Senator John McCain is correct. He and Senator Barack Obama should return to Washington to do the jobs we are paying them to do instead of participating in a political reality show called a debate.  The place for two United States Senators to debate during an economic crisis is on the floor of the United States Senate. They can present their views about what to do and attempt to gain support from their fellow Senators.

Someone who cannot demonstrate leadership as a Senator will not be able to do so as President. 

They can participate in one of those debates anytime. At present their responsibility is to take care of the business (TCB) they being paid to take care of  as United States Senators. If Obama didn't want to continue being a Senator while he ran for president he should have done the honorable thing and resigned like Bob Dole did when he ran for president in 1996.

Obama doesn't want to TCB in the Senate. He prefers being a celebrity who goes around making speeches to adoring crowds because he likes to hear himself talk.     

Would you promote someone who spends all his time talking about what he would do if promoted instead of taking care of business in his current job?   Getting legislation through Congress is one of the president's most important jobs.  Appearing on talk shows isn't.

Does Obama  want  to merely talk about  some vague change or does he actually want to produce changes?  Perhaps Obama doesn't want to return to the Senate to do his job because he has done such a lousy job as Senator.

If Obama wants to play the spoiled brat  who has to have his way about a debate, perhaps  McCain's running mate  Gov. Sarah Palin can stand in for McCain while McCain TCB's  in the Senate.

Secretary of  Defense Robert Gates' decision to award Sgt. Rafael Peralta a Navy Cross instead of a Medal of Honor makes no sense.

Either Peralta grabbed a grenade to protect his fellow Marines or he did not.  If Peralta grabbed the grenade then he deserves  a Medal of Honor.  If he did not grab the grenade than there is no reason to award him a Navy Cross.

Peralta was born in Mexico and joined the Marines as soon as he received a green card.  He subsequently became a U.S. citizen while serving in the Marines.

On  November 15, 2004, while serving as part of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment during Operation Al Fajr in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, Peralta entered a building with 11 other Marines including Lance Corporal T.J. Kaemmerer, a Marine combat correspondent attached to Peralta’s Company.  

According to Kaemmerer's account, they had cleared most of the concrete house when they came to the last room with the door closed.  Peralta opened the door and then jumped out of the way after being hit by AK-47 fire to allow the other Marines to fire into the room. 

Peralta was lying on the floor wounded when a yellow colored grenade landed near him.  As the other Marines scrambled to get away from it, they saw his hand grab the grenade and pull it toward his body.

Col. Eric Berg III, an Army pathologist who autopsied Peralta's remains, said in the 2005 report that the head wound from what is believed to be a ricochet from an American rifle would have been "nearly instantly fatal. He could not have executed any meaningful motions."

I don't know upon what empirical research he based his opinion.   In order to make such a definitive statement there would need to be scientific research comparing observations of people after  having been shot in the same manner.  Without such research Berg's statement is only an opinion, not a fact.

Four other experts - Peralta's battalion surgeon, and two neurosurgeons and a neurologist who examined the autopsy reports - said Peralta could have knowingly reached for the grenade because the ricochet that hit him was traveling at "low velocity" and would not have immediately killed him.

I don't know upon what evidence they are basing the claim that the wound occurred before the grenade exploded.  The Marines withdrew after the grenade exploded because the back of the building was on fire.  Safe withdrawal would have meant that they would have continued to fire as they left and the bullet could have hit Peralta's head at that time.
 
The experts may not be giving sufficient consideration to the role of reflex actions in such situations. Many heroic acts in war are reflexive actions. 

If a grenade lands near you and you take time to think about what to do it will explode before you make a decision.  Peralta wouldn't have had to be fully conscious.  His eyes saw the grenade and he reflexively grabbed it. 
 
 By the time I left Vietnam, I had developed reflexes to noises that could be exploding shells.  If I heard something that might be an incoming round, my feet would start moving to the bunker while my brain determined if it was incoming or outgoing.   

If Peralta could not have grabbed the grenade, what action did he take that would justify a Navy Cross?  Opening the door to the room where the insurgents were might quality for a bronze star or maybe a silver star, but not a Navy Cross. Otherwise the Navy would have to award such a medal everytime someone entered a room where an enemy might be.

