The Scientist's View

1.31.2007

Slushy mess

Well - I told Jimbo today that I am thinking we will have snow tomorrow afternoon and some sort of frozen stuff tomorrow night. My gut says that it will be more snow and less ice - I'll put the marker down for 3 inches total (but that is probably my weather optimism shining through). Since the modeling programs are all over the place - 3 inches seems as reasonable as some slushy mess. Just don't expect a solid long snow event, rather look for light snow with some moderate bursts from midday through midnight.

Sadly, this means I (and you) will probably have to go to work Friday. But make sure to have your peacoat at the ready this weekend. Superbowl Sunday will be very cold and windy with lows flirting with the single digits in the burbs.

Climate change

Kevin was watching the congressional hearings regarding governmental scientists who research climatology. I was trying to blog but kept getting distracted by these SUPER-science-geeks who were testifying. It is fantastic to watch a politician, who is clearly trying to score a cheap point, ask some innane question of a scientist and then demand a yes or no answer.

I'll tell you this much - most scientists cannot do "yes" or "no". In fact, when you hear scientists making dogmatic statements like that on things other than obvious facts/natural laws - you better check out who is paying their bills.

And this was the central point of the hearings. Should the executive branch be able to sway the content of scientific findings whose funding comes from the legislative branch. These testifying governmental scientists claim that they and their peers have been pressured to change results and content of papers to suit the executive branch's need to downplay the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

One silly congressman went so far as to suggest that these climatologists had coalesced into a cabal and were, in fact, suppressing alternative hypotheses and points of view. That, my dear boy, would be politics and scientist after scientist took exception with this inference that any legitimate point of view outside of those supporting climate change would be suppressed by the "cabal".

One scientist put it out there for all to see, and his general idea was that: 1) science should not be suppressed, 2) the people should see the clear and unbiased results that the scientists found, and 3) since the taxpayers have paid for it, it is inappropriate for politicians and lobbyists and policy people to manipulate the results for they have no basis for being able to "interpret" these results, rather the people should get a succinct presentation of the scientific results that they paid for, and 4) if a set of different researchers reach the same conclusions from independent work then this indicates that they must be on to something.

Three snaps for that weather queen (and she was a screamer).

Kevin was mentioning that their was a proposal floated around that each governmenal body that does science would have a policy person named by the executive to "prescreen" all data before it is made public. While we all know this would never make it as a official policy, it does sound like this is an existing unspoken policy currently. I seem to recall that the conservatives are the ones who detest spin and offer a "fair and balanced" view where you can decide.

It is clear that for governmental scientists, there sure has been a climate change.

1.30.2007

Merck needs the bucks

Things are tough right now for pharma. I'd feel bad if they actually spent more on research than advertising (its a true statistic for all major pharma companies) but its all 'bout the quarterly earnings.

Well Merck has developed the HPV vaccine that I discussed a few weeks back. Interestingly, a little tidbit popped up today (I think on Drudge) that Merck is lobbying at the state level for mandatory vaccination of 12 year old girls.

Now I think that HPV vaccination is a great idea (for boys and girls). And I think that states should educate their populace about the benefits of vaccination, in particular this one. This would lead to a dialogue about the costs and benefits of vaccination by each state (or locality) and laws could be developed from that dialogue.

I do not agree that Merck should be lobbying directly to state senators and representatives about mandatory vaccination that benefits Merck directly - if their product is amazing (and I think that it is) then it should be adopted by the principles of the free market. I know that this is naive of me. The conservatives are always talking about how the market should be free to invest its resources as any given company sees fit. These same conservative regularly froth about how governmental intervention is an onerous burden. It has been my view that the market will endorse ANY government intervention that supports their bottom line and reigns in their competitors. This might qualify for a classic example.

I am for mandatory vaccination. But the mandate ought to originate from those who will have to be vaccinated. Not a greedy corporation that is trying to usurp the will of the people through lobbyist bribes in back room deals.

But Merck needs the bucks and they don't have time for the natural evolution of law. They are nervously eyeing Pfizer's move last week to cut 10,000 employees since Zoloft and Lipitor are rolling off patent protection - and wondering how they can make gold out of their own rapidly dwindling pipeline. And this is the answer. Using the arm of the law to prop up profits.

1.29.2007

Swim-tastic!

The European Swim Championships

Urlacher!

An artifact?


This is a satellite image from last Thursday. If you recall, we had a strong front pass and snow squalls in the District. This cold air was derived from Canada. In this infrared (IR) enhanced satellite, you can see a green colored mass over Ontario. However, there are no clouds there. This is the IR reporting a very cold mass in Canada. The interesting phenomenon here is that when looking at the Great Lakes, the IR returns disappear. Also of interst is that if you look in Minnesota, the green returns have a "spillage effect" around the west side. While, I find it hard to believe the lakes have such a drastic effect, one can see the upslope snow in the Appalachain Mtns. I wonder if the IR is in fact driven by the context of the underlying ground. If a weather geek knows the answer, please let me know. I am curious about how the IR returns are actually calculated, i.e. is it in context of the underlying ground temperatures?

Ocean effect


This is a great image of the ocean effect cloud formation. If you look off of the southeast coast, you can see how the clouds have a feathery appearence. This is due to the cold air from high pressure from the arctic spilling across the warm gulf stream waters. Here the cold air picks up the moisture off of the ocean and forms clouds. The clouds' feathered displays is reflective of the flow from the cold high pressure into the low pressure off of Cape Cod. This effect is similar to the lake effect snows, howvever there is no elevation change along the ocean that forces the humid air up to produce precipitation (orographic lift).

1.24.2007

Power of positive thought

A few articles over the past week have popped up on the power of positive thought. These articles have focused on how to orient thought in order to effect a more positive outlook. I have enjoyed several longer stints in therapy and I have found this very helpful to manage my own edgy qualities. MRIs have shown that these strategies of positive thought can reprogram the brain. Interestingly, I wonder how these preliminary data will be applied to insurance support of "talk therapy" which is highly successful in mild to moderate depression.

Perhaps Buddhist meditation is more than a lifestyle, it may offer deeper physiological changes in life. I might have to turn in the cosmo for meditation.

