Prions and Long-term Memories

Making Memories Last: Prion-Like Protein Plays Key Role in Storing Long-Term Memories

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2012) — Memories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called "synapses." But how do these synapses stay strong and keep memories alive for decades? Neuroscientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a major clue from a study in fruit flies: Hardy, self-copying clusters or oligomers of a synapse protein are an essential ingredient for the formation of long-term memory

The finding supports a surprising new theory about memory, and may have a profound impact on explaining other oligomer-linked functions and diseases in the brain, including Alzheimer's disease and prion diseases.

"Self-sustaining populations of oligomers located at synapses may be the key to the long-term synaptic changes that underlie memory; in fact, our finding hints that oligomers play a wider role in the brain than has been thought," says Kausik Si, Ph.D., an associate investigator at the Stowers Institute, and senior author of the new study, which is published in the January 27, 2012 online issue of the journal Cell.

Related: Evolution May be a Process that is Indpendent of Genetic Material: 'Lifeless' Prions Capable of Evolutionary Change and Adaptation

Global Warming...An Emily Litella Moment...

...as in "Never Mind":

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)Met Office releases new figures

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker stil

Scientists Discover New Clue to Chemical Origins of Life

ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2012) — Organic chemists at the University of York have made a significant advance towards establishing the origin of the carbohydrates (sugars) that form the building blocks of life.

A team led by Dr Paul Clarke in the Department of Chemistry at York has re-created a process which could have occurred in the prebiotic world.

Working with colleagues at the University of Nottingham, they have made the first step towards showing how simple sugars -- threose and erythrose -- developed. The research is published in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry...

On the Origins of Envy

Readers of this blog are familiar with the oft-quoted observation of biologist/philosopher D'Arcy Thompson:

[E]verything is the way it is becuase it got that way.

Writer Max Borders explores this dynamic in his excellent essay 'The Origins of Envy' :

...Any human emotion can become destructive by degree. Economist Young Back Choi thinks that envy is particularly destructive because it “is man's desire to eliminate others' relative gains even if he would become absolutely worse off in the process.” We see this in the original Ultimatum game. And we see it in the brutal consequences of Stalin and Mao. "Because a certain degree of selfless behavior is essential to the smooth performance of any human group,” writes Natalie Angier in The New York Times, “selflessness run amok can crop up in political contexts. It fosters the exhilarating sensation of righteous indignation, the belief in the purity of your team and your cause and the perfidiousness of all competing teams and causes."
Understood this way, envy, despite its evolutionary rationale, does not seem very sane. Perhaps we should hope that any given person is likely to be a little better off over time, even if some are a lot better off (even if this goes against the emotional grain). Alas, a positive-sum orientation is neither a feature of the egalitarian ethos, nor any politics of envy. And this is just one aspect of the trouble with the Stone Age Trinity as it gets institutionalized. “Envy is appeased only at equality, regardless of the absolute level of consumption,” adds Choi. “’Only those societies that have been able to develop sufficient means to mitigate the destructive forces of envy have been able to build civilizations and prosper. Anthropologists have documented that two of the most distinguishing features of poor societies are the relative free expression of envy and the universal fear of envy on the part of those who come to have above-average gains.”

Envy can creep into both our politics and our personal lives. So also can envy’s sister emotions, guilt and indignation. All three are facets of a brain that was sculpted by millennia in a mostly zero-sum environment. But now we can live in a positive-sum world.

Anton Chekhov and Attribution Theory

The famed Russian author Anton Chekhov had his writings influenced by science as captured by one memorable quote:

When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean—that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses—that is science.

Both art and science are lenses to look through to understand the human condition.

Another of Chekhov's observations is turning out to be germane to the study of our psychology:

Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

The article 'The Effort Effect', in the Standford Magazine, reviews the research of psychologist Carol Dweck in the area of attribution theory - the cognitive dynamic associated with how we attribute causes of events and the motivation/de-motivation it engenders (emphasis added):

...Through more than three decades of systematic research, she [Ms Dweck] has been figuring out answers to why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others don’t—why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson. The key, she found, isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated or as something that can be developed...

...Dweck and her assistants ran an experiment on elementary school children whom school personnel had identified as helpless. These kids fit the definition perfectly: if they came across a few math problems they couldn’t solve, for example, they no longer could do problems they had solved before—and some didn’t recover that ability for days.

Through a series of exercises, the experimenters trained half the students to chalk up their errors to insufficient effort, and encouraged them to keep going. Those children learned to persist in the face of failure—and to succeed. The control group showed no improvement at all, continuing to fall apart quickly and to recover slowly. These findings, says Dweck, “really supported the idea that the attributions were a key ingredient driving the helpless and mastery-oriented patterns.” Her 1975 article on the topic has become one of the most widely cited in contemporary psychology.

