Some key Patrick accomplishments involve simply not being at all like Mitt Romney:
This is why we got him elected, right? Not to be a miracle worker, but simply to make the right call on fundamental things like this, indeed, to get out of the way of ideas whose time has come. We should appreciate how much the logjam of good sense has already broken.
Please share widely!
Listen, I like blogs, and I especialy enjoy reading this one. It’s great that everyday folks can give their 2 cents and have a decent number of people read them on a daily basis, but you guys do not control the outcome of elections. The majority of bloggers in Massachusetts and on BMG especially, supported Deval Patrick in the Governor’s race last year, but that does not mean you “got him elected.” I am not saying that you don’t count, or that blogs can’t be influenetial. But Deval Patrick won because Tom Reilly tanked his campaign with the St. Fleur disaster, and people were fed up with the status quo here as well as across the country, so they went with the candidate who least represented the status quo. Furthermore, there is no way Patrick could have gotten his campaign off the ground to begin were it not for his strong ties to corporate America. (Yes, I know, he was just trying to reform Ameriquest…rrriiiiiight.)
closer to “organ harvesting” which is already going on in the Far East.Google “livers” and you’ll be able to find one from Shanghi at the “right price” , I’m sure ( after they murder the 23 year old the donor). The next “logical” step is to abort fetuses for no other reason at all except to “harvest” its cells.
A pregnant ‘crack whore” selling her unborn fetus for “spare parts” so that a “monied” 63 year old “trust funded” creature can have 5 more years of life …such is the next “reel” of the secular progressive “movie”..
This will make Marry Shelly’s “Frankenstein” look like child’s bed time story…. this is sick, very sick.
It’s made out of PEOPLE!!!!
Based on your very insensitive and just plain dumb comments, I doubt you have the experience of watching your mother fade away and eventually die due to Alzheimers. I have, as have many other families. I also doubt you have had the experience of your father having a stroke and struggling with the after effects of brain damage which left him unable to walk and to speak for over 17 years. I have. And I doubt you have had friends die due to the complications caused by diabetes. I have, as have many other people. If any of your relatives or your friends had suffered from any of these disease, and you had an ounce of compassion in your body, I doubt you would have written the dribble you wrote.
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Stem cell research has the potential to cure these illnesses and many other pretty horrible diseases. It will not lead to “organ harvesting” or the aborting of fetuses. Those types of activities that you describe are mostly due to poverty and the lack of adequate birth control education. As a Christian, I know that stem cell research is the right thing to do, just as I know we need to fight poverty. Both help the less fortunate amongst us.
May I suggest that you consider the facts and get a little education rather than relying on your emotions before you start calling people “dumb”?
First, thus far there has been NO proven success with so called embryonic stem cell research…it doesn’t work.
What has been successful is a campaign by some very wealthy “investors” ( including some politicians)to get the Government ( read taxpayers) to underwrite and pay for the “technology” of THEIR investment which makes them millions regardless if the technology works or not..
Second, what DOES work is umbelical cord cells wherin the tissue from the umbelical cord ( normally just thrown away at birth ) is cryogenically frozen in liquid nitrogen for use later in the donor’s life to repair disease with his own cells.
This technology does not destroy human life in unborn embryos which many people have great issues with the ethics and immorality while secular progressives have no problem destroying human life. To put things in perspective, 3245 US troops have been killed in war since 3/19 03 (four years) while last year alone in the US , over 1.38 MILLION babies were murdered in abortions.
Don’t be naive, if stem cell research worked a whole “industry” would spring up “harvesting” human embryos. no doubt about it. How then would you as a so called “Christian” feel about murder for “profit” for human “spare parts”?
Because you really don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to stem cell research.
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No, there have been no clinical successes yet. A big part of that is that our own government has hamstrung scientists’ ability to pursue this research. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy: prohibit the research, and then proclaim, hey, it doesn’t work! When in fact, all you’re doing is driving the most talented scientists out of the US. And yes, it’s happening.
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Cord blood is indeed very promising. But, obviously, it is helpful only to those whose parents have (or had) the foresight to preserve their cord blood.
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There are legitimate issues to talk about with stem cell research. Comparing the number of troops killed in Iraq with the number of abortions in the US is not a particularly thoughtful or constructive way to do so.
it doesn’t work. Why is it neccessary for it to be developed in the US ? So what if scientists go to countries that permit such research. They can try to make it “work” just as well there as here, can’t they?
You also didn’t comment on the fact that a small group of “investors” in the technology are trying to get US taxpayers to “bankroll” their investment and make them millionaires without risking much of their own money. Pretty good deal for them wouldn’t you say? Are you OK with that? I’m not.