1.23.2007

Negawatts



This image shows the house of Amory Lovins. His house is in the same area as Snowmass in Colorado. Beyond the unusual architecture, this house lacks a furnace. He uses the power of the sun to heat his house. While this might sound like a paradox, my own grandfather used a similar strategy in his own house on a bluff above the Yellowstone River in Montana. My grandfather had a small glasshouse attached to the house with southern exposure and this would trap the heat from solar radiation and distributed it through the house using the existing ductwork via a very small fan. Amory is a bit of an oddity in this world, as described by an article in last week's New Yorker. He is a bubbly enthuasist of energy efficiency. Amory has coined a concept of negawattage - that is that by figuring out obvious ways to reduce energy, you are actually eliminating a drag on the economy (i.e. money spent on inefficient energy is actually waste). The simplicity is disarming but his thoughts are simple exercises in logic.

Some ideas:
1. Large powerplants are inefficient. Distributed power generation at an high number of loci is far more efficient.
2. Solar radiation can be used in many dynamic ways to illuminate and heat which can drastically reduce those associated costs.
3. Retrofitting or renovating existing structures can cost money but, when taking a longer view on the balance sheet, lead to drastic reductions of costs. Something Wall Street abhors but people like Warren Buffett might love.
4. Wringing inefficiencies requires such simple thinking that it shows the inherent short sightedness of "analysts".
5. Incandescent bulbs are probably the most inefficient construction on earth. These bulbs work on resistance (more energy goes to heat (totally waste) than creating photons). Fluorescent bulbs generate a fraction of the heat while producing far more lumens per unit energy (which has been employed in businesses and fitfully in homes).

And so on. Read the article by Elizabeth Kolbert. It is a wonderful example of the amazing power of simplicity and logic

1.22.2007

Vaccination

Following up on the Courtland missive last week:

The WSJ had an editorial this past week about the effects of exemption on vaccination. The OpEd ranted about how the un-vaccinated can lead to unintended effect (i.e. mini-epidemics). But sadly the writer did not really address the cost-benefit of why these uninoculated persons are so lethal. It has a scientific basis.

I shall use, as an allegory, an epidemic from antiquity as the example: The bubonic plaque.

The plague has not been around forever. Instead, a historical view has shown that the plague only popped up in the later points of the Greek culture and expanded upon the aggregation of humans into urban centers (most famously in the middle ages and the renaissance in Europe). This development of the pathogen, Yersina pestis, was aided by the close arrangement of populations in walled cities (middle ages) and explosive development of urban centers during the Renaissance. This effect could be extened to leprosy, smallpox, polio, cholera, etc. Simply, the condensation of humans into core centers (which benefits plague, smallpox, and leprosy) and the lack of effective management of sewage and decay (polio and cholera) led to these disease becoming epidemics. But in our democratic society, some are allowed a pass to vaccination. A core set of vaccinated people prevents the development of the establishment of disease and this can lead to lethality when some of these Typhoid Mary like harbors of bacteria or virus persist. So the core concern is will we, as a society, allow these pathogen harbors to persist? Should religious beliefs trump common sense? Should our society let some have a free pass from vaccination in order to become petri dishes? I say not.

However my views do not matter (yes that is petulant). The collective should resist these slefish petri dishes. Democracy is the fiat of the majority. Ask any black person - they know what "democrary" entails. And if you don't believe that, then ask any HIV person (who is now dead) in the 1980s. If we want to live in cities and drink and eat from centralized resources, then we must accept the laws (not theories or hypotheses of the exceptors) of science. Not PC garbage.

People living cheek to jowl in our society must accept that public health supercedes their individual rights. If you don't like it, go live in the Yukon and eat reindeer and live 4 months in complete darkness. Sounds harsh and unfair? Then you can die of the effects of whooping cough or measles or mumps or smallpox or polio. And I can tell you right now, that individual needs pale in comparison to the calls of "bring out your dead".

1.21.2007

What queen would wear this?


I do enjoy fashion. Sometimes things are put on the runway that are just wrong and I have attached a sample of this. Leggings for men are not edgy, not adventurous, not playful, they are just plain wrong. This trend fell flat for women last year....women don't wear leggings except for very narrow and specific cases.

I doubt anyone would wear this outfit in its current form - but I bet if you slapped an A&F logo on it, those ghettoized Logan queens would be wearing it to Halo and tossing attitude.

The jacket does look pretty nice!

WOOF


This is the QB from Hawaii.
His porntastic name is: Colt Brennan.

Ginger!


Here is a nice picture of Chase Utley (what a great porn name) at bat.
That is some fine ginger.

To snow or not to snow

I took out my sweet little pooch this morning to do his duty. Before going out, the weather looked promising for snow. It looked cold, the clouds are the right color of grey, and things looked very calm (consistent with an over-running event that is setting up).
However, looks can be deceiving. When I walked out the door with Linus (my dog), I immediately said out loud, "Its not going to snow".
1) It felt too warm (not enough humidity - when it is in the upper 20s and very humid, the cold penetrates to your core. You KNOW it is going to snow when you feel that. However this morning I was comfortable walking around the block in a cotton sweatshirt and no gloves).
2) It did not no smell like snow. I have that odd gift to smell snow - and this morning the air smelled like air in Takoma usually does, a faint whiff of the ghetto.


But, upon returning to the house to look at the weather maps and reports, things are shaping up nicely for a few inches of snow this evening. There is snow from WV across lower Ohio and Indiana and a nice shield of rain south of that.

So who knows what will happen. The only forecast I would make today is that something frozen will fall out of the sky and it will be more than a dusting and less than 6 inches and probably end with a coating of ice.

1.20.2007

Hey little boy, you want a Twinkie???


Jimbo sent me some classic pix one of my childhood crushes. I love the cheesy chest hair look in this pic.

Gil's metallic side kick was not only annoying but apparently gay.
Apparently many robots in popular culture are homos. Who knew there were more gay robots than Republican congressional staffers?

Flash


My hubby was very good to me over the holidays in many different ways. For Christmas, he got me two of the most coolest, bestest presents ever!

