Wednesday 3rd November 2004
The decision has now been made. Hunter has decided which sort of loan to get for the house. So that's finally worked out. The next step is to track down the house itself, buy the thing, and move in.
President Bush is not opposed to stem cell research. To the contrary -- he is the first President to support Federal Funding for embryonic stem cell research.
If that's to be believed, then I'm less disappointed in Junior than I'd thought.
In other news, Junior finally got elected. But you've probably already heard about that. Personally, I don't care much; left to me, neither Junior nor Lurch would be elected. Not that I'd want Nader, either. All things considered, though--especially after some Moron for Lurch broke the laws by calling my mobile phone to spam me and attempt to hire me to help get the guy elected a couple of weeks ago--I guess I'm happier seeing Junior get a second term, simply because he can't do any more damage to the country, within the laws. Given some of Lurch's occasional ideas, he could potentially have made the US even worse than it's become. To borrow an analogy from MondoHebe here, between herpes and AIDS, the country have chosen a disease they can live with.
Interestingly, I just discovered something I hadn't known before while casually looking through various websites, mostly to see who'd updated with recent news; from WhiteHouse.gov:
There are many different kinds of stem cell research, all of which are important to studying disease. Last year, the NIH provided over half a billion dollars for all forms of stem cell research. He has asked NIH to establish Centers of Excellence for stem cell research, which give scientists in this area extra support, and his Administration is establishing a Stem Cell registry, to make sure that scientists can get access to embryonic stem cells quickly.
In fact, more than 500 shipments of eligible stem cell lines have been sent to researchers for this important work. 3,500 shipments, from 22 different genetically distinct lines, are still available.
The President has said only that researchers using taxpayer funds cannot use the funds for research that requires the destruction of an additional human embryo. Researchers can use private funds for any form of stem cell research.
Moreover, many scientists focus on stem cell research that does not require the destruction of a human embryo because it uses cells from placental tissue or bone marrow. This type of stem cell research has already produced treatments for disease, and there are clinical trials underway on new treatments for diseases like parkinsons, multiple sclerosis, and leukemia.
I should also note that stem cells are just one of the many areas scientists are studying for possible cures and treatments for diabetes. Since President Bush took office, funding for all forms of diabetes research has increased by $336 million dollars -- a 49% increase.
--Margaret Spellings, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
Other issues decided this year include banning gay marriage in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah--eleven states no one wants to live in anyway. On the bright side, state constitutions are meaningless; what counts is that no one cares enough to allow for the possibility of a real amendment to the real constitution.
Of course, since the whole idea of banning gay marriage comes from a biblical commandment, we can hope that the morons in these eleven states learn to read further through the list, and end up also banning straight divorce, since that's a 'sin' equal to the 'sin' of gay marriage, in the eyes of Santa Claus.
Personally, I don't care about it. Because I'm not gay. Logically, the only people who would care about gay marriage are gay. I think we should support these eleven states, now that they're come out of the closet.
Here in Colorado, the eradication of the electoral college has been shot down. I'm very much in favour of abolishing the electoral college; though I'm not in favour of doing it one state at a time. There again: amend the real constitution, or don't bother me with the idea.
And, most importantly, Colorado have voted to raise the taxes on cigarettes by something like 320%. As much as this sounds like a bad idea, it turns out that it'll be a good thing in the long run. Here's why.
Cigarettes are going up by about a dollar per pack. That's the bad news. The good news is that the programmes funded by the taxhike will no longer be funded by any other sources. Which is to say that, when it turns out that a dollar per pack isn't enough to fund these things--especially now that there's actually a benefit to getting cigarettes on the black market, including indian reservations--those programmes will go extinct--probably just after whimpering about the cuts in funding and asking for more taxes; once they go extinct, the taxation of cigarettes will become inarguably illegal [at the moment, the only people getting that the taxation is already illegal are the smart ones, who are in short supply] and, hopefully, be abolished altogether. Simply because this new amendment disallows the money from going anywhere but into these doomed programmes. So that's nearly good news, at the cost of Colorado's economy in general. Which, in the case of the 61% of morons in favour of destroying it, is fair. It should come as no surprise to learn that those sixty-one percent are countered by the thirty-nine percent of adults in the state who smoke. Which is actually upsetting, since we can guess that those thirty-nine percent voted against this merely because they smoke, and not because it spells doom for the state in general.
Which brings us back to the real news--the house--which all works out perfectly. Because I now have all the numbers I need to work out exactly where things are going over the next five years. What counts, to me, is that the house Hunter is getting for a single-digit percentage will go up by forty to seventy percent in actual value by 2008. Then, she either refinances at a lower single-digit rate, or sells the thing and moves to a less-doomed state. With about $100,000 in free cash. Which buys a lot of cigarettes either way.
More later....
--Gremlin