Fresh organs from China: kill to order

We've known for years that China harvested organs from condemned prisoners. I, like many others, expected this practice to be monetized. I didn't anticipate this practice, though in retrospect it's obvious:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: Involuntary Organ Donors

Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution.

In other words the prisoners are kept alive until their organs are needed, then they are killed. Sort of like cooking lobster.

Maybe there's still time to reconsider those Olympics? Not that the US is in any position to point fingers, Bush has reduced our reputation to the national equivalent of "psychotic pedophile".

Earth out of balance: Al Gore

America chose George Bush. I hope God will help America ...

A Campaign Gore Can't Lose
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A19

Boring Al Gore has made a movie...

... You will see the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps melting. You will see Greenland oozing into the sea. You will see the atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases that block heat from escaping. You will see photos from space of what the ice caps looked like once and what they look like now and, in animation, you will see how high the oceans might rise. Shanghai and Calcutta swamped. Much of Florida, too. The water takes a hunk of New York. The fuss about what to do with Ground Zero will turn to naught. It will be underwater.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is a cinematic version of the lecture that Gore has given for years warning of the dangers of global warming.

... You cannot see this film and not think of George W. Bush, the man who beat Gore in 2000. The contrast is stark. Gore -- more at ease in the lecture hall than he ever was on the stump -- summons science to tell a harrowing story and offers science as the antidote. No feat of imagination could have Bush do something similar -- even the sentences are beyond him.

But it is the thought that matters -- the application of intellect to an intellectual problem. Bush has been studiously anti-science, a man of applied ignorance who has undernourished his mind with the empty calories of comfy dogma.

... Gore insists his presidential aspirations are behind him. "I think there are other ways to serve," he told me. No doubt. But on paper, he is the near-perfect Democratic candidate for 2008. Among other things, he won the popular vote in 2000. He opposed going to war in Iraq, but he supported the Persian Gulf War -- right both times. He is smart, experienced and, despite the false caricatures, a man versed in the new technologies -- especially the Internet. He is much more a person of the 21st century than most of the other potential candidates. Trouble is, a campaign is not a film. Gore could be a great president. First, though, he has to be a good candidate...

I recall reading Tipper Gore was adamant that Al not run, but that his daughter wanted him to try it. If he made a go, I'd guess he'd run as an intellectual populist - a most unusual combination.

Lieutenant General Neubold: On Iraq and Rumsfeld

This is one of the articles by the dissenting generals -- the few who speak out: TIME Magazine -- Why Iraq Was a Mistake

Read the whole thing. He paid a price to write this, it deserves to be read in the original.

What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results.

The "alienation of allies" is the charge that's often forgotten, I think it was the most senseless error. I remember watching Rumsfeld and his minions mocking our potential allies before the invasion, and deciding then that he was a fool.

I wonder what Neubold means by "failure of other agencies"? Is he referring to the CIA? The State Department? Really, we need a journalist to follow-up on that mysterious phrase ...

The anti-heroism of passive resistance to the Holocaust

French gendarmes sent 4000 children under age 12 to die at Auschwitz -- apparently the Germans didn't even particularly request them. The French have as much unexamined history as we Americans have (Germans have been obliged to examine their history more closely).

No great surprise there, simply another instance of the reeking evil that infests humanity. This is more novel:

France during the second world war | Not a good time to be hungry | Economist.com

... What is remarkable, though, as Mr Vinen points out in this eminently balanced book, is that nearly 80% of the Jews in France survived the war. Hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers, postmen, priests and petty bureaucrats preferred turning a blind eye when there was a new face in town rather than alerting German authorities. Faint praise, perhaps, but this passive resistance helped save over a quarter of a million lives.

This is not heroism, but it is a sort of goodness. Many people would have to choose the path of least activity for it to work. I wonder too, how often some occupying German would decline to follow-up on the occasional report from the hinterland...

We must always remember. It could certainly happen here.

Quantum biology

Aeons ago, my biophysical chemistry lectures used to speculate about electron flows along the double helix. Now the hot topic is quantum tunneling of protons catalyzing biological reactions:

Biochemistry | Evolving enzymes | Economist.com

IMAGINE hitting a tennis ball against a wall. Time after time, the ball bounces back. But, just occasionally, the ball disappears only to reappear on the other side of the wall. The wall is solid; no bricks are missing. It sounds surreal, but in the weird world of quantum mechanics such occurrences, involving very small objects over very short distances, are an everyday effect known as quantum tunnelling.

