Obama Administration Proposes Major Public Transportation Policy Shift

[tufsu1]

It's VERY hard to engage the public in NE Florida, because under Republican rule the role of PUBLIC transportation has been somewhat of a fringe issue. Remember in the "You're on Your Own" society advocated by the Republicans (who incidentally also HATE PUBLIC schools), if you can't afford your own transportation, you're out of luck.

So you are saying its Republican's faults that the majority of citizens of northeast Florida choose not to get engaged?  

Doubtful.

We definitely are lagging behind on rail compared to the rest of the nation,........remember the "if it can't pay for itself or even be done profitable, it shouldn't be done" concept that is being advocated by Republicans on transit issues.

would now be a good time to point out that USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood is a REPUBLICAN?

[fsujax]

You don't say! I am SHOCKED!!!I thought all Reps were against transit.

[FayeforCure]

It's VERY hard to engage the public in NE Florida, because under Republican rule the role of PUBLIC transportation has been somewhat of a fringe issue. Remember in the "You're on Your Own" society advocated by the Republicans (who incidentally also HATE PUBLIC schools), if you can't afford your own transportation, you're out of luck.

So you are saying its Republican's faults that the majority of citizens of northeast Florida choose not to get engaged?  

Doubtful.

We definitely are lagging behind on rail compared to the rest of the nation,........remember the "if it can't pay for itself or even be done profitable, it shouldn't be done" concept that is being advocated by Republicans on transit issues.

would now be a good time to point out that USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood is a REPUBLICAN?

Poor tufsu1, you think I didn't know that? You should have seen the disappointment on John Mica's face when he didn't get that post. I sat at a St Johns county meeting when he got the phone call about Obama's appointment. Since it had been rumored that Obama would appoint a Republican to that post, it came as no REAL surprise that a fellow Illimois Republican ended up with the appointment. LaHood has done an excellent job representing the Democratic vision for Public Transportation!!

But lets examine a prevaling Republican view on PUBLIC transportation that you won't EVER see with Democrats!!

Republicans Push Back on Mass Transit Socialism
Jan 26, 2009

By all definitions one of the oldest and the most pervasive forms of socialism in the United States is so called public transportation.  Our taxes fund it and it allows people to ride downtown in style on the government dime instead of buying a car like a patriotic American.  The auto industry sure wouldn’t need government help if every person you saw on a bus or subway was buying their own car.  Think about it.  We’re paying for public transportation and then we’re paying to save the auto industry from people not buying cars.  We’re getting it on both ends.

The Republicans get it.  Refusing to be pressured or bullied by the all-powerful bus driver union, Republican Senators have managed to drastically cut the amount of the stimulus to $10,000,000 and the House intends to go even lower.  Meanwhile, we’re spending over three times that much on good old American roads.  Instead of using our hard earned tax dollars to pay for freeloaders to ride the bus.  The Democrats say we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but have you seen how cheap gas is now?    I can’t see it going back up anytime soon.

This is a moment for Republicans to pat themselves on the back.  Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee was in awe, “The reason for the reduction in overall funding â€" we took money out of Amtrak and out of aviation; we took money out of the Corps of Engineers, reduced the water infrastructure program, the drinking water and the wastewater treatment facilities and sewer lines, reduced that from $14 billion to roughly $9 billion â€" was the tax cut initiative that had to be paid for in some way by keeping the entire package in the range of $850 billion.”

Public transportation belongs to an older era.  It is a lot like those statues of Stalin they used to have in the Soviet Union, but thankfully its time has passed.  Transportation is far too important to be left to socialism.

http://thatsrightnate.com/2009/01/26/republicans-push-back-on-mass-transit-socialism/

[FayeforCure]

Poor tufsu1, you think I didn't know that? You should have seen the disappointment on John Mica's face when he didn't get that post. I sat at a St Johns county meeting when he got the phone call about Obama's appointment.

Faye.  Do you realize how ugly this makes you sound?

Do you realize how ugly the Republican "PUBLIC Transportation is Socialism" line is, and how it has held us back for decades?

[FayeforCure]

I hope (and I sincerely mean this) that there isnt someone in your own life that is so spitefully driven to see you personally feel pain.

You don't think I felt personal pain, when Republicans like John Mica spitefully voted against stem cell research? ( his episcopal religion favors embryonic stem cell research if the cells are otherwise discarded)

In fact the Methodist and Presbyterian religions also favor ESCR!! Those are the religions listed for ALL 25 US congressmen representing Florida.

