National Parks Announce Fee Free Days for 2011

The National Parks are America's crown jewels and I would urge folks to take the opportunity to visit them to see the natural wonders that the nation has to offer. Some of the most well known parks and monuments impose entrance fees to help supplement the operating costs of maintaining the facilities and programs offered. However, several times a year the National Park Service offers fee free days. For 2011, those days are as follows:

* January 15-17
(Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday weekend)
* April 16-24
(National Park Week)
* June 21
(First day of summer)
* September 24
(Public Lands Day)
* November 11-13
(Veterans Day weekend)

Mrs. Lawhawk and I have purchased annual passes the last couple of years since we make an effort to visit as many national parks as possible, and even if we don't visit as many as we like, knowing that these funds are dedicated to national park operations means that the money is going to a truly worthy purpose.

Going Green: Empire State Building Inks Wind Power Deal

Owners of the iconic Empire State Building have been making major investments in the building's infrastructure to improve its desirability to class A tenants, which command higher rents.

It has begun a process of improving the building's HVAC efficencies, and has retrofitted insulated glass panels that reduce heat transmission and make the building more efficient.

Now, it has inked a two-year deal to purchase wind power to cover the energy costs for the building.

"It was a natural fit for us to combine 100% clean energy with our nearly completed, ground-breaking energy efficiency retrofit work," building owner Anthony Malkin said.

And what's good for the environment is expected to be good for business too, he said.

"Clean energy and our nearly 40% reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents," Malkin said.

The ESB will be buying its power from the Green Mountain Energy Company.

The wind power buy is more of a publicity issue than the real heavy lifting done by reducing the energy footprint of the building by retrofitting all the windows in the building with high efficiency glass panels while retaining the building's classic exterior.

Don't Mess With a Classic

Mark Twain wrote many classic books and is one of the most beloved of American authors. So, it is quite disturbing to see a publisher editing out language that it has deemed undesirable because it is no longer politically correct.

Gribben has no illusions about the new edition's potential for controversy. "I'm hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified," he said. "Already, one professor told me that he is very disappointed that I was involved in this." Indeed, Twain scholar Thomas Wortham, at UCLA, compared Gribben to Thomas Bowdler (who published expurgated versions of Shakespeare for family reading), telling PW that "a book like Professor Gribben has imagined doesn't challenge children [and their teachers] to ask, ‘Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?' "

Of course, others have been much more enthusiastic—including the cofounders of NewSouth, publisher Suzanne La Rosa and editor-in-chief Randall Williams. In addition to the mutual success of their Tom Sawyer collaboration, Gribben thought NewSouth's reputation for publishing challenging books on Southern culture made them the ideal—perhaps the only—house he could approach with his radical idea.

"What he suggested," said La Rosa, "was that there was a market for a book in which the n-word was switched out for something less hurtful, less controversial. We recognized that some people would say that this was censorship of a kind, but our feeling is that there are plenty of other books out there—all of them, in fact—that faithfully replicate the text, and that this was simply an option for those who were increasingly uncomfortable, as he put it, insisting students read a text which was so incredibly hurtful."

The words at issue are the racially charged "nigger" and "Injun". The former will be replaced with slave and the latter with Indian.

I think this is a mistake and avoids a teaching moment that would do more to illuminate the readers about the state of the world at the time that Twain wrote (and wrote about) and current social movements.

Teachers would be able to point to how and why this language was considered acceptable and allowable, and what it now means and how and why it remains racially charged.

Editing out the language at issue sidesteps the issue entirely and represents a missed opportunity to discuss racism, language, and their interrelationship.

Sudan Prepares For Split Referendum

Sudan's southern provinces are preparing for a referendum that, if passed, would create an independent country in the south largely composed of animists and Christians, while the rest of Sudan would become an Islamist state under existing ruler Omar al-Bashir (who is facing additional pressure from Islamists to go even further than he already has).



It's hoped that this may end the ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide due to ongoing fighting for more than 20 years throughout Sudan. I'm not so sure, but it will likely embolden the Islamists to continue pursuing their violent tactics in the region.

