Vaccine Delays.

Washington, DC — Southwest Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt, a member of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee overseeing public health and pandemic preparedness, delivered the following opening statement during a hearing on H1N1 vaccine production and distribution:

"Mr. Chairman, thank you to you and Chairman Stupak for holding this hearing. This is an important topic obviously and one that we should be concerned about. I’ve been extremely concerned with the vaccine distribution process and the misleading over-estimates of vaccine availability.

"I believe Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the full committee, said in his opening statement that the administration’s hopes were not met. Well, apparently hope does not get the job done here.

"In addition to their hopes not being met, I think it’s outrageous that suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and people who work on Wall Street were apparently slated for access to the vaccine ahead of people health care professionals told us were in danger.

"Since October, 43 million vaccines have been made available, but this falls far short of the 159 million people considered to be at high risk of complications from H1N1. It also falls short of the government’s original projection that 120 million vaccines would be available by mid-October. In fact, just last week, the government was still estimating that eight million vaccines were going to be shipped, when only five million were released. I don’t know how we can be this far into this process and still be forty percent off in our one-week estimate. I’ll be interested to hear the answers to those questions.

"In Missouri alone, there have been more than 60 school closings since the beginning of the school year. Last year during this same period, there were none. Since October 4th, approximately 21,700 people in Missouri have had possible cases of H1N1 flu. During the first six weeks of last year’s flu season, there were only 28 cases of all kinds of flu. And sadly, last week in Missouri, the eighth person died from complications of H1N1.

"I want to know, and the people I work for want to know, who knew there would be this kind of problem with vaccine delivery and how long ago did they know it?"

Cash for Clunkers? Nope—Cash for Caulkers

by Sabrina Shankman, ProPublica

The most visible success of the stimulus program so far, writes David Leonhardt of The New York Times, was the Cash for Clunkers program, which induced a car sales boom at the most unlikely of times. Now White House officials are looking to create a similar boom elsewhere in the economy, this time by looking at home weatherization. There are two similar "Cash for Caulkers" proposals floating right now—one from venture capitalist John Doerr and one from former President Bill Clinton—which would offer cash incentives to cover about half of home weatherization projects. But, Leonhardt writes, many homeowners could already save money by weatherizing their homes, so it’s hard to say whether the program could hope to gain as much popularity as its clunker counterpart.

It’s not easy being the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, writes Alec MacGillis of The Washington Post. The more transparent the board is, the more outrage it induces over stimulus reporting errors. At this point, MacGillis writes, the administration’s decision to frame the stimulus package as a job-creating initiative, and to try to account for dollars spent by reporting jobs created, may have been a strategic mistake. "Finding flaws in the data is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, and reporters have been all too happy to fire away," MacGillis writes. "First reporting the numbers with fanfare when they are announced, despite their obvious shortcomings, and then, days or weeks later, reporting that they are not entirely sound."

Companies planning a wind farm in Texas have said they’ll build a U.S. plant to make the turbines, reports USA Today. The announcement comes after the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University reported on stimulus money going to foreign wind farms, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., raised a stink about it. Schumer has asked the Obama administration to block stimulus funds from going to the Texas farm unless its turbines are made in the United States.

And finally, the federal Office of Management and Budget reports that more than $98 billion spent by government agencies was wasted in fiscal year 2009. The waste—up $26 billion from the previous year—was mostly from questionable claims for tax credits, unemployment insurance and Medicare benefits. So what, you may be asking, does this have to do with the stimulus? While the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board has amassed hundreds of thousands of reports from stimulus recipients about money spent and jobs created, it’s not tracking the types of waste that OMB’s report found. And let’s face it, with nearly $800 billion in stimulus spending on the way, there’s bound to be a certain amount of waste.

Happened to catch a portion of a series on the history of firearms. As is the case with a lot a things I suppose, the machines needed to make precision parts for guns were modified from time to time to produce other products. Bicycles, sewing machines, typewriters and the such were usually manufactured near firearms facilities.

Followin’ the story made me think of current times and the development of all sorts of products that came from the space race. A lot of discoveries led to ever’day products that we now take for granted. Tang for one. ‘Course a lot of the computer technology was driven by the needs of things ta be small and affordable. I’ll prob’ly never ride a space craft, or for that matter ever take another swig of that fake orange drink.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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artCentral

ART NOTES from Hyde House

by Sally Armstrong, Director of artCentral

Christmas is in the air here at the Hyde House, as our official season will begin this weekend with the opening of the annual holiday show. I do not use the word "holiday" in the Politically Correct vernacular, but in place of the words " Thanksgiving" and "Christmas", as this show will be up during Thanksgiving, and is over just prior to Christmas. My decorating must be done early for this reason, and those attending the reception this Friday night will be treated to holiday fare and "cheer"! I am so excited to tell you that we have almost twice the number of paintings and works here than for a normal show, as we are featuring two fine artists in both Theresa Rankin and April Davis, and want to present to you the best work for sale by both. All work exhibited will be for sale, and we have every price point represented! I said last year, and it is even more true this year, that a great gift for members of a family on you gift list would be a work of art that they ALL could enjoy, and that could be passed down for many years. Besides the oil paintings we are showing by Theresa Rankin, as I discussed last week, we will have both oil paintings AND ceramic sculpture work by April Davis on display. April is well known to all as a daughter of local artist Lowell Davis, and she certainly displays much of his talent and style. A sculptor and painter, she was born in Texas and returned to Missouri after her father did, to raise her own family at Red Oak II. She began her art a bit later, encouraged by her father to sculpt small floral and nature pieces, selling them commercially for reproduction. That has led to larger and more elaborate pieces, as well as sculpting and the throwing of raku clay, and the start of a fine oil painting career as well. She has shown for several years at the Midwest Gathering of the Artists as well as in other venues, and her butterfly paintings are in the permanent art collection at McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital. Most recent of her awards was first place at the Thomas Hart Benton competition at Crowder College in Neosho. Come out Friday and see both April and Theresa and view their beautiful work, and remember that this exhibition will be in the gallery weekends until December 6th.