Marine Reserve Lt. Col. Scott Marconda, who investigated the incident in 2004 as a major and judge advocate, makes a good point. "there's no way that grenade got under the center of mass of his body without him putting it there. I'm not a cheerleader. It is what it is. And my point is: I believe that he did that."

Does the Department of Defense believe that the grenade just miraculously landed where Peralta's body could protect the other Marines from the blast?
 

Something is very wrong here.   Congress needs to investigate why the Department of Defense has made such a strange decision

Republicans have jumped all over Barack Obama's statement in a George Stephanopoulos on "This Week," on ABC on September 7.
 
"Let's not play games," he said. "What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith."

The Main Stream Media have largely ignored the statement because members of the MSM believe it is there job as Good Democrats to make Barack Obama look good.

Even the Republican oriented Washington Times criticized Republican bloggers for their treatment of the subject.  "But illustrating the difficulty of preventing false rumors about his faith from spreading, anti-Obama groups within one hour of the interview had sliced it out of context and were sending it around via email. They also were blogging about it."

 Israelinsider  is more critical suggesting that Obama really meant what he said.  "In one of the most astonishing gaffes in American political history, in a national televised interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulus, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama referred to 'my muslim faith,' confirming what researchers and political opponents have been claiming.  While Stephanopoulus several seconds later tried to correct him, saying 'Christian faith,' it was too late. The damage was done. Obama clearly did not mean his Christian faith, since he was admitting that 'John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.' The term 'Christian faith' would not make sense in that context."

Both the Times and Israelinsider may be ignoring a more important issue than whether or not Obama is a Muslim.  The MSM have been claiming that Obama is supposed to be more intelligent than other politicians.  If that were the case, he would accidentally say "my Muslim faith".  If he did make a misstatement it indicates he isn't much different from President Jerry Ford who made a misstatement about Poland and Eastern Europe in the 1976 presidential debate.

Obama might sound intelligent reciting a prepared speech, but the real test of intelligence is the ability to think and talk at the same time without making simple mistakes.  If President George Bush  had made a similar misstatement, the MSM would make it a headline or a soundbite.  Comedians would have made jokes about it.  If members of the MSM want to be considered as real journalists they need to report the mistakes made by all politicians, not just the ones in the other political party.  Obama only seems to be smarter than Bush because the MSM are protecting him from his mistakes.        

The following transcript is from Israelinsider to show the context of the Obama's statement. .
    STEPHANOPOULOS: You mention your Christian faith. Yesterday you took off after the Republicans for suggesting you have Muslim connections. Just a few minutes ago, Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, said they've never done that. This is a false and cynical attempt to play victim.
 OBAMA: You know what? I mean, these guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand. The...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections.

    OBAMA: No, no, no. But the -- I don't think that when you look at what is being promulgated on Fox News, let's say, and Republican commentators who are closely allied to these folks--

    STEPHANOPOULOS: But John McCain said that's wrong.

    OBAMA: Now, well, look. Listen. You and I both know that the minute that Governor Palin was forced to talk about her daughter, I immediately said that's off limits. And--

    STEPHANOPOULOS: But John McCain said the same thing about questioning your faith.

    OBAMA: And what was the first thing the McCain?s campaign went out and did? They said, look, these liberal blogs that support Obama are out there attacking Governor Palin.

    Let's not play games. What I was suggesting -- you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you're absolutely right that that has not come--

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Christian faith.

    OBAMA: -- my Christian faith.

The nation's best insurance program will receive a lot of publicity this weekend.  Jerry Lewis will conduct the annual  Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon this weekend. 

The Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon has been a tradition since the first Labor Day telethon  in New York City in 1966. Lewis and former comedy partner Dean Martin had previously conducted a telethon in New York City in 1955, but it wasn't on Labor Day.  Jerry Lewis and all the other performers donate their services and receive  no payment. 
 
