The low power grayscale screen provides highly readable text and wireless connectivity, without a monthly service charge, enables readers to access the Kindle store from most locations.
With over 100,000 electronic books available, the innovative device is likely to achieve significant market penetration for mainstream book readers. In my estimation, the current offering will fail to capture many of the classic texts of interest to Christians, instead emphasizing books likely to generate significant sales. Even so, the Kindle represents the coming change to fully electronic media, in which vast libraries are at the command of the reader. An incredible amount of content is “just there”, wherever you go, in a highly readable format.

Because the electronic books are of little value once reader, I would prefer a subscription service that charged a monthly fee for unlimited books, a rental rather than purchase. This would truly place a mobile library at my fingertips without significant (initial) investment.

A webcast will be available for those who can't make it to D.C..

Speakers to include:

• Hadley P. Arkes


• Michael Illions


• Eric Schiedler


• Jill Stanek


• Star Parker

Despite all of this and much more, President Robert G. Mugabe's party nominated him as its candidate in the presidential election in March.

But this British adventurer is now the subject of an investigation by U.K.'s Channel 4, which already has confirmed that Grylls checked into motels on a few occasions when he was depicted on TV having slept under the stars. Other allegations have been made suggesting that the crew that records Grylls in action isn't as hands-off as it might appear to viewers.

[snip]

For all its self-professed realism, "Man" always required some suspension of disbelief. Grylls often commented on the painful loneliness of being alone in the wild, but unless his camera crew was staffed by bears, he did have some company out there.

In retrospect, Grylls' preternatural unflappability in even the most dire of circumstances always seemed a bit too good to be true. In one episode, he made an interminable slog through hip-deep snow drifts in the French Alps. Braving the frigid conditions, his frustration was evident only in the following comment: "I'd really murder for a cup of tea."

For all we know now, perhaps he was sipping English Breakfast on fine china between takes.

Chinook was developed by scientists at the University of Alberta who used an average of 50 computers for two years (876,000 computational hours) to determine the best move to play in every situation of a game.

The leader of the team described the feat this way:

"We've taken the knowledge used in artificial intelligence applications to the extreme by replacing human-understandable heuristics [rules of thumb] with perfect knowledge. It's an exciting demonstration of the possibilities that software and hardware are now capable of achieving."

You can get beat by Chinock here

Proverbs 15:14 The mind of the intelligent seeks knowledge, But the mouth of fools feeds on folly.

"Doing the Lord's work is a thread that's run through our politics since the very beginning," Obama told church members. "And it puts the lie to the notion that the separation of church and state in America -- a principle we all must uphold and that I have embraced as a constitutional lawyer and most importantly as a Christian -- means faith should have no role in public life."

One may question whether Christians have acted faithfully, but to assert that faith does not have a role in certain spheres of life is absurd.

HT: WorldMagBlog

The first step, a trip to Moscow, Russia. For a procedure not available in the u-s - adult stem cell therapy at the Neurovita Clinic.
 
"The give you shots for four days on the 5th day what those shots have done is make your bone marrow create an abundance of stem cells."
 
The stem cells are drawn from Rummelt's own blood and separated in a special machine. Then they are injected into her spinal fluid. Three trips and six injections later Rummelt can use her hip-flexers to crawl. A considerable feat, after not being able to move the lower half of her body for years.


"I had no feeling, no sensation, if my leg fell I had no idea at all," said Rummelt. With therapy Rummelt grows stronger everyday she can even stand. And she can actually feel pain in her foot, five years post injury.
 
Rummelt credits the stem cell injections and her intense physical therapy.

 The potential is quite amazing.  So is this video.

It is disappointing that this story is not found anywhere else. Any treatment that gives feeling and movement back to a patient with a complete spinal cord injury 5 years later is truly a medical breakthrough. This simply does not happen.

Research and applications involving adult stem cells simply do not get the same attention that is given to mere speculation concerning the potential of embryo destroying stem cell research.  Why?

No matter what we say we believe about Christ's person and work, if we aren't constantly bathed in it, the end result will lead to H. Richard Niebuhr's description of Protestant liberalism: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross." According to University of North Carolina sociologist Christian Smith, the working religion of America's teens-whether evangelical or liberal, churched or unchurched-is "moralistic, therapeutic deism." And the answer to that, according to many megachurches and emerging churches is "do more; be more authentic; live more transparently." This is the good news that will change the world?

Christless Christianity can be promoted in contexts where either the sermon is a lecture on timeless doctrine and ethics or Christ gets lost in all the word studies and applications. Christ gets lost in churches where activity, self-expression, the hype of "worship experiences" and programs replace the ordinary ministry of hearing and receiving Christ as he is given to us in the means of grace. Christ gets lost when he is promoted as the answer to everything but our condemnation, death, and the tyranny of sin, or as the means to the end of more excitement, amusement, better living, or a better world-as if we already knew what these would look like before God addressed us in his law and gospel.

Here are seven recent reports from the Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics (stemcellresearch.org):

1. "Stem cells may help Bergen boy fight diabetes," NorthJersey.com (North Jersey Media Group Inc.), August 18, 2006


2. "International Trial of the Edmonton Protocol for Islet Transplantation," New England Journal of Medicine, September 28, 2006


3. "Insulin Stem Cells Hold Hope for Diabetes Treatment," Forbes, November 7, 2006


4. "Multipotent stromal cells from human marrow home to and promote repair of pancreatic islets andrenal glomeruli in diabetic NOD scid mice," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), November 14, 2006


5. "AmCyte Presents Promising Adult Stem Cell Data at 7th Annual Rachmiel Levine Diabetes and Obesity Symposium," Genetic Engineering News, November 9, 2006


6. "Researchers Make Stem Cell Breakthrough," The Korea Times, January 23, 2007


7. "Diabetes repair 'occurs in womb'," BBC News, January 23, 2007

The article above describes the case of Joe Gasser, a heart attack victim that was left with a poor prognosis. As one of 23 patients who had stem cells injected into his ailing heart he is back on the treadmill.

