CNN's Crossfire Revival Might Be the Worst Idea Ever

Back to the future is a clich?, but how else can you describe CNN?s decision to revive Crossfire?

I?ve been trying to decide whether this is the worst idea ever, or merely meh. Since the program was canceled in January 2005, we?ve gotten Crossfired to the max ? but indirectly, with the different sides shouting across the political chasm from different networks. For what are Fox News and MSNBC if not the institutional equivalents of Pat Buchanan, Mary Matalin, John Sununu and Tucker Carlson on the right, and Michael Kinsley, Bill Press, Geraldine Ferraro and Paul Begala on the left?

You can?t blame CNN for wanting to get a piece of the ratings action, especially since it pioneered the art of the ideological shouting match. The zeitgeist has not only caught up to Crossfire but scaled new heights of insults and insularity. Still, in a way it would be constructive to have both sides on the same set. Viewers would hear opposing arguments colliding in real time ? an improvement on the polarizing effect of Fox and MSNBC, which serve mostly to reinforce what their audiences already believe.

Of course, it all depends on the quality of those arguments. CNN viewers who like news, information and civility could be turned off if the new Crossfire gets too obstreperous. In that respect, MSNBC and Fox News are not good role models.

It wasn?t always like this. Once upon a time, there was Point/Counterpoint on CBS?s 60 Minutes, a quaint three-minute segment during which columnists Jack Kilpatrick (?Now see here, Shana?) and Shana Alexander (?Oh, come on, Jack?) each spoke their piece. That devolved into Saturday Night Live?s parody version between Dan Ackroyd (?Jane, you ignorant slut?) and Jane Curtin (?Dan, you pompous ass?).

The reality has come weirdly close to the parody. Take, for instance, The Chris Matthews Show on Jan. 23, the day the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned then-secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Benghazi tragedy. Matthews called Republicans on the committee ?clowns? and said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson had given ?a pissant performance.? He went on, ?I don`t know how these guys get over the wall into American politics.?

?He proved that he?s very simple. He`s a simpleton,? Salon editor Joan Walsh said of Johnson, before moving on to call Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul ?delusional.? When Howard Fineman of The Huffington Post objected to calling senators ?clowns or pissants,? Matthews replied: ?Sometimes those words are appropriate.?

Now over to Fox News, home of former host E.D. Hill?s unforgettable (and completely off-base) reference to the Obamas? supposed ?terrorist fist jab? during the 2008 campaign. The network also became a ?birther? venue for Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and others who liked to fan the flames of suspicion and conspiracy about where Obama was born. Fox guests repeatedly claimed that Obama had not produced a birth certificate from Hawaii. Even though he had.

Glenn Beck?s greatest hit at Fox was probably when he said Obama had ?exposed himself as a guy -- over and over and over again -- who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture.? Palin had her own highlights reel, including her description of Obama?s 2011 State of the Union speech as rife with ?WTF moments.?

CNN might want to consider a different direction. After all, Crossfire did get canceled at least in part because of a Jon Stewart broadside against its supercharged verbal warfare. As a guest on the show in October 2004, he challenged its whole premise. ?Why do you argue, the two of you? I hate to see it,? he told Begala and Carlson. He called the program damaging ?partisan hackery.? ?Stop hurting America!? he urged. By January the show was gone.

It would be fitting if CNN launched a high-minded reprise of Crossfire with an all-Comedy Central cast. Enlist Stewart as the liberal, facing off against Stephen Colbert in full character as a conservative foil. Well, that?s not quite fair to conservatives, since Colbert is a pretender. Perhaps Fox contributor Dennis Miller? But of course, he?s the guy who once calledBarney Frank ?Nancy Pelosi with a spittle problem?and displayed typical sensitivity regarding France?s decision to ban burqas, or ?pup tents,? in his phrase. His verdict:?I?m not sure you want to see some of these gals outside the burqa.?

