NSC 68 by Paul Nitze, an important Cold War Document

     Somewhere into it I found this quote and instantly Glenn Beck jumped to mind, principally because he is amazingly irresponsible (as are many of his fans) but also because I wondered what he'd think of it, especially if you got someone to say it was from a bad source before he heard it:

The free society values the individual as an end in himself, requiring of him only that measure of self-discipline and self-restraint which make the rights of each individual compatible with the rights of every other individual. The freedom of the individual has as its counterpart, therefore, the negative responsibility of the individual not to exercise his freedom in ways inconsistent with the freedom of other individuals and the positive responsibility to make constructive use of his freedom in the building of a just society.

     Also, I find it odd that this paragraph, which I like, is in a national security document.  Nitze could have just said we are free and they are a tyranny, but he goes on here to define free.  I certainly wasn't expecting to find anything I'd like here, and I am finding quite a few sentences which are unbalanced (grave threats are mentioned, but so far none of our abilities to counter them are addressed, entirely one sided).

Is It Possible To Be Happy?

     Is It Possible To Be Happy?

     The meaning of the above is found in Google and based on the idea that $cientologists $uck.

Rachel Maddow Does the Job for Democrats

Youtube

Blair Spinning, Or Being Cagily Truthful?

     Headline from the Times UK reads "Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair slated for Iran threat claim" followed by

Tony Blair’s claims that Iran now poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein's Iraq have been dismissed as a "piece of spin" by the British ambassador to Tehran.

     Maybe Blair's just saying Iran poses no threat at all?

Simplifying the "shortest unique" string of DNA

     Find the shortest length of the beginning of the gene in question (AUG,...,...,...) which identifies that gene uniquely and only operate from there, hunting the shortest unique sequence that the cancer has.

More Specifically

     Referring to the last post

1. Sequence the person's (healthy) genome


2. Do a biopsy and sequence the cancerous mutation


3. Find the {edit:] shortest sequence in the cancer that isn't in the genome


4. Develop a broken, homing mega-endonuclease to locate it

Broken Homing Endonuclease Cancer Cures

     Homing Endonuclease seeks out certain sequences in DNA and cleaves it at that point.  Normally a ligase would simply find the two cleaved ends and fuse them together with some small ATP cost.  However, if the enzymatic functioning was broken, leaving one cleaved end difficult or impossible to rejoin to the other, the endonuclease could impair or kill the host cell.  While typically only short sequences of base pairs are recognized (as few as 6 base pairs in restriction modification systems in bacteria), mega-endonucleases which recognized far larger sequences might be developed to operate only sequences of base pairs associated with the patient's cancer.

     If perfect, only recognizing the cancerous cells, inundation of the patient with the broken homing endonuclease could be sufficient, but delivery via virus is certainly also a possibility.

Thank you President Bush

     During Bush's 8 years in office direct aid to Israel dropped from 4.1 to 2.4 billion dollars.

Why don't they just ask Cheney this?

     While you were in office, Vice President Cheney, you and the Bush administration set up the Transportation Safety Administration and had some role in setting its policies.  What rules or regulations that you and the Bush administration set up did President Obama change to make the Christmas bombing more likely?

     The way I hear it, there was so little explosive that the guy who put the fire out got some burns on his hands, and the attempted "bomber" got some 3rd degree burns.  Does anyone really think you can take down a plane with so little explosives that it doesn't even kill the guy who has the bomb in his underpants?

Ireland Now Has Blasphemy Laws

     Blashempy.ie has taken a nice step.  I was thinking of one, not listed, hopefully I'll remember.  I think my favorite listed one is:

Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!

-- George Carlin, 1999

Ah, now I remember:

What's the worst story from Thursday, December 31st, 2009?

     Savvy people know that the government cynically releases the worst news on Friday evenings, knowing that less people pay attention.  The worst news of the year, however, is saved for the week when almost no one is paying attention, Christmas - New Year's.  So, what was the worst story?  What story should we hammer and hammer and hammer and hammer?  My guess is lots of murdering Blackwater employees get off Scot-Free!

Unexpected Thing I Read Today about post-war Iraq versus post-WWII Germany and Japan

     The gist was that the Allies were planning for the worst, and their original occupation orders and rules of engagement included some pretty harsh counter-measures.  Public execuations, for example, not only were in the playbook, but actually happened, including of a 16 and 17 year old pair accused of recording and transmitting U.S. troop movements (to whom?!). 

     Very quickly, within months, in both Germany and Japan, it turned out that such orders were not required to keep the peace, and a process of scaling back the authority of individual unit commanders to dispense justice was curtailed.

     In passing, the author contrasts this with what happened in Iraq, where our side was convinced we'd be treated as liberators, and, just perhaps, [ed: I'm mentioning this crime, not mention in the article] crimes like looting were virtually ignored, rather than some sort of deadly penalty enforced.