The stem cells originated from Gasser's legs and were grown in a laboratory before being injected into his heart.

This is not the first application of adult stem cells for the treatment of heart disease but it represents a novel methodology in a domestic clinical study.

One of the reasons I chose to point out this latest study is that the continued demonstrated performance of adult stem cells for treatment of medical conditions obliterates the argument that embryonic stem cell research is the needed. However, the argument really should not be necessary. The fact that ESC research destroys human beings is sufficient to invalidate it as an ethical endeavor.

Malaria is the most widespread of the transmissible diseases. It threatens almost one third of Humanity, affects around 600 million people and is responsible, each year, for more than 2 million deaths.

Caused by microscopic parasites, Plasmodia, this disease is transmitted by the bite of certain mosquitoes, the Anopheles.

There is new hope: a study published in this week's early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that transgenic (genetically modified) malaria-resistant mosquitoes have a fitness advantage when feeding on Plasmodium-infected blood, and if released in the wild, could outbreed natural mosquitoes and reduce the spread of malaria. (The genetically engineered mosquitoes with eyes that glow in the dark and do not carry malaria).

However, could these genetically engineered insects be a double edged sword, bringing about unintended consequences more significant than the initial problem? It's a question worth asking.

In the meantime researchers are struggling with how to improve the survival rates of the mosquito hybrid when feeding on non-infected blood.... more here.

Image: PNAS

We keep hearing the worn out argument that Giuliani will likely appoint judges "in the mold" of John Roberts and Samuel Alito "who may actually overturn Roe v. Wade." Besides, he's a whole lot better than the radical abortion rights extremist Hilary Clinton, who many presume will win the Democratic nominee.

Yes, Giuliani might nominate a Roberts or Alito. Then again, why wouldn't he choose a Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Here's what Giulinai said about Ginsburg on Hannity and Colmes:

COLMES: Now, Roe vs. Wade -- You are pro-choice. How important is it to you as a pro-choice Republican to have a pro-choice on the court as someone...

GIULIANI: That is not the critical factor. And what's important to me is to have a very intelligent, very honest, very good lawyer on the court. And [Roberts] fits that category, in the same way Justice Ginsburg fit that category.

I mean, she was -- she maybe came at it from a very different political background, very qualified lawyer, very smart person. Lots of Republicans supported her. I expect, and listening to Senator Nelson, I expect that John Roberts will get support from a lot of Democrats.

LifeNews reports:

In his eight years as mayor, Giuliani, who backs abortion, appointed or reappointed 127 municipal judges who preside over family courts, criminal misdemeanor cases and civil claims of less than $25,000.

But Connie Mackey, a Family Research Council vice president, said Giuliani's appointments "were mostly liberal."

Any pro-lifer who believes they are going to get the kind of judge out of Rudy Giuliani that we see in either [Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts or [Supreme Court Justice Samuel] Alito is probably going to be disappointed," Mackey told the Los Angeles Times over the weekend.

The rationale of being (personally) opposed to child killing but, as a governing official, not acting upon the same is dubious and intellectually dishonest.

Rudy Giuliani is not a social conservative by any stretch of the imagination. He supports gay marriage, abortion on demand and scientific research involving the destruction of human embryo.

There is also the question of Giuliani's disastrous and immoral private life. Having been married three times, his relationships have been filled with scandal. Joe Carter comments:

Giuliani began dating his third (and current) wife, Judith Nathan, while still married to his second wife, Donna Hanover. Ms. Hanover found out her marriage was ending when her soon to be ex-husband announced the separation during a press conference.

Charmaine Yoest aptly commented during a recent MSNBC interview that when a person runs for President, a position of enormous trust and responsibility, his character counts. "What a persons character is comes out in their personal life," she said. "...and that matters for the President." [note: watch Charmaine's interview at the FRC]

Please, enough of the Rudy Giuliani nightmare. He does not have and cannot earn the support of pro-life voters and is not an acceptable candidate for this nation's highest office.

Source: prolifeblogs.com

The algorithm exists as a simple formula which gives the thumbs up if the chance of recovery is greater than 1%. In a simulated environment it had an accuracy of 78% and beat its human counterparts, spurring Bioethicist David Wendler of the National Institutes of Health and colleagues to more research:

Wendler now wants to collect medical care preferences from people of various ethnic, religious and gender groups, which will help his team refine the formula. He believes that a computer program might one day predict patient's wishes to an accuracy of 90%.

"I believe it would be extremely irresponsible to allow machines to make decisions involving life and death," says Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Schiavo. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years until she died in 2005 after doctors removed her feeding tube. Her case sparked huge debate in the US.

"If a person becomes incapacitated, is not dying, and can assimilate food and water via a feeding tube, then I believe that we are morally obligated to care for the person and provide them this basic care - regardless of a computer attempting to 'predict' what that person's wishes might be," Schindler adds.

"Essentially, you would be allowing a machine to determine what is ethical, what is right and wrong, which no machine is able to do."

Now imagine the potential abuse of a computer which is an accepted authority on end of life decisions, especially in a country pushing toward socialized medicine. The inherent shortages created in a controlled health care economy will lead to centralized planning and the computer model could be the planner who decides who will live and who will die.