Here's what Doug Shoen at the Huffington Post wrote yesterday about this Fusion Ticket of the National Political Party "Mavericks".  Reminds me of a Unicorn Quarter Horse and Zebra blend? 

The Democrats are currently divided and fighting among themselves. Twenty to 25% of Obama and Clinton supporters now say they will defect to McCain if their candidate loses the nomination. But those numbers are likely to change when the Democratic Party, as they inevitably will, consolidates around a nominee. This means that the polls that currently show McCain running very competitively with both Obama and Clinton will almost certainly change for the worse once the Democrats conclude their nominating process.

One compelling option for McCain is to change the nature of the Republican Party and indeed the electoral process in the United States in a way that has not been done in the modern era. Slated to join McCain this weekend is an independent Democrat, Joe Lieberman. The former Democratic vice presidential nominee is a strong supporter of a hawkish foreign policy, a loyal ally to McCain, and as McCain's running mate would allow for a number of arguments that will uniquely empower McCain and the Republicans in the fall elections.

By picking Joe Lieberman, John McCain can do three things he can not otherwise do. First, he runs as a centrist and a maverick, not a mainstream Republican, effectively and finally distancing himself from George Bush and turning the race into a contest between a bipartisan coalition and a more narrow Democratic ticket. This will avoid allowing the race to inevitably become a contest between a partisan Republican and a partisan Democrat -- a contrast that works inexorably to the Republican disadvantage.

Second, choosing Lieberman as his vice president allows McCain to develop a new, centrist ideology, borrowing ideas and principles from both parties. Working in a bipartisan fashion, and advocating and responding to the electorate's desire for change by indicating he will choose a bipartisan cabinet, McCain can take on the serious issues facing our country, such as entitlements, healthcare, our struggling economy and both the war on terror and the war in Iraq.

Finally, if McCain selects Lieberman as his vice presidential running mate, he creates a critically important opportunity for America -- the possibility for bipartisan coalitions in the House and the Senate to be forged in a way that will uniquely reassure the American people about what can be achieved in Washington in the future.

To be sure, this idea goes against conventional wisdom. When Karl Rove and other Republican leaders have been asked who McCain should choose as his running mate, they run through a list of prospective choices and conclude that someone like Mitt Romney would make sense, or perhaps Charlie Crist can deliver Florida, or Bobby Jindal can balance McCain's age. I think this conventional approach is wrong for the Republican Party and wrong for the nation.

There’s an affinity of personnel, as well as of ideology, between the Arizona Republican and the Connecticut Democrat: McCain’s spokesman in 2004, Marshall Wittmann, now works as Lieberman’s spokesman.

The McCain-Lieberman duo has worked closely in the past on several issues:

• In 2003, they co-sponsored the Climate Stewardship Act to limit emissions of global warming gases by electric utilities, industrial firms, and refineries. 
• They were leading members of the “Gang of 14,” the bipartisan group of senators who devised a way to avert a fight over judicial filibusters that would have shut down the Senate in 2005.
• They have been two of the prime movers in Senate efforts to restrict donations to political campaigns.
• The duo led the push for military intervention by the United State in Kosovo in 1998.

“Joe Lieberman and John McCain's moral leadership in Congress helped make it possible for Wesley Clark to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo,” said Jano Cabrera in January of 2004, when he was Lieberman’s’ campaign spokesman.

So what would Cabrera think now of a McCain-Lieberman ticket in 2008?

And Lieberman’s appeal to Jewish voters could make a difference in states with significant Jewish populations such as Florida.

Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna, who has studied voting history of Jewish voters, said, “The 2006 election in Connecticut demonstrated that Lieberman still commands a significant Jewish following, but not as strong a following as he enjoyed in 2000. Lieberman's support of the Iraq war, his views on religion in public life, and his endorsement of Republican efforts to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube distanced him from some Jewish voters.”

TV network exit polls Lieberman got 65 percent of self-identified Jewish voters in Connecticut last November.

“My guess is that the Connecticut results anticipate how a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be viewed by the Jewish community,” Sarna said. “At least at third of Jewish voters would find the ticket insufficiently liberal and would vote against it. Whether the ticket could command two-thirds of the Jewish vote depends on who the other candidates are.” 

What do ya think?  Doc

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I had to laugh this morning when I heard Laura Ingraham on her show suggest that with National "Leaders" like 'Wind Bag' Dick Durbin reaming Oil Company Executive on capital hill yeasterday we might be wise to build Wind Farms on Capital Hill that could harness the hot air that bellows from the mouths of the Durbins of the world and generate green power.  I grew up in Ohio one of the Great Lakes States were formed by melting Glaciers that scraped and gouged(Glacial Erosion) the land and then filled them with its water millions of years ago before we had cars and "Green House Gas".  Here is a great article(Chill out on Global Warming) that is a rebuttal to the Gore Global Warming Fear Mongering.....Al's stupid fears are played on all of us while makes millions in the process!    

