Wednesday, May 20, 2009

oy!

Arrest ordered for mom of boy, 13, resisting chemo
By AMY FORLITI, Associated Press Writer Amy Forliti, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago

NEW ULM, Minn. – Authorities nationwide were on the lookout Wednesday for a mother and her 13-year-old cancer-stricken son who fled after refusing the chemotherapy that doctors say could save the boy's life.

Colleen Hauser and her son, Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, apparently left their southern Minnesota home sometime after a doctor's appointment and court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed his tumor had grown.

Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg, who had ruled last week that Daniel's parents were medically neglecting him, issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for Colleen Hauser and ruled her in contempt of court. Rodenberg also ordered that Daniel be placed in foster care and immediately evaluated by a cancer specialist for treatment.

The family belongs to a religious group that believes in "natural" healing methods. Daniel has testified he believed chemotherapy would kill him and told the judge that if anyone tried to force him to take it, "I'd fight it. I'd punch them and I'd kick them."

The boy's father, Anthony Hauser, testified he didn't know where his wife and son were but had made no attempt to find them. He testified he last saw his son Monday morning, and he saw his wife only briefly that evening when she said she was leaving "for a time."

As of Wednesday morning, the mother and son still had not been found, said Carl Rolloff, a sheriff's dispatcher.

Officials distributed the arrest warrant nationwide. Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffman said Tuesday that investigators were following some leads locally, but declined to elaborate.

"It's absolutely crazy. It's very disappointing," James Olson, the attorney representing Brown County Family Services. "We're trying to do what's right for this young man."

A message left at the Hauser home in Sleepy Eye early Wednesday wasn't immediately returned. But in an interview in Wednesday's editions of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Anthony Hauser said he knew places where his wife might have gone though he did not know where she was.

He said he and his wife had a plan for Tuesday's hearing and he was a "bit disappointed" she didn't follow it. "We were going to present a treatment plan to the court. If they didn't go with it, we would appeal it," he told the newspaper.

"I know many people around here who have had cancer, they did the chemo, it would come back," Hauser told the newspaper. "They did the chemo again and again and they are all in the grave. Chemo isn't foolproof."

Olson, the family services lawyer, had considered asking the judge to hold Anthony Hauser in contempt as well, but he said Wednesday he decided against that.

"I'm thinking that he probably doesn't know where his wife and child are," Olson said.

Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma, diagnosed in January, is considered highly curable with chemotherapy and radiation, but the boy quit chemo after a single treatment.

The judge has said Daniel, who has a learning disability and cannot read, did not understand the risks and benefits of chemotherapy and didn't believe he was ill.

The Hausers are Roman Catholic and also believe in the "do no harm" philosophy of the Nemenhah Band, a Missouri-based religious group that believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians. Colleen Hauser testified earlier that she had been treating his cancer with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural alternatives.

The founder of Nemenhah, Philip Cloudpiler Landis, said it was a bad idea for Colleen Hauser to flee with her son. "You don't solve anything by disregarding the order of the judge," Landis said.

The family's doctor, James Joyce, testified by telephone that he examined Daniel on Monday, and that an X-ray showed his tumor had grown to the size it was when he was first diagnosed.

"He had basically gotten back all the trouble he had in January," the doctor said.

Joyce testified that he offered to make appointments for Daniel with oncologists, but the Hausers declined, then left in a rush with lawyer Susan Daya.

"Under Susan Daya's urging, they indicated they had other places to go," Joyce said.

Daya did not immediately respond to a call Tuesday from The Associated Press. The court also tried to reach her during the hearing, but got no answer.

Minnesota statutes require parents to provide necessary medical care for a child, Rodenberg wrote. The statutes say alternative and complementary health care methods aren't enough.

Friday, May 15, 2009

www.storyofstuff.com

www.storyofstuff.com
wonderful!

questions questions

Prosecutor questions Rove on fired US attorneys
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 29 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Former White House aide Karl Rove faced questions Friday from a special prosecutor weighing whether to bring criminal charges against Bush administration officials for the politically charged firing of U.S. attorneys.

