Sam Shem at HIS talk on Mammograms and Health Care

at HIS Talk today,

Re: mammograms. An independent body, after review and analysis of eight clinical trials, comes out with EVIDENCE that mammogram screening in under-40-year-olds has little or no value. What happens? The radiologists are up in arms and the Obama administration, in the person of DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, tells patients to just keep doing what you did last year. And they want to cut costs by a billion dollars over the next decade to pay for national health insurance? If anyone really believes this country will ever control the costs of health care, they are living in a dream land!”

Interesting, too, that nobody’s paying much attention to the study that showed that electronic medical records haven’t improved outcomes or cost so far, even as the government is spending lots of money on those, too. At least EHRs have potential. In an economy where jobs are dying out, politicians don’t have the guts to make serious change since the people unhappy with health care don’t have the clout of those who like it just fine. I cited statistics here years ago saying that health care was making a staggering economy look robust because of rising costs, profits, and high employment, all unsustainable in a global economy.

I suppose the question then is how confident anyone can be the government as opposed to markets can make Health Care a sustainable sector in the economy.

Considering the Gov's placing its bets on tick-box medicine, voodoo economics on preventive med, and EHR; I'm not very confident. I think it has to do with politicians guts and lack there of. Sarah Palin maybe? She has guts.

xp My Medical Informatics Blog

Dan Proft tackles Cicero

I wondered when he was going to do it. Here's his letter over at Illinois Review in response to Carol Marin.

The most effective response may be over at Kass though,

All this talk of reform is exciting, except for one thing. Proft has a problem. It's the size of Cicero. That doesn't necessarily disqualify him. But when a candidate is linked to Cicero, that candidate finds himself on the defensive.

For years Proft's public relations firm has reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from governments in and around Cicero, not exactly the most reformish hamlet in the state.

My colleague at the Sun-Times, Carol Marin, has been merciless in dissecting Proft. She's made Cicero a special study for years. If Proft thought that one day he'd run for governor, he should have stayed out of the town that Al Capone built.

"I'm not here to try and convince you that Cicero is Mayberry," Proft said. "People can play that guilt-by-association game. I had a responsibility to a client, to represent their interests, just like an attorney would, just like any professional would. And that's what I did."

Proft noted he's also had contracts with Hinsdale.

"Nobody wants to talk about my negotiated contract with Hinsdale, because Hinsdale isn't sexy," Proft said.

I agree. Hinsdale is a nice town, but you wouldn't say it's sexy.

Nice...Hinsdale, and yeah Cicero ain't Mayberry, and we really wouldn't want it that way either.

So this gonna work?

I like Proft, so I hope so.

xp Prairie Politics

Graham Presses Holder On Reading Osama Bin Laden Miranda Rights

I watched bits-and-pieces today but thought this was pretty powerful.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: "If you're gonna prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs, the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent. The big problem I have is you're criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we have mixed theories and couldn't turn him over to the CIA, the FBI, military intelligence for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now you're saying he's subject to criminal court in the United States and you're confusing the people fighting this war."

Follow the link for the video, or the full exchange here,

Congressman Hoekstra on Thomson Prison and Fear

I asked for his assessment of the threat to Illinois by placing Gitmo detainees at Thomson. He said folks should just ask for the same information on the Gitmo detainees as is available to him and the other members of the House Intelligence Committee. Everyone can make their own threat assessments. Hoekstra thinks when the average American knows what he and the committee knows, we'll all want to keep these guys in Cuba.

So ok Congressman Bill Foster, how about telling all of us in Illinois's 14th district the full bio's on these fellows the administration proposes to haul up to Illinois?

Let us all make our own assessments on how much of a target we're making Illinois.

GOP Blogger Conference call on Gitmo, NYC terrorist trials and Ft. Hood shootings

Hoekstra's starting:

Re: Fort Hood: Hoekstra was one of the first to call this a terrorist act by a self-radicalized American. He says we've only seen the tip of the iceberg, we will see much more coming out on where the whole process broke down to allow Hasan to function much less be deployed to A-stan. How did Hasan get good performance reviews? (Hoeksta has seen?) H believes there is serious evidence to consider as a terrorist attack.