Other observers think that the partition may fuel separatist movements elsewhere in Africa and the rest of the world - a Balkinization of interests. That is a distinct possibility, but the actions in Sudan are a step in correcting longstanding colonial impacts - when the Europeans carved up much of Africa, they did so without regard to existing tribal lines and established arbitrary boundaries that separated tribes among multiple countries or paired longstanding enemies under one country's rule. That's led to conflicts throughout Africa, including the Rwandan and Congolese genocides.

Meanwhile, neighboring Kenya is gearing up for potential problems even as polling centers open for displaced Sudanese.

This will not directly affect the ongoing human rights crisis in Darfur, where Sudanese forces continue operating.

"Environmentalists" Opposing Renewable Energy Projects

If you want yet another example of why the United States lacks a coherent energy policy, all you have to do is go out West to see how people who claim to be environmentalists sue to block building solar power projects near them.

They like the projects on paper, but once it has the potential of going into their own backyard, NIMBY rears its ugly head and the lawsuits commence. Those lawsuits are time consuming and add significant costs to all energy projects, no matter how environmentally sensitive or green they are touted to be.

The push to create an alternative to carbon-based fuel has hit an unlikely snag: environmentalists.

The split between Peterson and Williams illustrates this awkward state of affairs. To a growing number of environmental advocates, the dozens of large solar plants that are springing up in vast areas of the western wilderness are more scourge than savior.

The upshot is that those who on paper seem to be perfect allies for solar are turning into its biggest enemies.

That includes the Sierra Club, which last week filed what senior attorney Gloria Smith says is its first suit against a solar plant, a giant 664-megawatt project called Calico that is slated to go up in the desert near Barstow, California. It would lie smack in the middle of habitat for rare plants and animals, in an area Smith calls "a very unfortunate site."

The legal brawl comes as the U.S. is racing to adopt renewables. In the United States, renewable energy, including solar, makes up just 8 percent or so of electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That figure was expected to jump to 13 percent by 2035 -- but that was before the Green vs. Green feud.

Even though Williams and her cohorts support the broad goal of reducing dependence on fossil fuels, they say it comes at too high a cost if it means building on undeveloped land. Helping their case: the proposed plants are often slated for areas with threatened or endangered animals, including kit foxes, kangaroo rats, rare lizards and others.

Now, the groups have gone from complaining to litigating. That means solar companies must take funds and management time that would have been spent on developing their plants and spend them instead on fighting lawsuits. For some companies, the likely result is that plants won't be built.

For the solar industry overall, the situation marks a fundamental shift in attitude. Where previously almost any bare patch of desert seemed like a prospective solar plant, now the reality is that much of the nation's most fertile ground for alternative power and energy independence may well remain undeveloped.

Undeveloped and cheap land near existing transmission lines are ideal for solar power development and yet these groups are suing because they claim that the projects will have a negative ecological impact.

Any construction will have an impact - the idea is how to minimize the effects while providing a cost-efficient and sustainable energy source. By suing, Sierra Club and other environmental groups are showing that they are against energy development of any sort - no matter how green they claim to be. California has a legal requirement to get 33% of its energy needs from renewable sources, which means that the state's ability to reach its goal is threatened as environmentalists fight to stop solar projects around the state.

It also means that solar power companies are not going to get involved in US projects because it isn't cost effective and are looking elsewhere - China for one, where the benefits of solar far outweigh the alternatives of more coal powered plants that emit noxious chemicals.

Yet, it should be pointed out that the footprint of a solar powered project is several times greater than a nuclear power plant of the same energy output.

NIMBYism is killing technological development and a shift from existing energy sources to cleaner, renewable sources. This will have dire consequences in coming years no matter how much money in incentives are thrown at the industry because the underlying fundamentals have not changed. Fix the issues arising from NIMBY types who thwart all manner of necessary and critical projects and it will reduce costs for a wide range of infrastructure projects that will help catapult US infrastructure into the 21st century.