Most people don't think of MDA as being an insurance program because it doesn't charge fees from those who need its services.  You don't have to have donated to MDA in the past to benefit from its treatment programs.  Patients don't have to donate money to MDA to continue receiving treatment, but they or their families often help MDA raise money so  that it can continue to assist them and others.

MDA not only provides treatment and other services, such as summer camp for children patients, but it also researches the nature of the over 40 neuromuscular diseases it covers and attempts to develop treatments that can cure those disorders or delay their progression.

"The only requirement for receiving an evaluation at an MDA clinic is the written recommendation of a physician in whose judgment a person may have one of the   neuromuscular diseases covered by the Association’s medical services program."  This requirement is reasonable because MDA doctors would have less time to treat MDA patients if they had to spend their time diagnosing unrelated disorders.  

Similarly,  paying only costs not covered by  a patient's  regular insurance  allows  MDA to  help more people than it would be able to help otherwise.  MDA can't raise its insurance rates to cover  cost increases like traditional private or public insurance programs,  so it needs to limit its costs to treatment that isn't already covered by other insurance programs

MDA is an example of the type of organization we need more of.  Other examples are  St. Jude's (supported by the late comedian Danny Thomas and his daughter Marlo) and the Shriners' hospitals.  What they offer is pure insurance.  People who can afford to help pool their resources so that whoever needs help can obtain it.  The practice is a survival from the days when Americans helped each other without worrying about any immediate benefit for themselves.  They helped because they knew that if they needed help others would help them.

MDA's research focuses on muscular dystrophy, but the treatments and knowledge that research produces can benefit people with other disorders.  One of those treatments saved Jerry Lewis' life  several years ago when  he had a major heart problem.   Recently, MDA researchers announced they have found a way to use a patient's skin cells as stem cells to treat ALS.  Being able to use skin cells as stem cells will help treatment of many other unrelated disorders.

This year's telethon will be broadcast on local  stations throughout the  country as well  as on cable and satellite on Chicago's WGN.  Those who prefer the Internet can find the telethon on MDA's website.    The website currently has highlights from last year's telethon available.  A new fund raising activity this year  is an online auction that will run through  Sep. 4.

Democrats have been criticizing  oil companies  for making high profits while hoping the public will be unaware that Democrats have been pursuing policies that help oil companies make high profits.

One of the first concepts taught in Economics 101 is the law  of supply and demand.   When the supply of a commodity or product is low, companies can charge  more for a commodity like oil.

Democrats by limiting the ability of oil companies to drill for oil are helping the oil companies keep oil in a short supply so that oil companies can charge high prices.  Limiting drilling also helps oil companies keep their costs down. 

Drilling for new wells is very expensive so paying to drill new wells reduces oil company profits.   Increasing the number of wells would require oil companies to hire more people to operate the wells.

Oil companies know that the oil that is off our coasts or in Alaska will still be there in a few years and the demand for oil will continue to increase unless there is a major economic calamity like the Great Depression.  The longer they wait to drill, the more they will be able to charge for the oil when government allows them to drill for it.  

The new politicians who will be elected to authorize drilling will likely be less concerned about any adverse environmental consequences from accidents near drilling sites.  Environmentalists will have much less  influence after it becomes obvious that they have lied about carbon dioxide causing higher temperatures.

The problem with reporters and other Democrats is that they have memories like a VHS tape.  When they get to the end of the tape, they begin recording over what they used to know. 

The Main Stream Media (MSM) and other Democrats may be about to make the same mistake they made in 1992.  They may again ignore  potential problems with  their presidential candidate.

In 1992 the MSM  minimized  claims that  Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton  was a womanizer.  The MSM and the Democratic accepted  his claim that he had only had one affair for which his wife had forgiven him.  Other politicians would subsequently follow the same format when they got caught with their pants  down. 

Another  potential problem involved  one of the many investigations involving the various savings and loan failures.  The Justice Department had discovered the  Clintons might be linked to a failed Arkansas savings and loan.  Democrats ignored the potential damage that the Whitewater  investigation might cause.

Six years later Bill Clinton's womanizing would produce a major scandal and White House intern Monica Lewinsky would become an instant celebrity.  Whitewater and Monicagate would become intertwined when  Clinton lied to a federal judge.  