Attribution theory, concerned with people’s judgments about the causes of events and behavior, already was an active area of psychological research. But the focus at the time was on how we make attributions, explains Stanford psychology professor Lee Ross, who coined the term “fundamental attribution error” for our tendency to explain other people’s actions by their character traits, overlooking the power of circumstances. Dweck, he says, helped “shift the emphasis from attributional errors and biases to the consequences of attributions—why it matters what attributions people make.” Dweck had put attribution theory to practical use...

It's interesting, that science is now empirically reaffirming an observation on human nature that Checkhov made more than 100 years ago.

Fascinating Research on the Origins of Multicellular Life

Biologists Replicate Key Evolutionary Step

ScienceDaily (Jan. 17, 2012) — More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on Earth's surface began forming multicellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. Just how that happened is a question that has eluded evolutionary biologists.

But scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences have replicated that key step in the laboratory using natural selection and common brewer's yeast, which are single-celled organisms. The yeast "evolved" into multicellular clusters that work together cooperatively, reproduce and adapt to their environment -- in essence, precursors to life on Earth as it is today.

Their achievement is published in the January 16 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

...In essence, here's how the experiments worked. The two chose brewer's yeast or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast used since ancient times to make bread and beer, because it is abundant in nature and grows easily. They added it to a nutrient-rich culture media and allowed the cells to grow for a day in test tubes. Then they used a centrifuge to stratify the contents by weight. As the mixture settled, cell clusters landed on the bottom of the tubes faster because they are heavier. They removed the clusters, transferred them to fresh media, and grew them up again. Sixty cycles later, the clusters -- now hundreds of cells -- looked roughly like spherical snowflakes.

Analysis showed that the clusters were not just groups of random cells that adhered to each other, but related cells that remained attached following cell division. That was significant because it meant they were genetically similar, which promotes cooperation. When the clusters reached a critical size, some cells essentially committed suicide (apoptosis) to allow offspring to separate. The offspring reproduced only after they attained the size of their parents.

"A cluster alone isn't multicellular," Ratcliff said. "But when cells in a cluster cooperate, make sacrifices for the common good, and adapt to change, that's an evolutionary transition to multicellularity."

In order for multicellular organisms to form, most cells need to sacrifice their ability to reproduce, an altruistic action that favors the whole but not the individual, Ratcliff said. For example, all cells in the human body are essentially a support system that allows sperm and eggs to pass DNA along to the next generation. Thus, multicellularity is by its nature extremely cooperative. "Some of the best competitors in nature are those that engage in cooperation, and our experiment bears that out," said Travisano...

America: What a Country!?!?!?...Update

Here's a follow-up to the jaw-dropping post 'America: What a Country!?!?!?...Welfare Payments Can Be Used to Qualify for a Mortgage' on the policy statement that encourages bank lenders of federally subsidized loans to consider Welfare payments for mortgage applications.

A representative for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has pointed to this specific statue in the U.S. Code as the law allowing for such a policy: United States Code: Title 15, 1691 (From the Equal Credit Opportunity Act):

§ 1691. Scope of prohibition

(a) Activities constituting discrimination

It shall be unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction—
(1) on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract);
(2) because all or part of the applicant’s income derives from any public assistance program; or
(3) because the applicant has in good faith exercised any right under this chapter...

Furthermore, the representative shared, "[A]lthough discrimination based on income from public assistance is still generally prohibited, in the limited case of loan modification/loan forbearance, Fannie Mae announced in servicing guidelines (below) that it will not consider unemployment insurance benefits as part of income when evaluating loans for possible modification."

Borrower Income Eligibility for Mortgage Modifications

Servicing Guide, Part VII, Section 610.03.05: Verifying Borrower Income and Occupancy Status and Announcement SVC-2010-08: Updates to the Requirements for Evaluating Borrowers for Fannie Mae’s Standard Mortgage Modification
Fannie Mae's current guidelines allow for servicers to use unemployment income as a source for qualifying a borrower for a modification, including HAMP modifications. Fannie Mae is eliminating unemployment insurance benefits as an allowable source of income when evaluating a borrower for HAMP or any other modification. The servicer may no longer consider unemployment insurance benefits and any other temporary sources of income related to unemployment, such as severance payments, as part of the monthly gross income for mortgage loans being evaluated for a modification. This new requirement is effective November 1, 2010

Political Juxtaposition: Margaret Thatcher and Chris Christie

The best political rhetoric has elements of logos, ethos and pathos, all three expertly displayed here by masters of their craft:

Solyndra-gate...More Bankruptcies and Failures

Related: Solyndra and "The Bank of Washington"

America: What a Country!?!?!?...Welfare Payments Can Be Used to Qualify for a Mortgage

The Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff had a famous tag line as part of his routine: "America: What a country!".

