As Sheriff Joe would say, this is a Big F'n Deal.

The eagerly awaited study involving more than 15,000 newborns and babies in seven African countries found the vaccine cut the risk of being infected with the malaria parasite by about half and the chances of getting deathly ill from an infection by more than a third.

While far below the protection provided by many widely used vaccines for other diseases, the results were hailed as a major advance toward one of the most elusive goals in medicine.

...

Caused by parasites that are transmitted by infected mosquitoes, malaria sickens more than 200 million people each year and kills nearly 800,000, mostly children in Africa. Controlling malaria has long been one of the top goals of international public health authorities.

It's cost about $500 million to develop which is an amazingly small amount of money compared to the good it will do if this pans out. About $300 million came from the Gates Foundation and the rest from government grants evilllll big pharma (I wonder what the Occupy Wall St. crowd will say about that).

No word on whether or not the vaccine causes retardation in presidential candidates but making that kind of dent would be a huge breakthrough in public health.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:22 PM | Comments (92)
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Sorry, late in the day. Travels, burying hobo corpses leave only so much time in the day to hit the crack pipe.

Here's the weekly, compiled by Ben and CDR M

Occupying Wall Street:

Scott: 53
Aristomenes from da 5430: 52
Mule Train 2016: 52
The Plague: 52
Anthony L: 51
Chemwon: 51
Kunta_Kinte: 51

Occupying the dumpster:

DrewM: 47
Gabe Malor: 46
Ben: 44
rd brewer: 44
CDR M: 43
Andy:43
DiT: 40
Russ from Winterset: 40

Hey Russ, welcome to "we suck". Nice to have some company.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:19 PM | Comments (46)
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Yes, we know.

He also claims that OWS isn't much different than the Tea Party.

The president also compares the protesters to the Tea Party. “In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party," Obama says. "Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them.”

As someone said, both groups don't like crony capitalism, but OWS wants to keep the cronyism and ditch the capitalism. The Tea Party, the opposite.

While Obama moves closer to the leftists at Zucotti Park, Democrats in Virginia move away from him.

President Obama arrives in the state Tuesday as part of three-day North Carolina and Virginia bus tour to talk about the economy, but itÂ’s not clear how many Virginia Democrats will be with him.

As we reported today, Democratic state legislators are none too eager to support Obama, let alone be seen with him.

The stateÂ’s top Democrats will be not be around, either.

I've called this the President's Hail Mary play. He knows he will likely lose. Now, given that, what's the best play? Should he tack towards the center, which is supposedly the right play, except no one would believe it and furthermore it's doubtful he'd win that way, either?

Or gamble that he's about to catch some luck in the next quarter or two -- a single quarter of 4.5% growth would seriously change the thinking on this race -- and double down on what he really believes, which is European socialism?

I think the latter is the smarter play, from his perspective. The first strategy might keep it close, but he'd still lose. The second strategy could possibly result in a victory -- or a blowout loss. But if you're going to lose, might as well lose by a lot.

But while this might be the best-of-a-bad-lot for Obama, it's not a good play for the Democrats around him, who'll be sucked down when the Titanic finally goes under.

I previously noted that lefties were following Obama's lead in no longer hiding their socialism. This is a lay-your-cards-on-the-table election, I guess, and a lot of "center-liberals" are unmasking themselves at what we always suspected they were -- simply the latest communists and socialists lying about their actual agenda.

Jonah Goldberg's noticing that, too.

HereÂ’s one useful tip: Whenever the substance of the Occupy Wall Street movement troubles Democratic politicians their response is to hide behind platitudes about free speech.

What he means is that when a Democrat is confronted with the socialism on parade here, Democrats will not address the substance of what OWS believes, merely their right to believe it. In this manner they avoid discussing their own nuanced views on socialism.

“It’s about their right to express themselves!” Well, no it’s not. Free speech is important, but it’s really not the issue. It certainly wasn’t even much of a concern when it was the Tea Party expressing itself — which it managed to do without inviting mass arrests. Back then, leading Democrats considered dissent racist or un-American. Now they celebrate free speech so they can hide from dealing with the issues at hand honestly. Democratic politicians think that this gives them cover. It doesn’t. It just shows that they’re afraid to disagree with the protesters either because they agree with them or because they know the protests are popular among their own supporters. Either way, it’s proof that the much ballyhooed wall between mainstream radicalism and mainstream liberalism is more like a speed bump.