So you see the problem. It?s complicated. Good night, CNN, and good luck.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cnns-crossfire-revival-might-worst-idea-ever-030003365--politics.html

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H7N9 Bird Flu Update: 21 Infected, 6 Dead

Apr 8, 2013 12:32pm

A health worker prepares to take swab samples from ducks at Meijiang poultry wholesale market, April 8, 2013, in Changde, China. (Credit: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

Three new cases of the new bird flu strain, H7N9, have been reported in China, bringing the total number of cases to 21, according to the World Health Organization. Six of those who were infected have died, but no new deaths have been reported since Friday.

The new patients include a 59-syear-old Shanghai man who is in critical condition, and a 55-year-old Anhui?man who is in stable condition. Another new patient, a 67-year-old Shanghai?man, has a mild case, according to the WHO.

?They?ve already seen some changes that allow it to survive in people,? ABC News chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser told? ?Good Morning America.?? ?The big concern is could this become the next pandemic strain??

More than 530 close contacts of the H7N9 patients? have been monitored, according to the WHO.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already working on a vaccine, using the virus?s genetic code? rather than the virus itself ? a first for the agency, according to Nancy Cox, head of the CDC?s influenza division.

Although H7N9 is more easily transmittable from birds to humans than the original bird flu strain, H1N1, Cox said she expects to see limited human-to-human transmission.

Since H7N9 is not as deadly to birds as it is to humans, it will be harder to track because there won?t be large bird kill-offs, Cox said.

?That?s very concerning because you can?t tell where it is without testing the birds directly,? Besser said.

On Friday, a Shanghai market where the virus was detected in pigeons halted live bird sales and slaughtered all poultry, amounting to more than 20,500 chickens, ducks, geese and pigeons, according to China?s? Xinhua News Agency.

?The key to controlling the number of H7N9 patients depends on whether the virus can spread among human beings,? said Wu Fan, director of the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and? Prevention, at a news conference last Friday, according to Xinhua. ?So far we haven?t found any cases that show this kind of virus can spread from people to people.?

SHOWS: World News

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/04/08/h7n9-bird-flu-update-21-infected-6-dead/

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UN: Chemical investigators ready to go to Syria

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? U.N. experts are poised to move into Syria within 24 hours to investigate reported chemical weapons attacks in the country's civil war, but President Bashar Assad's government still has not given them the green light to enter the country, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

Ban told reporters in The Hague that an advance team is already waiting at a final staging post on Cyprus, while the U.N. negotiates "technical and legal" issues with Damascus.

All reports of chemical attacks "should be examined without delay, without conditions and without exceptions," Ban said.

His comments appeared aimed at increasing pressure on Assad's regime and ensuring that U.N. inspectors are given access to all sites of reported chemical weapons attacks and not just those Damascus wants them to see.

Ban said it is "a matter of principle" to investigate all allegations and not just a case in which Syria alleges that rebels used poison gas.

"I am hopeful we will be able to finish this as soon as possible, and I urge the Syrian government to be more flexible so this commission can be deployed as soon as possible," Ban said. "We are ready."

Syria asked the United Nations last month to investigate an alleged chemical weapons attack by rebels on March 19 on Khan al-Assal village in northern Aleppo province. The rebels blamed regime forces for the attack.

Britain and France followed up by asking the U.N. chief to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in two locations in Khan al-Assal and the village of Ataybah in the vicinity of Damascus, all on March 19, as well as in Homs on Dec. 23.

Ban was speaking at the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, which is sending a team of 15 experts to join the commission, along with World Health Organization staff.

The team is led by Ake Sellstrom, a Swedish professor who was a U.N. chemical weapons inspector in Iraq and now works at a research institute that deals with chemical incidents. Ban said he spoke to Sellstrom on Sunday night and he was now heading to join the advance party in Cyprus.

Syria is widely believed to have a large stockpile of chemical weapons, but it is one of only eight countries in the world that have not signed up to the chemical weapons convention, which means that it does not have to report any chemical weapons to the Hague-based organization that monitors compliance with the treaty.