Whether such an effect could account for odd behaviour at larger sizes and distances has long been the subject of debate... The answer, reported in this week's issue of Science, is that enzymes also exploit this quantum-mechanical loophole.

The researchers, based at the University of Manchester and the University of Bristol, both in Britain, studied a compound called tryptamine ... an enzyme called aromatic amine dehydrogenase (AADH) removes hydrogen from tryptamine.

Hydrogen, the simplest atom, consists of a single proton encircled by a single electron. As electrons are point-like, their quantum mechanical behaviour is well known. But protons are far bigger, and the idea that they might be able to quantum tunnel is more controversial. Yet the AADH catalyses the breakage of the otherwise very stable, carbon-hydrogen bond at ambient temperatures, a feat that would appear to be impossible.

... the British researchers raise the possibility that short-range tunnelling in enzymes might be the result of evolutionary pressure...

Well, if it does happen, what would it arise from other than evolutionary pressures? That last sentence is an odd exception to a well done article.

It all seems very improbable, but if it is physically possible, then I suppose natural selection would come up with a solution. Maybe this is what was going on during that vast period of time between the cooling of the earth and the rise of the organism -- perhaps "solving" the puzzle of quantum catalysis is a much harder problem than going from a bacteria to a naked ape.

There's a historical angle. I dimly recall that Schrodinger and some colleagues speculated about a quasi-mystical quantum mechanical "spark" to life and consciousness; some more recent books have continued the trend. Ineffable quantum phenomemon is the geek alternative to the Soul. It would be amusing if this turned out to be, in some sense, true.

But can I trust The Economist on this? They recently wrote an article on GeneDupe's plan to create living versions of mythological monsters:

PAOLO FRIL, chairman and chief scientific officer of GeneDupe, based in San Melito, California, is a man with a dream. That dream is a dragon in every home...

I didn't blog on that one as I simply figured The Economist had been duped by some whacko; indeed I barely skimmed it. Alas, this week they revealed, through the title above a letter to the editor, that I ought to have thought about what the letters in the name PAOLO FRIL could also spell. Really, they are not trustworthy.

PS. If enzymes really can quantum tunnel protons, there will be some novel industrial applications of the technique. It would not be the first time the 'blind watchmaker' has taught we sighted watchmakers.

PPS. My second son promises that when he grows up, he will bring mythical monsters to life and resurrect beasts long extinct. Heck, maybe he'll do me too ...

America the big: my seating proposal

The good news is thatlast year my travel duties declined. The bad news is that I lost elite status. Now I fly cargo, where conditions are rugged. Today I was in the aisle seat. Not bad, but the very agreeable gentleman in the window seat weighed well over 350 lbs, and the guy in the middle was probably in the upper 200s. I sat somewhat sideways.

The world's getting bigger, and there's no miracle cure is sight. Of course catastrophic economic collapse from mismanagement, plague and global climate change may alleviate this problem, but for now we're "stuck" with it. It's not fair to punish the big people -- nobody outside of the NFL chooses to weight 300 lbs. The best evidence we have suggests most humans cannot control their weight.

So here's my solution -- another example of why we need government. Mandate that airlines provide a free extra seat for everyone enrolled in the 'fly-big' program. Enrollment is optional, but the benefit is obvious. A discrete abdominal measurement is all that's required, and the traveler gets special status. Nothing need be said, it simply happens that they always have an open middle seat by them. Ticket prices go up a bit, but since it's mandated there's no competitive disadvantage. A win-win situation, and well worth a few extra bucks a ticket.

Return of the Kings

Pharyngula writes:

Exxon CEO Lee Raymond's salary is $190,915.

Per day.

Bush - he can't even cut taxes

Bush's single claim to fame is "tax cutter". He can't even do that properly:

With Tax Break Expired, Middle Class Faces a Greater Burden for 2006 - New York Times

...The A.M.T. will cost Americans who earn $50,000 to $200,000 nearly $13 billion more next April. That is about how much people who earn more than $1 million will save because of the break on investment income like dividends and capital gains. Both figures were provided by the Tax Policy Center, which is a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

It's as though Bush were running an IQ test on his voters. So far they're failing.

Ironically the AMT somewhat resembles the tax reform we need. It removes a lot of exemptions, if it were the only tax our returns would be simpler.

