Last night, Stephen Colbert refuted Glenn Beck’s claim that his hour long interview with Eric Massa was a waste of time, acknowledging there still were some great commercials.

Said Colbert: “Glenn’s advertisers know nothing moves product like the hot stink of fear.” Case in point: a commercial for a product called Survival Seed Bank, in which the spokesman claims nonhybrid seeds will be more valuable that silver and gold, and thus save you from the impending economic meltdown.

Survival Seed Bank’s message mirrored the craziness of Beck, himself, seemingly predicting an apocalypse. The commercial claimed that the product provided enough seeds to plant a full acre “crisis garden,” which of course got Colbert excited: “When you’re tilling the earth with a human femur while the sky is raining fire, you’ll want a reliable supply of radicchio and mini squash.”

 The McGlynn: Verification of the facts concerning Paul Thorsen as the scientist involved in a potential fraud has now been confirmed by various news sources.

NBC, Atlanta

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 Autism-study doctor facing grant probe
Accusations over funds stir those who reject that there is no vaccine link to the disorder.

By Josh Goldstein, Inquirer Staff Writer, Posted on Fri, Mar. 12, 2010

A Danish scientist involved in two major studies that debunked any linkage of vaccines to autism is suspected of misappropriating $2 million in U.S. grants at his university in Denmark.

Poul Thorsen, a medical doctor and Ph.D., was an adjunct professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health for several months before resigning Tuesday.

On Jan. 22, Aarhus University said that it had uncovered a “considerable shortfall” in grant money from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a research program that Thorsen had directed. The university referred the matter to police, who are conducting an investigation.

Anti-vaccine groups have seized on the allegations to contend that scientific studies disproving the vaccine link to autism are wrong. Those groups have long argued that thimerosal, a preservative in some vaccines, can cause autism, as can the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella.

“I think it is quite significant,” said Dan Olmsted of the Age of Autism. “I think someone allegedly capable of ripping off his own university by forging documents from the CDC is capable of pulling off anything.”

The CDC and coauthors of the two studies published in major U.S. medical journals maintain the studies remain valid.

After feigning support all year for a public option, Democrats are now whipping against it to prevent passage

Glenn Greenwald, Mar. 12, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what seemed to be a glaring (and quite typical) scam perpetrated by Congressional Democrats:  all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster:  sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted.  Democratic pundits used that claim to push for “filibuster reform,” arguing that if only majority rule were required in the Senate, then the noble Democrats would be able to deliver all sorts of wonderful progressive reforms that they were truly eager to enact but which the evil filibuster now prevents.  In response, advocates of the public option kept arguing that the public option could be accomplished by reconciliation — where only 50 votes, not 60, would be required — but Obama loyalists scorned that reconciliation proposal, insisting (at least before the Senate passed a bill with 60 votes) that using reconciliation was Unserious, naive, procedurally impossible, and politically disastrous.

 But all those claims were put to the test — all those bluffs were called — once the White House decided that it had to use reconciliation to pass a final health care reform bill.  That meant that any changes to the Senate bill (which had passed with 60 votes) — including the addition of the public option — would only require 50 votes, which Democrats assured progressives all year long that they had.  Great news for the public option, right?  Wrong.  As soon as it actually became possible to pass it, the 50 votes magically vanished.  Senate Democrats (and the White House) were willing to pretend they supported a public option only as long as it was impossible to pass it.  Once reconciliation gave them the opportunity they claimed all year long they needed — a “majority rule” system — they began concocting ways to ensure that it lacked 50 votes.

All of that was bad enough, but now the scam is getting even more extreme, more transparent.  Faced with the dilemma of how they could possibly justify their year-long claimed support for the public option only now to fail to enact it, more and more Democratic Senators were pressured into signing a letter supporting the enactment of the public option through reconciliation; that number is now above 40, and is rapidly approaching 50.  In other words, there is a serious possibility that the Senate might enact a public option if there is a vote on it, because it’s very difficult for these Senators to vote “No” after pretending all year long — on the record — that they supported it.  In fact, The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim yesterday wrote:  ”the votes appear to exist to include a public option. It’s only a matter of will.”

Clashes break out near Jerusalem

Israeli shoe aimed at Biden

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Church Abuse Scandal in Germany Edges Closer to Pope

Picture: Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the Catholic church in Germany, during a press conference on Friday.

By NICHOLAS KULISH and RACHEL DONADIO. NYT

BERLIN — A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.