The following is not a joking matter, but it will leave you asking "America: what a country!?!?!?"

John Lott's commentary points out this official Federal Reserve policy statement in the regulation guidlines found in {Closing the Gap:} A Guide to Equal Opportunity Lending (page 16: emphasis added):

..Sources of Income: In addition to primary employment income, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will accept the following as valid income sources: overtime and part–time work, second jobs (including seasonal work), retirement and Social Security income, alimony, child support, Veterans Administration (VA) benefits, welfare payments, and unemployment benefits...

The Boston Fed's website includes this introduction to the report:

This publication offers a program for financial institutions seeking to apply their mortgage lending standards in accordance with equal opportunity goals and to expand their activity in underserved minority markets. Banks, mortgage companies, and other lenders subject to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) are referred to as “financial institutions” or “lenders.” Specific recommendations are followed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s conclusions with respect to fair lending challenges. The recommendations are geared primarily to mortgage products but they may be modified to address small business, commercial, and consumer lending. A summary of fair lending laws is also provided.

O! The Hypocrisy...Continues

The hypocrisy on indefinite detention hits just keep on coming from our sanctimonious President (Remember how he scolded the Bush adminstration and his colleagues (both Republicans and Democrats) so derisively as a Senator during a radio interview):

ABC News: With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens

In his last official act of business in 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act from his vacation rental in Kailua, Hawaii. In a statement, the president said he did so with reservations about key provisions in the law — including a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge.

The legislation has drawn severe criticism from civil liberties groups, many Democrats, along with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who called it “a slip into tyranny.” Recently two retired four-star Marine generals called on the president to veto the bill in a New York Times op-ed, deeming it “misguided and unnecessary.”

“Due process would be a thing of the past,” wrote Gens Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar. “Current law empowers the military to detain people caught on the battlefield, but this provision would expand the battlefield to include the United States – and hand Osama bin Laden an unearned victory long after his well-earned demise.”

The president defended his action, writing that he signed the act, “chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed.”

Senior administration officials, who asked not to be named, told ABC News, “The president strongly believes that to detain American citizens in military custody infinitely without trial, would be a break with our traditions and values as a nation, and wants to make sure that any type of authorization coming from congress, complies with our Constitution, our rules of war and any applicable laws.”...

Pay Attention!

New York Times: F.D.A. Finds Short Supply of Attention Deficit Drugs:

Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions.

The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night.

Caught in between are millions of children and adults who rely on the pills to help them stay focused and calm. Shortages, particularly of cheaper generics, have become so endemic that some patients say they worry almost constantly about availability...

The Birth of the Tea Party

Solyndra and the "Bank of Washington"

A dog bites man story in the Washington Post detailing the crony capatilism ways of the Solyndra fiasco:

Solyndra: Politics infused Obama energy programs

...Just two days before the visit, Obama fundraiser Steve Westly warned senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett that an appearance could be problematic. Westly, an investment fund manager with stakes in green-energy companies, said he was speaking for a number of Obama supporters in asking the president to postpone the visit because Solyndra’s financial prospects were dim and the company’s failure could generate negative media attention.

“The president should be careful about unrealistic/optimistic forecasts that could haunt him in the next 18 months if Solyndra hits the wall,” Westly wrote. Westly did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.

Similar concerns arose repeatedly among officials inside the White House. One staffer at the Office of Management and Budget suggested to a colleague that the visit could “prove embarrassing to the administration in the not too distant future.” Even Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, acknowledged “risk” in the trip.

But administration officials ultimately waved off the jitters, after assurances from Energy Department officials that their policy was sound and that Solyndra’s troubles would be fleeting. After Obama’s trip, the administration hung a photo from his visit on a wall in the West Wing, to underscore good things to come.

Solyndra’s financial picture did not improve, however, and by year’s end the company was crumbling. Its investors pitched bailout plans, seeking help from what a Solyndra executive referred to as the “Bank of Washington” — his apparent term for U.S. taxpayers...

(ed. Emphasis added)

Senator Sherod Brown is an idiot...

...for seeking to change the 1st Amendment with his co-sponsorship of S.J.RES.29 -- Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections:

Section 1. Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of
money and in kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including
through setting limits on--
(1) the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and
(2) the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition
to such candidates.