Another issue is that China isn't exactly an environmentally constrained culture as factories continue to belch noxious chemicals and heavy metals into the air injuring those around those factories. Hundreds of children were poisoned by lead from factories making batteries in just the latest of such incidents. China is ramping up production of a wide range of green products, including batteries, wind turbines, and solar power systems, but few are looking at the consequences of China looking the other way as these very factories pollute their localities with all manner of toxic chemicals befouling waterways, the air, and people living downwind.

Double Dose of Junk Science Vaccine Insanity

First up is Prince Charles of England, who has no qualms about giving a Royal warrant to a company that sells bogus "polio, typhoid, and yellow fever vaccines" based on homeopathic idiocy. As the article notes, homeopathy involves diluting substances to levels that make it all but impossible for the original substance to even exist in the solution.

Homeopathic remedy are commonly diluted, in their parlance, to 24C – that is, diluted to one part in a hundred, then that diluted solution is diluted to one part in a hundred, 24 times. To give you some idea of how dilute that is, the allowable concentration of arsenic in US tapwater is 4C, and at 12C there is only a 60 per cent chance of a single molecule of the original substance existing, if you started with a mole** of the substance. Or – I love this – one-third of a drop of the original substance would create a 13C solution if it were evenly mixed in all the oceans of the world. 13C is, remember, 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times stronger than 24C, a common dilution. A 200C dilution of duck liver is given as a treatment for the flu. That’s the equivalent of one molecule of duck liver in 10320 universes the size of our one. The more dilute it is, most homeopaths say, the better.

Polio is one of a few diseases that could be eradicated worldwide (following smallpox) but efforts have been stymied in the past by rumors that vaccines cause sterility or AIDS or other dangerous rumors. Instead of wiping out this scourge, it persists in parts of Africa and Asia despite the best efforts of scientists to immunize rural populations.

Vaccination is key, and now you've got Prince Charles (by giving the business Royal warrant) is endorsing junk science - homeopathy - as it provides "alternative travel vaccines" alternatives to conventional travel immunizations. Given the way that diseases can circumnavigate the globe in the time it takes to fly around the world, this is a stupendously stupid idea. It exposes the population to diseases that should be protected via standard vaccines and immunizations.

Prince Charles' position may lead to death or needless illnesses.

That's child's play compared to the damage done by Andrew Wakefield, whose bogus findings claimed to link MMR vaccines to autism. Parents have needlessly exposed their kids to easily preventable illnesses because a ginned up study by an anti-vaccine advocate claimed that there was a link.

There was none as researchers continue looking into the study data.

The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues were renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion the MMR shot was connected to autism spooked parents worldwide and immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella have never fully recovered.

A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study.

The analysis, by British journalist Brian Deer, found that despite the claim in Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children's parents.

Called 'an elaborate fraud'
Wakefield could not be reached for comment despite repeated calls and requests to the publisher of his recent book, which claims there is a connection between vaccines and autism that has been ignored by the medical establishment. Wakefield now lives in the U.S. where he enjoys a vocal following including celebrity supporters like Jenny McCarthy.

While the British government stripped Wakefield of his right to practice medicine, he will not face justice for the fact that measles cases in the US and UK have exploded to epidemic levels as a result of his bogus study.

It will take years to recover from the damage done by this junk science.

Islamists Cheer As Assassinated Pakistani Governor Laid to Rest

Pakistani Islamists are cheering the assassination of a Pakistani governor, Salman Taseer, who championed a moderate course of action.

Taseer was laid to rest in a funeral ceremony earlier today:




Salman Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard yesterday because Taseer opposed imposing a death sentence for blasphemy against a Christian woman who was alleged to have dishonored Muslims.

Mumtaz Qadri, 26, made his first appearance in an Islamabad court, where a judge remanded him in custody a day after he allegedly sprayed automatic gunfire at the back of Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer while he was supposed to be protecting him as a bodyguard.

Later Wednesday, a political adviser to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said an assessment of Qadri by the Punjab police force months before had deemed him a security risk and said he should not be assigned to protect high-profile figures because of his "extremist views."

