Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Obama says thanks on last day as Illinois senator
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama said "a very affectionate thanks" to the people of Illinois in a letter published Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers across his home state.
Barack Obama walks to his vehicle after a workout at a gym in Chicago on Saturday.
Obama announced on Thursday that his resignation from the U.S. Senate is official as of Sunday.
"Today, I am ending one journey to begin another," Obama's letter said. "After serving the people of Illinois in the United States Senate -- one of the highest honors and privileges of my life -- I am stepping down as senator to prepare for the responsibilities I will assume as our nation's next president."
Obama wrote about moving to Illinois two decades ago "as a young man eager to do my part in building a better America."
"On the South Side of Chicago, I worked with families who had lost jobs and lost hope when the local steel plant closed. It wasn't easy, but we slowly rebuilt those neighborhoods one block at a time, and in the process I received the best education I ever had," he wrote.
Obama followed his years as a community organizer and lawyer with a successful bid for the Illinois state Senate.
"It was in Springfield, in the heartland of America, where I saw all that is America converge -- farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. It was there that I learned to disagree without being disagreeable; to seek compromise while holding fast to those principles that can never be compromised, and to always assume the best in people instead of the worst," his letter said.
Don't Miss
His letter recalled people he met in his travels around the state during his run for the U.S. Senate four years ago.
"I still remember the young woman in East St. Louis who had the grades, the drive and the will but not the money to go to college. I remember the young men and women I met at VFW halls across the state who serve our nation bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I will never forget the workers in Galesburg who faced the closing of a plant they had given their lives to, who wondered how they would provide health care to their sick children with no job and little savings," he wrote.
Obama said his memories of the people of Illinois "will stay with me when I go to the White House in January."
"The challenges we face as a nation are now more numerous and difficult than when I first arrived in Chicago, but I have no doubt that we can meet them. For throughout my years in Illinois, I have heard hope as often as I have heard heartache. Where I have seen struggle, I have seen great strength. And in a state as broad and diverse in background and belief as any in our nation, I have found a spirit of unity and purpose that can steer us through the most troubled waters," he wrote.
Obama then quoted Abraham Lincoln -- "another son of Illinois" who left for Washington.
"To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything," he quoted Lincoln as writing about Illinois.
"Today, I feel the same, and like Lincoln, I ask for your support, your prayers, and for us to 'confidently hope that all will yet be well,'" Obama wrote.
His letter concluded:
"With your help, along with the service and sacrifice of Americans across the nation who are hungry for change and ready to bring it about, I have faith that all will in fact be well. And it is with that faith, and the high hopes I have for the enduring power of the American idea, that I offer the people of my beloved home a very affectionate thanks."
Obama's Senate office will close sometime within two months. His Senate staff will spend that time coordinating with his replacement, advising constituents with open requests, and archiving documents for Obama's presidential library.
Several Illinois Democrats, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, a former congressional candidate who now serves in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration, have been mentioned as possible Senate replacements for Obama.
Blagojevich, a Democrat who will appoint Obama's successor, announced last week that he was assembling a panel to look over likely candidates.
Obama's replacement would be up for re-election in 2010.
Vice president-elect Joe Biden, who was also re-elected in Delaware to his Senate seat on November 4, told an interviewer several weeks ago that he would resign when he's sworn in as vice president in January.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Obama administration to ratchet up hunt for bin Laden
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama wants to renew the U.S. commitment to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers.
Osama bin Laden remains on the run despite a $25 million reward for his capture.
The Obama team believes the Bush administration has downplayed the importance of catching the FBI's most-wanted terrorist because it has not been able to find him.
"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority," Obama said during the presidential debate on October 7.
But tracking down bin Laden won't be easy.
In May, al Qaeda released an audiotape featuring bin Laden. But U.S. intelligence officials say they haven't had a solid lead on the terrorist mastermind's whereabouts since late 2001, when he was nearly captured in a battle with U.S. forces near Tora Bora, Afghanistan.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer, told CNN he's talked to "a dozen CIA guys who've been on the hunt for him, and half of them told me they assumed he was dead, the other half said they assumed he was alive, but the key word here is assume. They don't know." 