New data produced by more than 3,000 sophisticated ocean buoys scattered across the world’s oceans indicate average water temperatures have been decreasing since 2003, not increasing as would be the case in Gore’s globally warming world. NASA’s Josh Willis, who studies the output of the sophisticated buoys that take temperature readings from thousands of feet below the surface, says the significance of the new data is unclear. - The average land temperature of the globe dropped precipitously last year, according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. The temperature drop — more than enough to “wipe out most of the global warming of the past 100 years,” according to the online technology publication Daily Tech — was also recorded by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

- The severity of this global temperature drop was reflected in the fact the average U.S. temperature in January was lower than the average for the previous century, according to the U.S. Climactic Data Center. Also, the Canadian Ice Service reports the Arctic ice pack is 10

Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.

While all oil-importing nations buy oil at global prices, some, notably India and China, subsidize the cost of oil products to their nation's consumers, feeding the demand for more oil despite record prices. They do this to speed economic growth and to ensure a competitive advantage relative to other nations.

Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people.

According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The Argonne National Laboratory did a report in 2004 that identified 40 specific federal policy areas that halt, limit, delay or restrict natural gas projects. I urge you to review it. It is a long list. If I may, I offer it today if you would like to include it in the record.

When many of these policies were implemented, oil was selling in the single digits, not the triple digits we see now. The cumulative effect of these policies has been to discourage U.S. investment and send U.S. companies outside the United States to produce new supplies.

As a result, U.S. production has declined so much that nearly 60 percent of daily consumption comes from foreign sources.

The problem of access can be solved in this country by the same government that has prohibited it. Congress could have chosen to lift some or all of the current restrictions on exportation and production of oil and gas. Congress could provide national policy to reverse the persistent decline of domestically secure natural resource development.

'I support John McCain for POTUS as I have known him for over 30 years and know him to be a responsible national leader and he is right on the Abortion issue while I have been wrong and am sorry for leading America down the road that promotes a Culture of Death.....Now that I face my own imminent death I have seen the errors of my ways.  America, as your 2nd longest serving US Senator I urge you to vote for Life....vote for John McCain who will fight to support the precious gift of Life which God has given me 3 times having survived Chappaquiddick, a Plane crashed which killed 2 friends and the incredible gift of life in the womb of my wonderful mother Rose.  I have been wrong on this issue and plead with you to vote for the candidate of Life, Senator John McCain because Obama and my party have been wrong on the Issue of Life.  Obama is a young and talented man who could someday be a great leader but only if he does not make the same mistakes I have made on the Issue of Life.  Black Americans have been harmed the most by this sin of Abortion to the tune of 17 million dead African-American babies.  The US Black population would be around 80 million now instead of 34 million if not for the sins of my Political Party.  The true Emancipation Proclamation would be to support John McCain, the candidate of Life which is now the over-riding melody which plays in my mind as I face my certain death in the next year.  God is good and he has given me a wake up call so that I do not miss a chance at Eternity.  America this is Wake up call not only for me but for the country I love ans serve the USA.....Cultivate a Culture of Life so that GOD will continue to Bless America!.'     

I pray that Senator Kennedy will be lead by the Holy Ghost to this Death Bed Conversion and am starting a Novena to this end.  I hope that the intercession of his deceased brothers, sisters and parents will help him.  Remember Joe Sr. was strickened with a Stroke which rendered him paralyzed and mute while contemplating the assasinations of his sons JFK and RFK.  Perhaps Joe Sr. during his struggle at the end of his life was converted by the weight of his sons an enormous burden indeed.  Rose Kennedy has been quoted that she was able to endure such losses because of her faith in God.  God has been more merciful to Ted and he could write a Grace filled final chapter to his life and make things right with God.  CS Lewis said that Suffering is a gift where God is shouting at in our  pain to be converted onto him.....Let us hope against hope that US Senator Edward "Ted" Moore Kenneedy will see the grave errors of his way in the Genocide of Abortion and use this time to help America and 'not ask what God can do for him but what he can do for God'....in so doing he will help is cause in the here after!  Help me pray for this Miracle.....

Dominus Vobiscum

"As a general rule, at 76, without the ability to do a surgical resection, as kind of a ballpark figure you're probably looking at a survival of less than a year," said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles."