Re: KSM trial. Attack American civilians and you get a civil trial. All stems from O's ill fated Jan 22, 2009 decision to close Gitmo. Jack Reed's comment on Fox Sunday in reply to what do we do if KSM acquitted, and Reed said we'd still hold them, was an embarrassment. If we missed the deadline on Gitmo closing, we may very well miss the deadline on the trial and these guys may well go free.

Hoeksta mentions the John Adams project and says start researching them, and ask which side their on?

What's update on Patriot Act? It's getting hung up on definition of lone wolf. Administration is in free fall on the act with three key provisions getting set to expire.

Doesn't the trial put our whole Intel Apparatus on trial? H: amen.

We can fully expect AQ will use a trial to expose US Intel Methods and they will use the John Adam's project as an ally.

Re: Thomson and a threat assessment. Ask for the same information House Intel has and let everyone make their own threat assessment. Average American gets that and will say whow... now we know we have Gitmo in Cuba.

Illinois GOP: When Will Bill Foster End His Silence on Great Lakes Gitmo?

Foster's one tight lipped Rep, that's for sure. The latest from the Illinois GOP.

When Will Bill Foster End His Silence on Great Lakes Gitmo?

Foster voted against bringing terrorists to U.S. soil last month;

Bean opposes transfer as polling shows 57% oppose in Illinois

CHICAGO – Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady today called on Congressman Bill Foster to end his silence on Governor Quinn and Senator Durbin’s plan to build a new Gitmo facility in Thomson, Illinois to house up to 215 Al Qaeda terrorists.

On October 15, 2009, Foster was one of only 25 Democrats in Congress who voted to keep Gitmo open and strip language from the Homeland Security Appropriations bill allowing terrorists to come to the United States for civilian prosecution (Roll Call 783). But when asked his view on the Quinn-Durbin plan to bring Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, Foster told the Daily Herald he was “still studying the issue.”

“Bill Foster was not sent to Congress to sit on the sidelines. I hope Bill Foster will have the courage to do what’s right and oppose bringing Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois,” Brady said

According to a survey of 1,781 likely Illinois voters conducted Monday night, less than one-third of Illinois voters support a plan to move terrorists from Gitmo to Thomson, Illinois while 57 percent call it a “bad idea.” Sixty percent of women and 58 percent of independents oppose the plan. Even Democrats narrowly oppose the plan, 44.5 percent to 43 percent.

Yesterday, Democratic Congresswoman Melissa Bean told the Lake County News Sun and the Daily Herald she opposes transferring Guantanamo detainees to Illinois without substantial assurances regarding potential security threats.

Mark Kirk on Great Lakes Gitmo

Phoney Illinois Congressional Districts at Recovery.gov

sheez... via WatchDog.org

Federal stimulus dollars were used to help laid off congressional districts in Illinois, according to Recovery.gov. In fact, nearly $500,000 was directed towards the 20th District, which lost its job following the 2000 census. That’s not all, $2.4 million was sent to the district’s retired compatriots–the 21st and 22nd–which were done away with after the 1990 census.

All told, $6.6 million was distributed to six districts, which do not exist.

A Watchdog study revealed 440 non-existent congressional districts within the stimulus tracking web site, recovery.org. The full report can be found here .....

...we don’t hear much from the Awami Party folks other than their death notices.

Neo's comment over at Long War Journal about a party in Pakistan like minded westerners do ignore. Librealism's huge inexplicable failure to defend Liberal Islam.

It should be said that the Awami Party is not anti-Taliban, per se, but against the violence of both the Taliban and their government opponents. There movement is very much in the passive resistance activist mold, although they do not outright proscribe strict pacifism. The do tend to mirror western passive resistance movements in many ways. For much of the conflict they tended to be sympathetic to the plight of Pashtoons who joined the Taliban and blamed the Pakistani government and western powers as the ultimate source of conflict.

The Awami Party did rather well in regional elections only two years ago. At the time the Taliban intimidated them quite a bit, but found their votes temporarily useful for for drawing off PPP votes, and for the Awami stand against “America’s war” in Pakistan. Since then, the Taliban has declared open season on them and we don’t hear much from the Awami Party folks other than their death notices.

One would think the plight of the Awami Party would be an example to like minded westerners, but they are virtually invisible in the western press. I would tend to think of them as the canary in the coal mine for any prospects of pacifying the Taliban.