1. I have attached a still from one of my favorite camp movies of all time, namely, Flash Gordon. I have been shocked to find that most of the younger generation has not seen nor even heard of this movie. Between Flash Gordon (which dad took me to see in the theater), Battlestar Galatica (Richard and Dirk.....mercy! and dad took me to see in the theater and also came on TV as a series), and Buck Rogers (on TV Tuesday nights at 8pm with Gil Gerard) - I was destined to be a gay geek at the tender age of 8 or 9. Anyways, Kevin got me a Flash Gordon T-shirt (same as in the attached pic)for Christmas and he got it in Cha-Cha small so my rack looks great!

2. Kevin also found this interesting little gadget at Brookstone. BTW, I generally tend to shun gadgets other than a cork screw. However this little piece of technology is fantastic and has changed my life! It is a square LCD screen about 4in x 4in and it shows the current weather conditions, the forecast for the day and also a forecast for the next 4 days. Push little button on the side and you can toggle through 4 other cities nearby (I get Potomac, Ocean City, Baltimore, Fredicksburg). Best part, if I travel and take it with me, it will then update for that city and 4 cities in the vicinity. (It uses some odd band of radio frequency and there are no advertisements!!!). Now, I ask you (after reading my satellite post) how cool is that? Plus it has the correct time.

Since Kevin does not believe in having the correct time displayed anywhere in our house, all of the clocks are ahead by some variation of 5 and 10 minutes. And Mr. Bus Driver of the 127 is always leaving Silver Spring at a different time (if he is feeling good, it is early, - if there is baby mama drama going on and he has to "take care of business" on his cell phone then we sometimes leave a little late) - so before I got this handy dandy little piece of technology, I could end up waiting 10 minutes for the bus when I thought I was running behind (my clock triangulation isn't so good in the morning) and then if Mr. Bus Driver was getting an earful from baby mama then I had to wait another 5 minutes on the bus with him muttering "Bitch" or "Damn Ho" every few seconds with loud squawking coming from the cell phone).


NOW - I can see what the real time is and I never have to wait for the bus (and I have learned to read Mr. Bus Driver's mood so I can always wait outside the bus if he is "distracted") - what an added bonus! But wait, there is MORE! Also I don't have to try to reason with Kevin (I am the logical one of the pair - he is a Gemini and resultingly has at least 5 voices keeping him company at any given point and all of them apparently do not run on the same schedule) that if all the clocks are the correct time, then you don't have to triangulate the time using five different clocks in the house which all have different times on them. But the voices will not allow that - they each want a clock for themselves.

It is enough to drive me to drink. But with my new little gadget, those problems have gone the way of the dinosaurs!

An interesting satellite picture


This is a satellite picture from yesterday at one point in the afternoon (I'm still lost on the 19:15Z - is the Z for Greenwich Mean Time???). Anyways there are a couple of interesting things going on here.
1. The colors, here the purple is for low clouds and the colors progress through green and yellow to indicate higher cloud tops (i.e. colder temperatures). If you look off of the Maine coast up into the Canadian Maritimes, you will see an odd arragement of clouds that appear to be almost vertical. Normally coastal lows take on more of a vortex like shape commonly called a "comma". This shape is not forming because of an extremely strong southern branch of the jet stream that is shearing the western edge of this storm (you can draw a line where the cold and warm air meet which is the trajectory of the jet stream).
2. A very strong fetch of extremely cold air off of Hudson Bay in Canada is filtering south due to the counter-clockwise flow about the very large coastal low and the strong polar high pressure over the Midwest. The moisture needed for lake effect snow in the eastern US is result from this cold flow (usually due to a pressure gradient between a strong high and low that are on either side of the great lakes) across the unfrozen Great Lakes. This cold dry air, as it progresses across the lakes, picks up humidity (simple thermodynamics) and then this air is shoved up the spine of the Appalachains. What is very interesting is that the patterns in the clouds in Pennsylvania reflect the topography, i.e. the Appalachains run from SW to NE across PA and you can see (if you look closely) the underlying ridge structure reflected where the air is compressed when pushing over these ridges and leading to the patterns in cloud formation.
(Note: The underlying thermodynamics for cloud formation in this case are that air that is rising (in this case due to the change in elevation of the earth) is cooled. This cooler air has a reduced capacity to hold moisture (again this is a basic thermodynamic property) and this moisture which is in the gaseous form is then converted to a liquid form in the phase transition to make clouds.)
3. Yesterday in the afternoon it was snowing in Cumberland MD but it was mostly sunny and dry in DC. The satellite image shows that the clouds over W Va and PA and western MD vanish as you progress eastward to the front range of the Appalachains. Well once the air gets across the mountains, it can now expand as the elevation of the earth drops and this expansion allows for the air to now take up liquid moisture as a gas, so any clouds (which are acutally big bags of liquid in sky) now vanish because the liquid goes through another phase transition to gas (and you can no longer see it). Additionally, most of the moisture was wrung out in the form of snow in the mountains. The line of clouds right down the W Va and Va border with W Va socked in with clouds and the Virgina piedmont as no clouds at all.
4. You can see the jet stream (using the clouds) across the southern states and the 90 degree turn it makes over Bermuda and heads due north to the Canadian Maritimes.

Pretty cool picture!

Wouldn't throw that out of bed....



I offer a nice tender morsel from the gay water polo team in WeHo.

1.19.2007

tender chicken and a caveman JR


i fell in a google hole the other day. while poking around, i found this cute little pic of former FSU QB chris rix (whose best asset is his face - his football skills were somewhat lacking) on the left and some little caveman JR on the right. caveman JR has definite Urlacher potential!

1.18.2007

Lindsay Lohan checks into rehab


When the press stops paying attention to you, time to go to rehab.

1.17.2007

Capitalism works.....kind of

An interesting article in the WSJ today.

Seems that the Feds, when enforcing existing law, went to a chicken processing plant in rural Georgia to enforce employment law. Is it any surprise that the illegal immigrants flew the coop? This flight left 700 jobs and guess what the company did? They increased the hourly rate (from 6 bucks an hour to 9 bucks an hour) and found that Americans came quickly to fill the void. Similar results were reported in a similar case in Greeley, CO recently - again by the WSJ. Wow, Americans will do the job for fair(er) wages. However the processing company did not hire these Americans outright, rather they used a third party to hire "contractors" for the job. The processing plant, which demonstrably broke Federal law, did not want to have to carry these new employees on their balance sheet. And, shockingly, this third party started screwing the new employees out of hours (oddly, this third party failed to have the new workers fill out Federal tax forms which is technically a felony). So when the new employees were asked to receive wages that were not comparable to their hours worked starting quiting, this was evidence that Americans would not do the job.