Thank goodness for Republicans like Specter and Orin Hatch who didn't spitefully vote against stem cell research, so we were able to pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act twice with overwhelming majorities, only for Bush to use his first and third vetoes to kill it.

Over 100 million Americans are suffering from devastating conditions for which stem cell research is their only hope. Killing those hopes is unconcionable, as is getting a 0% rating by the Disabled American Veterans who sacrificed their lives for their country.

Those kind of spiteful votes hurt MILLIONS of Americans!!!

[Clem1029]

I think it's time for a new forum drinking game...

Each time Faye tears down a straw man, take a drink.

Granted, you might not get past 9am, but at least it makes the copy-and-paste blur entertaining, right?

[Ocklawaha]

Stephen, Lake, Steve and I can all speak to the Stem Cell vote with some assurance that we KNOW the subject, each a survivor of strict religious training as children.

FIRST: No thinking Christian, is ever going to let "Religion" (man made by definition) dictate ones stand on moral issues.

SECOND: Most Evangelical Christians are firmly against abortion. (THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR THAT DEBATE and such arguments will be removed)

Do the math Faye, if the perceived stem cells are from aborted babies, then there is NO SPITE in those votes at all. Right or wrong, they voted based on a concept that the need for stem cells would result in a new industry of breeding sacrificial stock for your researchers. 

Are you really so driven by spite and hate that anyone that makes a decision based on their own morality is interpreted as an assault on some holy institution?

One of the Christian "think tanks" came up with some numbers (again, right or wrong - I don't know) that said enough stem cells are harvested from natural still born babies, or accident victims so that abortion cell farms would never be needed.

I'd suggest if you really want to win elections based on this type of issue, you should look at Boston or San Francisco as possible relocation sites... It will be a cold day in hell when the religious Deep South votes for anything liberal.


OCKLAWAHA

[CS Foltz]

Gentlemen and Ms Faye..........last I heard "Stem Cells" were being harvested from child birthing placenta! No babies have been harvested in any shape fashion or form. Deceased possibly but terminated I think not!

[FayeforCure]

Gentlemen and Ms Faye..........last I heard "Stem Cells" were being harvested from child birthing placenta! No babies have been harvested in any shape fashion or form. Deceased possibly but terminated I think not!

Thank you CS Foltz. You are so right that no babies have been harvested in any shape or form. In fact the cells used were never implanted in the woman. ( but they are also not placental cells which are also legal to be used)

Using cells from deceased babies has been legal for over 40 years.

But the embryonic stem cells in question, that offer the most promise are the ones that are left over from fertility procedures. Cells that were never implanted in a woman and thus were never aborted, but are stored frozen in test tubes at fertility clinics.

Let me show you the picture of the cells that would otherwise be discarded ( remember this clump of cells is the size of the tip of a needle) and sits in a petri dish:



And here is how we can save millions of babies with these discarded cells:

November 17, 2009, 8:55 AM

Hans Keirstead Can Make Mice Walk Again (and Humans, Too?)
Seven years ago, he used stem cells to make paralyzed rats walk again. Next year his stem cell elixir will be injected into humans. What's next? It's anyone's guess.

By M.A. Woodbury



In 2002, at his lab at UC-Irvine, Hans Keirstead delicately sliced open the spines of eight lab rats with a scalpel, then not so delicately punched into their spinal-cord tissue with the force of two hundred kilodynes. A week later, he reached for a vial inside which was something most of the scientific world believed was impossible: a stem-cell solution so pure that the risk of any newly derived nerve cells morphing into tumors had been all but eliminated. He drew some liquid from the vial and injected his elixir â€" set to grow into oligodendrocytes, which help ferry movement-generating electric impulses into muscles â€" into the spines of the recently paralyzed rats. Then an assistant grabbed a camera. The resulting video was short, but its meaning was unmistakable: The rats stood up and wobbly walked. The clip went viral and the public cheered. But many of Keirstead's colleagues were less sanguine. Was the science right? they wondered. He hadn't even published a paper on it yet. As early as this spring, we'll begin to find out.