     The article doesn't mention that the Bush administration put incompetent lackeys in charge of Iraq, while the same can't be said for Truman, Eisenhower and MacArthur's actions in WWII.  That never helped, and it would be nice to see Bush spend some years in jail just for that.

     Still, it seems like a good basis for arguing the Bush administration was too nice after the invasion, principally, of course, because they thought they were the best things ever, and figured everyone else shared the same view.

     Melissa Willard-Foster, "Planning the Peace and Ending the Surrender: Deterrence in the Allied Occuptions of Germany and Japan" Journal of Interdisciplinary History XI.1 (2009) 33-56

A more plausible, I think, version of the story of Jesus

     Well, I wrote it, so of course I think it is more plausible. Jesus the Galilean.

Josh Reads the NYT, Saturday, December 19th, 2009

     China, India, Brazil and South Africa strike climate legislation deal.  I'd swear that the NY Times was never as critical of George Walker Bush for his zero international climate treaties as they were of Barack Hussein Obama for his one, non-binding agreement.  If Russia Today's newscasts are any indication, Russia denies the existence of global warming as much as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma. "Can we send him to Russia, please, Ma, can we, can we?" The NY Times fails to mention it.

     More stories of desecration in Iraq, this time of a Chaldean (Nestorian?) Church near Mosul and the Biblical city of Nineveh.  The 101st Airborne decided, out of profound humility, to paint their "Screaming Eagles" logo on the wall.  Way To Go, Cultural Sensitivity Training!

     The Times reports that non-profit medical center advertising claims are not reviewed for accuracy.  Hey, sorta like the NY Times itself. I mean, it would be nice if their own editors did that sort of thing.

     Per their long history, including places like Florida and Buffalo, the U.S. has entrapped more psychotic folk willing to earn lots of money, even if it happens to be for al-Qaeda.  These three Malians are obviously crackpots, saying al-Qaeda would "starve" without them.  Worse yet, they may have actually been involved in smuggling people into Europe.  Now that would have been something to keep tabs on!  Entrapment, illegal to do against us, them, not so much.

     Actual news: Pakistani Supreme Court trying to overthrow results of election by opening cases against "thousands" of politicians in the current Pakistani People's Party government.  Advanced Pakistani subject matter readers can get up to speed here. Intermediate readers are recommended to read this. These two are short and cover the basics. 

     Obama not an idiot! Unlike some Presidents of the last 5 years I could name.  Preventing nuclear terrorism, not new, mini-nuke bunker busters, is moving to the fore of our nuclear policy.  In related news, the U.S. and Russia are set to make another treaty reducing the world's nuclear arsenal.  The NY Times reports the next step, since stockpiles are getting fairly low, would have to involve the other permanent members of the Security Council.

     There were only a few hundred "hard-corps" members of al-Qaeda back in 2001.  Now, the U.S. insists, there are so many in Yemen we have to fire missiles into the country to deal with the problem.  No chance that could backfire, right?

     Kit Seelye, per usual, embarrasses the NYT.  Is she **cking someone, or lots of someones, to keep her job?  Is it blackmail?

Josh Reads the WaPo, Friday, December 18th, 2009

     Senator McCaskill wants more gov't oversight of contractors, 1/6th of the contracts audited, a small fraction of the total, is unaccounted for.  She questions what "additional controls are needed?"  How about not contracting at all and giving the job to the DoD?  In previous wars we've done that, but there aren't enough volunteers to fight these crappy wars, so we have to hire Hessians.

     Rep. Issa (R-CA-Extremist) wants the GAO to get law enforcement powers for the purposes of going after ACORN and the 0.0002% (rounded up) of the Federal Budget they get each year.  Way to prioritize Mr. Issa!  Can we send this guy back to the minors?

     I'm a born-anew Pashtun Nationalist.  While America continues to kill and murder with drone rockets in FATA, Pakistan, I support an indpendent Pashtuninstan for long-term stability in the region.  Has anyone polled the Pashtun about it?  I bet support would be over 80% except in the one or two regions which somehow benefit the most from the current chaos.

     Mexico has killed the #1 smuggler of cocaine into the United States.  That ought to fix it.

     Dana Milbank calls debating health care on Christmas Day "Unchristian!"  Puny human!

     I never thought the tax on expensive, private health insurance was a good idea, but someone points out today that the old and the sick, and even worse the old and sick, spend more.  Do they need a new tax?  Something tells me people who are old and sick aren't rolling in dough, and if they are, we can tax them some other way.

Climate Email Rebuttal

     For my own records, if I need to refer to what a crock of bull this widely-media-covered instance is: The Economist's Blog: Democracy in America, and in case that URL ever goes dead, it links to two more scienc-ey blogs, Tim Lambert and Things Break.