Intelligence officials believe bin Laden is hiding in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, a remote and primitive region with mountain peaks as tall as 14,000 feet (4,270 meters) that make the terrain difficult to navigate.
"If you think of this as sort of a combination of [the hunt for] Eric Rudolph, who was the Olympic bomber, and the movie 'Deliverance,' multiplied by a factor of 10, that's really what you're focusing on in trying to find bin Laden," said Robert Grenier, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan.
The region is divided up by tribes, some of them warring. Developing human sources in the area has been extremely difficult. 
"What you literally need to have is an army of individual informants, hopefully focused on the areas that you think bin Laden is most likely to be hiding in," said Grenier, now a security consultant with Kroll.
"But again, you need to have a whole lot of them because one individual who may have access to the families and the clans in a particular valley, if he goes to the valley next door and starts asking questions, he's probably gonna end up dead pretty quickly."
The U.S. government is offering a $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's capture, but officials who have worked in the region say the people living there would consider it dishonorable to take the money.
The United States has had some success killing al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan using unmanned drones equipped with Hellfire missiles, but those attacks have killed innocent civilians as well, complicating the political situation between the two countries.
Obama plans to send more troops into Afghanistan to push back the growing Taliban insurgency, but experts warn there could be severe consequences.
Don't Miss
"The president is going to inherit the problem the Soviets had roughly 15 years ago during the Soviet jihad. You cannot tame the people in the North-West Frontier Province and on the border in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Dalton Fury, the commander of special operations at Tora Bora.
"The only army that has been successful has been Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde. They cut off heads and killed everyone in the villages, and since we have self-imposed rules of warfare, we are not going to do what they did."
Cooperation from Pakistan's military has been touchy, and most experts agree finding bin Laden is just not a priority for Pakistan's troops.
Fury says the best route for the president-elect to take would be to change the dialogue about bin Laden. Intelligence officials do not believe he is playing an operational role and so has no reason to move around or communicate.
"I think it's important to understand that bin Laden had his chance at martyrdom. He was in the mountains of Tora Bora, he ran away. In my opinion, I think we ought to promote this," Fury said.
He believes taunting the al Qaeda leader may force him to prove he's relevant and, in the process, lead the United States right to him.
Despite the challenges, many experts agree it is important to capture bin Laden.
"I don't think the American people will accept him surviving and us leaving. We will be the laughingstock of the world," Fury said.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Trick-or-treater, 12, shot to death, police say
Police converge on the scene of the fatal shooting of a trick-or-treater Friday night in Sumter, South Carolina.
The shooting suspect, Quentin Patrick, was in custody, a jail official said. Patrick, 22, has been charged with murder and three counts of assault and battery with intent to kill. The jail official said she didn't know whether Patrick had an attorney and his telephone number was unpublished.
The family was headed home from a city-sponsored event downtown when they decided to stop at a few homes, Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson said. The father and his four children approached a home with a porch light on about 8:30 p.m. ET while their mother waited nearby in a vehicle.
As the family was at the door, they thought they heard fireworks. The 12-year-old boy, his father and brother were all hit by the gunfire. The boy died at a hospital, Coroner Verna Moore said. The other two children were not hurt.
The boy's father and brother were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities have not released the identity of the family.
Patterson also would not release any more details about the shooting.
"The investigation is continuing into what has been a very tragic evening," Patterson said. "Our sorrow and sympathy goes out to this family."
The police chief said there were other people inside the home at the time of the shooting, but she didn't expect any of them to be charged.
A neighbor said he heard a loud noise about the time of the shooting and thought it was simply Halloween mischief.
"I thought, trick-or-treat night -- pranks go down. Anything goes," said Lenwood Dixon, 49, who works at a hazardous waste and recycling company. "I heard a noise like maybe gunfire, then my daughter saw a bunch of lights flashing and saw some cops."
In his six years in the neighborhood, he said he wasn't aware of any violent crimes. He said a few trick-or-treaters had been on his block that night.
"I'm surprised. Since I was here, I'd never heard of anything like that happening. It's a quiet neighborhood," he said. "You don't see many children in the neighborhood. It's more elderly."
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
McCain Supporters are fucking Crazy
(CNN) -- A Republican campaign worker who told police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car admitted she made up the report, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant police chief said Friday.