Qadri has already become a hero in Pakistan among Islamist fundamentalists who have a growing sway in this South Asian nation. A rowdy crowd slapped him on the back and kissed his cheek as he was escorted inside the court. The lawyers who tossed the rose petals were not involved in the case.

As he left the court, a crowd of about 200 sympathizers chanted "death is acceptable for Muhammad's slave." The suspect stood at the back door of an armored police van with a flower necklace given to him by an admirer and repeatedly yelled "God is great."

More than 500 clerics and scholars from the group Jamat Ahle Sunnat said no one should pray or express regret for the killing of the governor. The group representing Pakistan's majority Barelvi sect, which follows a brand of Islam considered moderate, also issued a veiled threat to other opponents of the blasphemy laws.

"The supporter is as equally guilty as one who committed blasphemy," the group warned in a statement, adding politicians, the media and others should learn "a lesson from the exemplary death."

Reports are now indicating that Qadri was considered a security risk because of his extremist views, and yet he was allowed to remain Taseer's bodyguard.

Another senior police official involved in the case said Qadri had claimed he was determined to stand by his confession that he was proud to kill a blasphemer.

The official said Qadri had looked for a chance to kill the governor since joining his security squad on Tuesday morning, but did not get the opportunity at the presidential or senate buildings.

His chance came when the squad was called to escort Taseer from a restaurant on Tuesday afternoon, the official said. After the attack, Qadri threw his weapon down and put up his hands up when one of his colleagues aimed at him, pleading to be arrested alive, the official said.

It once again exposes the serious problems facing the Pakistani government in stamping out the Islamists and extremists who want to impose a harsh theocratic state based on their view of the Koran and its harsh punishments. The Islamists are fully and well entrenched in the security and political apparatus of the Pakistani government, and are trying to expand their reach.

The anti-blasphemy law is an assault on the rights of non Muslims and violates human rights. The law offers little projection and mob justice often metes out lynchings even if the official sanctioned death penalty is not imposed. The law has the effect of terrorizing the minority religious groups in the country and those who do not adhere to the fundamentalist view of Islam.

Transportation Earmarks Need a Reboot

USA Today highlights the problem of rogue earmarks - earmarks (pork) that have become orphans because of technical errors or other issues that have prevented the funds from being spent all while counting against states' shares of federal transportation dollars.

The problem is so pervasive that almost 1 in 3 highway dollars earmarked since 1991 — about $13 billion — remains unspent, federal data show. "We call them orphan earmarks," says Michael Covington of the South Carolina Department of Transportation. "They don't have a home."

The federal government treats an unspent earmark like an undated check that could be cashed at any time. It affects the federal budget only if it's cashed. Nevertheless, because lawmakers inserted some of the earmarks into particular sections of transportation bills, many of the orphan earmarks also count against a state's share of federal highway funds and have taken billions of dollars away from state transportation departments across the nation.

During the past 20 years, orphan earmarks reduced the amount of money that states would have received in federal highway funding by about $7.5 billion, USA TODAY found. That's $7.5 billion that states could have used to replace obsolete bridges, repair aging roads and bring jobs to rural areas.

Pennsylvania, already coping with a transportation funding crisis, lost out on $392 million. New York, struggling with the worst budget deficit in its history, lost $607 million. California, forced to consider a bailout from the federal government, could have had $568 million more for transportation had it not been for orphan earmarks.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, says that money would go a long way toward plugging his state's shortage of transportation funding. "It shows you what's wrong with the earmark system," he says.

These orphan earmarks are treated as an uncashed check. It only counts against the budget if the project goes forward. But since the earmark is treated as having been committed to a particular state, it counts against that state's share of federal transportation dollars, reducing the overall amount the state gets.

President Obama's proposed 2011 budget would eliminate those orphan earmarks that are 20 years or older with a savings of $263 million.

I don't think that goes far enough. Anything older than 10 years should be history, and those that are 5 years and older should be on the chopping block and vetted. The process should be regularized so that the projects are reviewed annually and the statute of limitations on earmarks should be brought down to 5 years with a review beginning on projects three years or older.