Pending one final review, next year a handful of paralyzed men and women are set to get Keirstead's high-purity stem cells injected directly into their spinal cords, above and below the injury site. Conducted by the Geron Corporation â€" to whom Keirstead turned over his research â€" it will be the first-ever test of purified stem cells in humans. Again, the public is mesmerized by what could happen, and again, Keirstead's colleagues are nervous. If the phase-one trial exacerbates a subject's condition or, far worse, kills one, Keirstead's test won't just fail, it could retard progress on stem cells for decades. He is in effect taking the first major step on stem cells for everyone. And he's doing it with a novel therapy that has a shorter paper trail than most.

Aware of the stakes, the FDA temporarily put the brakes on the trial in August, weeks before it was originally set to begin, so it could rereview the data. But Keirstead is unfazed. He has confidence in his work. The trial application Geron submitted was the longest ever â€" twenty-two thousand pages â€" all pointing toward the success and efficacy of Keirstead's method. He feels certain the trial will go forward. "My guess is that the FDA got new supporting data that is very interesting and they just need time to vet it."

But Keirstead says he doesn't have time to wait. And neither do the infants born with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic mutation that often kills within twelve months of birth. He has already moved on to securing FDA approval for what would be the world's second clinical trial of human embryonic stem cells to test a different stem-cell-derived nerve cell â€" the motor neuron â€" on infants with SMA.

This go-round, he wants to increase velocity. No dribbling out a paper here and there and waiting for his colleagues' comments. "This motor-neuron story, not a single publication out on it yet, but I'm going to the FDA!" trills Keirstead, forty-two. "I did everything at once this time: I did a manufacturing facility. I formulated the clinical plan, gathering all the medical doctors. I did the preclinical efficacy, preclinical safety, lined it all up side by side, moved it all forward." Sure, he has a handful of papers on his motor-neuron story in review, but those are almost an afterthought. Cures don't come from pushing paperwork.

Back in his office, where Keirstead awaits final word from the FDA on the oligodendrocytes trial, he points to a framed rejection letter. In regards to his pure nerve cells that most thought were an impossibility, a journal reviewer wrote: "If these findings are true, this would be the most meaningful discovery in the stem-cell field. But I simply don't believe it."

http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/human-embryonic-stem-cell-research-1209#ixzz0ckFYInAx

[stjr]

The title of this thread should be changed to:
"Thread Administration Proposes Major Subject Shift" from Transportation to Stem Cells.

[FayeforCure]

if the perceived stem cells are from aborted babies, then there is NO SPITE in those votes at all. Right or wrong, they voted based on a concept that the need for stem cells would result in a new industry of breeding sacrificial stock for your researchers.  

There is the mis-information fed to the public. Again, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with any aborted babies,..........as a matter of fact the cells used were NEVER implanted in a woman.
I do know Mica knows this and Crenshaw's aide was honest enough to admit that if the cells are currently frozen as left-over from fertility treatments, and will eventually be discarded then it doesn't make any sense not to use these cells to try to save lives including the lives of disabled babies.

Mica's aide Wiley Deck is extremely well-informed about embryonic stem cells. He knows they do not come from abortions, and so does Mica.

They also know that mainstream christian relgions such as episcopal, presbyterian and methodist are favorable to the use of these cells, as is the mormon religion.

Yet they spitefully vote against it.

[FayeforCure]

I hope (and I sincerely mean this) that there isnt someone in your own life that is so spitefully driven to see you personally feel pain.

Well, my representative was spitefully driven to see me and my son feel personal pain:

Actor speaks out on stem cells
Michael J. Fox joins Democrats and doctors in pushing research that could aid Parkinson's patients and others.
By LISA GREENE
Published September 29, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Times photos: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
Actor Michael J. Fox said President Bush's stance on stem cell research makes no sense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TAMPA - Actor Michael J. Fox told hundreds of University of South Florida students Tuesday that he can respect people who oppose stem cell research for ethical reasons.

But he said President Bush is not one of those people.

Fox, who came to Tampa with Democratic leaders to push for stem cell research, said Bush's policy is hypocritical. Condemning the research as unethical, but allowing some of it to proceed under strict limits, makes no sense to Fox.

"You can do this a little bit, just don't tell the neighbors," he said of Bush's position.

Research on embryonic stem cells could save millions of lives, he told the crowd of about 500. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's, said stem cell research can help with that disease as well as other conditions, such as spinal injuries.

"That could be any one of us," he said. "This will benefit humanity in ways that are incalculable. ... We have the opportunity to do some amazing things."