Rove met with prosecutor Nora Dannehy at the office of his lawyer, Robert Luskin. Rove did not speak to reporters as he entered the downtown Washington law office and neither did investigators who arrived about a half hour later.

Rove has said he will cooperate with the investigation, which is being conducted to determine whether Bush administration officials or congressional Republicans should face criminal charges in the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Rove and other Republican officials refused to be interviewed in an earlier Justice Department inquiry, which concluded that despite Bush administration denials, political considerations played a part in the firings of as many as four prosecutors.

U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, but cannot be fired for improper reasons. Bush administration officials at first claimed the attorneys were let go because of poor performance.

The internal Justice Department investigation recommended a criminal inquiry, saying the lack of cooperation by Rove and other senior administration officials left gaps in their findings that should be investigated further. Then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey responded by naming Dannehy, the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, as special prosecutor in September.

Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers also have agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee under oath about the firings in closed depositions. As president, Bush had fought attempts to force them to testify.

In July, U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected Bush's contention that senior White House advisers were immune from the committee's subpoenas, siding with Congress' power to investigate the executive branch. The Bush administration had appealed the decision. The agreement for Rove and Miers to testify ended the lawsuit.

___

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

me/class of 1977

Obama shrugs off honorary degree snub at ASU
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer Darlene Superville, Associated Press Writer 28 mins ago

TEMPE, Ariz. – President Barack Obama says Arizona State University officials aren't the only ones who think he needs to accomplish more to earn an honorary degree.

Add his wife Michelle to that list.

"I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven't yet achieved enough in my life," Obama said in a commencement speech Wednesday. With a smile he added: "First of all, Michelle (Obama) concurs with that assessment. She has a long list of things that I have not yet done waiting for me when I get home."

"But more than that I come to embrace the notion that I haven't done enough in my life. I heartily concur. I come to affirm that one's title, even a title like 'president of the United States,' says very little about how well one's life has been led."

Obama challenged the graduating class to find new sources of energy, improve failing schools and never to rely on past achievement. He congratulated them on earning a degree, and said the next steps mattered more than a piece of paper or a tassel.

"I want to say to you today, graduates, class of 2009, that despite having achieved a remarkable milestone in your life — despite the fact that you and your families are so rightfully proud — you, too, cannot rest on your laurels. ... Your own body of work is also yet to come," the president said, wearing a black gown with red embellishments and a blue hood.

Commencement speakers typically are awarded honorary degrees as a sign of respect and appreciation. Arizona State officials, however, did not award any such degrees this year.

"His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency," university spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said after the school's student newspaper first reported the decision.

To quell the controversy, the university instead renamed a scholarship for the nation's 44th president. In his remarks, Obama thanked the school for the gesture.

He also met six recipients of the scholarship named for him, and commissioned a group of Army and Air Force cadets.

While the dispute over Obama's honorary degree colored the buildup to the ceremony, a sweltering — and packed — Sun Devil Stadium seemed to care little. About 63,000 people crowded into the stadium to send 9,000 students into a marketplace that has lost 1.3 million jobs since February.

Obama flew to Albuquerque, N.M., after the speech. He planned a town hall-style meeting there Thursday on proposed restrictions on credit card companies.

Obama plans commencement addresses Sunday at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on May 22.

Protests were expected at Notre Dame, a Roman Catholic school, over Obama's support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.

Monday, May 11, 2009

who knew?

BBC NEWS
Evolution is slowing snails down
Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

Garden snails are evolving slower metabolisms.

Natural selection is favouring snails with reduced metabolic rates, researchers in Chile have discovered.

It is the first time that evolution has been shown to select for this trait in individuals of any species.

Snails with lower metabolisms are at an advantage because they have more energy to spend on other activities such as growth or reproduction, the researchers say in the journal Evolution.

Roberto Nespolo and Paulina Artacho of the Southern University of Chile in Valdivia examined a long standing biological hypothesis known as the "energetic definition of fitness".