• A malignant glioma — the diagnosis doctors gave Sen. Edward M. Kennedy — is the worst kind of brain cancer. Malignant gliomas strike almost 9,000 Americans a year. Survival statistics are grim — few live three years and for the worst subtype, half die within a year. Who lasts longer — and some do — depends on exactly what form of glioma someone has, whether surgeons can cut most of it out, age and some other medical details.
• Kennedy's doctors didn't mention surgery, suggesting that may not be a possibility for him.
• "As a general rule, at 76, without the ability to do a surgical resection, as kind of a ballpark figure you're probably looking at a survival of less than a year," said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
• On the plus side, scientists are studying new approaches — adding a drug called Avastin to standard treatment, or even brewing up customized vaccines to help the body fight back. While they're still experimental, many glioma experts advise newly diagnosed patients to seek out specialized cancer centers and ask if they're a good candidate for a research study up front.
• "Considering how poorly they do despite standard treatment, it is always best to seek a clinical trial," said Dr. Deepa Subramaniam, director of the brain tumor center at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. "They are not likely to do worse."
• Kennedy was hospitalized Saturday after a seizure. Tuesday, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital announced the reason, a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe, a brain region that governs sensation but also plays some role in movement and language. Doctors were awaiting further tests before choosing treatment, but they cited radiation and chemotherapy as the usual approach.
• Kennedy's age and the mention of upfront chemotherapy mean the glioma is almost certainly one of the two worst forms: a glioblastoma — the fastest-killing brain tumor, known for claiming entertainer Ethel Merman and Republican political strategist Lee Atwater — or the only somewhat less aggressive anaplastic astrocytoma, Subramaniam said.(director of the brain tumor center at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center)
• Malignant glioma "usually is a synonym for a glioblastoma," agreed Dr. Robert Laureno, neurology chairman at Washington Hospital Center in the nation's capital.
• The American Cancer Society puts the five-year survival rate for patients over age 45 at 16 percent for those with anaplastic astrocytomas, and 2 percent or less for those with glioblastomas.
• Patients fare best when surgeons can cut out all the visible tumor, Black said. That isn't a cure — doctors know they're leaving cancerous cells they just can't see.
• But about 40 percent of the time, surgery isn't an option. The cancer, which digs tentacle-like roots into normal brain tissue, may be too deep or located so closely to critical brain regions.
• Moreover, "it doesn't help to take 50 percent or 60 percent of the tumor out," Black said.
• Standard treatment is about six weeks of fairly high-dose radiation along with a chemotherapy pill named Temodar, and then additional Temodar for at least six months or until the tumor stops responding.
• The older the patient, the worse the prognosis. But some people fare much better — especially those with a subtype where another glioma form, called oligodendroglioma, is mixed with the primary tumor, Black said. They generally survive three times as long as people with pure glioblastomas.The tumor's size — which also wasn't revealed — is key, too, added Dr. Lynne Taylor of Seattle's Virginia Mason Cancer Center and the American Academy of Neurology. An 8-centimeter tumor is pretty big for chemo and radiation to blunt, while a 1cm tumor is easier.
• Also, the fairly recent addition of Temodar has brought a slight increase in the number of patients who beat average survival odds, she added.
• "You're fighting an uphill battle," is what Taylor tells her patients — and then immediately urges them to live as if they'll be one of the lucky ones.
• Whatever the statistics, the news is grim. And what symptoms will appear first depends on exactly where in the parietal lobe the tumor sits and "how that individual's brain is wired," Laureno said.

My sincerest and heartfelt prayers go out to Senator Kennedy and his family.

Grading references how tumor cells look under the microscope. Grades 1 and 2 are low grade, Grade 3 is moderate and Grade 4 is high. Low grade means that the tumor cells resemble normal brain cells; they usually grow slowly and are not likely to spread. In high-grade tumors, the cells look very abnormal, and are more likely to grow quickly and spread.

Medscape

The prognosis for patients with malignant glioma, which is the most common primary intracranial neoplasm, remains dismal despite significant progress in neurooncological therapies And technology. This is largely due to the inability of current treatment strategies to address the highly invasive nature of this disease. Malignant glial cells often disseminate throughout the brain, making it exceedingly difficult to target And treat all intracranial neoplastic foci, with the result that tumor recurrence is inevitable despite aggressive surgery And adjuvant radiotherapy And/or chemotherapy.

Prognosis

From Technology in Cancer Research Treatment. 2008 Jun;7(3):241-8.
Present trend in the primary treatment of aggressive malignant glioma: glioblastoma multiforme.

 

Parvez T.

Medical Director II Oncology, PRA International, 4105 Lewis & Clark Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22911, USA. tariq_parvez52@hotmail.com.

The standard treatment for glioblastoma multiforme is surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Yet this aggressive therapy has only a modest effect on survival with most patients surviving less than 1 year after diagnosis. This poor prognosis has lead scientists to seek alternative molecular approaches for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme. Among these, gene therapy, vaccine therapy, and immunotherapy are all approaches that are currently being investigated. While these molecular approaches may not herald an immediate change in the prognosis of these aggressive tumors, combining them with existing approaches may bring some progress in the standard of care. This paper reviews current treatments and several newer therapies in preclinical and early clinical studies.