I thought my point about the abortions was right on and made to demonstrate just how cheaply human life is regarded here in the US( over 40 million abortions since the Court legalized it). The point being is that if its no problem to murder that many fetuses then what’s the difference if a few more million are murdered for profit and “spare parts”?
So I’ll just quote you, and let others judge.
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“”No, there have been no clinical successes yet.””
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What part about “doesn’t work” am I missing?
Thanks for the clarification.
All those aborted kids. Especially those in the five to eight month range. Instead of tossing them out it should be mandated that they go right into cryogenics and get picked up every Friday and dropped off at Harvard and Brandeis, Wellesley and all of the progressive schools where all the embryonic science is going on. I have no idea what you would do with the over flow. Perhaps they could skin them like they do cadavers, harvest the skin for something like grafting, bones could be ground up for ortho grafting. It’s cost effective and possibly profitable.
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There is no doubt im my mind that there are Chinese DNA labs working now to set up DNA databanks for suitable harvesting. When the Chinese organism has enough DNA matches to result in a profit, the organism will be euthenized (conscious sedation works best) and as many organs as possible could be harvested and immediately flown to USA to help stave of renal failure and dementia in a eighty year old man. No wonder the world despises us.
The average person should be required to live to at least 110 YOA. Dieing prior to that should be penalized by forfeiture of all assts to the state.
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I’m puzzled. Since when did Americans come to believe that people must live forever. People die, yes they do. Every minute of every day by tens of thousands. What entitlement do we have to live for a decade or a score of years before we were biologically intended. Ever been to a nursing home or an elderly persons home. People need help to brush their teeth, pull their pants down and up. Comb their hair, They are deaf and blind, that lack any safety awareness. They have the fractured bone of the month. They have senile dementia, organic brain syndrome, cognitive failure due to lack of adequate perfusion. Their bodies just work anymore, but that’s OK because we aren’t going to allow them to die. They should be made to be miserable and suffer as long as we desire.
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It’s a shame that the younger people in our society go so far out of their way to make other peoples lives miserable, and then they don’t have the common courtesy to show up to help with the laundry, clean the house, or make a meal.The all knowing and all powerfull and all compassionate. Riiiiight.
Given how fervent Americans seem to be in believing that life after death is a wonderful experience that will lead us to be one with God forever in a cloudy palace place type of thing or floating in a “realm” with soft electronica music in the background (85% are sure of it), you’d think people would be pounding on the doors…
If you are, I really cannot tell what your point is, except to be offensive. And the little sense I can make out of what you are saying, tells me you have no idea what you are talking about. My siblings and I showed up to help my parents with the laundry, to clean the house, to make a meal, and to do whatever it took to make sure that they could stay in their home of 50+ years and be comfortable during the last few years of their lives. There are a lot of family members who do that, particularly when the person is suffering from Alzheimers. In my parents’ situation, it was not about trying to make it possible for them to live forever, it was about making it easier for them to enjoy the limited time they knew, and we knew, that they had left, which is why stem cell research is so important.
By “we”, I am not so presumptuous as to mean “Blue Mass. Group”. Good gravy. By “we” I meant everyone who supported him and voted for him. That’s a lot of people.
both of those things are pure symbolism. We didn’t elect him to “tell us about the farm, again, George.” And what do they symbolize? It’s clear as day to me, and center aisle seems to have similar feelings. And what do they symbolize to you?
Even as a Patrick supporter I must admit that his first few months have been a constant stream of one PR disaster after another, we can blame it on the overzealous media all we want, he botched the response and could have killed these stories. The Ameriquest mistake highlights where the buck stopped at him and he dropped it.
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But anyway I am glad to see that Cape Wind is going forward, it gives me hope that perhaps he can live up to our admittedly very high expectations. Also reversing the stem cell decision is another step in the right direction. The question now is will he be able to buck the pressure from our Senators and the local politico’s from the Cape and the legislature when it comes to the project.
Are going to turn around and walk away. I must have missed and earlier posting.
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I don’t want a governor who never makes mistakes… I
already have a Christ. Nor do I wish a governor who
spends any time or energy whatsoever on the
effort to ‘kill stories’.
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The “PR disaster[s]” are what we elected when the
candidate is merely unskilled at PR and the PR people
are unskilled at recognizing character. And you’re
surprised by this? Why? We knew that Patrick was
unseasoned as a politician going into this and yet we
(we who pulled the lever for him) put him there with a
regard that derived from a sense of the candidates
principles not from a particular packaging.