A process should be instituted so that only those projects that a state department of transportation has committed to undertaking can be funded. Projects that are funded from other sources should be earmarked so as to free up the state funds to rebuild other critical infrastructure.

"Critical infrastructure" should be defined so that projects that are prioritized according to need and not merely to spend money on a given project merely because a politician wants to bring the bacon home. While rebuilding critical infrastructure is necessary, maintenance of infrastructure should be prioritized so as to keep such structures from becoming deficient in the first place. Regular maintenance, including cleaning out drainage, painting, and fixing problems before they manifest into more serious issues can save more money, but doesn't get nearly the attention as a ribbon cutting on a new bridge or tunnel.

China's Insatiable Need For Water and Energy Hitting Downstream Countries Hard

China is busy touting its hydroelectric power projects as a way of going green and weaning the most populous nation on the planet from coal and other emissions-heavy power generating sources. They are damming rivers at a prodigious rate, but the dam projects aren't nearly as green as one would first believe, and they are having a disastrous impact on countries located downstream of the newest dam projects.

The Xiaowan dam in the hills of Yunnan province is one of eight hydroelectric projects that will bring China?s industrial revolution to the impoverished region. It is by far the biggest of the four dams built so far that when done this year will be the biggest arch dam in the world.

But not all of the water is China's. The downstream half of the 2,700-mile-long river winds through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, where it is known as the Mekong.

In those countries, 60 million people rely on the Mekong not for electricity but for food, water and transport. They say the Chinese dams have reduced the river to its lowest levels in 50 years, and environmental groups accuse China of reducing the river flow downstream.

"Many local people and groups that monitor the dams in China point the finger at the dams as one of the main causes of the drying up of the river," says Srisuwan Kuankachorn, co-director of Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, a Thailand-based environmental group.

Srisuwan says the countries are in a drought caused by China that has killed fisheries, withered croplands and dried up waterway transportation routes.

And the problems are likely to get worse with the completion of the Xiaowan dam. A United Nations report issued in May 2009 warned that China's eight planned dams, of which Xiaowan is the fourth, "may pose the single greatest threat to the river."

By destroying the habitat on the Mekong, the Chinese are causing untold misery in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, which rely heavily on the Mekong for food, potable water, and transportation. With river levels at such low levels, the problems for Vietnam are only going to increase as salt works its way upstream and food production becomes more variable.

I Should Have Played Hurley's Numbers

If you're a fan of Lost, you'd know that the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42 carry special significance. They're the numbers that the Losties needed to enter into the computer on the Island and they're also the numbers that Hurley played to win a lottery.

Those numbers, if you had played them last night in the Mega Millions that was $355 million (and won by two tickets in Idaho and Washington), would have won you $150. The winning numbers were 4, 8, 15, 25, 47 and the mega ball number 42 (3 + mega = $150).

Oh well.

NYC Snow Response Investigations Ramp Up

Federal investigators are now looking into the putrid New York City snow removal response. Brooklyn and Queens District Attorneys are also investigating malfeasance by Sanitation Department workers.

Every day brings another new revelation about Sanitation Department foul ups. The latest includes Sanitation Department workers apparently piling snow up at or along Washington Cemetery to the point of tipping over nearly two dozen gravestones.

Sanit crews dumped tons of dirty snow from the Christmas weekend blizzard into the city’s biggest Jewish cemetery, toppling 21 gravestones and wrecking an iron fence.

"It’s jarring, and it’s an emotional thing," said Yana Zhuravel, a lawyer whose grandparents’ headstones in Washington Cemetery in Midwood, Brooklyn, were among those knocked over.

"Clearly, nobody came with the intention of doing this, I’m sure," said Zhuravel.

"But when an accident happens of this caliber, you expect some form of accountability."

"We were devastated," said cemetery manager Marisa Tarantino.

Workers believe the snow was dumped sometime over the New Year’s holiday, Tarantino said.