Many of the USF students in Fox's audience weren't even born when Fox first became famous on Family Ties in 1982. They may have been in diapers when Back to the Future made him a megastar.

But thanks to the magic of reruns, some of the students told Fox about their favorite episodes. One told him that hearing that Fox had Parkinson's was almost like hearing about a member of her own family.

Another woman thanked Fox for becoming the nation's most famous advocate for fighting the disease. She's had Parkinson's for 11 years.

Audience members also got a science lesson in stem cells from a USF professor, Dr. Juan Sanchez-Ramos, who explained how the embryonic cells hold promise because they can have the capacity to become any type of cell - nerve, muscle, blood. That means they might one day help to cure a broad array of diseases.

Opponents of stem cell research say it's wrong to use cells from a fertilized embryo, destroying it in the process. They compare it to abortion. Advocates say stem cells used in research are leftover from in-vitro fertilization attempts and would be destroyed anyway.

Faye Armitage, a Jacksonville resident whose 14-year-old son, Jason, was paralyzed in a soccer accident at age 7, told the crowd of her hopes that stem cell research could one day help him.



Jason Armitage, 14, cries as he listens to his mother, Faye Armitage of Jacksonville, tell a USF audience how he was paralyzed in a soccer accident after colliding with another child at age 7. Armitage is the founder of Cure Paralysis Now, which supports stem cell research.

After Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1991, he hid the disease from TV cameras for seven years. He put his hands in his pockets, he said Tuesday. He moved a lot, "goofed around" on the set to cover the involuntary movements.

"You just keep moving and you don't get caught," he said.

Fox first knew something was wrong when his left pinky began to twitch. But as the disease progressed, both the Parkinson's and the side effects of his medication became harder to hide.

"It was spinning plates," he said.

When he finally went public in 1998, it was a huge relief. He also learned something else.

"I have a whole new respect for what the relationship is" between him and his fans, he said. "It's not just a business relationship. It's something deeper."

He gave a special thank you to other Parkinson's patients.

"The friendship and support I've gotten from all of you ... is life-changing," he said.

Fox spoke briefly but energetically Tuesday, and rolling in his left foot and shaking in his left hand became more apparent toward the end of the event. Still, he stayed to shake hands, sign copies of his book and pose for photos with fans.

He was feeling pretty good, he said as he walked out. He has been spending a lot of time with his family. "I'm feeling all right," he said. "Better than I thought I would be."

[Last modified September 28, 2004, 23:49:12]

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/29/State/Actor_speaks_out_on_s.shtml

[buckethead]

The title of this thread should be changed to:
"Thread Administration Proposes Major Subject Shift" from Transportation to Stem Cells.

DING!

...or the second runner up... Passive/aggressive pity party.

[Ocklawaha]

The title of this thread should be changed to:
"Thread Administration Proposes Major Subject Shift" from Transportation to Stem Cells.

Wouldn't be the first time Faye has hijacked a thread for her health agenda...  My point was not to go on with a stem cell discussion, as "Frankly mam, I don't give a damn!"  Simply just saying perhaps perception, perhaps religion, perhaps a sense of guilt or morality, or perhaps a bit of misinformation, either way the only one likely to vote based on SPITE seems to be the one posting all of the hate threads.

Can't you just see Crenshaw, or Mica, running down to the capitol building to vote... just to piss Faye off? Wow, talk about visions of grandeur.

Faye finds it interesting that back in the 1970s the swine flu broke out under Republican Gerald Ford, then under another Republican president, George Bush Jr. I'm not saying she thinks the Republicans are to blame, just that it's an interesting coincidence.

"Seven years ago, he used stem cells to make paralyzed rats walk again. Next year his stem cell elixir will be injected into humans.  QUESTION: What's next? "

ANSWER: Humans that grow tails and eat cheese!

MEANWHILE: the Lakeland newspaper is reporting the beginning of the HSR melt-down between Orlando and Tampa --- EXACTLY as I said it would happen:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20100114/NEWS/1145050/1001

OCKLAWAHA

[FayeforCure]

The title of this thread should be changed to:
"Thread Administration Proposes Major Subject Shift" from Transportation to Stem Cells.

DING!

...or the second runner up... Passive/aggressive pity party.

Yup it's pretty amazing how the disappointed face of John Mica gets everyone so riled up, but a kid crying because he is forced to live his life in a wheelchair is no big deal.

buckethead, thanks for putting things in perspective!