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Indeed, you’re worried about PR when Deval has
already crushed the best PR Kerry Healy’s money could
buy? You’re worried about the Herald, and WHDH, et al…
say? About what the packagers think? These are the
people still mourning Anna Nicole Smith. These people
are themselves ‘PR disasters’ and I care little about
what they think and say.
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Deval Patrick never once promised perfection, or even
offered that possibility. Win/win for us. He has handled
each PR disaster (sic), either manufactured or of his own
devising, with grace, style and, I daresay, the kind of
character about which other politicians merely talk. I
hope I don’t have to point out to you exactly how many
light years away from the previous administrations this
has taken us already…
Exactly.
One, I held my nose and cast a vote in favor of Patrick, in large part because I couldn’t stand Reilly, and Healy was anathema.
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That said, I am insufficiently informed about the power generation capacity of the proposed Cape Wind to opine as to whether it should be built. But, the opposition to it from the NIMBY people is absurd. Furthermore, my earlier hesitation about the project was due to concerns of possible environmental degradation, which I have subsequently learned is highly overblown*.
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Two, regarding embryonic stem cell research**, I wish that the opponents would be honest. I only heard this once, but the fear of the opponents of embryonic stem cell research is that, if embryonic stem cell research pans out, blastocysts would be created merely for the purpose of harvesting their stem cells. Blastocyst factories, if you will. If the opponents would say that loudly and clearly, the ethics of that could be debated loud and in public. But they don’t say that loudly and clearly, and so we are in a mish-mash of arguments hither and yon, and nobody is enlightened as to what the issue really is.
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*Roughly stated, migratory birds avoid the damn things, according to a recent study from Scandinavia.
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**I emphasized embryonic stem cell research, because some have conflated that with adult stem cell research, and have opined that there was an increased possibility of cancer from adult stem cells. That increase is correct, but that is also negligible in regards embryonic stem cells. The reason is obvious: as one ages, the likelihood of a mutation of the genome that results in cancer increases, and that in the adult stem cells as well.
There were some early concerns about environmental impact, particularly in birds, but these have been answered about as well as possible.
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The project has a very small environmental footprint, and of course would back out thousands of tons of carbon per day.
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There is a separate asthetic issue relating to the appearance of the wind turbines and the unique historical and scenic value of Nantucket Sound and the view of it from Hyannis.
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I happen to think that such claims of place deserve serious consideration, but they don’t and shouldn’t automatically overrule a project that has significant benefits. Things like this are pretty subjective (I wouldn’t mind looking at those wind turbines, plus they are pretty far from the shore), but in any case when you think of some of the environmental impacts
that ordinary people in Massachusetts have accepted it doesn’t seem like much.
…There is a separate asthetic issue relating to the appearance of the wind turbines and the unique historical and scenic value of Nantucket Sound and the view of it from Hyannis.
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Yes, that’s true. But, if the plan goes forward and the windmill farm is built, it can be removed if and when other energy sources are discovered that would make it unnecessary. With both the construction and the removal not significantly impacting the evironment.
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I actually had two concerns regarding the enviornment. One was the impact on migratory animals, such as, but not limited to, birds. That was alleviated by the Scandinavian study that I mentioned. The second was noise. Windmills are not exactly noise-free. But there have been more than a few windmill farms built, and I have yet to read of any suggestions that noise is a significant issue.
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If the tourist industry on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard object to Cape Wind, let them suggest an alternative. Have they?
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One thing that people will have to live with is the fact that there is no 100% environment friendly mechanism to generate power, whether it be electrical power or anything else.
Nothing is for free. If you’re going to get something you have to give something. There is always a trade off. .
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We drive around in cars and I never hear too much noise that 46,000 people a year are killed in them. We accept that as an acceptable trade off. However the production of the fuel to power the cars in unacceptable. Hmmmmm.
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Can you imagine if 46,000 people died each year as a result of nuclear reactors, or from eating genetically engineered corn?
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How many dopes kill themselves, fry their brains, or compromise their internal organs doing drugs that everyone
is well aware of the potential and likely consequence?
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But some enterprising man wants to put up wind turbines in Nantucket Sound and what do we get—IT”S THE END OF TIMES!
The birds, mammals, and QEII striking the stanchions are only secondary to Ted Kennedy being bent out of shape because something may block his view of the horizon. We finally have our priorities straight.
divestment from Sudan. Hardly likely Healey would have had the moral insight to do that.
If by “moral insight” you mean abject stupidity, then yes, you have a point.
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The sanction is a shortsighted, feel good policy that effectively eliminates the PRIT’s ability to invest in BP, Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Hilton Hotels, Monsanto, Daewoo, Hyundai, and more….
