but they had no chemistry together and I didn’t even realize it was his wife on first viewing even though I had seen pictures of her before. Most strange about this is that they are very close and apparently adore each other, but somehow in the handling, it all got lost.

With the primary loss the biggest problem is now where to go. There simply aren’t open slots. The Senate seats are filled for years. The Governor’s race in 2010 is going to feature Lisa Madigan at least and while they’d be evenly matched, who wants to take a chance on that sort of bruising race. Congress would be somewhat of a step down for him from being a statewide office holder. He could move up to Secretary of State when Jesse retires or AG, but that is an awful long wait for a guy who was nicknamed Governor in waiting.

The Problem of Amtrak

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 No Comments

Steve Chapman makes a pretty reasonable case as to why Amtrak should be defunded, but the reality of single member districts with Amtrak stations is that isn’t going to happen. The larger problems with Amtrak primarily have to do with the long range routes that are enjoyable from what I hear, but economically disastrous to the agency. Shorter runs such as the Chicago-St. Louis run aren’t profitable, but the subsidy is of the type that the states and federal government aren’t put too far out to continue the service. Where the economic problem comes in is on long run routes such as routes that cross the country.

Amtrak isn’t going away because Members of Congress have lots of constituents who like it, so instead of getting rid of its funding, forcing the agency to restructure into shorter routes and perhaps providing infrastructure money to make it faster and more attractive is far more likely to produce an agency that isn’t going to be self-sufficient, but will provide regional transportation.

First Rule When You Find Yourself in a Hole

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 No Comments

Stop Digging.

Ponder this: Next year, the Bush administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which gets more than 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a business owner purchasing a Hummer, which gets 10 to 12 m.p.g. That’s truly crazy, and that’s truly what the whole Cheney energy policy is.

We don’t even have a fight over how to best conserve energy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we have a fight over how much to continue subsidizing wasteful energy practices and maintaining our dependence on foreign oil.

Via Eric.