Special Election for Dan Lackly's seat in GA-72 House District

Secretary Handel Sets Dates for Qualifying for House District 72 Special Election

Secretary of State Karen Handel announced today receipt of Governor Sonny Perdue's Writ of Election setting Tuesday, December 18 as the date for the special election to fill State House District 72 seat left vacant with the passing of State Representative Dan Lakly.

Secretary Handel set the State House District 72 candidate qualifying dates for Monday, November 19 through Wednesday, November 21. Qualifying on Monday will run from 9 am until 5:30 pm; on Tuesday from 8 am until 5:30 pm and on Wednesday from 8 am until 12 noon. Qualifying will be held in the Elections Division of the Office of Secretary of State, 1104 West Tower, 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE, Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1505. The qualifying fee is $400.00.

Advance voting will be held Monday, December 10 through Friday, December 14. The election will be held in portions of Fayette County, including Fayetteville and Peachtree City. Polls will be open from 7:00 am until 7:00 pm on Tuesday, December 18, 2007.

All citizens residing in State House District 72 who wish to vote in the special election can register to vote through Wednesday, November 21. Voter registration forms can be obtained at any county registrar's office or from the Secretary of State's website:

http://www.sos.state.ga.us/elections/voter_registration/voter_reg_app.htm.

Karen Handel was sworn in as Secretary of State in January 2007. The Secretary of State's office offers important services to our business community, our government, and our citizens. These services include an efficient and secure election process, and the regulation of corporations, securities, and professional license holders. The Office also controls the state archives and the Capitol museum.

Vote!

Swing by and drop off a book.

This Thursday we are having our books to prisoners house party.

We need your help to make this successful.

3rd District Common Agenda
Books to Prisoners House Party

What? House party to collect donations for Books to Prisoners–a Seattle-based, all-volunteer, nonprofit organization that sends (paperback only) books to prisoners in the United States.

When? Thursday November 8th.
At Jim and Deana’s house
217 Turnstone Rd.
Stockbridge, GA 30281

Swing by between 6:30 and 8:30pm to drop off books, donations, or to just say hello!
Prisoners request a variety of books. Most prisons accept paperback books only. The most popular requests are dictionaries, thesauruses, African American history and fiction, Native American studies, legal material, GED materials, and languages (particularly Spanish.) Other common requests include fiction, vocational-technical manuals, politics, anthropology, art and drawing, psychology, and health and fitness.

For more info on Books to Prisoners go to: http://www.bookstoprisoners.net/
For more info on the party or 3rd District Common Agenda call Jim at (404)791 6652 go to: http://3rddistrictcommonagenda.blogspot.com/

A Bogus Cancer Statistic

Giuliani falsely claims that only 44 percent of prostate cancer patients survive under "socialized medicine" in England.

In a new radio ad, Rudy Giuliani falsely claims that under England’s “socialized medicine” system only 44 percent of men with prostate cancer survive.

We tracked down the source of that number, which turns out to be the result of bad math by a Giuliani campaign adviser, who admits to us that his figure isn’t "technically" a survival rate at all. Furthermore, the co-author of the study on which Giuliani’s man based his calculations tells us his work is being misused, and that the 44 percent figure is both wrong and “misleading.” A spokesperson for the lead author also calls the figures "incorrect survival statistics."

It’s true that official survival rates for prostate cancer are higher in the U.S. than in England, but the difference is not nearly as high as Giuliani claims. And even so, the higher survival rates in the U.S. may simply reflect more aggressive diagnosing of non-lethal cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

Actually, men with prostate cancer are more likely to die sooner if they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study published in one of the American Medical Association’s journals. Giuliani doesn’t mention that.
Analysis
Rudy Giuliani's latest radio ad, which began airing in New Hampshire this week, draws a stark picture for anyone diagnosed with prostate cancer in England. "I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago," the Republican presidential candidate says in the ad. "My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States, 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”

Giuliani is wrong about that. Fortunately for the English, their chances of surviving prostate cancer are far better than Giuliani claims: The actual five-year survival rate is 74.4 percent, according to the United Kingdom's Office of National Statistics. Even those in the U.S. have a better chance than what Giuliani states: The five-year survival rate is 98.4 percent in this country, according to the National Cancer Institute. (Furthermore, Milton Eisner, a statistician with the SEER program of NCI, which compiles these numbers, warns that the two countries’ statistics are “probably not comparable because they’re not done on the same scale.”)

Giuliani got his figures from a campaign adviser whose methods would make scientists and statistics professors cringe. Indeed, one of the authors of the report cited by the adviser says the figures in the ad are "misleading" and the math employed is "absolutely not" a legitimate way to calculate survival rates.