ItÂ’s one thing to have suspicions. ItÂ’s another thing to have them confirmed. And for that, IÂ’m grateful for Occupy Wall Street.

The Great Unmasking continues apace.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (422)
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Blip? Probably. It's such a big swing (-4 from his approval, +4 to his disapproval) without any discrete event to explain it.

Still, even so, he's about where we'd expect him to be: 38% approving, 54% disapproving. He's always bouncing around in this range (though this is the bad end of the range, for Obama).

Thanks to JohnE.

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (290)
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This, in a nutshell, is why I am afraid to nominate Herman Cain (and becoming depressed that our two possible candidates are Romney and Cain).

It's not that Herman Cain is "too conservative" or "too outsider." That's what people like to claim, when "RINOs" such as myself show skepticism about a candidate. The actual criticism offered is transformed into a non-criticism. Because there's no such thing, really, as "too conservative," so if you can transform a knock against someone into that, you're practically complimenting them.

No, my problem is that he sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about a fair amount of the time, from the Right to Return to banning the construction of mosques to consulting with experts before forming some kind of an opinion on foreign policy to, now, maybe kidding about an electrified fence, but, you know, not kidding.

Once Cain arrived, however, it didn't take long before he was asked about a controversial "joke" he recently made about installing a 20-foot-tall electrified fence along the U.S./Mexico border to keep immigrants from entering the country illegally.

Halfway through the question about the electric fence, Cain butted in with "it was a joke!"

"Let me first say it was a joke, and some people don't think that it was a good joke, and it's probably not a joke that you're supposed to make if you're a presidential candidate," Cain continued. "I apologize if it offended anyone. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa."

Only, it might not be a joke, he later said, before finally saying he just doesn't want to offend anyone.

"I don't like to offend anyone...however, I don't apologize for using a combination of a fence. And it might be electrified -- I'm not walking away from that," Cain backtracked. "I just don't want to offend anybody. It was a joke to the extent in the context of the views of that speech, but in terms of what we need to do, I fully intend to do so because I'm more sensitive to our citizens being hurt."

I'm less bothered by the idea of an electrified fence than I am about the fact that a front-running presidential candidate thinks that major policy declarations can be made off the top of his head, just noodling around, just spit-balling in front of microphones. Maybe the fence will be electrified, maybe it won't be, who knows, we need to consult with experts first. Grow up, it was just a joke, but now it's not a joke, now it's a plan we're considering.

Has "homework" and "thinking things through, in advance" become "un-conservative" over the past year?

I know, I know. I'm supposed to find his refusal to do a lick of homework "charming" and "authentic" or something.

Because successful people, as all conservatives know, leave a lot to chance and making stuff up on the fly.

It's all luck, really.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (417)
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Hot Air flags this as "Occupy Protests Somehow Turning Weirder."

It's... really something.

First thing, the "human microphone" was, I thought, some kind of glorious innovation to transmit voices even though the cops had banned bullhorns. But here, the woman does have a bullhorn. The crowd does their cult-drone anyhow.

Second, she has a nice body. It's a real shame a decent body is capped by this unfortunate head. She looks like a young college-age Bill Walton skipped the NBA draft to pursue a Library Sciences degree, and also, gender reassignment surgery.

Third, it's just indulgent and weird and overwrought. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (273)
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It's Not A Repost, It's An Homage: I'm just doing my own "reinterpretation" of DrewM's original.

Why remake a classic? Well, this remake is better, because I'm casting Zooey Deschanel and Katy Perry as hot twin sisters.

...

After being held hostage by Hamas for five years, it's good that Shalit is home now.

But Hamas drove a hard bargain-- the kidnapped soldier in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, almost all of them terrorists.

Netanyahu told reporters that the case of the abducted soldier was among the toughest he inherited when he assumed office 2 1 / 2 years ago. He said Israel had paid a “heavy price” to secure Shalit’s release.

“On this day,” Netanyahu said, “all of us are united in happiness and pain.”

While Israeli officials offered a subdued homecoming ceremony for Shalit, reflecting their concern about the Palestinian militants who were being freed, Hamas leaders organized a triumphant reception for those former prisoners.