     I'd also note that the Economist's #1 "most recommended" comment is from a climate change denialist discussing one of the other supposed problems revealed by the e-mails (again, which would not even be important if not widely covered by Fox and other television stations), namely, that one of the e-mails talks about keeping two denialist papers out of the IPCC report, by nearly any means necessary.  The truth is that those two papers _were_ in the IPCC report, so nothing was ever squelched, and the further truth is that, after being published, they were both found to be full of holes... un-publish-worthy in the first place.

     The Democracy in America blog author, undoubtedly not anti-business, fails to see the utility in spreading doubt, not science.  Even if the oil/coal/gas industry can't disprove global warming, there is infinite utility if no one believes it is true.  At least, with rational people, one can argue and point to numbers, he should try debating the falsities of religion sometime!

Francis Parkman's Montcalm & Wolfe

A story of the French and Indian Wars, this part intrigued me:

The great colony of Virginia stood in strong contrast to New England. In both the population was English; but the one was Puritan with Roundhead traditions, and the other, so far as concerned its governing class, Anglican with Cavalier traditions. In the one, every man, woman, and child could read and write; in the other, Sir William Berkeley [ed: long-serving Colonial Governor of Virginia] once thanked God that there were no free schools, and no prospect of any for a century. The hope had found fruition. The lower classes of Virginia were as untaught as the warmest friend of popular ignorance could wish. New England had a native literature more than respectable under the circumstances, while Virginia had none; numerous industries, while Virginia was all agriculture, with but a single crop; a homogeneous society and a democratic spirit, while her rival was an aristocracy. Virginian society was distinctively stratified. On the lowest level were the negro slaves, nearly as numerous as all the rest together; next, the indented servants and the poor whites, of low origin, good-humored, but boisterous, and some times vicious; next, the small and despised class of tradesmen and mechanics; next, the farmers and lesser planters, who were mainly of good English stock, and who merged insensibly into the ruling class of the great landowners. It was these last who represented the colony and made the laws. They may be described as English country squires transplanted to a warm climate and turned slave-masters. They sustained their position by entails, and constantly undermined it by the reckless profusion which ruined them at last. Many of them were well born, with an immense pride of descent, increased by the habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by turns; rich in natural gifts and often poor in book-learning, though some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the English universities; high-spirited, generous to a fault; keeping open house in their capacious mansions, among vast tobacco-fields and toiling negroes, and living in a rude pomp where the fashions of St. James were somewhat oddly grafted on the roughness of the plantation,--what they wanted in schooling was supplied by an education which books alone would have been impotent to give, the education which came with the possession and exercise of political power, and the sense of a position to maintain, joined to a bold spirit of independence and a patriotic attachment to the Old Dominion. They were few in number; they raced, gambled, drank, and swore; they did everything that in Puritan eyes was most reprehensible; and in the day of need they gave the United Colonies a body of statesmen and orators which had no equal on the continent. A vigorous aristocracy favors the growth of personal eminence, even in those who are not of it, but only near it.

T. R. Reid was on Washington Journal not so long ago

This Tumblr has it.

Immortality isn't so tough

And it may happen in our lifetimes. We need a gene therapy that adds on more TTAGT (telomere) on both ends of all your DNA. When that's worn off you start dying of "old age."

Next generation, of course, is going to wish for the scientific discovery that keeps people looking young. That's not too terribly tough, either, it just involves collagen. Not injections, I wouldn't think, but a real way to replenish it and prevent it from wearing out.

So, you may live for a real long time, you yourself, but you aren't going to be sexy anymore.

Also, people are going to have to stop being so mean to their livers and lungs if we live a real long time, since the problem solved above was just "old age" and not emphysema or cirrhosis. So, as we live longer, we'll be having less fun per year earlier on.

But the alternative to (eventually) banning alcohol and cigarettes is a lifetime of medical coverage for people who might live forever but who have killed their own body. I think pot will be OK, as long as it is ingested. See: Brave New World.

If I could sum up the Spartans and the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War...

     The Athenians were a commercial empire which demanded men or taxes from its allies, whom it would ruthlessly attack if they tried to secede.  The Spartans led a confederacy and demanded little from it, but instead from their countless slaves.  This reminds me of the U.S. Civil War.

     During this Greek civil war, which lasted decades, the Spartans took a large army and stood outside the walls of a city.  The leader of the Army, Brasidas, probably the General most respected by non-Spartans during the entire war, allegedly spoke these words:

Some of you may hang back because they have private enemies, and fear that I may put the city into the hands of a party: none need be more tranquil than they. I am not come here to help this party or that; and I do not consider that I should be bringing you freedom in any real sense, if I should disregard your constitution, and enslave the many to the few or the few to the many. This would be heavier than a foreign yoke; and we Lacedaemonians, instead of being thanked for our pains, should get neither honour nor glory, but, contrariwise, reproaches.

     This, perhaps, reminds you of Iraq.