As a  result of the scandal Clinton was impeached.  Although the Senate didn't vote him out of office, he and his party were weakened.  Even worse, Clinton tried to preserve his administration by provoking a confrontation with Iraq that resulted in the U.N. inspectors leaving the country.  Had the inspectors remained in Iraq, it is highly unlikely that President George W. Bush could have persuaded Congress  to support an invasion of Iraq.

There are allegations that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus cannot meet the Contitutional requirement of being a "natural born citizen".  If he was born in Hawaii he could easily prove it by authorizing Hawaiin officials to show his original birth certificate to the media.  Instead, Obama has provided only an electronic copy of a Hawaiian Certification of Live Birth.     

Electronic copies of documents and pictures are too easy to forge to provide convincing evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii.  Indeed an expert named  Texasdude has analyzed the document and considers it a forgery.

I don't know where Obama was born, but his response thus far implies that he wasn't born in Hawaii.  Those who suggest he might have been born in Kenya and his mother than flew back to Hawaii to make it appear he was born there provide no evidence to support their theory.  I cannot automatically dismiss the theory because many Mexican mothers take risks to cross the border into the U.S. so their babies can be U.S. citizens.

Texas Darlin suggests that his original birth certificate might have been sealed after his stepfather Lolo Soetoro adopted him and a new birth certificate in the name of Barry Soetoro issued.   Under this more plausible theory,  Obama may want to suppress the truth because it would indicate he once was named Barry Soetoro, but failed to note the fact on subsequent  government documents.  Texas Darlin believes Republicans have a copy of Obama's birth certificate.  If they do and it would hurt Obama they probably won't leak it to the media until after he is approved as the Democratic party candidate. 

An official adoption  by an Indonesian  man would mean Obama would have become an Indonesian ctiizen under Indonesian law.  Obama wouldn't have lost U.S. citizenship because the change was involuntary on his part, but he probably would have had to make some type of official statement that he wished to be a U.S. citizen after he became an adult.  It might be possible that holding citizenship in another country, even if involuntary, would mean he no longer qualified as a "natural born citizen".       

Democrats need to get this issue cleared up before they approve Obama as their candidate.  They could end up with a candidate who is unelectable.  Democrats  lost in 2004 in part because the truth about John Kerry's service in Vietnam didn't come out until after Democrats approved him as their candidate. 
       

Both presidential candidates and their running mates should provide us with copies of their birth certificates.  No one will steal their identities because they are too well known.  I read recently that I will have to provide a birth certificate to renew my driver's license even though I  have had a driver's license for 46 years.  

 If we average folks have to prove our citizenship we should require those who want to lead us to do the same thing. If the U.S. government believes anybody might lie about citizenship, then we should recognize that presidential candidates might lie about their citizenship.  Presidential candidates lie about other matters, why do we think they wouldn't lie about their citizenship.

By birth certificate, I mean an actual photocopy of the document produced when they were born complete with the signature of the doctor, midwife, or whoever.  

  Hillary Clinton is still officially a candidate.  Perhaps she could start the process by releasing her birth certificate.

Russia's overreaction to the Georgian attack on  South Ossetia  demonstrates Russia is a potential aggressor and  NATO  is needed to  prevent  it from attempting to expand by force.

In my previous post I indicated that Georgia's attack was ill advised and unjustified.  Georgia's argument that it has an historical claim on    Abkhazia  and South Ossetia ignores the fact that Russia can make the same type claim about Georgia.   Russia's claim on Georgia might be even stronger because Georgian Joseph Stalin  ruled the Soviet Union for many years.

Russia could have justified intervening to force Georgian troops out of  South Ossetia by citing the U.S. action against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait.  However, Russia went beyond that and invaded Georgia like it planned to stay.  Russia also made the mistake of allowing some armed thugs to use violence against Georgians and their property.

Russia's invasion of Georgia indicates it may be planning to invade  Ukraine.  NATO should grant membership to Ukraine now to prevent such an invasion.  Ukraine has a strong army that wouldn't need much back up from NATO.  European nations should take initial steps to expand their military forces with indications that they will not follow through if Russia withdraws from Georgia. 

