Politics

Fascinating editorial today by Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby. Mallaby is not a conservative -- he spent 13 years writing for The Economist, a British paper that follows economic news and which has been a frequent critic of the Bush and Blair administrations (as Mallaby has been). This is a guy who writes books about apartheid and the World Bank, folks, not Rush Limbaugh and Christian evangelism. He knows his stuff. His editorials make frequent appearances on liberal as well as conservative blogs. And he has written editorials that are extremely critical of the Bush administration, such as this one, criticizing his economic policies. He's seen by most a…

The Georgia Institute of technology may have found a new way to get rid of uranium contamination. Certain bacteria that live in the subsurface soils can convert uranium contamination into an insoluble form by releasing a phosphate compound. This bacteria has potential for cleaning up uranium contamination at nuclear power plants as well as threats from nuclear weapons, giving us a new way to keep nuclear power safer. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20060330-18021100-bc-us-bacteria.xml

The skull of what may be the "missing link" between us humans and Homo Erectus may have been discovered in Ethiopia. The skull was a rare find, as it had almost all of its pieces. It is from a time that little is known about, the time where Homo Erectus made its transition into Homo Sapiens, some time around 250,000 years ago. Hopefully, the skull will tell us more about this time and how humans have evolved. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060327/ap_on_re_af/ethiopia_ancient_skull;_ylt=AnnG.29CXodh.7NcIlFvP_0PLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

A new procedure dubbed "closed-heart" surgery is revolutionizing the way patients get new heart valves. Rather than cracking the rib cage open to insert the new valves, doctors are now simply making a two-inch incision and threading a new valve in by wire. The procedure can even be done while the heart is still beating, and allows patients to get out of the hospital faster. However, at this point, the procedure will only be used for those deemed too sick to receive traditional heart surgery, as it has only been performed on 150 patients and is not "proven" quite yet. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060401/ap_on_he_me/easier_heart_valves

Hands down, my favorite was Dukakis in the tank. I can still remember the squeaking sound of the tank as it rolled around with Dukakis looking like a complete nerd.

This promises to be an important tool in the quest not only to understand the operation of future computer circuit and data-storage elements as they shrink toward atomic dimensions buy allowing us to examine how magentism works and thus affects things on the atom size scales. Will this help us develop smaller and faster data-storage elements? Only time will tell. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060330191234.htm - Ryan Jones

A new discovery in the in astrophysics, the discovery of the strongest magnetic ever discovered. This huge magnetic field which is 1000 million million times larger than our Earth's own magnetic field is created by the collision of two neutron stars. Due to the amount of energy released from these events it is also suspected that they may play a part in gamma ray bursts. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060331153110.htm - Ryan Jones

http://www.climate%20data%20hint%20at%20irreversible%20rise%20in%20seas.com/ In the next 100 year, global average temperatures could be as much as four degrees higher, translating into a sea level rise of 13-20 feet. The rise would be caused by eroding polar ice caps the damage which, according to computer models, is irreversible. Such conditions haven't been seen on earth science 300 thousand years ago, when Earth was between to two ice ages. By not curbing our production of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses we are essentially endangering our coastlines, where some of the worlds largest cities are.

A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST STATE I have been a Democrat all my life. It is the party that represents the people issues. The current chaotic economy of ours is the product of a corporate dollar mentality. We must restore this economy to a Constitutional peoples government as the Constitution dictates. The aversion of the conservatives to Democratic Socialism and replacing it with corporate socialism is a clear violation of our Constitution and its intent of serving the people. The most logical way to do this is by reforming the electoral system to get rid of the corrupting dollar influences that the wealthy and the corporations have used to get control of the politic…

Everyone remembers the [acr=Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome]SARS[/acr] virus from last year and there were fears of a global outbreak of the virus and there is still that risk that there could be one. Thankfully we may have the start of a cure in the form of an inhibitor. Scientists at The Scripps Research center have identified a group of enzymes that prevent the SARS virus from replicating, this may lead to the creation of a drug that can be used to treat people with the SARS virus and also may provide a base for preventing infection in the first place! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060329084135.htm - Ryan Jones

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/08/port.security/index.html In a nutshell: The House Appropriations Committee voted 62-2 to block the Dubai Ports deal. The amendment was inserted into an emergency supplemental funding bill for military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also includes disaster assistance for the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So basically, if Bush wants to keep the UAE investors in the Carlyle Group happy by vetoing the bill (which would, of course, be his first veto ever!), he's going to f*ck over a lot of ordinary Americans in the process, in addition to the military. Well played, Congress!

Chilling, if true: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30516921.htm http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060323-114842-5680r.htm http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html http://www.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger200603300722.asp

Funny note. This only made A-5 at the Chronicle.