Union officials keep saying that the poor sanitation response can be traced back to poor funding, but that ignores the stupidity witnessed on videos showing Sanitation Department drivers turning SUVs into pinatas, and videos showing Sanitation plows driving on snowbound streets with their plows in an upright position - doing anything but clearing the snow.

“We have some video of sanitation trucks not plowing streets despite being on plow routes. Some units were sitting at Dunkin Donuts for 7,8, 9, 10 hours,” Halloran said.

Additional footage showed a V-shaped plow on East 24th Street and Quentin Road in the Madison section of Brooklyn that appears to have been set at the wrong angle because while it moved some snow, it also left much of the white stuff on the road behind it.

All of the pictures raise new questions about what some sanitation workers were doing during the blizzard.

“If there were many trucks that did not have their plows down somebody gave them the order and we have to find out who that was,” Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz told Kramer.

The Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty says that his workers did a tremendous job considering the difficult task of removing snow from thousands of miles of streets, but even Mayor Bloomberg concedes that the city failed in its essential obligations to clear the streets to make them passable.

East River Tidal Power Project Gets Another Step Closer To Fruition

Verdant Power, which installed a mini-array of tidal power turbines in the East River off Roosevelt Island, has applied to the FERC for a permit to operate a full-scale tidal power project.

The company, Verdant Power, filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to install up to 30 tidal power turbines in the river’s East Channel for a pilot project. Company officials say the turbines would transmit energy onto the national grid.

The application “represents the culmination of nearly a decade of work undertaken by Verdant Power and a variety of project stakeholders to add tidal power to the U.S. clean energy mix,” Verdant’s chief executive, Ronald Smith, said in a statement.

From 2006 to 2008, the company installed six turbines, to create “clean energy” from the swift, powerful tides of the river, which is technically a tidal strait and not a river at all.

The three-bladed turbines encountered some problems — with the strong currents breaking off tips of some blades — but succeeded in generating power that was delivered to local businesses on Roosevelt Island. Company officials called it the first system of grid-connected tidal turbines in the world. The trial also offered proof that turbines would not injure fish in the river, Verdant officials said.

Some of that power went to Gristede's supermarket on Roosevelt Island, and the demonstration project showed that the concept could work. Issues with materials used on the turbines appear to have been worked out.

This would be a significant step in improving the power generating capabilities within New York City.

Pakistan In Turmoil Once Again

A day after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani suffered a major setback after one of the parties left the ruling coalition short of the necessary votes in Parliament and could raise a vote of no confidence at any time, an outspoken ally to the President Zardari was assassinated by one of his security guards at a market. The assassination was sparked by his opposition to a death sentence handed down against a woman for blasphemy.

The governor of Pakistan's largest province was assassinated Tuesday at a genteel market in the nation's capital--allegedly by one of his own security guards, angered by the governor's support of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

Police said Salman Taseer- a sharp-tongued supporter of embattled President Asif Ali Zardari and an outspoken critic of religious extremists - was shot multiple times at the shopping plaza, which is near his home in Islamabad and is frequented by foreigners.

A Pakistani news station quoted a witness who said he saw a security guard get out of Taseer's vehicle, raise a Kalishnikov rifle and fire through the window of the vehicle.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said one of the governor's guards surrendered to police after the shooting, and told them he was angered by Taseer's recent public endorsement of a pardon for a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

That position had earned Taseer threats from Islamist parties, who held a strike last week against proposed changes to the nation's controversial anti-blasphemy laws. Taseer stood by his stance, posting on Dec. 30 on his Twitter account: "I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing."

Islamists have been gunning for Taseer for months now, calling him an apostate over his stance on blasphemy laws and because he was not kowtowing to the Islamist line.

None of this is especially helpful to the ongoing counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban and al Qaeda that operate from Pakistan's frontier provinces that are loosely governed from Islamabad.

Blood Test May Revolutionize Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis

Scientists are looking at a blood test that could discover a single cancer cell floating amid billions of normal blood cells.