European leaders should consider the success of President John F. Kennedy's strong  response to the Soviet Union's efforts  to place missiles in Cuba.  The U.S. should do what President Ronald Reagan did in the early 80's and increase spending on missile defense technology.   A potential danger with a strong response is that it could bring down the current Russia government.

European nations need to do whatever they can to prevent having to obtain fuel from Russia.  Such actions should include expanding solar and wind energy along with nuclear and clean coal technology.  Coal plants should include algae reactors to produce oil for fuel use.  European nations should work to develop the technology to convert plastic, paper, etc. wastes into fuel.     

Many people don't understand the issue dealing with  Barack Obama's birth certificate.  If Barack Obama doesn't  meet the limited constitutional qualifications for president he cannot legally exercise the powers of the office.  The fact that his claim about being born in Hawaii have been accepted in the past  doesn't mean the claim is valid. 

If Obama was actually born in Hawaii all he has to do is authorize  Hawaiian officials to show his original birth certificate to the media, possibly with the restriction that journalists not make a copy of it or show the document on television.  The computer generated  document Obama  has on his website   to prove he qualifies as a "natural born citizen"  isn't adequate because it would be too easy to forge as  Israel Insider has suggested in a series of articles.   

I had to obtain a copy of my birth certificate last year when I retired to apply for my state pension.  It's an actual copy of the original which was handwritten on a printed form and included the doctor's signature.  I don't know if the state stores the original documents or maintains copies on microfilm.

The document Obama is using includes only a limited amount of information that could easily have been placed on the computer by a hacker.   If Hawaii actually provides such documents, I suspect that those wishing to establish fake citizenship  choose Hawaii as the state they were supposedly born in.

If  Obama is running for president even though he knows he isn't qualified, he probably wouldn't feel bound by constitutional limits on the president's powers.  We've had enough problems with presidents wanting to expand their powers in recent decades.  We don't need a president who runs for office in violation of the Constitution.

Failure to present evidence that he is qualified to be president could create a constitutional crisis.

Republicans could challenge his election in Congress when the electoral colleges ballots are counted.  If anyone on the Republican side has information that Obama isn't qualified to be president, they would likely not release that information until after he is nominated to discredit the Democratic Party.  

Any government agency that can prove Obama isn't a citizen might use that information to blackmail him rather than make the information public as J Edgar Hoover is believed to have done.

An unqualified president cannot sign legislation into law.  Someone charged with violating new laws could challenge the constitutionality of the laws and request the government to prove that Obama is a "natural born" citizen of the United States. 
  
After 9/11 we learned that many government officials had been lax about issuing government documents.  Obama may not have had to have a birth certificate when he moved in with his grandparents in 1971.  He would have obtained a passport when he was very young because his mother moved across national boundaries.  In the 1960's he probably would not have needed a birth certificate if his mother provided a statement about his birth.

What was Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili  thinking when he attacked the former Georgian provinces of  Abkhazia and South Ossetia?  Did he really think he could conquer those areas without a Russian response?

As the oldest of three boys he should have been aware of what can happen when big brother decides to get even with little brother for some provocative action. As the oldest of four kids I learned that  parents don't take kindly to an older child taking advantage of size when dealing with younger siblings.  Those who don't have siblings  probably have seen the following scenario on  a tv show or movie.  Little brother teases big brother until big brother responds by hitting little brother.  Little brother then complains to dad  who, depending upon when the program or movie was made, takes off his belt to punish big brother or sternly lectures big brother.

Saakashvili thinks Georgia should be able to control the provinces because they were historically part of Georgia.  However,  Russia can make the same claim about Georgia being historically a part of Russia long before Russia started calling itself the Soviet Union.   In fact, native Georgian Joseph Dzhugashvili (aka Joseph Stalin) helped turn Russia into the Soviet Union
 
The provinces left Georgia during the same period when Georgia left the Soviet Union / Russia.  If Georgia can justify retaking the provinces by force, then Russia can justify retaking Georgia by force.