Police say Ashley Todd, 20, admitted making up the report she was attacked because of a McCain sticker.
Ashley Todd, 20, of College Park, Texas, will be charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges, said police spokeswoman Diane Richard at a news conference.
"This has wasted so much time. ... It's just a lot of wasted man hours," Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said at the same briefing.
The woman told investigators a man approached her Wednesday night at an ATM in Pittsburgh's East End, put a blade to her neck and demanded money, Richard said.
Police said they found "several inconsistencies" in Todd's statement and she was not seen in surveillance videos taken at the ATM. She was asked to take a polygraph test Friday morning, Richard said. The results were not made public.
Later, Todd came to the police station to help work on a composite sketch of the alleged attacker. When she arrived, Todd "told them she just wanted to tell the truth" -- that she was not robbed, and there was no attacker, Bryant said.
Todd originally told police a man "punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, and he continued to punch and kick her while threatening to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter," according to a police statement.
The woman also told police her attacker "called her a lot of names and stated that 'You are going to be a Barack supporter,' at which time she states he sat on her chest, pinning both her hands down with his knees, and scratched into her face a backward letter 'B' on the right side of her face using what she believed to be a very dull knife."
Bryant described Todd as "very cordial, polite, cooperating," and said the woman was surprised by all the media attention. Asked whether the false report was politically motivated, Bryant replied, "It's difficult to say."
"She is stating that she was in her vehicle driving around, and she came up with this idea," she said. "She said she has prior mental problems and doesn't know how the backward letter 'B' got on her face."
However, Todd was the only one in the vehicle, and "when she saw the 'B' she thought she must have been the one who did it," Bryant said.
"We're talking with the district attorney's office and conferring on just how we're going to handle it," she said. "It's been different stories through the night and this morning."
She said there was no indication that anyone else was involved.
Richard said the woman had described her alleged attacker as an African-American, 6 feet 4 inches tall with a medium build and short dark hair, wearing dark clothing and shiny shoes.
Before the revelation that the report was false, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said that McCain and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin "spoke to the victim and her family after learning about the incident."
The Obama campaign also had issued a statement wishing the woman a "speedy recovery."
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Commentary: Republican attacks show fear and desperation
CNN Contributor
Editor's note: Join Roland S. Martin for his weekly sound-off segment on CNN.com Live at 11:10 a.m. ET Wednesday. If you're passionate about politics, he wants to hear from you. A nationally syndicated columnist, Martin has said he will vote for Barack Obama in November. He is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith" and "Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America." Visit his Web site for more information.
Roland Martin says the McCain campaign is launching desperate attacks to derail Obama.
(CNN) -- Watching Sen. John McCain and top Republicans swing wildly in their attempts to slam Sen. Barack Obama, with less than two weeks ago to go before Election Day, is like watching an old fighter --clearly out of gas, his legs turned to rubber, and all he can do is grab, hold, punch behind the back, just anything to try to win.
McCain's campaign is no longer about issues. He and his supporters want to bring up anything and everything to derail Obama, and nothing is sticking, so they just keep returning to their old bag of tricks.
In the past two weeks, we've seen Minnesota Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann make one of the most audacious statements ever, suggesting that Obama holds anti-American views, that other members of Congress have the same views, and that the media should launch a widespread investigation to ferret them out.
No, seriously, she said that on MSNBC's "Hardball."
It didn't take long for the folks on the left to get ahold of her comments. After the video spread like wildfire, Democrats across the country pumped $700,000 into the campaign coffers of her opponent. The normally talkative Bachmann is now on lockdown, not granting any interviews, as she has to work hard to hold onto her seat.
Don't Miss
Commentary: Joe the Plumber vs. Colin Powell
Commentary: Time for Palin to answer tough questions
Commentary: Why Ayers case is risky for McCain-Palin
In Depth: Commentaries
Then you have former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was caught suggesting that if Obama wins, he is going to put in place the policies of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Now, Gingrich has absolutely no clue what policies Wright advocated, but he wants to scare the dickens out of voters by literally making stuff up about Obama.