Mr. Brown needs to look no further than the most recent gubernatorial election in New Jersey for evidence that money does not necessarily determine the outcome of an election (for your 411 Senator...Corzine lost):

Corzine outspending Christie nearly 3-1, most of it from his own fortune

Gov. Jon Corzine has raised $24.1 million and spent $23.6 million
on the general election campaign so far, according to 11-day pre-election
reports filed with the Election Law Enforcement Commission.

Of Corzine's total raised, $22.6 million is from his own pocket.

Republican gubernatorial Christopher Christie has maxed out on matching funds, raising a
total of $11.7 million and spending $8.8 million, while independent Christopher
Daggett has raised $1.3 million and spent $1.2 million.

Christie has the most cash on hand, at $3.6 million. That sum will not grow,
however, since Christie is bound by a cap on campaign funds that Corzine, who
does not participate in the public financing program, is not. Daggett has
$292,495 on hand and Corzine has $412,410...

Al Gore Call Your Office

ScienceDaily: Climate Sensitivity to Carbon Dioxide More Limited Than Extreme Projections, Research Shows:

A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies -- and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007.

Authors of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation's Paleoclimate Program and published online this week in the journal Science, say that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric CO2 will have multiple serious impacts.

However, the most Draconian projections of temperature increases from the doubling of CO2 are unlikely...

Occupy Wall Street and Freeloading

All, stress ALL, human behavior can be looked at through the lens of the famed biologist D'Arcy Thompson's (1860-1948) assertion:

[E]verything is the way it is because it got that way.

And so it is with the universal dynamic of freeloading/cheating.

Scientists are now theorizing that the developement of multi-cellular life may have been in part a response to freeloading.

Freeloading exists becuase it has had evolutionary utility, but research is revealing that cooperation and the Golden Rule offer better long-term outcomes.

Unfortunately, because of freeloading's short-term benefits, it persists as a strategy for many as evidenced by the political message shared by this Occupy Wall Street participant (HT: The PJ Tatler):



Note that this is not a casual musing the protestor is expressing. It took thought and effort to produce his sign.

While freeloaders are normally kept in check (must be kept in check for society to function over the long run), we also have to be mindful that they can also be quite obstinate about their freeloading ways:

Wall Street Journal: Revenge of the Freeloaders
Study Finds Culture Influences Reaction To Reward, Rebuke

We all bristle at people who put themselves ahead of the common good, whether it is by evading taxes, shirking military service, cheating on bus fares or littering. Many of us will go out of our way to shame, shun or otherwise punish them, researchers have shown. That's how we foster a community that benefits everyone, even at some cost to ourselves.

Economists analyzing ingredients of the social glue that holds us all together wonder whether that public spirit of rebuke and reward is an innate human value or a byproduct of the particular society in which we live. Until recently, however, they rarely have reached across cultural boundaries to compare how people in disparate communities actually weigh private gain against public good.

In the most sweeping global study yet of cooperation, a team of experimental economists tested university students in 15 countries to see how people contribute to joint ventures and what happens to them when they don't. The European research team discovered startling differences in how groups around the world react when punishment is handed out for antisocial behavior.

In some countries, researchers found, almost no good turn went unpunished. "What kept popping up is this element of retaliation," said economist Benedikt Herrmann at the U.K.'s University of Nottingham, who reported the experiment this past March in Science. "It took us by surprise."..

In some countries, researchers found, almost no good turn went unpunished. "What kept popping up is this element of retaliation," said economist Benedikt Herrmann at the U.K.'s University of Nottingham, who reported the experiment this past March in Science. "It took us by surprise."

Among students in the U.S., Switzerland, China and the U.K., those identified as freeloaders most often took their punishment as a spur to contribute more generously. But in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece and Russia, the freeloaders more often struck back, retaliating against those who punished them, even against those who had given most to everyone's benefit. It was akin to rapping the knuckles of the helping hand.

To explore cooperation across cultures, Dr. Herrmann and his colleagues recruited 1,120 college students in 16 cities around the globe for a public-good game. The exercise is one of several devised by economists in recent years to distill the complex variables of human behavior into transactions simple enough to be studied under controlled laboratory conditions.

The volunteers played in anonymous groups of four. Each player started with 20 tokens that could be redeemed for cash after 10 rounds. Players could contribute tokens to a common account or keep them all to themselves.

After each round, the pooled funds paid a dividend shared equally by all, even those who didn't contribute. Previous research shows that a single selfish individual riding on the generosity of others can so irritate other players that contributions soon drop to nothing.