Georgia needs to abandon all claims to its former provinces and try to find a way to peacefully coexist with the Russian bear.  That is if it isn't already too late.
  

Continued questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate demonstrate that the major parties  need  to  institute a requirement  that  those who want  a party's nomination should first have to undergo a full scale FBI background check before seeking the nomination.  Such a requirement would insure party members had all necessary information before choosing candidates. 

Israel Insider, a major online newspaper in Israel, is claiming that the birth certificate Barack Obama is using to claim  to have been born in Hawaii is a forgery.   Analysis indicates   it might be  a modified version of his half-sister Maya Kassandra Soetoro's birth certificate.  You may recall that online experts exposed a forged document Dan Rather attempted to use to discredit George W. Bush four years ago.

If the claim is correct, it would not necessarily mean Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.  He could have simply have used her birth certificate instead of obtaining a copy of his own.  I don't know why he would do so, but it is a possibility.  Perhaps there is some type of adverse information on his birth certificate.

Obama's citizenship is potentially questionable because his parents were not both U.S. citizens as was the case with John McCain's parents.  Being born to a mother who was a U.S. citizenship would not automatically have conferred  U.S. citizenship because his father was not  a U.S. citizen.  Being born  in  the United States or  their possessions would have eliminated  any question.  The laws in effect at the time were complex and his mother's extended residence outside the U.S. would have worked against him.  

The citizenship question is important because the Constitution requires presidents to be a "natural born citizen"  but does not define the qualification.

The Democratic Party should request  Hawaiian authorities and/or the FBI to investigate to determine if there is a valid birth certificate on file for him.    Past elections indicate that the truth will eventually come out.  Democrats need to find out the truth before they nominate someone who might be using an invalid document to claim eligibility to run for president.  Nominating an ineligible presidential candidate would  probably  give the election to Sen. John McCain, regardless of whom Democrats chose to replace Obama.
 
Democrats had to replace vice presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton in 1972 after it was belatedly discovered he had been treated for depression.

Presidential and vice presidential candidates have no secrets.  Anything questionable in the their past will likely come out  like  George W,. Bush's DUI arrest when he was young.   A background check would insure that party members would know about such problems before choosing a nominee.
 
The issue in this case can be resolved easily if Obama will authorize Hawaii to show a copy of his birth certificate to the media.   For the future, the parties need to have background checks.

Those of us who were around in the 50's and 60's remember the way  teenage school girls  swooned over rock stars like Elvis Presley and the Beatles.  The articulate versions of Ted Baxter who masquerade as journalists are behaving like school girls around Barack Obama.

These phony journalists  think that the only requirement for  presidents is the ability to mouth the proper political cliches.  Obama is saying what the school girls want to hear so they blindly  endorse him as the next Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I mean President of the United States.    

The school girls believe that Obama will move into the White House and make all the problems go away like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz supposedly could do. They don't think it matters  that Obama has never actually held a position  in which he solved major problems.  But then school girls readily accept the claims of adolescent males who say they can do anything.

Babies shouldn't be used as props on any kind of  television show.  Babies are human beings, not objects to be used for a television network's profit.  If the purpose of the NBC series  "The Baby Borrowers," was to give young teen couples  an idea of what  dealing with a baby would be like, the network didn't need to use real babies.

Professional educators have been teaching teens about being a parent without using real babies.  North Carolina Cooperative Extension centers in Cumberland, Richmond and Scotland counties won an award for its “Baby, Think It Over” program in which over 500 high school  students experienced parenting using dolls programmed to function like a baby on a normal 24 hour schedule.

The Mexican state of Chihuahua as well as various areas in the U.S. and Britain have used more advanced dolls made by RealCare for similar programs. 

Hollywood has some very  capable technical people who could have worked with RealCare to make the dolls even more effective.  However, that wouldn't have had the entertainment value of showing real babies and might  have cost more.    NBC obviously didn't produce this program to help teenagers.  It produced the program to make money.

If NBC wants a program to educate teen viewers about the realities of taking care of babies, it can do so using professional actors with  child psychologists helping to write the scripts  and show the actors  how to deal with different situations.  Programs could have the characters make mistakes and show the consequences of those mistakes.