Ummm, does this not seem like that corporations, which cannot outsource this labor to developing nations, turned to the gaping, and unenforced, flaws in our existing Federal law to hire illegals to work more for less. I want to be upset about this, but I must resolve that the government implicitly supports this internal outsourcing and that enforcement of existing law only has come about by political pressure. However these companies refuse to hire the new, and native, employees. They force that issue onto some sketchy third party....this is endemic in one particular area that I have personally encountered, janitorial service. Capitalism, again, is more than happy to distort the law (with the implicit agreement of the Labor dept.) to drive up profits by reducing labor costs, not by increases in productivity through legal mean, rather through illegal means.

Does the application of Federal law no longer apply to service/blue collar labor? And do Americans care??? In a word, NO. Americans will keep buying and supporting this violation of Federal law. I could not have gotten my job without proper ID which confirms that the Feds do enforce the law - but only for white collar jobs. Blue collar/service jobs are exempt.

Do your duty - spend more at the Co-op on organic, small farms to support Federal law. Buy your goods from the Farmer's market for slightly more $$$; at least you know who has produced. Don't support the violation of Federal law by the multinationals. Ban the box-stores from your shopping and implicitly support our laws.

hottie guv


Well now that Guv Ehrlich has gone the way of the dinosaurs (to his credit: he was always funny on the Junkies on Fridays), there is a new Guv in Annapolis, and I have to confess, he is kinda hot. He plays in a band and shows off his guns in sleeveless T-shirts. The Post had a similar, but better and B&W, pic of him last week. when turning the page and seeing that pic, i experienced the gay vapors - and it wasn't from my morning coffee rush.
However sadly,I could not find that pic (honey, I am in a hurry cause I gotta catch the public transportation to work and that RideOn bus driver on the 127 always leaves early), but here is Martin O'Malley onstage and looking all "rocker hot".

1.16.2007

odd day of weather


An interesting pattern for a strong El Nino pattern. A deep polar high pressure has moved into the central US. Daytime temps in the heart of the Lone Star State were in the mid to upper 20s with a mixture of precipitation as far south as San Antonio. Tonight the cold air has provided mid Mississippi and Alabama with snow/sleet and Atlanta is having a wintry mix now. Let's hope some snow moves our way soon. A snow day is a true treat, especially with highs over the weekend approaching 70 and I was cruising around town in shorts and a T-shirt.

1.14.2007

Has Spring Sprung


El Nino has presented us with such a mild winter that the vegetation is a tad confused.

Harbingers of Spring in the East are often Forsythia, Rosebud and Camellias. However a quick stroll about the gay ghetto this afternoon proved that the order of things are a bit topsy-turvy.

1. Hellabora: This shade-loving plant is often found in low-lying areas under forest cover near a stream (see the picture for a rather high end example). In an urban environment, creative gardeners in Dupont have adapted it to their small rowhouse gardens. I noted several cases of these delicate plants in bloom today. Months ahead of schedule.

2. Bears have emerged from their hibernation. While walking about I noticed a number of bears out and about. One notable pair was seen pouring beer in their Starbucks coffee cups outside the Carnegie.

3. Swamp iris: There was a nice clutch of iris not only growing lushly but ready to bloom on P street in a rowhouse garden. These ought not been seen until April.

4. Saucer/Japanese Magnolias: Takoma has some ancient Saucer/Japanese Magnolia trees in the neighborhood that have budded and are ready for bloom. Easily two months ahead of schedule.

5. Cherries in bloom: The bears pouring beer by the Carnegie did so under the light wisps of pink; months ahead of schedule.

Sadly, a brief view of the weather makes me wonder what will happen to these buds and flowers when the lows will drop into the teens and lower 20s this week (and highs in the 30s) as a polar high pressure system works south and east from Manitoba.

Will the strong southern branch of the jet stream fed by the El Nino in the eastern Pacific beat back this incursion in short order? Or shall winter begin in earnest? We mustn't prematurely confuse the El Nino with global warming, as the Peruvians (perhaps this is what Harry Reid is consulting upon during his "fact finding" mission to Macchu Pichu?) have noted this effect for many decades (evidenced by the massive death of sardines which cannot handle the warm upwelling in the Pacific). Previously, the El Nino has been strong in the mid 80s and mid 90s which led to unusually warm winters and a reduction in Atlantic hurricanes. As with those years, this past year shared an interesting phenomenon associated with El Nino. During this phenomenon, there is a drastic increase in eastern Pacific hurricanes that land in Mexico - the broad flow that brings them ashore in western Mexico. This broad flow also pushes the Atlantic hurricanes back out to sea and leaves Bermuda as target practice.

1.13.2007

Human Hobbits




A quick overview of the disputed species Homo floresiensis.

Note that this article is published in the journal PLoS Biology (Public Library of Science) which was started a few years back as a completely open source journal. Open source means that anyone can access the data in the journal freely. This is one example of a broader movement in society to decouple the publisher's control over content that they did not generate. User-defined control is only possible when the cost barrier to distribution is low. And it has become ultra-low with the Internet. So support user-defined control of content and surf through the PLoS sets of journals...they have some cool science stuff in there - the most approachable for the lay person is PLoS Biology.

shooting one's self in the foot



oh dear.

Seems that lame (Pelosi) and lamer (Reid) cannot get with the program.
(BTW - did anyone else notice that the Post, in December, could not run a picture of a member of Congress without using that circular ceiling shot. I think that Bill Frist had the crown for weeks. But that is the Post, no sense of decorum.)

Madame Speaker's attempt to stab Steney Hoyer in the back was the first item of business and went down in flames. And she threw her weight behind MURTHA - anyone else see that as quid pro quo for Murtha's Iraq rants in 2006? And how can she ignore Murtha's considerable baggage?

