Hillary Clinton’s campaign said late Wednesday that she supports New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan for illegal immigrant driver’s licenses, a clarification required after a twisted campaign performance Tuesday night left people guessing her position. Spitzer’s plan, which he has retooled in the face of heavy criticism, would grant identification on a three-tier basis, decreasing with the level of proper documentation. Undocumented, illegal immigrants would receive a license only to be used for driving, and be inscribed “not for federal purposes,” meaning it couldn’t be used to board flights or cross borders.

“Senator Clinton broadly supports measures like the ones being advocated by Governor Spitzer, but there are details that still need to be worked out,” Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Wednesday. “Senator Clinton supports governors like Governor Spitzer who believe they need such a measure to deal with the crisis caused by this administrations failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” he added.

During the debate Tuesday night, Clinton offered support for Spitzer, saying he was trying to “fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform,” and noted millions of illegal immigrants are in New York at any one time. They should be able to have identification if they’re in an auto accident, for instance, she said.

When all seven of the candidates were asked whether they agree that illegal aliens should have driver’s licenses, only Sen. Christopher Dodd said he disagreed. He then pressed Clinton on the issue and argued against the plan, saying: “A license is a privilege, and that ought not to be extended, in my view.” Clinton responded: “Well, I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do.” Dodd then quickly interrupted Clinton before she could finish, seizing on the apparent discrepancy. Moderator Tim Russert then tried to elicit an answer on whether she supported the plan or not, but she avoided offering specific support for the plan. Then former North Carolina senator John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, both attorneys like Clinton, took turns dicing her statement. “Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago,” Edwards said. “I was confused on Senator Clinton’s answer. I can’t tell whether she was for it or against it,” Obama said.

More here

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I think it is interesting to read the Smith article with the Eteraz atricle for additional perspective:

Blogger Ali Eteraz just completed a seven part series in the Guardian on developments within Islam….In Eteraz’s view the Islamic world is on the verge of its own Enlightenment as people increasingly come to realize that the separation of the political sphere from the religious one is in their best interests. Eteraz has obviously thought deeply about his topic and is passionate about helping the Islamic world modernize.

Rosslyn Smith article

Ali Eteraz on Islamic reform:

Article 1: The roots of Islamic reform

Article 2: The Islamic reformation

Article 3: An Islamic counter-reformation

Article 4: Beyond Islamic enlightenment

Article 5: The making of the Muslim left

Article 6: Muslim secularism and its allies

Article 7: Post-Islamism

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A good comment:

“For an incident that occured last Thursday, you think there would have been a bit more attention. Considering the amount of coverage the purported noose hanging incident received at Columbia, it’s curious why there’s a virtual media blackout with this latest reported case.

“Police are looking into a new bias incident at Columbia University. The provost of Teachers College told students Friday that two faculty members received an anti-Semitic cartoon and anti-Zionist letters. School officials have not released the names of the two professors. Police say the hate crimes unit is aware of the incident.

Source
That both Columbia and the media are very Leftist and that the Left is very antisemitic these days does of course explain the indifference. They probably think that the letters were a good thing.

And both the ACLU and the ADL seem to be missing in action. But self-hating Jews are nothing new —from Karl Marx onwards.

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Joins Martin Sheen in publicly doubting 9/11 official story, slams Commission as “illegitimate”.

“No shaving or showering till Bush ‘fesses up”, swears the actor.

LAPD: “To avoid casualties, in a month we’ll have a policeman escorting him to warn citizens not to get too close”.

No response forthcoming from the BAU (Baffled Actors Union). “I am still baffled”, was the message from Martin Sheen.

SimplyJews

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and other rejected titles for kids’ books:

7. Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her
8. Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence
9. All Cats Go to Hell
10. The Little Sissy Who Snitched
11. Some Kittens Can Fly

the blog québécois

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I hate to be skeptical of the study below. Where I grew up, if you were sick, you went to the doctor but if you were really sick you went to the Chinese herbalist. So I am not prejudiced against Chinese herbalism. I once used a Chinese herbal medicine to apparent good effect myself. And the study below is a Cochrane product so deserves some respect for that.