Could we be on the edge of the time where computers are intergrated directly with our brains? Well... not quite but this is a huge step towards such an achievement. Bio-organic processing is still in its early stages of development but is progressing with impressive speed as this new goal has been reached - researchers have actually managed to fuse brain cells with a computer chip. Sit back and watch as the computer-organism boundary becomes ever blurrier. http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060327_neuro_chips.html Ryan Jones

Yes... we already knew this. But, new studies show that New Orleans in sinking due more to tectonic activity then any other cause, human related or otherwise. The results from the study are being criticised as being a too sweeping conclusion drawn based on a relatively small data set. The data set was taken from 50 years of surveyance from the Michoud region, an area with no oil drilling, water drilling or compactation of sediments. Yet, there is still sinking land mass in this region. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/328/2

I don't expect there to be any grand social collapses, and alarmists tend to errantly and constantly spot them on the horizon, whether caused by oil shortages or no good teenagers. Still, I don't expect nuclear weapons to be used in any major world city, but it is a threat. Since social issues came up in another thread as a threat, it got me thinking and I think its worth a topic. Basically, modern civilization seems to be a strange mix of exceptionally adaptive intelligent individuals and at the same time a volitile act of mental focus that spans dozens of generations. We have many institutions in this country that are simply fixtures - part of its stable n…

The age of reason is long past, at least in the realm of politics. Making a case through logic and reason is difficult and influencing others to see things your way can take a lot of perserverance and repetition. In the age of sound-bite politics most don’t have that kind of patience. Reason has been replaced by something called “hackery”. Hackery is the art of dispensing with an opponents view by attacking an organization or individual rather than an idea. One can also champion a cause by associating it with a well liked individual or concept. Here’s how it works. If you are opposed to something that has been proposed by a Democrat, rather than take the time and effort…

Casper "Cap" Weinberger did this country much good but was treated shabbily by a process run amok. Here is an excellent article summarizing the pressures and temptations influencing independent prosecutors such as Lawrence Walsh. The most damning indictment against Walsh was the indictment Walsh filed against Weinberger the week before the 1992 presidential election. Nothing could more clearly prove that this was a man clinging to national relevance. Casper Weinberger, in my view, deserves no asterisks by his name in today's obituaries. May he rest in peace.

Jobs Americans Wont Do? There is a popular myth in this country that illegal immigrants are needed to do jobs that “Americans will not do”. The fact is that illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans wont do for $6/hour or less. Certain employers have come to expect dirt-cheap labor and when they can’t find it domestically, they’ll import it illegally. Many Middle Eastern companies make use of imported labor. A skilled carpenter in the United Arab Emirates makes all of $7.60/day. Perhaps if we follow this model carpentry will become a job that “Americans wont do”. Some argue that cheap labor is necessary in order for American firms to stay competitive in the global m…

Here's the Toronto Star article of the same name. And here's the National Review's rebuttal: I'm posting these articles to frame a question that has been bugging me for a few years. I think I'm something of an aberration to several of my liberal friends. I'm fairly free thinking, likable (I hope!) and kind of non-conformist. I think they view my conservatism, for want of a better word, as a flaw in an otherwise good friend. My conservative friends view my liberal friends as somewhat weak minded. I'm generalizing but I wonder, candidly, how many here would admit to similar feelings about those on the opposite side of the political spectrum?

A virus known as Ad-36 has been found in the blood of 2000 obese patients in Australia. New research shows that this virus may be linked to weight gain. Animal models, such as chickens, mice and marmosets that have been infected by the virus have all been shown to experience weight gain. This virus, usually associated with colds, diarrhea and eye infections has been found, in one study, to be in about 30% of a group of 500 obese Americans, compared to 11% of the non-obese population. The mechanisms by which the virus causes weight gain is not yet clear, especially because the virus doesn't seem to have an effect on the body mass index. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi…

I worry more about grey goo than nukes for the reason stated in the portion I've bolded below: Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the "gray goo problem." Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray goo" emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be superior in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable. The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: We cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers. Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our hum…

South Dakota House Approves Abortion Ban: This is unconstitutional. Roe vs Wade has a precedent which extends privacy rights to the protections of ones own organs, and says the government cannot compell anyone to give up or share any of their organs for any reason, even to save a life (otherwise, we'd be abducting people off the street to harvest their organs for use in others). Abortion is protected because the fetus doesnt have a right to use a womans organs, not even for its own life. Abortion opponents recognize the fetus is a distinct human being with all the protections as an adult, but on what basis can they say anyone has the right to use another persons or…

In 1970 a Russian scientist, Vitaly Efimov, proposed a new state of matter. Only now has this state been confirmed to exist. What is the Efimov state (quote World Science): If one of the rings (or in the Efimov state, an atom) is picked up the others will follow. But if one ring (or atom) is removed the structure will fall apart (or repel). This quantum mechanical effect only occurs at a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, previous experiments carried out at a millionth of a degree failed because it was too hot! World Science: http://www.world-science.net/otherne...ewstatefrm.htm Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0315174950.htm

What are laws? Government is defined at the entity that has most power among a group of people. Thus if the mafia controls the government then the mafia is by definition the government since the mafia has most power. Government with this monopoly on power uses it to set a standard of right or wrong and enforces this standard with its power. An alternate definition of patriotism is not love of government but love of the people ruled by the government. Government and people are different things. Imagine a group of kids in a pre-school and the strongest boy in the group uses his muscles to gather all the males together and form a group. The group of all boys is a countr…