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It’s a policy of Let’s make a point and pensioners returns be damned.
it’s a policy of not investing millions of dollars in a nation that murders hundreds of thousands of human beings. That’s not making a point, it’s putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to ending genocides.
Let’s stipulate that many proponents of divestment are indeed clueless.
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In addition to the effect on pensioners, there are big efficacy limitations, collateral damage issues, and huge slippery slope issues. Today Sudan. Tomorrow Iran. Then China. Heck, Green Party in MA would probably love to target Israel.
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But while many proponents of divestment are indeed clueless, not ALL of them are.
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Here is what I consider a REASONABLE case for divestment. Don’t need you to pick it apart, I can do that; I’m not sure I’m persuaded that it’s the right approach.
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My question — is it abjectly stupid? I say: no.
First, you understand that I’m quite libertarian on this subject of social responsible investment and feel rather strongly that a Trustee owes a duty to protect assets and maximize RETURN to the beneficiaries–and nothing more.
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A Trustee’s assets (i.e. those belonging to others) shouldn’t be a tool to advance a moral cause of the Trustee. IMHO.
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BTW, you do know that Bush policy outlaws direct investment by US companies in the Sudan?
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Anyway, take away the Trustees’ ability to invest in, for example, cigarette companies or companies doing business in Sudan and you take away a tool to maximize return.
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That, I contend, is stupid, (particularly with an underfunded plan, but that’s an aside.) The “abject” part of my “abjectly stupid” assessment was because I needed adverb, and it was handy. I’ll retract the “abjectly” and maybe use the word “very” or “really”. đŸ™‚
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If those beneficiaries, (i.e. the taxpayers and pensioners) wish to take that maximum return and contribute money to advance the Sudanese cause, it’s the pensioner/taxpayer’s money and their right.
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Second, I’m unsure of the effect those companies I named have upon the Khartoum government. And, I don’t know if a boycott, if successful, would help or further harm those who are the subjects of the government’s attack.
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Third, I do know that there are 700 million barrels of proven oil reserves in the ground in the Sundan, and if BP or Mobil doesn’t take it, someone happily will, so I’m rather confident that a divestment of, say, Mobil will do nothing, and even if Mobil says “we’re out of here”, someone else will buy the reserves from Mobil and take Mobile’s place and the Sudanese will be no better off.
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The Mass Pensioners, however, will be deprived of the return that Mobile would receive from selling out their reserves and leaving. So the math is Mobil wins by selling the reserves, Sudanese are no better off, NewCo wins by buying reserves, Pensioners have a lower return. Smart? No, very, very stupid.
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And last, economic boycotts just don’t work. The ones who were suffering, suffer more.
I’m not going to copy your text here, but it seems to me that you are suggesting that having state pension funds disinvest in firms that do business in certain countries would harm retirees. As far as I can tell, that is not the case. The pensions are set by law. And the returns from the pension funds offset the state taxpayers’ obligations to the retirees. The retirement payouts will not be increased or decreased regardless of the performance of the pension funds.
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It is the taxpayers who would be harmed if the state pension funds have to sell the securities, not the retirees.
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Let’s understand something. Nobody in the West particularly cares what goes on in Africa. It’s a sad fact, but it’s true.
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Not even Africans do. There was an article in yesterday’s Sueddeutscher Zeitung (the newspaper of record in Munich, and probably–aside from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung–the most read newspaper in Germany and northern Italy) to the effect that Mbeki in South Africa is letting Mugabe in Zimbabwe get away with what he’s doing, because Mbeki has more global interests. Zimbabwe neighbors South Africa, and Mugabe’s actions seriously affect South Africa.
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If they won’t take up the issue regarding Mugabe, how can we? And if nobody takes up the issue regarding Sudan/Darfur, how can we? We can prattle on about it. If prattling on about it makes people happy about their prattling, so be it. But will it accomplish anything? No.
Lets pull out the final rug from these unfortunates. Our intervention in Somalia went well. Somalia is now and up and coming country in the Horn of Afrika. Centralized government, banking, commerce. Yep, the president did a hell of a job and now we can help out Sudan/Darfur the same way.
Somalia is now and up and coming country in the Horn of Afrika.
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I don’t know whether or not you’re trying to be tongue-in-cheek, but Somalia is on the verge of being occupied by–Ethiopia.
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I will just bring to the fore something that liberal Dems may not want to acknowledge.