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Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr., NYT

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.

Texas Conservatives Win Fight To Rewrite History

 New Curriculum: ‘Democratic’ No More, Gold Standard, MORE Christianity

Religion: God, History And The Texas Public Schools

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PUSHBACK ON KICKBACKS
Dem Senators Fight Obama Over State Projects In Health Bill

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Mary Black’s Web Site

Israel extends West Bank closure   Lockdown extended and access to the al-Aqsa mosque restricted over fears of clashes.     The undoing of Obama’s Cairo speech More settlements planned Clashes break out near Jerusalem Biden’s peace push frustrated Biden explains Israel rebuke America’s Middle East fixer? Biden in Israel

Israel to probe ‘Biden fiasco’ ************************************** Hizma: A microcosm of a disappearing Palestine By Nour Odeh *********************************** The spooks are being sold down the river The Independent Clive Stafford Smith: MI5 is at fault over torture, but bosses refuse to be blamed for politicians’ decisions ************************************ Children of Gaza: Scarred, trapped, vengeful The Independent 1,000 days into the Israeli blockade Palestinian youngsters are denied any hope of a decent future. ************************************ Mexico City stages first gay marriages The Independent Two glowing brides in matching white gowns and four other same-sex couples made history in Mexico City as they wed under Latin America’s first law that explicitly approves gay marriage. ************************************* America unmasked: The images that reveal the Ku Klux Klan is alive and kicking in 2009 The Independent  The USA has a new president but an old problem – and nothing typifies it like today’s Ku Klux Klan. The photographer Anthony Karen gained unprecedented access to the ‘Invisible Empire’

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Theodore C. Olbermann, 1929-2010

My father died, in the city of his birth, New York, at 3:50 EST this afternoon.

 Though the financial constraints of his youth made college infeasible, he accomplished the near-impossible, becoming an architect licensed in 40 states. Much of his work was commercial, for a series of shoe store chains and department stores. There was a time in the 1970’s when nearly all of the Baskin-Robbins outlets in the country had been built to his design, and under his direction. Through much of my youth and my early adult life, it was almost impossible to be anywhere in this country and not be a short drive to one of “his” stores.

My Dad was predeceased last year by my mother, Marie, his wife of nearly 60 years. He died peacefully after a long fight against the complications that ensued after successful colon surgery last September at the New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center. My sister Jenna and I were at his side, and I was reading him his favorite James Thurber short stories, as he left us.

I can’t say enough about Dr. Jeff Milsom and his team at the hospital, and all of those physicians and nurses and staffers in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit who looked after my Dad all this time, and kept him in their hearts. And I feel the same way about all of you who have expressed your best wishes and prayers to him, and to me, and to our family.

My Dad was my biggest booster. A day after I was hired by CNN in the summer of 1981 as a two-week vacation relief sports reporter, I traveled by train to my childhood hometown, and walked from the station towards my folks’ house. I was stopped half a dozen times before I got to my Dad’s office by people congratulating me on my impending television debut. There was, of course, only one way they could have known. My Dad, the press agent.

Of course it was he and my Mom who took me to my first Yankees games (even though my father nursed a delightful grudge against the team for trading away his favorite players, Steve Souchock and Snuffy Stirnweiss – in 1948 and 1950). But as my interest in the sport began to take the shape of a dreamt-of career, it was my Dad also sacrificed family vacations so we could buy ever more tickets to Yankee games. When we could afford both games and vacations, four times those vacations were to Spring Training.

He was my inspiration, and will always remain so. His bravery these last six months cannot be measured. He is as much my hero now, as he was when I was five years old.

Irish song

There’s a dear little isle in the Western Ocean
An island of purity, holy and grand
Whose name fills its daughters and sons with emotion
When heard on the shores of a far distant land.
It’s Ireland, God bless her, the birthplace of heroes
The home of the patriot, warrior and sage
Of bards and of chieftains whose names live in story
May they live forever on history’s page.

You once were a proud and a glorious nation
Your name and your fame were known all o’er the world
‘Til misfortune came o’er you and sad desolation
And the emerald banner in slavery lay unfurled.
They tortured your children, despoiled your green bowers
They tried to exterminate you long, long ago
But the Irish are somehow like wild, creeping flowers
The faster you pluck them, the quicker they grow.

I love every blade of grass, green on your mountain, Every leaf on your tree, every rock upon your strand I love your green hills and your murmuring fountains I love you, a cuisle, my own dear native land.