Church and State blog: New York State home page

Monday, January 05, 2009

New York State home page

The last week of December we spent indoors with a couple of hundred rough sleepers and a lot of volunteers in an annual Christmas project run by Crisis. So for a week no cleaner could hose us out of our sleeping pitch (see blog of 8 December “Hosed out of our sleeping pitch”), and no employee could tell us to stay away until 1.00am due to there being a “function” (see, for example, blog of 5 December “On red alert”). Still, yesterday Declan decided it was better if we left the Catholic Manna Centre at 10.15am after a homeless guy sat provocatively in his chair, beside our bags (see, for example, blog of 19 June “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”) – on Saturday, a homeless guy sat in my chair during lunch shouting, among other things, “Jesus is my savoir”.

And this evening, while at a computer in our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel library, I was pushed quite hard by a guy after I refused to let him borrow my USB drive – we often run into trouble in this library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see blog of 13 October “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”).

For the last week I have been working on law and policy in New York State for our website in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (for more about the campaign website see blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?”). In fact, I have now finalised the content of my New York State home page, a snag of which is presented below in a page from the Greenpeace International website. As soon as I have the few New York State snags done, I will quickly build a website loosely based on Greenpeace International and Greenpeace UK which I will then upload to a free hosting service. This snag cannot be read so below it I have transcribed the content. (The blog of 18 November, “Our sleeping pitch is soaked”, includes a snag of a page from the NAC website suspended on 8 March.)

New York State home page

The caption of the picture reads: Mike Discipio, who was made a quadriplegic in a swimming accident and lives in the town of Colonie. Discipio came to the Capitol in 2005 to support state legislation for human embryonic stem cell research.

The navigation menu of New York State under Law and Policy in the USA: Empire State Stem Cell Board; Advocacy efforts; New York State Catholic Conference.

And the main text:

NEW YORK STATE

On 1 April 2007, the New York State Legislature passed a budget measure that provides $600 million over 11 years to fund stem cell research. The state earmarked $100 million for fiscal year 2008, and $500 million at $50 million per year for ten years beginning in fiscal year 2009. With this funding, New York's investment in stem cell science is surpassed only by the state of California.

The initiative is administered by the Department of Health through the New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM) program under the direction of the Empire State Stem Cell (ESSC) Board which is comprised of two committees: a funding and ethics committee.

The agreed-upon Enacted Budget sets a broad definition for stem cells as "stem or progenitor cells that divide and are capable of generating one or more different types of progeny". This includes human embryonic stem cells and umbilical cord cells in addition to adult stem cells. While the bill excludes funding for stem cell research for human reproductive cloning, it makes no stipulation against funding for therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

For a number of years, and spurred by the 2004 passage of Proposition 71 in California – authorising the state to spend up to $3 billion in stem cell research over ten years – NYS legislators had been trying to pass a funding initiative for stem cell research. They succeeded in 2007 thanks to the support of former Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer. Elected in 2006, Spitzer originally proposed a $2.1 billion Stem Cell and Innovation Fund program.

The University of Rochester (UR) played major roles in the events leading up to the 2007 legislation, both in advocacy and in crafting the provisions and scientific language contained in the bill. UR President Joel Seligman spearheaded the advocacy efforts of University Presidents and Chancellors, working with UR scientists and governmental relations staff to write a key White Paper entitled "New York and Stem Cell Research: A Scientific, Therapeutic, Economic, and Policy Analysis", released on 6 February 2006.

Critical to the advocacy efforts was New Yorkers for the Advancement of Medical Research (NYAMR), a coalition of patient advocacy groups, faith-affiliated organisations, medical colleges and biotechnology companies that have a shared interest in encouraging and funding embryonic stem cell research in New York State. This 46-member coalition includes the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Hadassah, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, the Michael J Fox Foundation, the Biotechnology Association of New York, and numerous other stakeholders.

According to the website of the New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the Catholic bishops of New York State in matters of public policy, the state funding of human embryonic stem cell research and SCNT "is both fiscally irresponsible and morally indefensible". The Conference views such research as "an alarming assault on the dignity and value of human life", and supports legislation at both the state and federal levels to prohibit it. Approximately 10 percent of health care services statewide are provided by the state's 30 Catholic-sponsored hospitals and their 172 related clinics; 54 nursing homes; and 22 Catholic-sponsored home care agencies and long-term home health care programs.

The majority of New Yorkers support embryonic stem cell research, as demonstrated by a 2006 Zogby International poll which found that 84 percent of New Yorkers support embryonic stem cell research. Nearly 70 percent of those polled expressed support for state funding as a way of countering former President George W Bush's policy restricting federal funding to research that only uses human embryonic stem cell lines in existence as of 9 August 2001.

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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