NBC could accomplish a similar goal in a reality show context by using real young couples who are first time parents.  Child psychologists could monitor their activities and help them correct mistakes.  These psychologists could explain to viewers what the couples were doing right or wrong.      

In  previous posts I discussed the abuse of babies for profit by NBC  on its reality show  "The Baby Borrowers,"

If  you  agree that  this series should be ended you can protest in various ways.  You can tell NBC what you think on the NBC FORUM

You can protest  to your local NBC affiliate about the program.  You  could also file a protest with the FCC, although the situation would not seem to fit into a specific category of protest topics on their website.

You can link to  Dr. Jan Hunt's letter criticizing the show on your blog,  post it on sites that reprint  articles from other sites or write a letter to your local newspaper.

You can contact your Senators and Representative in Congress to request a congressional investigation of  the program with the possibility of prohibiting  television from using children, especially babies, in reality shows.  Congress should at the very least require NBC and its advertisers for the program to establish a trust fund to cover any subsequent mental health problems the children might experience because of the program.   Currently only California has legislation protecting child actors from exploitation by the entertainment industry and "stage mothers".

Many child actors have experienced serious  psychological problems as adults.      Paul Peterson  who played  Jeff Stone, the son on  "The Donna Reed" show, has spoken out for years on the problems of child actors.

 You can contact the companies that advertised on the program and request that they not advertise on any future programs in the series.  A partial list of advertisers includes:  Verizon Wireless, Tylenol, Subway,     Mentos gum,  Hot Pockets, Klondike Bar, All Bran, Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep,   T_Mobile, Wanted,  (Pizza Hut) CoffeeMate, Samsung,   Listerine, Vagisil, All State.

Director of the Natural Child Project child psychologist Dr. Jan Hunt, who is the director of the is very concerned about the potential negative impact of the treatment of the babies on the NBC reality series "Baby Borrowers".  

Hunt is concerned that the separation from parents could increase production of the stress hormone cortisol in the babies:    "When cortisol is produced due to emotional stress, the next stressful experience creates an even larger surge of cortisol. By the time a stressed child reaches adulthood, he is likely to overreact to all stressful situations, making it harder to cope with life's challenges. For all these reasons, babies and young children should be kept as stress-free as possible, to protect their future psychological and physical health."

I have a long standing interest in how the brain develops and functions.  At one time I was considering  going into the field of  what is called "artificial intelligence" which involves  simulating  human intelligence on a computer, but decided I was more interested in dealing with the actual ideas rather than the detailed process  the brain uses to form them.

 Much of the baby's brain development involves  developing brain cells to control the muscles for movement of various parts of the body, eventually including the complex process of speaking.  The baby also develops neurons to store information about the baby's environment.  Baby's normally don't form specific memories about individual events in their lives, but they use those events to learn how to react to their environment in the  future.  
   
Babies don't remember  what actually happened on  early birthdays and Christmases,  but they may remember these events as happy events to look forward to.

Babies may remember what they consider traumatic events in a general fashion.  For example, adults' fear of receiving shots may result from a memory of vaccinations received as infants.   Claustrophobia and other fears sometimes are the result of very unpleasant childhood experiences.  The sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic  Church have publicized the fact that children may suppress memories of  sexual abuse for long periods of time, but suffer from psychological problems during that period.   For a baby a traumatic experience doesn't necessarily involve anything wrong or illegal.   For a baby a doctor's exam can be a very unpleasant experience.

Babies may not remember how they have been "mistreated", but they may associate similar situations or people with a similar appearance to that mistreatment.   A baby who was particularly upset by an exam by a doctor with a mustache might in the future have a negative reaction to men with mustaches. 

Babies respond differently to the same situations depending upon their genetics and experiences and possibly the way their brains have developed prior to the event.  Not all babies react the same way to being separated from the parents and put in the care of individuals with no child care experience.  The babies in this experiment may suffer  psychological  problems  sometime  in the future.  that may be triggered by persons or situations that remind the baby, child or even adult of something "bad" that happened during the experiment.