The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters finds Santorum with 39% support to the former Massachusetts governor’s 27%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich follows from a distance with 15% of the vote, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul runs last with 10%. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate in the race, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Perhaps more tellingly, Santorum now trounces Romney 55% to 34% in a one-on-one matchup among likely GOP primary voters.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum continues to ride his polling momentum into Ohio where he leads Mitt Romney by nearly two-to-one in the first Rasmussen Reports survey of Republicans in the state.

The new statewide telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary voters shows Santorum picking up 42% of the vote to Romney’s 24%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich draws 13% support, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul picks up 10%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

… Santorum leads Romney by an even bigger margin – 58% to 30% – when the race is down to a one-on-one matchup in Ohio.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending February 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 348,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 361,000. The 4-week moving average was 365,250, a decrease of 1,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 367,000.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 361,928 in the week ending February 11, a decrease of 39,328 from the previous week. There were 424,400 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.

The numbers, he says, indicate that fewer construction workers and others lost their jobs because the weather was good. In fact, he says, only 206,000 people were unable to work because of the weather last month, compared with an average of 425,000 the previous five Januarys, according to the BLS household survey.

“You have to look at these numbers with a grain of salt,†says Mr. Brown. “If this hiring continues in February, March, and April, that would be really something.â€

Feb 15, 2012 / 03:56 am

With pro-life ethics and a patient-driven paradigm, the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute hopes to save lives and shape the future of medicine.

“Medical research is becoming too expensive and taking too long. It’s not transformative enough, or impacting patients at a fast enough rate,†institute founder and director Dr. Alan Moy told CNA on Feb. 10, explaining the motivation behind his ambitious “Collection For Cures†project.

“It’s more than just doing ethical research. We had to come up with a new paradigm,†Moy said of his institute’s focus on patients and their immediate needs.

Both the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic bishops of Iowa are backing the “Collection For Cures,†which aims to raise $10 million for research into rare diseases, regenerative medicine, and personalized cancer treatments.

After he founded the adult stem cell provider Cellular Engineering Technologies in 2005, Moy became aware of key research areas neglected by both the government and the marketplace. He saw the need for a nonprofit enterprise that could fill these scientific and technological gaps.

In 2006, Moy established the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute in Iowa City, as a grassroots effort of Catholic laity and others concerned with the future of ethical biotechnology.

“The goal of the institute is to identify and solve some of the major deficiencies in this country – one of which is the ethical issues surrounding embryonic stem cells,†he noted.

In addition to its pro-life ethical basis, Moy’s work stands out in the field for other reasons.

Another distinguishing mark is his interest in treating and curing “orphan diseases.†The term denotes thousands of serious but rare ailments that fail to attract research dollars, because of the relatively small number of sufferers.

Many of these rare diseases may be treatable with existing FDA-approved drugs. But drug companies have little commercial incentive to discover these applications, particularly when extensive regulatory burdens are factored in to the equation.

Moy, however, wants to use disease-specific, non-embryonic stem cell lines to test the effect of existing drugs and therapies on these unusual ailments. The method saves both money and time over research protocols that would involve testing on animals before moving on to human tissue.

This approach streamlines the research process, often using patients’ own cells to investigate possible cures and treatments. In 2010, the National Institutes of Health reported progress toward treatment of the fatal disease Niemann-Pick Type C, based on work with cells from the institute.

Along with its work on “orphan diseases,†the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute is also using adult cells to investigate new methods of cancer treatment, and ethical forms of the regenerative possibilities more often associated with stem cell research. …

Before going on an extended West Coast fundraising spree, the president was visiting Master Lock, a Milwaukee maker of padlocks that was cited in his State of the Union address for bringing back 100 jobs to the U.S. from China in response to higher labor and logistical costs in Asia.

President George W. Bush kept the cost of the wars out of his budgets, a contentious accounting maneuver that may have papered over the impact on spending projections but deepened the national debt as surely as if the price tag had been shown transparently. Taken together, the Bush and Obama budget tricks seem to suggest war costs nothing but ending it frees a ton of money.

While the vandals are on the street corners, the Tea Party conservatives, they’re working state houses, the governorships, the mayorships, the Senate, the House. See, they understand, they’ve read the Constitution. If you want to make a difference, don’t go break windows, okay? Break some phony arguments that things like austerity are going to put you in the hole. What put you in the hole is borrowing 38 cents of every dollar you spent. That’s what put you in the hole, pure and simple. Everything else is political spin.

Thomas skipped a White House visit, which was a mandatory team event.

… Skipping the mandatory team event could have prompted Chiarelli to fine or suspend him.

8:18 PM, Feb. 14, 2012

Single-engine aircraft runs out of fuel in north Miss

Injured and disoriented, a pilot was trapped upside down in his crashed airplane for several hours Tuesday but was able to make calls on his cellphone while rescuers searched the north Mississippi woods where he went down, authorities said after finding the man alive.

Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell said the pilot, who has not been identified, was taken to a hospital for treatment after crashing his single-engine Piper Cherokee Six when the plane ran out of fuel and went down near the border of Itawamba and Monroe counties. The pilot’s condition was not immediately available. He was the only person aboard.

“We got him out. He was living. He was shook up and cut up real bad, but he was coherent. What he’s been through, it was a miracle,” Cantrell said. “We don’t know his name. We tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t really say much.” The sheriff said the man appeared to be between 40 and 50 years old.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the plane was about 18 miles southeast of Tupelo when the pilot reported a problem Tuesday morning. Bergen said an alert was sent to airports and authorities within a 50-mile radius of the plane’s last known location at about 7:45 a.m.

Bergen said she couldn’t say what kind of problem the pilot reported, but local authorities said he told air traffic controllers he was running out of gas while flying from Ocala, Fla., to Olive Branch. The plane is registered to Buccaneer Aviation Inc., a Delaware corporation, but the company appears to operate in Florida.

The pilot tried to give air traffic controllers his location before going down, the sheriff said. Residents in the area reported seeing a plane that appeared to be going down into the woods. Firefighters, law enforcement officers and others from Itawamba, Lee and Monroe counties joined in the search.

Cantrell said the pilot called someone on his cellphone and authorities used “pings” from cellular towers in the area to help narrow their search. Two Army National Guard UH-72 Lakota helicopters joined the search.

One of the helicopters spotted the wreckage about 12:40 p.m., said Guard spokesman Timothy Powell. …