In 2007, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, developed a "microfluidic chip," called CellSearch, which could count the number of stray cancer cells, but that test didn't allow scientists to trap whole cells and analyze them.

But on Monday, Mass General announced an agreement with Veridex LLC, part of Johnson & Johnson, to study a newer version of the test. According to the Associated Press, the updated test requires only a couple of teaspoons of blood.

The microchip is dotted with tens of thousands of tiny posts covered with antibodies designed to stick to tumor cells. As blood passes over the chip, tumor cells separate from the pack and adhere to the posts.

Scientists are wagering that this type of test, if successful, might also detect cancer early in its course, predict the odds for a recurrence, and assess a patient's general prognosis.

"There has been speculation that these [stray] cells are the ones that are responsible for the spreading of the disease," noted one expert, Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli, professor and chairman of medical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "Simple enumeration tells us that this patient has a worse prognosis . . . Now the question is, what other information we can gather, if we are able to capture these cells? For example, could we do gene analysis profiling and can we get information for the best treatment?"

As it stands today, biopsy -- an invasive and sometimes even hazardous procedure -- is one of the few ways doctors can get key information about a cancer's size and characteristics.

"Many people consider [the new blood test to be] a 'liquid biopsy,' so that eventually we can access cancer cells that are representative of the tumor without performing an invasive biopsy," said Cristofanilli, who is not involved in developing the test.

Experts stressed that the new type of test, if it ever arises, may still be years away, and researchers still aren't sure what these circulating tumor cells (CTCs) actually mean.

Identifying cancers at an early stage increases survivability and increases the range of treatment options.

Indeed, this has the potential to revolutionize pancreatic cancer and other difficult cancers. For now, the test is not being used in clinical situations, but several major cancer centers around the country are studying the test.

New Jersey Fights To Claim Unused Gift Cards

Despite losing a federal court ruling, New Jersey State Treasurer Andrew P. Sidamon-Eristoff told a U.S. District Court judge in Newark that the state will appeal a Nov. 13 ruling that temporarily struck down a new law concerning seizures that was enacted in July as part of Governor Christie's budget:

The legislation amended part of the state Uniform Unclaimed Property Act to include gift cards for the first time, allowing the state to consider a card abandoned two years after purchase and seize the balance.

The amendment also allowed the state to consider a traveler's check abandoned if it is not cashed or spent three years or longer from the purchase date, instead of after 15 years under the previous law — the rule in most states.

The proposals incensed the New Jersey Retail Merchants Association, New Jersey Food Council and American Express, which filed separate suits seeking to block the law, which was due to take effect Nov. 1.

"We thought that when we won the injunction that would hopefully end this issue," said John Holub, president of the merchants association. "Unfortunately, and very disappointingly, the state has chosen to appeal."

"We recognize the difficult situation the state is in," he said, but he added that the amendment "totally goes against" Christie's efforts to cut red tape and reduce the burden on businesses.

States are amending the abandoned property law to allow the state to take possession of property (escheat) if it is not claimed within a vastly reduced period of time (statute of limitations or dormancy period).

For example, travelers checks were typically given a 15 year statute of limitations under the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act, which most states have adopted in one form or another. With budgetary pressures, states have turned to making hash out of the uniform rules. New Jersey decided to slash the 15 year statute of limitation to just three years for travelers checks. Moreover, New Jersey sought to make the travelers check provision retroactive to 1994, allowing the collection of millions of dollars to help balance this year's budget. Add to that the new provisions that wanted to impose dormancy periods for gift cards, and the state was hoping to raise revenues through a back-door measure.

Since gift cards often involve companies across state lines (think Home Depot, Best Buy) and are therefore interstate commerce, enacting onerous rules that differ from other states was found to violate the US Commerce Clause. The judge, Freda L. Wolfson, granted a temporary injunction against sections of the amendment that define when the state can consider checks and cards abandoned and allow retroactive seizures.

I don't expect the state to succeed at the appellate level, but they'll go through the motions because of the economic necessity of needing those funds to help balance a budget that looks almost as bad as last year.