Ban said the experts need to get to Syria as soon as possible to investigate the attacks.

"The longer we wait, the harder this essential mission will be," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-chemical-investigators-ready-syria-104632401.html

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Device keeps human liver alive outside body

Apr. 7, 2013 ? In a world first, a donated human liver has been 'kept alive' outside a human being and then successfully transplanted into a patient in need of a new liver.

So far the procedure has been performed on two patients on the liver transplant waiting list and both are making excellent recoveries.

Currently transplantation depends on preserving donor organs by putting them 'on ice' -- cooling them to slow their metabolism. But this often leads to organs becoming damaged.

The technology, developed at Oxford University and now being trialled at the liver transplant centre at King's College Hospital as part of a controlled clinical investigation, could preserve a functioning liver outside the body for 24 hours. A donated human liver connected to the device is raised to body temperature and oxygenated red blood cells are circulated through its capillaries. Once on the machine, a liver functions normally just as it would inside a human body, regaining its colour and producing bile.

The results from the first two transplants, carried out at King's College Hospital in February 2013, suggest that the device could be useful for all patients needing liver transplants. Based on pre-clinical data, the new device could also enable the preservation of livers which would otherwise be discarded as unfit for transplantation -- potentially as much as doubling the number of organs available for transplant and prolonging the maximum period of organ preservation to 24 hours.

'These first clinical cases confirm that we can support human livers outside the body, keep them alive and functioning on our machine and then, hours later, successfully transplant them into a patient,' said Professor Constantin Coussios of Oxford University's Department of Engineering Science, one of the machine's inventors and Technical Director of OrganOx, the University spin-out created to bring the device from bench to bedside.

'The device is the very first completely automated liver perfusion device of its kind: the organ is perfused with oxygenated red blood cells at normal body temperature, just as it would be inside the body, and can for example be observed making bile, which makes it an extraordinary feat of engineering.

'It was astounding to see an initially cold grey liver flushing with colour once hooked up to our machine and performing as it would within the body. What was even more amazing was to see the same liver transplanted into a patient who is now walking around.'

Professor Nigel Heaton, Consultant Liver Transplant Surgeon and Director of Transplant Surgery at King's College Hospital, said: 'Despite all the advances in modern medicine, the fundamentals of liver transplantation have not changed in decades. This is why the device is so exciting. If we can introduce technology like this into everyday practice, it could be a real, bona fide game changer for transplantation as we know it. Buying the surgeon extra time extends the options open to our patients, many of whom would otherwise die waiting for an organ to become available.'

Mr Wayel Jassem, Consultant Liver Transplant Surgeon at King's College Hospital, who performed both transplant operations, said: 'There is always huge pressure to get a donated liver to the right person within a very short space of time. For the first time, we now have a device that is designed specifically to give us extra time to test the liver, to help maximise the chances of the recipient having a successful outcome. This technology has the potential to be hugely significant, and could make more livers available for transplant, and in turn save lives.'

'Whilst for these two transplants we only needed to keep the livers alive for up to 10 hours, in other experiments we have shown we can preserve a functioning liver and monitor its function outside the body for periods up to 24 hours.Dr Jens Brockman, now a transplant surgeon in Zurich, who carried out pre-clinical studies in Oxford of successfully re-transplanted organs using this technology, said: 'The future of clinical liver transplantation depends upon whether we can find ways to transplant less-than-perfect organs reliably. It is not good enough to say that the results of transplantation are improving if we are only treating half the patients who need transplants. This technology will greatly expand the criteria for organ donation for liver transplantation and increase the number of patients that can be treated.'

Ian Christie, 62, the first person to receive a transplanted liver kept alive on the device, said: 'In May 2012, I was told I had cirrhosis of the liver and without a transplant I had an estimated 12-18 months to live. I was placed on the waiting list but I was told there was about 12-18 months to wait for a liver of my type. I was very worried it was cutting it a bit too fine and I wouldn't get a transplant.