Harry Reid cannot make it back for Gerald Ford's funeral, because he was where?

Nancy Pelosi spends a fortune on a party to congratulate herself on being elected speaker, and we had concerns about the lavish behavior of conservatives?

The bill raising the minimum wage gets pushed through the House (with every Republican in town talking about how it will raise prices and cause unemployment), but did we hear about solving the cause of wage depression in the first place, i.e. Illegal immigration? (Crickets chirping).

And a interesting little tidbit popped up this week in the Post and WSJ, Harry Reid has been busy trying to kill the Ethics bill. Yup, the one that Nancy put forth as a "solution" to the "culture of corruption" in Washington.

Now these are just a few items that I have noted in the past month and a half that lead me to believe that nothing has changed:

1. Nancy has a penchant for personal vendettas, which is fine. However Nancy has vowed to make this the cleanest Congress ever - and her first intended victim was Steney Hoyer with whom she has some long standing (decades apparently) gripe. Now correct me here if I am missing something, but should she not have tried to bump off some problematic Republicans? And can she stop playing "Who's the biggest diva" with Jane Harman? Exercising her muscle through petty politics begins to border on juvenile - and, if she wants to bash some Democrats, when will she tell Barbara Boxer to shut up for two seconds and when will William Jefferson be brought up for his ethics issues?


2. Harry Reid did not want to alter his trip to Macchu Pichu to return for Gerald Ford's funeral. Which is fair. However, Harry - how did you get to Peru? On a commercial flight? Absolutely not. He flew out of Andrews. Who paid for the trip to Peru? Apparently, this was to build relations with some South American leaders. Harry, you are not a diplomat! You are Majority Leader of the Senate. Try staying in Washington and doing some work (and if you were in town working you would be able to attend a former president's funeral). Instead, you are "busy" globe-trotting. Appearances at the beginning of the new Congress matter. And Incan ruins really don't.

3. I'll save the Dems endorsement of illegal immigration for a long series of rants.

I cured myself of being a Democrat in 2004. And I am given regular doses of reality that remind me that I made the right decision. For some reason, the party just cannot seem to find leaders that are palatable (Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, Durbin, H. Clinton) - this would explain the Obama buzz.

1.10.2007

backdating is alot simpler than it appears

the conservatives are just thrilled that steve jobs of apple has gotten roped into the backdating controversy . not so much because it is Apple (which is a pretty liberal place), but that al gore is on apple's board. al has been shooting his mouth off recently about corporate excess and has been using backdating as one example, however he is rather silent on the issue at Apple.
note to al: you have to come down on the side of the law in this case, even if it means stepping down from the board of Apple. this is not politics, it is principle. remember what the point of "an inconvenient truth" was?

anyhoo - the "liberal press" is using backdating as an easy way to bash rich capitalists who have been desctibed as retroactively picking a day that their options were effective (as opposed to the one that is on the calendar when the stock options were issued). and the "liberal press" does have a point here....however backdating is probably not a capital offense. the conservative press argues that the majority of backdating cases are actually honest, unintentional bookkeeping errors and backdating doesn't really affect the earnings of the company anyways. the conservatives have a point here. how to expense stock options on the corporate balance sheet has been an on-going battle for many years.


the "liberal press" is trying to exploit this issue but their explotation has nothing to do with backdating in the narrow sense. the has everything to do with broader concept of rich people making themselves and their friends richer using the dubious practice of an accounting sleight of hand. most people never have the option to backdate their 401K (wouldn't that be nice??) or backdate their job compensation (i should have been paid my current rate all along), so, to the common person, backdating is just another example of how the rich stay rich. the conservative press just cannot seem to find a suitable response to this point. backdating requires premeditation (the date is certainly not chosen by throwing a dart). so one really cannot plead ignorace of the law or accounting principles (which was argued by Holman Jenkins this morning in the WSJ) because traditional stock options are generally given the date they were granted and not subject to revision and the premeditated change in date proves that this change was intentional - particularly because the changes are always beneficial (true errors would be beneficial and detrimental in equal proportions).


the backdating issue is really straightforward and both sides are dancing about the point: even if it is technially legal (or at least not illegal), the practice of backdating is not applicable to all employees. rather backdating seems to only be available to the very highest echelons of companies, ergo, it is not applied equally. when opportunities are not equally available and these opportunities are only available to a small subset, the opportunities involve increasing compensation, and those who benefit are already perceived as well-compensated, you can see the cause of the populist revolt.

if capitalists want to avoid government regulation and public ire, then they ought to live by a simple precept: pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.

eugene has company

apparently eugene's editorial yesterday was not enough. today while sipping my morning tea, i was treated to a rant that left me in shock. while eugene's attacks on oprah yesterday were clearly calculated, courtland milloy had to have been drunk while putting together this screed entitled:
"District's HPV Proposal Tinged with Ugly Assumptions".
HPV stands for human papillomavirus and HPV infection is directly implicated as a primary (and preventable) cause of cervical cancer in women. a new vaccine that is 100% effective at preventing HPV infections in the cervix. particularly problematic is that: 1) HPV is largely asymptomatic and 2) the virus is nearly ubiquitous. if, as a woman, you are having sex with multiple partners (you go girl), then you have probably already run across HPV; men are the vector for transmission and they almost never show symptoms.

courtland duly reports that rates of cervical cancer are 13.5 per 100K in DC and its prevalence nationwide is ~8 per 100K. no mention of WHY DC has an elevated rate of cervical cancer. perhaps it mirrors the same effect noted for HIV, where ca. 1 in 20 (there are no good statistics) in the district are HIV positive, hear the story.

courtland is bent out of shape at the following proposal: in order to advance to the 6th grade, all girls going to DC public schools must first show proof that they have been vaccinated against HPV.

let's frame courtland's point: the response to HIV in the district has been miserable, at best, and passive tolerance of genocide, at the worst (the estimated 1 in 20 is the highest per capita rate of HIV in the nation BY FAR). courtland's concern is that girls in the DC public schools are being the subject of libel, i.e. that the establishment has the expectation of these girls becoming whores. and this point induces courtland to throw out the race card faster than al sharpton or jesse jackson. from courtland's viewpoint, the offense is: this vaccination effort is spearheaded by two white people who, by suggesting mass vaccination, slander black girls as assuming that all girls in DC will become sluts. hmmm, sounds fishy already. courtland's outrage is then presented through a set of cautionary tales/couterpoints which include: state sponsored paternalism, norplant for convicts, the tuskegee syphilis experiments, and vaccine-induced autism.
re-reading that brief synopsis of courtland's screed leaves me scratching my head, still.