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It is probable that the problems incurred during the Clinton malAdministration’s deployment in Somalia (which had begun in haste by the outgoing Bush I malAdmninistration) in the early 1990s, thereafter resulted in the hesitance of the Clinton malAdministration to get itself involved in the slaughterhouses of Burundi and Rwanda* a few years later. I have made it clear that I have no love lost for the Clintonistas, but their earlier experience in Mogadischu clearly colored their “thinking” of what to do subsequently in other parts of the dark continent. It’s a shame, but so ist Leben.
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On the subject matter of your comment, divestment doesn’t help anybody, except perhaps that it makes the divester feel better about themselves. The investment (the infrastructure) is already there. The structures built by the investment aren’t going to go anywhere. If there’s money to be made from the investment, it will be made. The divesters will be selling their investments at “fire sale” prices, so who is going to be hurt? The companies? No. The investors, possibly–although the companies mentioned are multi-national, and pretty much immune to the excitement of a few investors.
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Nobody is going to be hurt. But it might make the investors feel better about themselves by divesting. And that, quite frankly, is what it is all about.
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*It may have also played a role in the Clinton malAdminstration’s hesitance to get involved in the Balkans for so long. It was only after CNN reports embarrassed them into doing so that they got involved in the Balkans.
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You’re right to praise the Gov’s support of these two ideas whose time has come — Cape Wind in particular was not an easy call early in his campaign.
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But I felt like you slipped a change into your otherwise pro-forma post — downgrading your expectations of the Governor….
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Was: Leading on tough issues (basically fighting entrenched interests)
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Today: Not blocking good ideas if others can drive them forward….
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Did I misread your meaning? I probably did.
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Run for your lives!! It’s a flip-flopper!!!
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All seriousness aside, I don’t really see any such “change”
as you allege. Your first postulate, “leading on
tough issues”, is a strategy and your second postulate,
“not blocking good ideas”, is a tactic.
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Now I know you aren’t going to argue that both elections
and stewardship are wholly and only about strategy and
not tactics (or only and wholly about tactics and not
strategy). We both know you’d be silly to do so. So we
can immediately dispense with the manichean fallacy that
gnaws (I’m certain unintentionally) at the belly of your
assumptions.
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So let us, pro forma, review where tactics – that is to
say individual decisions or policies that direct specific
action in the context of available strengths, tools and
resources- are subsumed by strategy – that is to say
overriding, often general, statements of understanding
that relate to positional strengths and the aquisition
of resources in effort to create contexts in which
chosen tactics can be reasonably expected to succeed.
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Now, if we are lucky, elections are often about
articulating strategies and not at all about tactics
(insofar as available resources, strengths and positions are
fluid in both quantity and quality and non-trivial is
the time between the articulation of the strategy and the
need for the tactics it impossible to predict the success
or failure of a given tactic at the time of the adoption of
the strategy). So you may be forgiven for thinking the
adoption of a new tactic represents a straying from the
strategy when in fact it is only a concretizing synthesis
of the situation that produces the appropriate context in
which one tactic or other makes sense while an appropriate, albeit temporary, de-emphasis of the more general points
of the strategy occurs.
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Or, put another way, governing is hard. But I recommend
you try it sometime.
I never expected him to be a “miracle worker”, as I said. I don’t expect him to make people happy with a $1.3 billion deficit, for example. I do indeed expect him to push back against entrenched interests — and indeed, I think he already has to some extent. I don’t think I claimed otherwise in this post.
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My point is that there’s quite a bit of good low-hanging policy fruit left on the vines by Gov. Negligent, and it’s nice that it’s finally being gathered.
Um. You don’t have your Federal approval yet. Its still in the political arena and could easily die.
The point is that under “Governor” Romney, it never would have gotten through the state process.
I could comment about “Governor” Patrick, but it’d be nothing but malicious.
that there are some white furry seal pups in the arctic that need attention. World wide famine,day light savings needs to be moved back to cut down on excessive use of autos with all this unnecessary daylight, The sudden disappearance of our honey bees. These are all small things that mean a lot. Something positive for the governor to focus on.
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No sense in him getting in over his head with the MBTA, the taxation crisis, the Massachusetts diaspora, medicaid crisis, the inner city of Boston being on a murderous rampage, Boston schools able to educate 20% of their students. These are of no concern and will overwhelm the governor. He needs to stick to the small stuff. From an acorn a tall oak grows!
But alas they did not. The Cape Wind project is one of the few places I think you’ll find a lot of conservatives agree with Deval Patrick. I remember driving down Rt 10 in california when I was 17 and being in awe of the wind farm.
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Agreed. I lived in the SF bay area for my elementary school years, and the best thing about trips down the state was watching the windfarms in the hills. Nice to agree with you on something đŸ™‚
Thank God for the Feds. Ahhhh the wheels of Government.