'The waiting is horrible. Sometimes I would forget about the transplant but then I would catch sight of the bag in the corner of the room that I had packed ready to go and then I would remember. You're waiting for the phone to ring, wondering "Are they ever going to call me? Are they ever going to call me?."

'I took part in the trial because I just think it's the right thing to do. If the device can help more people in my situation in the future, it's my duty to help. I trusted that the doctors wouldn't go ahead with it unless they were absolutely sure so I knew there wasn't a risk to my transplant.

'Three days after the surgery, Mr Jassam from King's and the professors from Oxford arrived in my room with absolutely beaming smiles. They look like they are normally quite serious gentlemen so I knew it was a good sign to see them so pleased.

'I feel better than I've felt for 10-15 years, even allowing for the pain and wound that's got to heal. I'm getting better and better day by day. I just feel so alive!

'It's so easy to get carried away and become euphoric, but things can still go wrong, so I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground and take it day by day.'

Professor Coussios and Professor Peter Friend, of Oxford University's Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences and Director of the Oxford Transplant Centre, and colleagues have been researching the technology since 1994.

Professor Peter Friend said: 'Transplant surgery is a victim of its own success with far more people needing transplants than there are donor organs available. This device has the potential to change that situation radically. By enabling us to transplant many organs that are unusable with current techniques, this technology could bring benefit to a large number of patients awaiting transplants, many of whom currently die whilst still waiting.

'At present, organ transplantation depends upon cooling the organ to ice temperature to slow down its metabolism, but this does not stop it deteriorating and, if the organ is already damaged in some way, perhaps by being deprived of oxygen, then the combined effect can be disastrous. Many potential donor organs are declined as being unsuitable for this reason.

'This new technique allows us to assess how well an organ is working before having to decide whether to commit a patient to the operation. So this technology promises to quality-assure organs which would otherwise be discarded. This would increase the number of transplants without increasing the risks. It will make a real difference to what happens to patients on the waiting list without requiring any change in current donation practices.'

In 2008 the spin-out company OrganOx was formed, through the University's technology transfer firm Isis Innovation, in order to commercialise the Oxford research. OrganOx, headed by CEO Dr Les Russell, developed the device for these first clinical trials.

'In Europe and the US, around 13,000 liver transplants are undertaken each year,' said OrganOx CEO Dr Les Russell. 'However, there is a combined waiting list of around 30,000 patients and up to 25 per cent of these patients die whilst awaiting transplantation. Meanwhile, over 2000 livers are discarded annually because they are either damaged by oxygen deprivation or do not survive cold preservation due to elevated intracellular fat'.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/r_HDLmFIEGk/130407150104.htm

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Only weeks after amputation, combat vet swoops slopes with Sochi dreams

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs

Carlos Figueroa monoskis in Aspen Snowmass on Thursday as part of a VA sports clinic for disabled veterans.

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

An Iraq war veteran who yearns to snowboard next March at the Sochi Paralympics recently told a priest he would give his left leg to compete for his country. And then, he did.

Six weeks ago, retired Army Sgt. Carlos Figueroa allowed a surgeon to amputate below his left knee ? 10 years after an IED blast rendered the limb nearly useless. The decision was surprisingly simple, he said, because it sliced away a decade of mounting pain. Yet he also acknowledged: ?I did give it up because I want to get into the Paralympics.?

?When I went in, my doctor asked me: ?What?s your biggest goal?? I told him: ?Be on my board within three months.? He just said, ?Dude, most people aren?t walking within three months,? ? Figueroa recalled.?

Walking will come. What he can do ? already ? is carve down a mountain, the lone place Figueroa, 34, feels at peace: ?Up there, I?m no different from anybody. No PTSD. I?m at my happiest.? On Thursday, Figueroa beamed while manhandling an Aspen, Colo., slope atop a monoski at a sports clinic for disabled veterans. As a familiar, cool breeze brushed his face, he also dreamed?about racing in Russia.