Here's Awami's blog.

Charlie Cook, what's so smart about building a bi partisan opposition to Obama Care?

From Charlie Cook yesterday,

The key to victory was that Pelosi and Emanuel understood that their relatively new House majority is built on a layer of conservative-leaning districts won under perfect conditions in 2006 and 2008. And the two actively discourage members from some of those districts from voting in ways that would be construed as out of tune with their constituents. When the House passed Democrats' cap-and-trade energy legislation in June, for example, 44 Democrats joined 168 Republicans in voting no. Twenty-nine of those Democrats were from districts that President Obama failed to carry in 2008. Likewise, when the House approved Democrats' health care legislation, 39 Democrats, including 32 from districts that Obama lost, joined all but one Republican in voting no.

So what's so smart about building a bipartisan coalition against Obama and Pelosi care?

Thomson, Mumbai, and it can't happen in Illinois?

PJ Media Yesterday: U.S. Now Exports Terror: American Linked to Mumbai Attack

Late last month, two arrests in Chicago seemed to confirm a pattern of American citizens wishing to engage in acts of terror abroad but failing. But new reports from India indicate that at least one of the two arrested may have been involved in planning the coordinated attacks in Mumbai last year. Those attacks killed 173 people and have been described as India’s 9/11.

If these reports pan out, then a Chicago-area man who legally changed his name from Daood Gilani to David Headley — and who had previously been indicted for planning a foiled terror attack against Denmark’s Jylland Posten newspaper as “revenge” for printing cartoons of the prophet Mohammad — conducted surveillance of targets in Mumbai. He helped facilitate the massacre in which innocent civilians were methodically gunned down at the real-time urging of their Lashkar-e-Taiba controllers from Pakistan.

and Bill Roggio: Pakistani generals linked to US terror suspects

There are reports that one or both of the two unnamed Pakistani conspirators who worked with Rana and Headley are Pakistani military officers. My sources said that Rana's brothers are not the unnamed suspects.

Headley is suspected of scouting Mumbai for the Lashkar-e-Taiba prior to the deadly 62-hour terror assault on the city that left more than 170 dead. Headley spent 10 days at the Taj Hotel, which was one of the primary targets of the Lashkar-e-Taiba operation in Mumbai.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/11/pakistani_generals_linked_to_u.php#ixzz0XDf2h0UQ

So, wouldn't a Gitmo North in Thomson Illinois have offered these guys a hugely symbolic target a lot closer to home?

Durbin says no to referundum on Gitmo North

And the GOP poll explaining why Durbin doesn't want a vote.

CHICAGO – Less than one-third of Illinois voters support a plan to move terrorists from Gitmo to Thomson, Illinois while 57 percent call it a “bad idea,” according to a survey released today by We Ask America, a division of Xpress Professional Services, Inc. of Springfield, Illinois.

According to the overnight survey of 1,791 likely Illinois voters, 60 percent of women and 58 percent of independents oppose the plan. Even Democrats narrowly oppose the plan, 44.5 percent to 43 percent.

It has been reported that a prison in northwestern Illinois is being considered to house individuals that have been incarcerated at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay. The individuals in question are being held due to suspicion that they have connections to terrorist activities. Do you think that housing these prisoners in an Illinois prison is a GOOD IDEA or a BAD IDEA?

Overall: Independents Democrats

Good idea: 32.33% Good idea: 33.78% Good idea: 42.62%

Bad idea: 56.95% Bad idea: 57.90% Bad idea: 44.46%

Unsure: 10.72% Unsure: 8.32% Unsure: 12.92%

“Democrat mismanagement and corruption is no excuse to put our homeland security at risk,” IL Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said. “Governor Quinn and Senator Durbin should listen to the people of Illinois and oppose this risky scheme.”

Kass on Michael Scott: Isolated location no place for such a public man to die

It's a weird place to shoot yourself unless your a Rail Road History buff or into the industrial archeology of draw bridges. Otherwise it's a venue right out of a mob movie for an execution.

Kass has the feel for Chicago to figure that out, as does Jody Weis it seems.

Visitors Monday to the spot where Scott died didn't see any police or security cameras that might have recorded Scott's last living seconds. With all the high-tech in Chicago, the spot where Scott died is seemingly off the grid.