Among students in the U.S., Switzerland, China and the U.K., those identified as freeloaders most often took their punishment as a spur to contribute more generously. But in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece and Russia, the freeloaders more often struck back, retaliating against those who punished them, even against those who had given most to everyone's benefit. It was akin to rapping the knuckles of the helping hand.

To explore cooperation across cultures, Dr. Herrmann and his colleagues recruited 1,120 college students in 16 cities around the globe for a public-good game. The exercise is one of several devised by economists in recent years to distill the complex variables of human behavior into transactions simple enough to be studied under controlled laboratory conditions.

The volunteers played in anonymous groups of four. Each player started with 20 tokens that could be redeemed for cash after 10 rounds. Players could contribute tokens to a common account or keep them all to themselves.

After each round, the pooled funds paid a dividend shared equally by all, even those who didn't contribute. Previous research shows that a single selfish individual riding on the generosity of others can so irritate other players that contributions soon drop to nothing.

That changes when players can identify and punish those who don't contribute (in this case, by deducting points that can quickly add up to serious money). Once such peer pressure comes into play, everyone -- including the shamed freeloader -- starts to chip in.

"Freeloaders are disliked everywhere," said study co-author Simon Gachter, who studies economic decision-making at Nottingham. "Cooperation always breaks down if people can't punish."

The students behaved the same way in all 16 cities until given the chance to punish those taking a free ride on the shared investment. Punishment was done anonymously, and it cost one token to discipline another player.

Among those punished, differences emerged immediately. Students in Seoul, Istanbul, Minsk in Belarus, Samara in Russia, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Athens, and Muscat in Oman were most likely to take revenge by deducting points from other players -- and to give up a token themselves to do it.

"They didn't believe they did anything wrong," said economist Herbert Gintis at New Mexico's Santa Fe Institute. And because the spiteful freeloaders had no way of knowing who had punished them, they often took out their ire on those who helped others most, suspecting they must be to blame...

Moral Psychology and Occupy Wall Street

This presentation by Jonathan Haidt will help put the Occupy Wall Street movement in perspective:

O! The Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the overarching theme found between the lines in the New York Times' Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen:

The Obama administration’s secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, according to people who have read the document...

...The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with the analysis. The memo, however, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr. Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat...

This authorization for the killing was done by the same person that scolded the Bush adminstration and his colleagues (both Republicans and Democrats) so derisively as a Senator during a radio interview:

Diane Rehm: ...Earlier this week the President signed into law the Military Commissions Act; the new law that gives the President quite far reaching authority on the war on terror. You voted against the measure. Tell us why.

Sen. Obama: I think it was a sloppy piece of legislation. It was rushed in part to match the election schedule. And had we stepped back and thought this through there was a way of making sure that the military could do it's job in charging and trying those persons who seek to do us harm, but do so in a context was consistent with our core constitutional principles. This wasn't that bill.

One of the most disturbing aspect of the legislation was the elimination for the first time in our history of the principle of Habeas Corpus. And those that are familiar with our jurisprudence know that Habeas Corpus predates the American Revolution; it's a principle going back to the 13th Century.

And the basic principle is one that should be so obvious to people that I think all of us take it for granted. That is, if the government grabs you and hauls you into custody they have an obligation to charge you and allow you to answer those charges. And this piece of legislation said for the first time that it is permisible for this adminstration or the military to capture people and not give them that basic hearing in court...

This authorization to kill Anwar al-Awlaki doubles-down on the hypocrisy previously detailed in the New York Times' Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan:

The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistanhave no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team...

What's playing out in Obama's policy is the dynamic previously covered in Immune Systems Provide a Framework for Developing Principles on the Use of Interrogation Techniques:

...The science of immune systems, Immunology, and Evolution offer us billions of years of 'best practices' in dealing with deadly threats that can be translated to the moral challenges our society faces in the Global War on Terror.

In principle, an immune system's mechanism works to protect an organism by attacking pathogens that would do it harm. White blood cells or leukocytes are constantly at work defending against harmful microbes in the body. The fevers we experience when our bodies get the flu, a 'high-level attack' and a disease that takes 250,000 to 500,000 humans annually, are part of the overall defenses the immune system utilizes. Because the body doesn't operate properly in a fever's high temperatures, it maintains a normal temperature when it is simply experiencing 'low-level attacks', like the germs that infect a small wound on your hand.

Unfortunately, the immune system's protection comes at a price; it's a two-edged sword with built-in imperfections. Sometimes it attacks the very organism it's trying to defend. This condition is called Autoimmunity. Rheumatology is one branch of medicine that treats one of these imperfections.