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?My love for snowboarding is about loss, the loss of what I had in the military, where you?re used to being on the move, on patrols, on raids. That?s how I treat my races. The moment that gate drops, it?s like the door opening on a raid. I go full blast. I?m able to get something back that I felt was taken away. That rush. I love it.?

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs

"Up there, I'm no different from anybody. No PTSD. I'm at my happiest," said Carlos Figueroa of the feeling of carving down slopes.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have borne a bittersweet byproduct: scores of American Paralympic hopefuls. The Sochi Paralympics, to be held just after the 2014 Winter Games in that city, marks the inaugural Paralympic snowboarding event for disabled athletes. The U.S. men?s Paralympic snowboarding squad will consist of five members.

'Slim chance'
Figueroa (and those close to him) knows he?s the longest of long shots. His own coach, Mike Shea, estimates he took two years to, literally, make the leap from his own leg amputation to landing jumps. The raw nerve endings in an amputated limb must become desensitized to the harsh pounding. When the board hits the snow, the stump pushes into the prosthetic leg, ?sending chills up your spine,? Shea said. ?It doesn?t feel good.?

Then there?s the calendar. If Figueroa is indeed back on his board by autumn, he?ll have a limited number of sanctioned races ? beginning in January 2014 ? to rack up enough points to rank among the top five American men. And the U.S. Paralympic snowboarders, including Shea, compose the world?s deepest talent pool in that sport. The roster likely will be named in February.

?It?s a slim chance, a super, super small window,? Figueroa said, ?but we?re still going to push.?

He needs only a sliver of possibility to kindle his hope ? or better yet, someone telling him he can?t. He certainly doesn?t need two legs.

The Feb. 15 amputation came 10 years after a bomb detonated beneath his armored vehicle, ejecting him through an open roof hatch. A decade spent lugging a useless left limb (with no heel), suffering increasing back and knee pain, instantly convinced him to say ?Let?s do it,? when an orthopedic surgeon in San Diego suggested, ?Let?s cut.? He was done, he said, wasting another day ?in a bubble? due to his injury, calling the operation ?liberating.?

'Go fast and have fun'
Nobody who has heard that account is betting against Figueroa.

?With any military athlete, you can definitely see that sense of pride and determination above and beyond what you see with other athletes. Part of it is just a chance to represent their county again,? said Kevin Jardine, high performance director of Parlaympic alpine skiing and snowboarding for the U.S. Olympic Committee. ?They?re willing to sacrifice a lot.?

Added Shea, who lost his leg in a 2002 wake-boarding accident: ?Anything you tell Carlos, he?ll get it done. He always seems to find a way. He has no fear up there. He has passion. And I?ve learned from him the smiling gets you a long way in life.?

This week at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic in Aspen, organized by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Figueroa has been tempted to grab a board and shred. This is his fourth year attending. As a testament to his disregard for other people?s timelines, he couldn?t even stand on a snowboard four years ago due to his injury, yet he competed in a World Cup event for disabled snowboarders not long after that.

Until his prosthetic leg arrives, he?ll stick to monoskiing, during which he sits in a ?bucket? atop one ski, using his arms to hold smaller, balancing skis.

?The first run, I took it slow. After that, I opened it up,? Figueroa said. ?I just want to go fast and have fun.?

When the instructor noticed his raw speed, he warned Figueroa: ?You do realize if you go down, you may peel off half your face.?

Figueroa simply grinned: ?That?s alright.?

On the 10th anniversary of the war in Iraq, a special group of people in Vail, Colo., are also marking the tenth anniversary of their unique program designed to help war amputees regain independence through skiing. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports.

Related:?

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a683190/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C0A60C175898670Eonly0Eweeks0Eafter0Eamputation0Ecombat0Evet0Eswoops0Eslopes0Ewith0Esochi0Edreams0Dlite/story01.htm

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