It is not a place for public men like Scott. Rather, it is a place for homeless junkies and rats. It is a place to hide.

It's certainly not a place for Daley's 1983 deputy campaign manager and, until Monday, the mayor's president of the Chicago Board of Education.

The Cook County medical examiner's office ruled Scott's death a suicide. But police aren't so sure.

"We know what the ME ruled," said Police Superintendent Jody Weis. "But there are a lot of questions out there."

Animal Farm: Thomson prison irony

Joe and John over at Animal Farm note what goes around comes around I guess. Maybe an adjoining site for Iraqi guards to practice with AK47s can be found too? Savanna seems to attract that kind of interest.

So there's irony No. 1. The Department of Defense was ready to hand over land for a state prison in the 1990s that could now end up being sold to the federal government so the Department of Defense could house detainees.

Perhaps you desire a little more irony?

Thomson was finished in 2001 but never staffed because of state budget problems. After hitting up taxpayers to build the prison, the state couldn't find the money to pay for the guards and other staff and so this modern prison sits virtually unused.

During Thomson's construction, the economy had been humming along. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks crashed the economy and subsequent credit crunches created a recession from which Illinois has yet to recover.

The irony is that if it had not been for those attacks, Thomson rather likely would have been opened and staffed by then-Gov. George Ryan and never available to house terrorist detainees.

Kirk's Petition to stop Gitmo North in Illinois

It's here.

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

According to the Chicago Tribune, your Administration may transfer up to 200 Al Qaeda terrorists from their detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to a prison in Thomson, Illinois – 150 miles from Chicago.

If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization.

Furthermore, since Thomson is located in the Northern District of Illinois, any civilian prosecution of Al Qaeda terrorists would occur in Rockford or downtown Chicago.

As home to America’s tallest building and leading defense suppliers, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target.

The United States spent more than $50 million to build the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to keep terrorists away from U.S. soil. Al Qaeda terrorists should stay where they cannot endanger American citizens.

As citizens of the State of Illinois, we urge you to put the safety and security of Illinois families first and stop any plan to transfer Al Qaeda terrorists to our state.

Suicide Car bombs in Badhaber; and Thomson Illinos will be safe from this?

Via Long War Journal. Pakistan's Northwest Frontier's taken the brunt of Jihadi terror lately,

A suicide bomber killed four Pakistanis while targeting a police station in the latest strike in Peshawar. The attack took place in a crowded area of Badhaber, a suburb of Peshawar. The blast leveled a mosque, damaged a boys' school, and collapsed a wall of the police station.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/11/suicide_bomber_kills_19.php#ixzz0X5H7qfU9

But why in the world Thomson Illinois won't become a target is beyond me. We're fools to think we're exempt from terror and it's just Pakistan's Muslims who will do the dying.

Andy McKenna's Hair Ad

McKenna sounds silly here. Illinois's economy a shambles and Quinn hands Jihadist's a target at Thomson hauling the detainees to Illinois. Please get more serious.



xp Prairie Politics

Phil Hare on Thomson

His press release,

U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., issued a statement that balanced the need for economic development in the area with safety concerns.

“As the federal government and the state of Illinois considers expanding the role of Thomson Correctional Facility, they must first and foremost guarantee the safety and security of those who live in the surrounding area,” he said. “The prospects of thousands of additional good-paying jobs and much-needed revenue for our state are factors we should consider, but safety must be the primary consideration.”

He said he anticipated being briefed early this week and hearing from the public

A POW Camp for Terrorists as TV broadcasts a show-trial --and what else can we call Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial but a show-trial with Obama and Holder telling us he'll be found guilty-- is exactly what Illinois doesn't need.

A Jihadi recruiting event with a pre-convicted KSM on a court room soapbox and the rest of his crew sitting in the cornfields down the road from me.

great...just great. Ok

Now, Bill Foster, what do you say about having this down the road?

Durbin Quinn going for Thomson

I wondered why my 2005 Thomson post was getting so many hits. The guys took my advice, but geez no one doubts the ability of Illinois to keep 'em locked up. It's the guys coming to Thomson to make the Jihadi Polical points that should have everyone rightfully concerned. Considering the recent arrests in Kinsman, IL the Jihadi's are certainly about. They're serious and it's foolish not to be wary.