Iranian Press Blames Israel For Eygptian Terror Blasts Killing 20 and Wounding 80 Others

This fits into Iran's longstanding pattern of blaming Israel for all that ails the Middle East.

The explosion at a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which left 21 people killed and another 80 Muslims and Christians wounded, raises one question: Who was behind the blast?


Although, at first glance, the finger is pointed at extremist Wahabi or Salafi groups, it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act.

Attacks on churches in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia can be analyzed in the context of a Zionist scenario aimed at driving a wedge between Muslims and Arab Christians.

Let's just ignore that suicide bombings of Christian and non-Islamists is a tactic of al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbullah (or their spiritual forebearers like the Muslim Brotherhood). Let's ignore that Muslim-Christian violence has existed long before Israel became a state in 1948. Ignore the pogroms and sectarian violence that spills onto the streets from time to time throughout the region - not only Muslim v. Christian, but Sunni v. Shi'ite.

Iran would rather that people blame Israel when Israel has nothing to gain from such a situation as Israel gains a significant portion of its revenues from international tourism, and ongoing violence affects its tourism potential.

No, the real problem is that in the Iranian regime's worldview, the existence of Israel is an anathema that must be eliminated - destroyed to its very core and Israel becomes the convenient scapegoat for all that ails the Middle East and its dysfunctional Arab polity and societies. Arab leaders routinely scapegoat Israel - blaming them for everything and anything under the sun, including terror attacks, blood libels, and other assorted actions large and small. Iran's media outlets are engaging in nothing more than propaganda to attack Israel on yet another front.

It infantilizes the non-Israeli Middle East because it absolves Arabs - predominantly Muslim of their failings. Blame Israel is a whole lot easier than blaming madmen like Ahmadinejad for pushing for nuclear weapons or funding Hizbullah in trying to destroy Lebanon via its proxies in Syria and Lebanon. It ignores the rampant corruption and failure to assimilate Palestinians who live in squalor throughout the Middle East because it is a convenient bogeyman. Arab leaders refuse to accept Palestinians living in their countries for decades as their citizens because it is used as a club to deal with Israel - and a diversion for Islamists who use disatisfied Arabs as a recruitment tool for terror groups.

New York City Freeing Itself From Snowy Grip As Investigations Commence Into Poor Snowstorm Response

New York City streets are now finally passable of the icy grip of the snow for a bit as the warmer weather has finally melted a significant amount of snow - which the City has finally plowed from streets. It's still not ideal, but a damned sight better than this time last week, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg was saying things were business as usual as much of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island didn't so much as see a snowplow in sight and snow emergency routes were impassible due to lack of plows and stranded vehicles of all sorts.

We'll be getting investigations and hearings starting next week, so those reports about sanitation department work slowdowns or other work actions may get new life. The City's Sanitation Department appears to be overcompensating for the lack of snow removal earlier in the week

And since the snow will keep melting (although it wont completely disappear by the end of the week when another potential snow maker will come on through, the City is now griping about the lack of garbage pickups. Again, this is a health, safety, welfare issue - and the garbage pickups were halted in the wake of the snowstorm but the garbage trucks can now be tasked with garbage removal.

Throw in the potential for manhole explosions due to saltwater intrusion into electric power underground vaults and stray voltage shocking pets while walking, and the inevitable potholes the size of Mt. Rushmore, there will be plenty to gripe about in the coming weeks.

UPDATE:
That didn't take long. Mrs. Lawhawk forwards along a 1010wins news report of a manhole fire that required a building evacuation due to high levels of carbon monoxide:

The melting snow and salted road eroded cables below sending smoke and flames shooting out of manholes Monday in East Harlem.

1010 WINS’ Juliet Papa reports

The Fire Department evacuated the Shield Institute building on 107th Street after elevated carbon monoxide levels were reported at the location.

Seventy-five clients from the center, which services disabled adults, were transferred to Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center.

The FDNY and Con Ed are evaluating damage to nearby transformers.

The manhole fires closed off E 106th Street to E 109th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Check traffic and transit here.