which leads me to add a few points for consideration:
1. vaccination is paternalistic. before vaccination there were quarantines, also paternalistic. public health measures do not lend themselves to suiting individual needs/desires/whims, etc - vaccination is a blanket approach that may harm and kill a small number via anaphylaxis. but the benefit of vaccination to the enitre public outweighs the risk to a small, unfortunate subset which will die a horrible death by asphyxiation/anaphylactic shock. quick sidebar: the most dangerous vaccine? the flu shot. so courtland, if these girls are not vaccinated and develop cervical cancer (which, with vacciation, is 100% preventable) then will you go to the funeral and eulogize the dead woman? will you state that her death was a small token towards the greater idea of "taking a stand" against white-/state-sponsored paternalism? (note to courtland, the majority of DC's government is black).
2. the end justifies the means. this cliche is oft quoted and seldom truly appreciated. in this case, courtland doesn't give us a viable alternative. does he think that vaccination should be encouraged rather than enforced? should girls who are going to be at higher risk (by their own admission) be vaccinated? remember courtland, that the vaccine does not work post-exposure so you have to vaccinate before girls become sexually active (which is averaging 17 these days - it would be interesting to see the distribution behind the average to show the spread). hence the suggestion of using the 6th grade, because everyone knew some girls in junior high that were already sexually active. courtland says, in an indirect way, that these "white people" are slandering "black girls" as being inherent sluts - his definition of the two groups, not mine. courtland wants us to focus on ensuring that the means employed suit his racial politics and then he will endorse the end. courtland, what are the means you want to employ such that the beneficial end will be realized? would it be different if adrian fenty, DC's new mayor, had suggested it?
3. the race card is really unnecessary. had courtland specified that montgomery county or PG county is not requiring vaccination for promotion in school, i would have conceded the point. courtland, i would agree that perhaps there needs to be a metro-wide discussion about a concerted effort to vaccinate girls (and boys down the road). why not have a constructive dialogue about how to save lives? why imbue every corner of your article with racial distrust and using racial descriptions that are superfluous to the discussion? why do you automatically assign a racist motive to this situation? based upon the elevated epidemiological statistics for cervical cancer deaths in DC, perhaps vaccination (indepdendent of the perceived slander) is warranted? when thinking about the nature of the vaccine and when it is effective, a very measured and responsible suggestion to prevent cervical cancer has been offered but was it offered by the wrong people? why courtland are you trying to obfuscate the value of vaccination with a haze of racism?

4. this was in the metro section, not on the editorial page. the Post really ought to reconsider the location of this regular column. it contains a regular dose of bombast while simultaneously offering little educational value (typical of Op-Ed pieces).

5. finally courtland, it is HPV and not HVP - please proofread the screed. when advocating that DC women should contract a fatal, but preventable disease, do those unfortunate souls the favor of spelling the cause of their prevetable death correctly.

1.09.2007

eugene whores oprah

for those of you who may not get the Post regularly...

today, eugene robinson wrote an op-ed piece about oprah's much publicized subsidy of a new school in South Africa. it was an oddly anachornistic piece. his problem was not that oprah spent her own money to build a school....this would be beyond reproach. rather his issue was that oprah had made a statement about giving up on inner-city schools in the US - her quote was to the effect of "i gave up on visiting inner-city schools because none of the kids there care about learning, they just want the newest pair of sneakers or an ipod"....note this is a paraphrase of her intent, not a direct quote.

in his defense of trashing oprah, poor eugene made a critical error in citing that suburban kids want the same things as the inner city kids (i.e. all kids want sneakers and ipods). and why is oprah to blame for this? oprah's point was that the South African kids wanted a uniform and wanted to go to school - ergo, in the estimation of the queen of talk, subsidizing education for South African children who are at a severe disadvantage is far nobler than funding those US children who need a better school.

eugene, let's address some realities:
1. oprah can spend her money how she wants. she earned it. and she can make a point with that money. why blame oprah for spending her money on a fruitful endeavour? she is a capitalist (well over a billion in her pocket shows she knows the principles of capitalism) and thusly wants a return on her investment. and she is describing what she feels is a good investment.
2. oprah is not jesse jackson. she is not beholden to the same political pressures as jesse has with the rainbow coalition. if oprah wants to fault a broken system, she, as an american, is completely entitled to this. first amendment ought to be race blind, right? she has no obligation to toe jesse's line.
3. eugene is working for an organization that has run a 7 month series on "life as a black man" which was somewhere between enlightening (in a train wreck sort of way) and blaxploitative - eugene has to slander anyone, particularly a successful black person, that does no subscribe to the victimization politics endemic to the politics in the District.
4. ought eugene fault the advertising establishment for the ipod and sneaker fetish? since all kids, by his estimation, want these material things (white kids, black kids, red kids, yellow kids, you surely get the idea).....is oprah actaully responsible? why not fault apple or nike and their advertising whores? why not hold the advertising establishment at fault?
5. schools cannot force education on children, parents do. education starts and ends at home. if parents don't drive their children to study, then it begs the questions: can a teacher, can a school, can a school system, can "no child left behind"?
6. aid to africa is in vogue at the moment. bill and melinda, warren buffett, brangelina, madonna, etc. aiding a dysfunctional continent, having so very little, ought to be rewarded by dear eugene.

eugene should stay clear of philanthopists' desires to aid the less fortunate. he should be more concerned with the new mayor's, adrian fenty, plan for fixing education in the District. after all, the high school down the road from me (in ward 4 where fenty was the representative before being elected mayor) has plywood covering broken windows. those plywood coverings are at least 2 years old. perhaps eugene should stick to attacking fenty who is DIRECTLY responsible for schools that are falling apart.

but then, how would eugene get a check from the Post if he were to bite the hand that feeds? eugene attacking oprah for stating the obvious underlies how tied eugene is to derivative victimization politics.