Billions of years of Evolution have given us a mechanism that precariously balances aggressive actions with unintended consequences. We must remind ourselves that the attack-and-defend interplay between pathogens and immune systems is not a steady-state system, but is co-evolving. One of the more fascinating adaptations is the process of active immunity and its production of antibodies. With active immunity, an immune system is constantly re-programming itself in response to the diseases/attacks it has survived...

Must See Reality TV

Tired of Jersey Shore, Real Housewives and want to see a documentary that will move your soul? Then you have until October 27, 2011 to see online the fabulous, heartbreaking story captured in 'Last Train Home':

Watch the full episode. See more POV.

Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year in the world’s largest human migration. Last Train Home takes viewers on a heart-stopping journey with the Zhangs, a couple who left infant children behind for factory jobs 16 years ago, hoping their wages would lift their children to a better life. They return to a family growing distant and a daughter longing to leave school for unskilled work. As the Zhangs navigate their new world, Last Train Home paints a rich, human portrait of China’s rush to economic development. An EyeSteelFilm production in association with ITVS International. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media. An Official Selection of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Winner of Best Feature-Length Documentary Award, 2009 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. (90 minutes)

Boehner's Bone-Headed Move

Boehner to Rangle then:

Boehner to Rangel: Give Up the Gavel

“...as chairman of the powerful House committee, entrusted with the responsibility of writing the tax laws that affect every law-abiding American citizen, you, along with the Speaker and other leaders of the majority party, have an obligation to help set the pace when it comes to standards of official conduct.”

Boehner to Rangle now:

Censure briefly forgotten as House leaders honor Rep. Charles Rangel

House leaders honored Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y) with an official Capitol portrait Thursday, sweeping aside two years of scandal and a formal rebuke to recognize a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a congressional pioneer.

As a packed committee room full of hometown supporters and congressional allies serenaded Rangel with chants of “Charlie, Charlie,” it seemed as though the ethical firestorm that led to a House censure had been briefly forgotten.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) lauded his “long and highly decorated service,” joking that the two men were “in some ways cut from the same cloth” because they shared “a particular concern about our appearance.” Boehner, who pushed for Rangel to resign as the first African-American chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, described him as a friend and said that despite their differences, they spoke nearly every day on the House floor...

None of Your Business, Literally,....

...if you're not a shareholder.

This should be the answer to Joseph's snarky questioning of Chevron's profits in this commercial:

'Synthetic' Chromosome Permits Rapid, On-Demand 'Evolution' of Yeast

ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2011) — In the quest to understand genomes -- how they're built, how they're organized and what makes them work -- a team of Johns Hopkins researchers has engineered from scratch a computer-designed yeast chromosome and incorporated into their creation a new system that lets scientists intentionally rearrange the yeast's genetic material...

Scientists Discover 'Hidden' Code in DNA Evolves More Rapidly Than Genetic Code

Just when we thought we had it all figured out:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2011) — A "hidden" code linked to the DNA of plants allows them to develop and pass down new biological traits far more rapidly than previously thought, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies...

Scientists Take First Step Towards Creating 'Inorganic Life'

ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2011) — Scientists at the University of Glasgow say they have taken their first tentative steps towards creating 'life' from inorganic chemicals potentially defining the new area of 'inorganic biology'...

Spectacular Taughannock Falls

Central New York was hit hard by the recent rains that came through on Wednesday. Even Cornell University, which sits high on a hill, had a rare closing.

Here's some fascinating videos of Taughannock Falls, a few miles north of Ithaca, which normally has a small to medium size cataract (picture is from link above for comparison):

Brent Spence Bridge Referenced in President's Speech to Congress

President Obama referenced the Brent Spence Bridge while making his rhetorical arguments for the Americans Jobs Act to Congress last night:

...There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America...

As previously noted, $32 billion a year in gasoline taxes are already collected for infrastructure projects like this.

Theoria

A wild and cunning seahorse, , named Query
Of neural nets she was quite leery

I coaxed her out of the Depths of Eerie
Into the shoals of the Bay of Theory

She put up a fuss that left her bleary
To say nothing of the netter; very weary

No longer dreary, but oh so cheery,
Query is now my little deary

Social Security: Ours is not to reason why...

...Ours is but to pay and die (i.e., early so as not to topple the inverted pyramid):

Social Security is Not a Ponzi Scheme, Mr. Perry:

Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. It is much worse.

Here are three reasons why:

One, a Ponzi scheme collects money from new investors and uses it to pay previous investors—minus a fee. But Social Security collects money from new investors, uses some of it to pay previous investors, and spends the surplus on programs for politically favored groups—minus the cost of supporting a massive bureaucracy. Over the years, trillions of dollars have been spent on these groups and bureaucrats.

