From ALJAZEERA:

Researchers have shown for the first time that a single intravenous infusion of a genetically engineered virus can home in on cancer, killing tumor cells in patients without harming healthy tissue.

Scientists have been intrigued for decades with the idea of using viruses to alert the immune system to seek and destroy cancerous cells. That interest has taken off in recent years as advances in genetic engineering allow them to customize viruses that target tumors…

In a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, scientists at institutions including the University of Ottawa and privately held biotech company, Jennerex Inc, said a small, early-stage trial of experimental viral therapy JX-954 found that it consistently infected tumors with only minimal and temporary side effects…

Click here to read the full article.

From the HUFF POST:

Upping the stakes of his push for a major jobs plan, President Barack Obama has requested House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to call a joint session of Congress that would take place on September 7, 2011.

A request for comment from Speaker Boehner’s office as to whether he will formally invite the president to address Congress was not immediately returned.

If the president’s request is granted, the joint session would provide him with the type of audience that usually accompanies a State of the Union address. It would also add additional weight to an already critical push by the administration to shift political discussions to job creation…

Click here to read the full article.

From the HUFF POST / AP:

As much as $60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, an independent panel investigating U.S. wartime spending estimates.

In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars.

Much of the waste and fraud could have been avoided with better planning and more aggressive oversight, the commission said. To avoid repeating the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, government agencies should overhaul the way they award and manage contracts in war zones, the commission recommended…

Click here to read the full article.

In case you had never heard of the “Powell Memo” I thought I’d take its anniversary as a chance to mention it to you.  This month is the 40th anniversary of a memo written by Lewis Powell, two months before his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The memo was written to the director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and laid out a plan for corporations to gain control of the institutions that create public opinion, policy and law in the U.S.  Powell was a corporate lawyer, tobacco lobbyist and counsel to the Richmond Chamber of Commerce at the time.  It was a plan to not only take control of government and the courts, but media, universities, publications (books and journals) and think tanks.  40 years later — it worked!

http://itsoureconomy.us/2011/08/how-did-corporate-power-get-a-stranglehold/

KZ

In “Republicans Against Science” (locally “The anti-knowledge party”, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes:  “Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the ‘anti-science party.’ This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us…

“Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as ‘just a theory,’ one that has ‘got some gaps in it’ — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists…

“Lately, for example, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has gone beyond its long-term preference for the economic ideas of ‘charlatans and cranks’ — as one of former President George W. Bush’s chief economic advisers famously put it — to a general denigration of hard thinking about matters economic. Pay no attention to ‘fancy theories’ that conflict with ‘common sense,’ the Journal tells us. Because why should anyone imagine that you need more than gut feelings to analyze things like financial crises and recessions?…”

WATCHDOG: We all just have so much spare time  beyond making a living and caring for our loved ones.  So just as the Watchdog is abysmally ignorant about biology and modern technology (among thousands of other things), most of the population neither has the education, the interest, the time or the mindset to be versed in history and to closely follow national affairs.

Huey Long and Joe McCarthy understood this and exploited the population by playing to their ignorance and prejudices.  Popular radio personality Rush Limbaugh was once  both brilliant and knowledgeable, but he gave up sharing his real views with his audience (to the extent he still has any) and instead feeds them ‘red meat’, spinning the facts (and often fictions)  to feed their right-wing appetites.

We teach our children that the USA is a republic, not a democracy; that we elect the best and brightest to represent us.    Alas, more recently, we have selected a group of shills who represent the major donors and special interests.  Both parties are under their thumbs, although the Republicans are marginally worse off.

Is a third party possible?  We doubt it because too much money is involved in elections any more..thanks to the incredible and egregious recent ruling of the U. S. Supreme Court opening the flood gates to corporate donations and anonymity.   But we sure would love to see one emerge, if only to force the major parties to return to their original purpose…to faithfully represent the needs of the constituents…by which we mean the voters, not business interests who fund their campaigns and provide financial favors during after their tenure in office.

An article “The Mortgage Fix That Can Save the Economy” opines:  “If lenders would reduce all underwater mortgages to their current market value, the nation’s banks could pump $71 billion per year into the economy, create more than 1 million jobs annually and save families up to $6,500 per year on mortgage payments, according to The New Bottom Line, a collaborative of 1,000 faith-based and community organizations who want Wall Street held accountable for the mess it created.”

WATCHDOG: To do that, financial institutions would have to recognize the true value of their real estate portfolios and a great number would be insolvent, including some of America’s leading banks.   Almost all of the remainder would be technically in violation of Federal Reserve regulations.

Avoiding the writing down of loans has been one of the major government goals over the past three years.

From NEWSMAX:

As of today, at least 1,640 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count.

The AP count, coming at the end of the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the United States entered the war nearly 10 years ago, is the same as the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EDT.

At least 1,367 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In Iraq, there  have been 4792 military deaths according to icasualties.org

From POLITICO:

One-fourth of the highest-paid CEOs in the United States made more money last year than their companies paid in taxes, according to a report on Wednesday.

For the 25 CEOs whose earnings exceeded their company’s federal income tax, pay averaged $16.7 million, a study by the left-leaning think tank the Institute for Policy Studies founds. The report also revealed that many of the firms spent far more on lobbying than on taxes….

The report revealed eBay paid CEO John Donahoe $12.4 million — but reported a $131 million refund on its 2010 federal income taxes. And at General Electric, where CEO Jeff Immelt raked in $15.2 million, the company received a $3.3 billion refund and dropped $41.8 million on lobbying and political campaigns. And at Boeing, CEO Jim McNerney takes home $13.8 million, while the company paid $13 million in taxes and spent $20.8 million on lobbying in 2010…

Click here to read the full article.

From USA TODAY:

…Five months after taking office, Rep. Stephen Fincher, a cotton farmer from a mostly rural swath of Tennessee, introduced a bill to mandate swift federal approval of genetically modified crops for commercial sale. Fincher has received more campaign money from agribusiness than any other industry….

Other freshmen who have crafted legislation backed by the industries helping to underwrite their campaigns include Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. Duffy, who gets a significant portion of his campaign funds from financial services companies, is the lead sponsor of a measure that would dilute the powers of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Gosar would end health insurance companies’ protection from anti-trust provisions, a step applauded by doctors, dentists and health professionals who have donated nearly $74,000 to his campaign in the first six months of this year…

Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said the proposed legislation is a sign that “the incoming freshmen have learned business-as-usual on Capitol Hill. They are very quickly moving into the ranks of normal incumbents.”

Click here to read the full article.

From the FINANCIAL TIMES:

A leading Fed policymaker called for more monetary stimulus on Tuesday as it emerged that staff at the US central bank have permanently cut their growth forecasts.

In an interview with CNBC, Charles Evans of the Chicago Fed said that he would “favour more accommodation” and became the first policymaker on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee to explicitly countenance letting inflation rise above the Fed’s target of 2 per cent in the short-term.

“If 1 per cent was not a catastrophe, 3 per cent is not a catastrophe,” said Mr Evans. Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman, has resisted calls for temporarily higher inflation. While Mr Evans is one of the most dovish members of the FOMC, his comments show the division between hawks and doves at the central bank…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: As noted here again and again  (sorry about that!), the monetary approach is a weak and almost futile attempt to do what Congress should be initiating with a stimulus bill, preferably one that would spur infrastructure spending.  Only getting people back to work will enable us to eventually  balance the budget and pay down the national debt.