Better Gitmo than Illinois. Any fool knows and I fear Quinn and Durbin will look tragic fools because of this lobbying.



Work to win this competition?

Who's Durbin kidding? This is a new Camp Douglas. No prize.

Footnote: The Camp Douglas Conspiracy from the NYT in 1864

THE NEW CHICAGO CONSPIRACY.; Copperheads and Rebels in Counsel. Infamous Plot to Burn the City and Liberate the Rebel Prisoners. HOW THEIR PLANS WERE FRUSTRATED Arrest of Many of the Leading Conspirators.A Brother of Gen. Marmaduke and John Morgan's Adjutant General in Custody.Large Quantities of Concealed Arms and Ammunition Discovered. MEASURES TAKEN TO PRESERVE THE PEACE. SECOND DISPATCH. Further Details. LATEST.

Something less dramatic w/o Copperhead Democrats but more lethal perhaps. It's not without precedent.

Obama's bow to the Emperor

My Dad in Manila in 1945. He was a pretty mild guy and his whole family Midwestern isolationists, pretty much opposed to American involvement in WW2.

But once in he and my uncle and all the rest did their duty. My Dad met the Japanese in New Guina and then the Philippines. He would have been aghast at Obama's bow.

I expect many Chinese who remember and have been taught about The Rape of Nanking (caution graphic images) are aghast today, unlike my President or many Japanese who have memory-holed that atrocity.

There are things worse than war. The Chinese remember Japenese occupation and have taught their childred. Today's Japan has buried their history. Obama's bow will reverberate and anger. Just as it would have angered my Dad.
















Footnote: Powerline with the fumbling response to the question on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You'd almost think he didn't expect it.

Ehsan Fattahian was Hanged this Morning in Iran

via Mideast Youth,

According to several reports from Iran, Ehsan Fattahian was executed early this morning in Sanandaj Central Prison.

The mobilization of people to this effort has been amazing. Within a couple of days, over 10,000 people signed an online petition calling to stop the execution. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and several Iranian human rights organizations issued statements calling to halt the execution. However, from the moment the date of Ehsan’s execution was set, only the head of the Judiciary, Sadeq Ardeshir Larijani, could stop the execution. Larijani let this young man die despite being innocent.

Ehsan was executed for his political activities for the Kurdish minority in Iran. Despite being tortured, Ehsan refused to admit to participating in an armed struggle against the Iranian regime. His first sentence, exile for ten years, shows that the regime didn’t see him as serious threat. Only during the appeal process was he declared as an “enemy of God” and sentenced to execution. It is not only morally wrong to execute someone for wanting to be free, but it is also illegal, since international law makes it clear that all humans have the right to self determination.

This execution is just another tool in the Iranian regime’s mechanism of repression against the Kurdish minority. The Kurds in Iran are victims of arbitrary arrests, denial of education, denial of cultural expression, executions, raids, and denial of many other human rights.

For more information see KurdishRights.org

H/T Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi Note his crime was being an enemy of God.

Also Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi's Planet Iran.

Bill Ardolino: Iraq: The raveling

Ardolino via Threat Matrix. Sistani's role is interesting. If Iran's regime falls and it's Sistani's subtle influence found there too, History is going to judge what we did in Iraq very differently than many would think now.

It was vital to permit open candidate lists in order to maintain Iraq's popular trend towards nationalism, elevate truly qualified leaders, and break sectarian party strangleholds on government ministries. Notably, open list elections were supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and opposed by some of the major Kurdish and Shia Arab parties, the latter of which are often portrayed in the media as running Iraq at Iran's behest.

The open source news reports are typically light on detail, but this looks to be a milestone essential to Iraq's potential stability and political progress.

* The title is of course a light poke at Thomas Ricks' "Iraq, the Unraveling" series of blog posts, which I believe focus on negative aspects of Iraq without due consideration of what is working, when it works. Today it looks as if something important worked.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/11/iraq_the_raveling.php#ixzz0WSbBTxV7

Halvorson's Bipartisan Reform Bill

Her Press Release says: Halvorson Votes for Bipartisan House Health Insurance Reform Bill

The bipartisanship was in the opposition to the bill. It was all Democrats for it save Cao. Halvorson's frame's as outdated as the mega-government philosophies in this bill. Her language shows it.