1.04.2007

nardelli

well....i got my deserved prize from subscribing to the wall street journal.

just when you think this bastion of conservatism has gotten stale, they throw in one article with a truly bitchy quote.

when referring to the soon-to-be-departed CEO Nardelli, he was quoted in the article as being "short, bald, agressive and hard-working"....can we say, underendowed?
however we should not feel bad for mr. nardelli. his compensation package is 210 MILLION dollars. and his strategy to return home depot to profitability? reducing the number of full-time workers (who are expensive but know a saw from a hammer) with part-time workers (who may, or likely do not, speak english) in order to minimize labor costs. if only the rest of us could be rewarded for being so prescient for reducing costs by firing people who know their ass from their elbow. oh wait, that might be most large corporations in america.


this article was, notably, concurrent with george will's op-ed piece today which clarified that the minimum wage ought to be 0 dollars, that is right ZERO. his position is that business ought to decide what the price of labor should be. however he left out (shockingly) how illegal immigrants affect the labor prices in the market. given that he is a republican apologist, how on earth does he reconcile the fact that illegal immigrants depress the rate of hourly pay? of course, he doesn't. further, how does he reconcile the actions of companies in small towns where the company is the predominant employer, ergo, the company can dictate the hourly wage downward since there is no alternative (but to move). and how does one move to a more prosperous region without the capital to do so? dear mr. will is also remarkably silent on this issue. the minimum wage was enstated in the 1930s as an antidote to the behavior or raw capitalists (oh, wait, it was supposedly to elevate depressed wages due to the economic malaise - due to the???? yup, you got it, the excesses of the 1920s where american capitalism had recovered from its late 1880s excesses). if bob nardelli is granted 210 MILLION bucks for being fired, what should we make of the decline of customer service at home depot?


the american public voted for nardelli with their pocketbooks over the nice old guy at sears or the hardware store....those guys could actually tell you how to do something. the american public has also voted for wal-mart and safeway and petsmart and all of those other souless chains. the free market reigns in this country. but should the free market allow federal law to be usurped? should companies be allowed to hire illegal immigrants (against federal law) in order to depress wages which in turn maximize profit? clearly the american public does not mind....until they lose their job. when 42% of households in california do not speak english at home, and likesie 28% in texas , and over 20% in florida, new york and illinois - will americans stop subsidizing the demise of the service/blue collar sector? if the market will allow mr. nardelli 210 MILLION bucks as severence, i think you have your answer.


do your duty...shop at independent stores, buy food at a local co-op, specifically avoid any big box retailer that ships your $$$ to another country (either by buying manufactured goods that are from those countries or hiring illegals), think about what your revenue does when you vote with your pocketbook to reward underacheivers such as mr. nardelli.

1.03.2007

abbott labs gets greedy

abbott labs got some front page muckraking for its bad behavior (and this is coming from the wall street journal, hardly the embodiment of the liberal bias). the bad behavior: if abbott could eliminate one protease inhibitor(PI) (i.e. norvir) from the market (norvir is marketed by abbott labs), it could undercut other medications which are used concurrently with norvir and promote its own companion PI, kaletra. the concern is that norvir was used in small amounts to improve the effects of PIs - but what concerned abbott labs was that the PIs that were supported by norvir were not made by abbott labs, but HORROR, by other companies. so if abbott eliminated norvir, another combination therapy, kaletra, also made by abbott, would become a clear choice.


let's clarify this: abbott labs wanted to undercut one of its own drugs that has small revenue stream, but has a proven track record in improving PI efficacy (regardless of the manufacturer), in order that abbott could, in turn, promote its own combination therapy (i.e. kaletra).


why is this such a problem? patients with a viral load who are currently managing their disease by a combination therapy (not being exclusively manufactured by abbott) are reducing the potential revenue stream of abbott labs.


abbott labs final choice: quintuple the price of norvir while exempting those having a minimal income (i.e. those on medicaid). those low income people who needed norvir were conviniently exempted to show it was not affecting poor people - but herein lies the rub. should a company be free to raise the price of a drug under patent protection to force those with health insurance towards kaletra? this action risks the health and welfare of people who are suffereing from a chronic disease, and effectively managing it with some combination worked out with the patient and their health care provider, but have health insurance. should they be forced towards a single regimen (that may or may not work) that is provided exclusively by abbott labs through abbott lab's manipulation of patent law....is that alright with the majority of americans?
and this is where the next point is made: whomever has health insurance would be forced, through simple economics, onto kaletra (as opposed to their existing combination of PIs which has been deemed effective by experience to manage their viral load). this is simple capitalism at work and has, by my predicted inaction, the endorsement of the american government.


i can only hope that those at the human rights campaign (HRC) will think for two seconds and, as a result of this reflection, protest this to the fullest extent. but don't hold your breath. HRC never bites the hand that feeds, ever (think about lance bass getting a visibility award which will generate more press, hence revenue, than any homo with HIV). also, will the mainstream gay mags, primarily advocate and out (both of which get an enormous amount of ad revenue from abbott - just see how many kaletra ads grace their pages), come out in opposition? (i receive both publications). again, not likely. if there is no action, it will only confirm my hypothesis that the HRC, advocate, and out will whore gays in order to ensure a revenue stream from a major ad revenue provider (i.e. abbott labs).


gays are a political minority and their "leaders" (i.e. HRC, advocate and out) have drifted far, far away from those of us who are "provincal" (i.e. no access to congressional cocktail parties). these self styled leaders should be in full protest of this provacative action by abbott.


i can only hope that these organizations, who have spent endless amounts of money on the promotion of gay marriage, will position themselves at the "forefront" for gay rights, and resultingly, might consider this action by abbott labs. how many dollars of ad revenue or lobbyist fees will assuage the guilt of whoring your constituency? if i don't see some action by the HRC, in particular, then i try to drag in larry kramer to highlight what should be simple common sense. HEY! HRC, ADVOCATE, and OUT, we, the homos, are your constituency. you do not exist to suck down cocktails with senators by virtue of the money that is raised in the name of "gay rights". if the HRC is not emboldened (have you seen its downtown d.c. castle??) to raise holy hell on behalf of HIV positive gay men over this issue - well, what can i say? might we hope that perhaps andrew sullivan (the conservative editor turned NT Times spokesman on all things gay) will deign to spit out the cock in his mouth to say something useful. remember, before dear andy sullivan popped HIV+ (and that was due to "unsafe" oral sex, by his estimation), all those with HIV were whores - one of his books in the 90s highlighted how if we all adopted hetero values then we could be "respected". if you doubt this, look back at his writing for confirmation.


this action by abbott is disgraceful (but expected given capitalist values in america). if we see no action by the gay "leadership", this action will be condoned.


i can only hope that larry kramer will come to our rescue.