Cindy McCain, who has barely moved her lips during this campaign, is now accusing the Obama campaign of running the dirtiest campaign ever, and lighting up the New York Times and others for their viciousness. Never mind what's happening in her own backyard with all of the false and outlandish comments coming from her husband, his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, and their supporters.
They are now in full blame-the-media mode.
Then you have both McCain and Palin slamming Obama for essentially being a socialist. We shouldn't be surprised that it's come to this because we already had radio hosts like Lars Larson, Glenn Beck and others trying to paint Obama for months as being a Marxist. Now the junior senator from Illinois is a student of Lenin!
This has totally gotten out of hand, but instead of trying to castigate Obama and tar and feather him, the Republicans should look inward and look at how their actions have seriously harmed this nation.
The Republicans ran Congress for six years. The Republicans have held the White House for the last eight years. The Republicans have advanced the deregulation agenda that played a major role in creating the financial mess we are currently in.
The Republicans have led the foreign policy we have in place that has destroyed the moral authority we once held. Their president is one of the most unpopular in history, so bad that he and Vice President Dick Cheney can't even come out of the White House to campaign on behalf of McCain because they are so reviled by Americans.
Can someone please remind these folks of this?
Every campaign says they want the election to be about the issues, but when McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis made it clear that they want it to be about character and not issues, well, we should have realized we would get to this point.
That's why we're hearing so much about Bill Ayers. That's why they've spent more time blasting out statements about ACORN than real policy points.
It's pretty sad, really. It's sad that instead of making it about a vision for America, they want it to be about the castigating of a good man. It's sad that McCain can't fully articulate an economic plan that encompasses all Americans, instead of redistributing income upwards to the super rich.
It's sad that his only answer to the economy is tax cuts, when we need a much broader answer.
Much can happen over the next 13 days. I've seen campaigns won and lost with less time on the clock.
McCain will continue to throw jabs, swinging wildly, ignoring the game plan he came into the fight with, hoping something -- anything -- connects against the jaw of his younger, more fluid opponent. And like any aging fighter, as the rounds tick away, he could get even more desperate and fearful. So hold on to your seats. Lord knows what will come out of the GOP side over the next 13 days.
Palin takes heat for saying VP 'in charge' of the Senate
Watch Palin's comments on KUSA Wednesday.
(CNN) – Sarah Palin is taking heat Wednesday for appearing to overstate the role of vice president, saying in a recent interview that she would be "in charge of the Senate" should John McCain win the White House.
The comments came in an interview with Colorado TV station KUSA in response to a third-grader's question, "What does the Vice President do?”
"[T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom," she said.
The comments have drawn criticism from Democrats and liberal blogs which note the actual role of the vice president when it comes to the Senate is simply to cast a tie-breaking vote in the event of a stalemate. According to Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the vice president is the "President" of the Senate, but has no executive position when it comes to presiding over the chamber.
Donald Ritchie, a historian in the Senate Historical Office told CNN that Palin's comment was an "overstatement" of what her role would be.
"The vice president is the ceremonial officer of the Senate and has certain ceremonial functions including swearing in new senators and can vote to break a tie," he said. "It’s a relatively limited role. It's evolved into a neutral presiding officer of the Senate.
Ritchie also noted recent vice presidents have played a behind-the-scenes lobbying role on Capitol Hill for an administration's policies, but called it "somewhat limited."
"It's not comparable to the Speaker of the House who is certainly in charge of the House," he said. "The slogan that political scientists use is that the House is ruled by the chair and the Senate is ruled by the floor…the senators are in charge of the Senate."
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Palin, said the Alaska governor was simply answering the question in a way a third-grader could understand.
"Governor Palin was responding to a third grader's inquiry," she said. "She was explaining in terms a third-grader could understand that the vice-president is also president of the U.S. Senate."
In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden also said he hoped to play an influential role in the legislative branch if Barack Obama wins the White House.
"I hope one of my roles as vice president will be as the person actually implementing Barack Obama's policy. You gotta get the Congress to go along with it," he said. "And it's presumptuous to say, but I know it pretty well. And I think I am fairly respected on both sides of the aisle."
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The actress we saw walk by in the gold coast
Aimee Garcia (born November 28, 1978) is an American actress.