"This predicts that animals that spend less energy will have more surplus for survival and reproduction," says Nespolo.
We could recover the dead because of their shells and because they did not move more than a couple of metres each year
Evolutionary biologist Roberto Nespolo

Few studies have tested the idea, and three done on rodents could not find any evidence it was true. "Ours is the fourth and the first to demonstrate significant directional selection on metabolism," says Nespolo.

Nespolo and Artacho measured the size of almost 100 garden snails (Helix aspersa). They also gauged their standard metabolic rate (SMR), by measuring how much carbon dioxide each animal produced while at rest.

The standard metabolic rate is a measure of the minimal amount of energy an animal requires to stay alive.

"Standard metabolic rate is the energy required for maintenance. In other words, having less maintenance permits you to have more energy for other activities, such as growth and reproduction. That's why less metabolism represents higher fitness," says Nespolo.

After seven months, they recaptured the animals, collecting the empty shells of those which had died.

Survival of the SMR

They found size did not predict which animals survived. But metabolic rate did, with surviving snails having a metabolic rate 20% lower than that of the snails that didn't survive.

And the lower each snail's metabolic rate, the greater its chance of survival. That means that nature is selecting for snails that are more energy efficient, says Nespolo.

Nespolo's and Artacho's study worked in part because of the snails they chose to study.

Previous research examined metabolism in wild mice. But it's impossible to know whether mice that disappear from a study have died, or simply moved away. So it's difficult to accurately measure how many mice survive year to year.

By studying garden snails living in purpose-built enclosures, Nespolo and Artacho avoided this problem, as their snails did not move far and left behind empty shells when they died.

"We could recover the dead because of their shells and because they did not move more than a couple of metres each year," says Nespolo.

Snail's pace

The researchers now plan to answer the ultimate question: is having a slow metabolism linked to moving slowly?

If it is, that means that snails are not only evolving to use energy more slowly, but are increasingly moving at an even lower snail's pace.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8043000/8043689.stm

Published: 2009/05/11 10:44:49 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Monday, May 04, 2009

who knew?

Vatican 'hampered new Hanks film'

Director Ron Howard has accused the Vatican of trying to hamper the filming of his new movie, Angels & Demons, starring Tom Hanks.

The movie sequel to author Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code features symbolist Robert Langdon helping to rescue four kidnapped cardinals.

But Howard said the Vatican exerted its influence "through back channels" to prevent filming near certain churches.

A Vatican spokesman said the director's claims were purely a publicity stunt.

Howard told a news conference: "When you come to film in Rome, the official statement to you is that the Vatican has no influence.

Filming barred

"Everything progressed very smoothly, but unofficially a couple of days before we were to start filming in several of our locations, it was explained to us that through back channels and so forth that the Vatican had exerted some influence."

Last summer, Rome's diocese confirmed it had barred producers from filming inside two churches because the movie did not conform to the church's views.

The director also claimed the Vatican got an event related to the film's premiere in Rome cancelled.

"There was supposed to be a reception or screening here in Rome that had been approved and I suppose that the Vatican had some influence over that," he said.

Speaking to the Associated Press the Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, refused to comment on Howard's allegations about church interference, saying his charges were purely designed to drum up publicity for the film.

Science vs religion

Catholic critics were unhappy with The Da Vinci Code which suggests that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, creating a royal bloodline that Church officials kept secret for centuries.

But Howard challenged them to see the new movie before condemning it.

"My only frustration as a film-maker is that we actually reached out a couple of times, to sort of offer opportunities for bishops and others just to see the film. And those opportunities have all been declined," he said.

"So far all the criticism, all of the complaints about the film have been coming from people who haven't seen it."

Over the weekend, a 102-year-old Italian bishop was quoted in the Italian media calling the film "highly denigrating, defamatory and offensive to Church values".

However, the storyline of Angels & Demons does not raise questions about Jesus Christ - it is billed as a "science vs religion" thriller that deals with an attempt to hijack a papal election.

Howard's adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, which was panned by critics, earned more than $750m (£505m) at the box office worldwide.

Angels & Demons will be released in the UK on 15 May.