The BBC is reporting on Stem cell therapy for eye disease:

UK scientists are attempting to restore vision in people with a leading cause of blindness using stem cells.

The team has already repaired the vision of a handful of patients with age-related macular degeneration using cells from the patients’ own eyes.

…

A £4m donation from a US benefactor who wishes to be remain anonymous has enabled the teams to set up the London Project to Cure AMD with the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology.

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Dr. Jeff Masters, the Weather Underground’s hurricane guru interrupted his vacation: Severe Cyclone Gonu Prepares to Strike the Gulf of Oman

An unusual event is happening over the next 48 hours, as the first tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds, and major hurricane-force winds at that, is approaching the Gulf of Oman, to strike the eastern coast of Oman, curve northward, and make landfall on the coast of Iran. In the tropical cyclone best tracks and the modern era of weather satellites, there is no record of such an occurrence.

Oman is going to experience something it has never known, a hurricane. Almost everyone lives on the coastal plain, and if they haven’t evacuated to higher ground they are probably going to be underwater from the storm surge.

Jeff has a couple of people helping out, and the post is filled with pictures and graphics to demonstrate a disaster in the making. Almost everyone in the area lives on the equivalent of a barrier island, barely above high tide, and there are few roads out.

It is past the time when the Shrubbery needs to just STFU before he starts a war with Russia.

Putin knows that some leaders are idiots, he served under Brezhnev and Yeltsin, but there is a limit to his patience and he is at the end of his term. Putin doesn’t act like a “tough guy”; he is one. He was a KGB officer who worked in East Germany and other places. It doesn’t bother him to use force.

The BBC reports that Bush seeks to calm Russian fears:

US President George W Bush has said Russia has nothing to fear from a missile defence system to be built by the US, partly in eastern Europe.

Mr Bush said the Cold War was over and Russia was not an enemy of the US.

But, they also report that Bush criticises Russia on reform:

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The fine folks at Crooks and Liars have two video segments on Olbermann’s report: The Nexus Of Politics And Terror.

The timing of the announcements and arrests in these amateur “terrorist plots” is blatantly political. It is nothing more than a variation on the DHS color wheel from the Shrubbery’s first term. They won’t call the white supremacists and “Pro-Life” murderers and bombers terrorists, but the Animal Liberation Front, Earth First, and anyone who’s brown are so labeled.

I have no fondness for idiots who burn things in the name of the environment, because it is stupid – like the by-products of their fires don’t increase global warming. Nor do I appreciate people who “liberate” domesticated animals, so they can “die free” in a very short time because they don’t know how to live in the wild. Such people need to be prosecuted for their crimes, but they aren’t causing widespread panic.

I admit that I’m always suspicious when an “informant” is involved in an FBI arrest. My experience has always been that such people tend to be bigger criminals than those who are informed on. Talking about doing something that you obviously lack the ability to do, is not much of a threat.

Ahead of the Organization of American States meeting Secretary of State Rice Protests Venezuelan TV Closure to the Venezuelan foreign minister.

First off, let’s be clear exactly what Hugo Chavez did: he refused to renew the broadcast license for the RCTV network. He didn’t arrest the owners, padlock the building, blow up the transmitter; he refused to renew their 20-year license to broadcast over the frequencies designated for television.

The Center for Media and Democracy has a round-up of what’s been written on the issue: What’s Fair in Coverage of RCTV Shutdown?.

That includes an opinion piece by Bart Jones, who was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Venezuela, for the Los Angeles Times: Hugo Chavez versus RCTV

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