Garcia was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was to appear in the Global Frequency television series as Aleph, but only a television pilot was produced, and it was not picked up. She had a role on Cadet Kelly. In 2006, she appeared on The George Lopez Show as George Lopez's spoiled niece. She was only supposed to be appear in four episodes, but because of the popularity of the character, she was picked up by the sitcom for its final season, replacing the departed Masiela Lusha. She also co-starred alongside Anthony Anderson in the TV series All About the Andersons, where she played the energetic Latina med-student Lydia. She is set to star alongside actress/singer Jessica Simpson in the upcoming comedy/drama Major Movie Star set for release in late 2008. She also played a brief part in the movie Dragon Wars (also known as D - Wars) as the best friend of the lead female protagonist Amanda Brooks. The role was a momentary turn around for Aimee, who had usually starred in movies aimed at younger audiences, as in the film Cadet Kelly. She appears with Hilary Duff for only a few moments of the
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
New York Times calls McCain campaign ‘appalling’
"Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember," the Tuesday editorial said. "They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison."
Those comments come two weeks after senior McCain advisors derided the New York Times, calling the news outlet "an Obama advocacy organization" in response to an article in the paper that reported McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was still profiting from failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
The Times, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said then, “obscures its true intentions — to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama — under the cloak of objective journalism.”
Top McCain adviser Steve Schmidt also weighed in on the paper that endorsed McCain's primary bid, saying it is “150 percent in the tank” for Obama — a statement that drew a defiant response from managing editor Bill Keller, who said the paper is "is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively."
The McCain campaign appeared to make its peace with the paper over the weekend, when aides to the Arizona senator and Palin herself both highlighted a Times story that investigated the relationship between Obama and 1960's radical William Ayers. That article, published October 3, concluded Obama has played down the extent of his relationship with the Weather Underground founder, but concludes the two "do not appear to have been close."
But in its blistering editorial Wednesday, the paper's editors criticized the campaign and the Alaska governor for suggesting Obama is "palling around with terrorists," saying that Palin is implying that "Mr. Obama is right now a close friend of Mr. Ayers — and sympathetic to the violent overthrow of the government."
“We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics," the editorial says.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Palin defends what she said about Biden.
(CNN) – Sarah Palin said she was not taking a jab at Joe Biden's age or lengthy stint in Washington when recently joking she had been listening to the Delaware senator's speeches since the second grade.
"Oh no, it's nothing negative at all," Palin told Katie Couric Monday in the latest installment of her Monday interview with the CBS anchor. "He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years."
The original comments came at an Ohio rally Monday, when Palin told the cheering crowd, "I'm looking forward to meeting [Biden] too, I've never met him before — but I've been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in, like the second grade."
Watch: Palin goes after Biden
Some political observers found that comment peculiar, given her own running mate is the oldest man ever to seek a first presidential term. But Palin said she was merely contrasting the differences she sees between herself and Biden.
"He's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many, many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years," she said.
Palin was 8 years-old when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972. (Biden was 29 at that time)
Filed under: Joe Biden • Sarah Palin
Friday, September 26, 2008
New Details on How Travis Barker and DJ AM Survived Plane Crash
Originally posted Tuesday September 23, 2008 12:15 PM EDT
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
McCain suspends campaign for 'historic' crisis
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the "historic" crisis facing the U.S. economy.
McCain said it was time for both parties to come together to solve economic crisis.
The Arizona senator called on his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to do the same. He also urged organizers of Friday's presidential debate at the University of Mississippi to postpone the event.
"I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself," McCain told reporters in New York. "It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem."
There was no immediate response from the Obama campaign.
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were in New York to meet with world leaders at the United Nations. They had met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
"Senator, governor, I'm really honored to be here with you. I know you have a very important campaign to run," Saakashvili said. "Overall, I have to say I greatly appreciate the solidarity we felt from the American people."
Earlier, Palin met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
Obama on Wednesday lashed out at the Bush administration and his opponent on the handling of the crisis on Wall Street as well as the $700 billion bailout plan by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
Don't Miss
Congress and the White House are trying to negotiate the details of what would be the most sweeping economic intervention by the government since the Great Depression. Bush has asked Congress to act quickly on the bailout proposal following news of failing financial institutions and frozen credit markets.