1.02.2007

those clever geneticists


Interesting news development last week....the advent of prion-free cows. now this got very little attention in the popular press because:
1) most people have no clue what a prion is.
2) these days, recombinant technology doesn't really seem to make Americans hyperventilate.


So let's handle these two points briefly:
prions are interesting and rather esoteric molecules. conceptually, the basis for prions was laid down in the late 60s and early 70s. however, it was necessary for the molecular biology revolution to address these oddities. prions are endogenous proteins that exist in a native state in your (or many forms of life for that matter) body. upon a particular modification, these proteins are structurally altered from their native to an active state - now becoming a prion. once the protein is in this active state, it can then change the other native proteins into an active form and this leads to a feed forward loop of conversation from native to active. the problem with this conversion to the active state? the active proteins now have a high affinity for aggregating into long polymers. these elongated polymers then destroy the delicate architecture of the brain which leads to a progressive death of the unfortunate individual. prions are extremely heat stable - they can go through the autoclave just fine. prions also are an infectious agent (see the kuru disease among the South Fore). not only are they transmissible from person to person, they are also transmissible across species (think of the big uproar over Mad Cow Disease that came from prion infected animals being ground up for cow feed).
so prion-free cows are a nice development....except they are not proposed for use in the human food chain, rather they are being developed for use to generate recombinant pharmaceuticals that will be free of prions.

which leads me to point 2.....which is somewhat peripheral.
why are americans becoming so disinterested regarding recombinant technology in agriculture when their european peers still harbor very strong feelings against this technology?
i would argue that it really is a malaise/indifference that americans have in general towards corporate excess. no european in the know actually thinks that recombinant technology will lead to dangerous allergies or novel production in toxins, rather this technology (particularly in plants) is being positioned by seed companies as a steady revenue stream...it goes like this:
a) company X develops a new seed line that has herbicide resistance
b) farmer buys the seed so he can spray his field after discing and planting to kill all plant life save the seeds that are herbicide resistant - farmer pays the bonus $$$ to get this trait - (company makes money)
c) the herbicide is produced by company X which is under patent protection, naturally (company makes alot more money because of the patent protection will prevent competition)
d) seeds with this trait cannot be stored year to year, i.e. farmer is prevented by FEDERAL LAW from using the progeny seed the next year - even though he has already paid for the technology (here the company really shows how greedy it is, using the government to ensure that the farmer must keep coming back year after year to buy new sets of seed)
e) this technology is not offered at a discount to developing countries where hunger is a problem (so company forces poor people who are starving to forgo this "amazing technology" because it is concerned with erosion of its intellectual property....)

americans are really not that concerned with these sorts of corporate antics....the reasons are probably manifold and generally depressing. however the europeans see this sort technology as less of an advanced, and more of an attempt of seed companies to corner the market on "germplasm" which is viewed as not being subject to intellectual property law.

1.01.2007

ask a silly question.....


i was looking for a picture of john booty from USC (which just won the Rose Bowl), and so I typed in the search "booty football" in google and, besides all of the obvious flesh-laden pics of ghetto booty, i ran across this "entertainment event" that seems pitched for the larry the cable guy's demographic.

the attached pic is from The Lingerie Bowl III. unlike most soft porn stuff, this pic really has a brokeback feel...the chick in white trying to get some sugar and the chick in pink laying down a fist to the solar plexus.

Brady


The best thing out of ND in ages.....Brady Quinn.

foggy weather.....

Given that the weather today is much like spring, it reminds me of a wet and wild afternoon when we had rugby match against the Marines in 2005. In the picture, Berto (on the edge) and I (center) are taking a breather; the Marines are playing grab-ass in the background.


Although this stretch of weather is rather warm from a historical perspective, the foggy weather is quite common this time of year which is often associated with cool air settling over the warm, rain-soaked ground. Interestingly, we will not see any cold air for several weeks (at least) and this is very consistent with the strong subtropical flow from the eastern Pacific, also known as the El Nino. For the east coast, this phenomenon often leads to elevated numbers of coastal lows (we have seen alot this year....with several in October which is rare), an elevation in average temps due to the inability of polar air to drive south, and a strong reduction in hurricanes making landfall which is reflective of a broad flow aloft from west to east. This cycle is remarkably strong this year and may be a fixture for the entire winter and spring. Which is bad for snow lovers (such as myself). I noted when walking my pooch this morning that the daffodils have already begun to emerge. This must be a record (by several weeks) for earliest emergence. Combined with the precocious cherries in bloom all around town, it is beginning to weigh upon me that El Nino may ruin my dreams of having a few nice snowstorms this winter and prevent me from dusting off my skis. On the upside, when the weather is in the 40s or 50s, my evening wait for the bus much easier when considering the ambient temps could/should be in the 20s and 30s.

CAVEMEN




Inspired by my friend, Jim, who is on the Renegades, I have initiated my own blog which is entitled "The Scientst's View ".


This blog will be oriented largely around daily matters with a dash of science. I am, by training, a geneticist - so I will digress from time to time on molecular genetics. Which, if you know some of the basics, is shockingly interesting.


Additionally, I possess the "obsessed with weather" (a.k.a. OWW) gene which is shared by a large number of other homos. However, not as gay as this weather queen . I will offer up tidbits of weather fun and trivia from time to time.


For my first post, we'll start off on a football theme! There appears to be a newly minted type of homo - and this has definitely piqued our collective interest: The caveman. I am presenting the Chicago Bear's star linebacker Brian Urlacher as a textbook example of a caveman.

Delicious.