NASA launches new SETI project: optical search

I of course, predict this effort will fail:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Telescope bid to spot alien beams

A new optical telescope designed solely to detect light signals from alien civilisations has opened for work at an observatory in Harvard, US.
It will conduct a year-round survey, scanning all of the Milky Way galaxy visible in the Northern Hemisphere...

... Visible light can form tight beams, be incredibly intense, and its high frequencies allow it to carry enormous amounts of information.

Using only present-day terrestrial technology, a bright, tightly focused light beam, such as a laser, can be 10,000 times as bright as its parent star for a brief instant. Such a beam could be easily observed from enormous distances.

'This new search apparatus performs one trillion measurements per second and expands 100,000-fold the sky coverage of our previous optical search,' said the optical telescope's project director, Paul Horowitz of Harvard University, Massachusetts.

On the other hand, I'd imagine that if it's going to work, we'd discover something pretty early. That would make for an interesting summer.

BTW, Greg Bear wrote the short story "Blood Music" in 1982. At the very end he casually resolves the Fermi Paradox using a biological variant of the inescapable singularity solution. That predates my prior "earliest science fiction explanation" by about five years. I need to add that one to my page footnotes!

Rumsfeld out? It's about nuking Iran

Why the new attempt to oust Rumsfeld?

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush rebuffs attack on Rumsfeld

Six retired generals have spoken out against Mr Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq and apparent disdain for experienced military commanders.

The defence secretary has also personally dismissed suggestions that he should resign.

"Out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defence of the United States it would be like a merry-go-round," he told Arabic TV channel al-Arabiya.

I'm betting it's about nuking Iran. The prospect of going to war with Iran along with using tactical nuclear weapons, has galvanized the generals. Bad enough to be planning this kind of attack, worse still to do it with an a proven incompetent in command.

The generals can't replace Cheney, so they're focusing on Rumsfeld. As always, it's up to Bush. I can no more predict his thinking than I can predict pulsar signals.

I wonder how many generals secretly wish that old draft-dodging pot-smoking commie was running the country.

Update 4/15/06: Rather to my surprise, the NYT says the same thing. The military is worried abour Rumsfeld leading when Iran is the problem. Emphases mine.

The call by some retired generals for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation is more than an effort to assign blame for the problems that the United States has encountered in Iraq. It also reflects concern that military voices are not being given sufficient weight in the Bush administration's deliberations, as well as unease about the important decisions that lie ahead.

... The retired generals, in effect, have declared Mr. Rumsfeld unfit to lead the nation's military forces as the United States faces crucial decisions on how to extricate itself from Iraq and what to do about Iran's nuclear program.

... On Iran, which has not been addressed directly by the dissenting generals, the United States must decide how forceful a position to take to head off Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program. Mr. Bush has played down the threat of military action, but — with little progress in resolving the dispute through diplomacy — the option of turning to airstrikes is unlikely to go away. In mapping a strategy for Iran, the United States must balance its apprehension about the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran against the risk that military strikes against Iranian nuclear installations could lead to a wider war and fan regional unrest...

Lifeboat Britain

Dyer claims Britain keeps its nukes to be ready for invading hordes of global warming refugees. Canada, on the other hand, is indefensible. The US will take it.

Well, not much to do about that one ...

Gwynne Dyer has 12 new articles up

2006 has added 12 articles. I've given up on Dyer adding an RSS feed!

Narus: an ominous name

The Narus 6400 is one of the devices the NSA uses to monitor things like the automatic blogger email that I'll get after I post this : Daily Kos: All About NSA's and AT&T's Big Brother Machine, the Narus 6400.

Wave to the man with the camera son.

Economics of outsourcing

This is so obvious, it's strange Joel on software had to teach me it. On the other hand, he claims someone else pointed it out to him...

The Development Abstraction Layer - Joel on Software

... if only 20% of your staff is programmers, and you can save 50% on salary by outsourcing programmers to India, well, how much of a competitive advantage are you really going to get out of that 10% savings?

Hmm.

Why we can't outsource social services to churches

I'd have thought Trinity Lutheran in Minnesota would be better than this.

Pharyngula: Good thing we're moving to faith-based initiatives, huh?

...Trinity Lutheran Church had a sweet deal with county social services, getting remunerated for caring for disabled seniors, until the county pulled a fast one and tried to trick them into caring for a damned minion of the devil transsexual. They signed her up, showed her around, and then she mentioned that she'd had an operation, and the good reverend had to wield his deep personal knowledge of god's mind to smack her down.

Bottom line: having amateurs doing a professionals job is a very bad idea. Faith based social services is just wrong.