Two, participation in Ponzi schemes is voluntary. Not so with Social Security. The government automatically withholds payroll taxes and “invests” them for you.

Three: When a Ponzi scheme can’t con new investors in sufficient numbers to pay the previous investors, it collapses. But when Social Security runs low on investors—also called poor working stiffs—it raises taxes. Indeed, Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner points out,

Social Security taxes have been raised some 40 times since the program began. The initial Social Security tax was 2 percent (split between the employer and employee), capped at $3,000 of earnings. That made for a maximum tax of $60. Today, the tax is 12.4 percent, capped at $106,800, for a maximum tax of $13,234. Even adjusting for inflation, that represents more than an 800 percent increase.

And given that the worker-to-retiree ratio is expected to fall from 3-1 today to 2-1 in 2030 (down from 16-1 in 1950) these taxes will only go up unless the government decides to kick retirees in their dentures and slash benefits.

Rick Perry should stop soft-peddling the issue and tell it like it is.

Journalistic Malpractice: Meet the Press conveniently doesn't ask Maxine Waters about "...we're going to tax them out of business."

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who's being investigated by the House Ethics Committee, was on Meet the Press (transcript) yesterday where she promoted her public policy for " a jobs program of a trillion dollars or more."

Host David Gregory apparently didn't see it fit to ask her about her recently articulated public policy position:

If [banks] don't come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes that they've worked so hard for, we're going to tax them out of business.

That's right up there with her threat to an oil company executive:

[T]his 'liberal will be all about 'socialize' [sic]...er, ah ... basically, ... about the government taking over and running your companies!"

What Makes for a Good Economist?

From Fredric Bastiat's (1801-1850) What is Seen and What is not Seen:

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil...

Science News: Biological 'Computer' Destroys Cancer Cells: Diagnostic Network Incorporated Into Human Cells

ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2011) — Researchers led by ETH professor Yaakov Benenson and MIT professor Ron Weiss have successfully incorporated a diagnostic biological "computer" network in human cells. This network recognizes certain cancer cells using logic combinations of five cancer-specific molecular factors, triggering cancer cells destruction....

Lest We Forget, Beslan's 7th Anniversary

As 9/11 comes upon us, we should also remember that the town of Beslan suffered an inhumane tragedy as well just 7 years ago.

All Hat, No Cattle

Journalist, 'Heel' Thyself

It’s encouraging that the host of the eponymously named Diane Rehm Show will now be applying a tough journalistic standard to politicans.

On her August 15, 2011 show entitled Emerging Field of GOP Presidential Candidates (transcript and audio at link), Ms. Rehm shared her thoughts on how the press (and presumably, she includes herself) should challenge politicians “to make sure that people hear the full story and not just what candidates tell us.”

Consider the following from the transcript where Ms. Rehm and her guests were discussing the recently announced candidacy of Rick Perry (emphasis added):

...DUNHAM 10:34:23
So, again, there are a lot reasons why Texas has boomed that don't directly have to do with Rick Perry.

REHM 10:34:29
There is another question -- 23.8 percent of Texans did not have health insurance in 2009. Has that percentage changed?

DUNHAM 10:34:44
I think it's gone up slightly. But Texas is close to the bottom or the top for uninsured people. It was before Perry became governor. It is now. It's a fair question to raise.

REHM 10:34:56
Texas has the second highest percentage of children without health insurance.

DUNHAM 10:35:05
That's correct. And health insurance is a big issue for him, Obamacare.

REHM 10:35:09
Texas also lags the rest to the nation badly in high school graduation rates?

DUNHAM 10:35:18
Yeah, I think you could have your list where Texas is at the top of all the good things and the bad things. You're absolutely right.

WALTER 10:35:24
You know, the other issue, though, is when you think about where the economy is right now and how people feel about the economy. When only 8 percent of Americans right now in Gallup polling say they feel that the economy is excellent or good, when only 17 percent think -- they think the economy is getting better, some of those issues that you raise, Diane, don't necessary go to the top of the concern list for a lot of voters.

WALTER 10:35:45
All they're going to hear at some point is, this guy created jobs in Texas. And they want to hear about jobs, and they want to hear about the economy. And if Perry does his job right, he finds a way to keep that focus unrelenting on that.

REHM 10:36:00
But that's where I feel the press needs to make the point clearly, that, for example, the average wage of those Texas' jobs is around $7 an hour. I don't think the press can simply go along with what Gov. Perry has to say and swallow it whole, David Keene.

KEENE 10:36:29
Well, the press should always do that, but the narrative...