The first busloads of released Palestinians, including women, crossed the border into Egypt around the same time Shalit was handed over to the Israelis. The Palestinians were taken to Gaza and the West Bank, where jubilant crowds awaited them, and to a few other locations.

In Gaza, buses transporting the freed prisoners arrived around midday. Crowds of Hamas fighters, including some of the men who kidnapped Shalit in 2006, were among the well-wishers. Relatives swarmed over the buses looking for their loved ones.

...

On Monday, NetanyahuÂ’s office released a letter the prime minister had written to the relatives of the victims of [attacks carried out by the Palestinian militants released today].

“Numerous misgivings accompanied me throughout the negotiations,” the prime minister wrote. “You were always in my thoughts.” He said the swap was “among the most difficult” decisions he’s ever made.

Unfortunately, negotiating with terrorists only encourages further terrorism. In the West Bank, crowds chanted "The people want a new Shalit" -- that is, let's capture another Israeli so we can do this all again.

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 AM | Comments (91)
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Darrel Issa shows off a document "turned over" by the Administration,
redacted in its entirety;
"a black cow, at midnight, eating licorice"

Sheryl Atkinson (the CBS reporter who pretty much represents the entirety of MFM interest in this case) notes that "we don't know what we don't know" in Fast & Furious -- the administration is covering up so much, disclosing so little, we're really not even certain what the right questions are.

What was the goal here? There's one question the Administration won't answer.

Posted by: Ace at 08:05 AM | Comments (151)
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Big complaint at OWS right now: Theft.

Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.

“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.

“I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”

Crafty cat burglars sneaked into the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park overnight and swiped as much as $2,500 in donated greenbacks from right under the noses of volunteers whoÂ’d fallen asleep after a long day whipping up meals for the hundreds of hungry protesters, the volunteers said.

“The worst thing is there’s people sleeping in the kitchen when they come, and they don’t even know about it! There are some really smart and sneaky thieves here,” Terrie said.

“I had umbrellas stolen, a fold-up bed I brought because my back is bad -- they took that, too!”

Wow, it's almost like some people don't respect the concept of private personal property, and think -- how does it go? -- that property should be parceled out from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

Meanwhile, Democratic pollster Doug Schoen has polled the OWS nutters, and is warning his own party away from embracing them. Too late.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

Employed as what? What job lets you squat in a park for six weeks?

...

Fewer than one in three (32%) call themselves Democrats, while roughly the same proportion (33%) say they aren't represented by any political party.

The left of the left.

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Wait, I thought he was saying they weren't Democrats. Zing!

So here we have a contingent of staunch socialists, one third of whom confess they'd use violence as part of their political agenda, and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama flatter and embrace them.

But of course it's the Tea Party that's potentially violent and extremist.

Posted by: Ace at 07:14 AM | Comments (304)
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In return, Israel is freeing over 1,000 Islamic terrorists.

Shalit, now 25, was 19 years old when he was seized by Hamas militants who had tunneled under the border between Gaza and Israel. The campaign to free him drew support from across Israel, despite anguish over the decision to release of hundreds of Palestinians convicted of planning or carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians.

“Gilad Shalit has returned to his country, his homeland and his family,” Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, an Israeli army spokesman, said after the young soldierÂ’s release. “For over five years we have been . . . with Gilad Shalit. Today, Gilad Shalit is with us.”

Shalit was taken by Hamas officials from Gaza into Egypt, then turned over to Israeli officials and taken across the border. He was examined by doctors and given a chance to speak to relatives by telephone; at some point, he changed out of the plaid shirt he had been wearing and into an Israeli army uniform, which hung loosely on his thin frame.

Palestinians immediately began doing what they do best...reminding the world that their sick culture should never be allowed to have a real state.

Pal prisoners families at rafah chanting "we want a new Shalit"

Allow me to offer a counter proposal...how about some Hellfire missiles aimed at the recently released Islamic terrorists instead?

Shalit also appeared "voluntarily" on Egyptian state TV. If a Gitmo detainee were ever humiliated in that way the world would be outraged and the fabled "Muslim street" would explode. But hey, he's just a soldier from the "Zionist entity" so who cares, right?

Added: Just who the Israelis are letting go and what it will mean for them in the future.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:54 AM | Comments (175)
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