"The clock is ticking on this crisis. We have to act swiftly, but we also have to get it right," Obama said in Dunedin, Florida. "And that means everyone -- Republicans and Democrats, and the White House and Congress -- must work together to come up with a solution that protects American taxpayers and our economy without rewarding those whose greed helped get us into this problem in the first place."
Obama said it's unacceptable to expect the American people to "hand this administration or any administration a $700 billion check with no conditions and no oversight when a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess."
He said struggling homeowners must be taken care of in any economic recovery plan -- and that taxpayers should "not be spending one dime to reward the same Wall Street CEOs whose greed and irresponsibility got us into this mess." Read more on both candidates' recovery plans
He also hit McCain for switching from his stance as an advocate for market deregulation to a strong supporter of regulation since the Wall Street crisis became front-page news.
"He's suddenly a hard-charging populist," Obama said. "And that's all well and good, but I sure wish he was talking the same way over a year ago, when I introduced a bill that would've helped stop the multimillion-dollar bonus packages that CEOs grab on their way out the door."
McCain's bombshell comes as a new CNN "poll of polls" out of Virginia on Wednesday shows McCain with the slimmest of leads in a state that traditionally has been a safe bet for Republicans.
The latest polls could be a warning sign for McCain that he still has work to do to lock down certain states where previous GOP nominees had to spend little time or effort doing so.
In the new poll of polls, McCain holds a 1 percentage point lead over Obama (47 percent to 46 percent) in Virginia, while 7 percent remain undecided.
What Happens When We Die?
By M.J. STEPHEYTue Sep 23, 6:40 PM ET
A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.
ADVERTISEMENT |
What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people's claims of "near-death" experience?
When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about 10 sec., brain activity ceases - as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, Are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they're able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn't functioning.
How does this project relate to society's perception of death?
People commonly perceive death as being a moment - you're either dead or you're alive. And that's a social definition we have. But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone's pupil, it's to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem, and that's the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn't work, then that means that the brain itself isn't working. At that point, I'll call a nurse into the room so I can certify that this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn't survive after that.
How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?
Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now - who knows if they'll ever make it to the market - that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you've given a patient, whose heart has just stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.
But what is happening to the individual at that time? What's really going on? Because there is a lack of blood flow, the cells go into a kind of a frenzy to keep themselves alive. And within about 5 min. or so they start to damage or change. After an hour or so the damage is so great that even if we restart the heart again and pump blood, the person can no longer be viable, because the cells have just been changed too much. And then the cells continue to change so that within a couple of days the body actually decomposes. So it's not a moment; it's a process that actually begins when the heart stops and culminates in the complete loss of the body, the decompositions of all the cells. However, ultimately what matters is, What's going on to a person's mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 sec., the first 2 min.? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after 10 min., after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don't know.
What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?
Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.
Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?
Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment - you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy - even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.
Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the Big Bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?
What Happens When We Die?
By M.J. STEPHEYTue Sep 23, 6:40 PM ET
A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.
| ADVERTISEMENT |
What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people's claims of "near-death" experience?
When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about 10 sec., brain activity ceases - as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, Are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they're able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn't functioning.
How does this project relate to society's perception of death?
People commonly perceive death as being a moment - you're either dead or you're alive. And that's a social definition we have. But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone's pupil, it's to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem, and that's the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn't work, then that means that the brain itself isn't working. At that point, I'll call a nurse into the room so I can certify that this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn't survive after that.
How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?
Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now - who knows if they'll ever make it to the market - that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you've given a patient, whose heart has just stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.
But what is happening to the individual at that time? What's really going on? Because there is a lack of blood flow, the cells go into a kind of a frenzy to keep themselves alive. And within about 5 min. or so they start to damage or change. After an hour or so the damage is so great that even if we restart the heart again and pump blood, the person can no longer be viable, because the cells have just been changed too much. And then the cells continue to change so that within a couple of days the body actually decomposes. So it's not a moment; it's a process that actually begins when the heart stops and culminates in the complete loss of the body, the decompositions of all the cells. However, ultimately what matters is, What's going on to a person's mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 sec., the first 2 min.? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after 10 min., after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don't know.
What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?
Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.
Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?
Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment - you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy - even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.
Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the Big Bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?
Posts