REHM 10:36:31
Yeah, right.

KEENE10:36:32
The narrative that is -- that surrounds Rick Perry's persona as being the governor of the state that's producing a lot of jobs, and -- partly worth a mention -- but jobs are being driven there by places like California. But no matter where you're governor of, you can find negative things and positive things. All in all, he's got a pretty good narrative.

KEENE 10:36:52
But when you look at the discussion that we're now having and the questions of the last few minutes and with what's happened in Iowa, you get down to what the general election is going to be about. It's going to be about these issues, about the size and the role of the government, whether we should be worried about the deficit or whether we should be spending more money.

KEENE 10:37:11
And it's really a race in which both parties are all in because both parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, have staked out a very clear position on the issue of most -- of concern to most Americans. And that's going to determine how this race ultimately ends.

REHM 10:37:27
I just want to make sure that people hear the full story and not just what candidates tell us. David Keene is former chair of The American Conservative Union...

Ms. Rehm must have learned her lesson after the debacle that is now known as the press coverage of then candidate Barack Obama and her role (or as will be seen shortly, roll) in it. Here’s some background for those that haven’t been privy to Ms. Rehm’s transformation.

On October 20, 2006, Ms. Rehm fawningly interviewed then Senator Obama (link to audio) on his book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ and asked the following question (emphasis added) (Link to original blog post...Obama wasn't a declared candidate on October 20, 2006 (he declares Februrary 10, 2007), but the Time Magazine cover story for that week (note: cover date is one week ahead) shows the MSM were pushing the "Why-Barack-Obama-Could-Be-The-Next-President" meme well before that time.):

Diane Rehm:

...Earlier this week the President [Bush] signed into law the Military Commissions Act; the new law that gives the President quite far reaching authority on the war on terror. You voted against the measure. Tell us why.

Sen. Obama:

I think it was a sloppy piece of legislation. It was rushed in part to match the election schedule. And had we stepped back and thought this through there was a way of making sure that the military could do it's job in charging and trying those persons who seek to do us harm, but do so in a context that was consistent with our core constitutional principles. This wasn't that bill.

One of the most disturbing aspect of the legislation was the elimination for the first time in our history of the principle of Habeas Corpus. And those that are familiar with our jurisprudence know that Habeas Corpus predates the American Revolution; it's a principle going back to the 13th Century.

And the basic principle is one that should be so obvious to people that I think all of us take it for granted. That is, if the government grabs you and hauls you into custody they have an obligation to charge you and allow you to answer those charges. And this piece of legislation said for the first time that it is permisible for this adminstration or the military to capture people and not give them that basic hearing in court...

Ms. Rehm could have challenged the Harvard Law School grad at that time and pointed out that none other than the Civil War President that came from the same state then Senator Obama was representing, Abraham Lincoln, suspended Habeas Corpus. Certainly, with her new found zeal for questioning political candidates, and given the chance again, Ms. Rehm would not "simply go along with what [Obama] has to say and swallow it whole".

What really must have shocked Ms. Rehm and turned her into a reformed ‘question what the candidate is telling us with critical thinking’ journalist was the February 21, 2009 New York Times article entitled ‘Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan’. From the article:

The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistanhave no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team.

In a two-sentence filing late Friday, the Justice Department said that the new administration had reviewed its position in a case brought by prisoners at the United States Air Force base at Bagram, just north of the Afghan capital. The Obama team determined that the Bush policy was correct: such prisoners cannot sue for their release.

“Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position,” wrote Michael F. Hertz, acting assistant attorney general.

The closely watched case is a habeas corpus lawsuit on behalf of several prisoners who have been indefinitely detained for years without trial. The detainees argue that they are not enemy combatants, and they want a judge to review the evidence against them and order the military to release them.

The Bush administration had argued that federal courts have no jurisdiction to hear such a case because the prisoners are noncitizens being held in the course of military operations outside the United States.

The Obama team was required to take a stand on whether those arguments were correct because a federal district judge, John D. Bates, asked the new government whether it wanted to alter that position.

The Obama administration’s decision was generally expected among legal specialists. But it was a blow to human rights lawyers who have challenged the Bush administration’s policy of indefinitely detaining “enemy combatants” without trials…

Let’s ‘audaciously hope’ that Ms. Rehm applies her ‘better-late-than-never’, ‘get tough journalistic analysis’ philosophy consistenly from here on out.

Senator Brown Wants New Infrastructure Bank...

...for road projects like the Brent Spence Bridge. Isn't that what the $32 Billion in federal gasoline taxes collected every year was supposed to be used for?

Bumper Sticker