But having said all that, the reasoning below is peculiar. We are asked to believe that something of unknown and probably quite variable composition is more therapeutically efficient and side-effect-free in the given application than any known molecule. Even if true, that does not tell us much, as far as I can see. That users of Chinese medicines exhibit a particularly strong placebo effect would be my provisional interpretation of the results below. That would also explain the low rate of side-effects. I hope I will not be abused for suggesting that menstrual discomfort (which is what was studied) could be quite susceptible to placebo effects. I could only check my interpretation by re-doing the whole Cochrane study, however.

Since the authors themselves acknowledge “the poor methodological quality of the included trials”, however, I doubt that anyone needs to do that. Not much to hang your hat on there at all. Rather surprising to see it under the Cochrane aegis. Even the Cochrane project is not immune from Leftist fantasies about the wonders of non-Western cultures, it would seem. Abstract follows:

Chinese herbal medicine for primary dysmenorrhoea

By X Zhu et al.

Background: Conventional treatment for primary dysmenorrhoea (PD) has a failure rate of 20% to 25% and may be contraindicated or not tolerated by some women. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) may be a suitable alternative.

Objectives: To determine the efficacy and safety of CHM for PD when compared with placebo, no treatment, and other treatment.

Search strategy: The Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group Trials Register (to 2006), MEDLINE (1950 to January 2007), EMBASE (1980 to January 2007), CINAHL (1982 to January 2007), AMED (1985 to January 2007), CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library issue 4, 2006), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, 1990 to January 2007), Traditional Chinese Medicine Database System (TCMDS, 1990 to Dec 2006), and the Chinese BioMedicine Database (CBM, 1990 to Dec 2006) were searched. Citation lists of included trials were also reviewed.

Selection criteria: Any randomised controlled trials (RCTs) involving CHM versus placebo, no treatment, conventional therapy, heat compression, another type of CHM, acupuncture or massage. Exclusion criteria were identifiable pelvic pathology and dysmenorrhoea resulting from the use of an intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUD).

Data collection and analysis: Quality assessment, data extraction and data translation were performed independently by two review authors. Attempts were made to contact study authors for additional information and data. Data were combined for meta-analysis using either Peto odds ratios or relative risk (RR) for dichotomous data or weighted mean difference for continuous data. A fixed-effect statistical model was used, where suitable. If data were not suitable for meta-analysis, any available data from the trial were extracted and presented as descriptive data.

Main results: Thirty-nine RCTs involving a total of 3475 women were included in the review. A number of the trials were of small sample size and poor methodological quality. Results for CHM compared to placebo were unclear as data could not be combined (3 RCTs). CHM resulted in significant improvements in pain relief (14 RCTs; RR 1.99, 95% CI 1.52 to 2.60), overall symptoms (6 RCTs; RR 2.17, 95% CI 1.73 to 2.73) and use of additional medication (2 RCTs; RR 1.58, 95% CI 1.30 to 1.93) when compared to use of pharmaceutical drugs. Self-designed CHM resulted in significant improvements in pain relief (18 RCTs; RR 2.06, 95% CI 1.80 to 2.36), overall symptoms (14 RCTs; RR 1.99, 95% CI 1.65 to 2.40) and use of additional medication (5 RCTs; RR 1.58, 95% CI 1.34 to 1.87) after up to three months follow up when compared to commonly used Chinese herbal health products. CHM also resulted in better pain relief than acupuncture (2 RCTs; RR 1.75, 95% CI 1.09 to 2.82) and heat compression (1 RCT; RR 2.08, 95% CI 2.06 to 499.18).

Authors’ conclusions: The review found promising evidence supporting the use of CHM for primary dysmenorrhoea; however, results are limited by the poor methodological quality of the included trials.

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD005288

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Back in the day; when many people weren’t really au fait with the internet it was really rather neat to send someone an e-card. Of course now everyone knows about the about the internet and are getting/sending e-cards all over the place. So now you have to take it to the next level to get an E-Cards that shows you are bleeding edge.

Well how about artistically satisfying e-cards that are both lovely and fairly rare? How about a wee $10 fee for a year of E-Cards to send to your loved ones and mates. Not the bog standard e-card but something that is a cut about the rest.

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