President Obama has signed an executive order to reverse the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, reversing 8 years of regressive policy under the Bush administration. Watching Obama's speech, I was struck by his respect for the value of scientific research, and his commitment to protect it from the muzzle of religious doctrine."Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident," Obama said in a ceremony Monday. "They result from painstaking and costly research — from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit — and from a government willing to support that work," he said.After nearly a decade of suffering through Bush's theocracy, Americans can finally look forward to an era of decisions based on facts and reason, not ideology. As expected, the God-squad propagandists are not amused (yawn...)
Maher: "Do you think there's any truth to what the Republicans are saying that the Democrats are taking advantage of this crisis to put forth their agenda? Now that's what Republicans think because when 9/11 happened, of course that's what they did; they took advantage of a crisis to put forth their agenda. So they think 'Well, this must be how everybody operates, because that's what we do!.'"For Booker's response, scroll to 5:24 in the video.
"They really, at a basic level, have quite a bit in common," Harper spokesman Kory Teneycke told The Canadian Press, pointing out that both come from "outside the political establishment."Obama is a young, charismatic, energetic and genuine young leader who has captured the imagination of his country and the world by embodying the virtues of reason, intellect and bipartisanship.
GM has already announced plans to cut 10,000 salaried workers worldwide, or 14 per cent of its staff, impose pay cuts for most remaining white-collar U.S. workers and has offered buyouts to its 62,000 U.S. workers represented by the UAW.GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, perhaps sensing that times are tough, recently took a voluntary pay reduction to $1. This brave move has forced him to survive on the remnants of his 2007 compensation of 15.7 million dollars, a 64% increase which he earned for steering his company into a record 39 billion dollar net loss that same year. One wonders how such a profoundly ill industry has managed to survive even this long.
"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," Coleman said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in Franken's position.Sadly for Coleman, an automatic recount confirmed Franken as the narrow winner, after which he developed a curious case of amnesia for his own advice. Today Coleman's legal challenge to Franken's win entered it's 10th day. He has paid his lawyers nearly $190,000 so far. He may try to subpoena all 11,000 rejected ballots for judges to review. And why is he doing all of this?
[Coleman] told a conservative radio audience that “God wants me to serve".O-kaaaaay. Yet for all his desperate stonewalling, he may be falling even further behind. All of which begs the question: Why does God hate Norm Coleman?
