Where do we go from here?

This will mark my last official week of my blessed summer, as I will be moving again from this summer apartment sublet of mine back into the dorms, where we'll start another intense 2 weeks of Hall Staff training followed by a welcome week with exceedingly younger freshmen (class of 2010!).

During that time I will be mostly preoccupied with all-day training sessions and meeting new staff, so I'm not betting on any long-winded posts, although I still will be checking in *hopefully* every other day. I'm going to try and say a few words about aspects of diversity that we touch on during training, about acknowledging their importance in facilitating a cohesive and supportive community. Last year's training was replete with lasting conversations and alternative perspectives, and if this year runs the same way, I will have a lot of information to distill into this blog.

In the meantime, I'll be continually working as an undergrad slave researcher, and studying for the GREs which happen to be coming up on Friday. I'll wager you'll see a post or two on these topics as well.

"We're serious about the security this time"

CNN, "Rove: Reporters slam politicians to save selves":

"Some decry the professional role of politics. They would like to see it disappear," Rove told graduating students at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. "Some argue political professionals are ruining American politics -- trapping candidates in daily competition for the news cycle instead of long-term strategic thinking in the best interest of the country."

NYT, "Pentagon Extends Tour for 4,000 Troops, Increasing Number in Iraq":

The tours of 4,000 American soldiers who had been scheduled to leave Iraq in the coming weeks have been extended for up to four months, signaling that there would almost certainly be no significant troop pullout before the year’s end, military officials and analysts said Saturday.

...

“People are now talking about 2009 as the goal for achieving really serious security,”

Rove:

"It's odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and columnists," he said. "Perhaps they don't like sharing the field of play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance."

NYT, Audit Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects:

The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

Rove:

"There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with President Bush's victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Bush, State of the Union (1/28/2003):

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region.

...

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

Rove:

But he said voters are able to watch campaigns and candidates closely and "this messy and imperfect process has produced great leaders."

Bush, about Chinese President Hu Jintao, to another world leader:

"It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."

Heel to da Groin!

I think I'm entitled to a few non sequitur posts, such as this one on self-defense by Bas Rutten, his technique being to make your attacker fall down in spasms of laughter or think that you're insane and about to bite a few fingers off:

"Somebody is telling me that--about my wife, I'm sorry sir, but I'm going to break your leg. KKRRRRRRAAAAACK BANG!"

If someone could send me a script to his training sessions, I would be a very grateful and humored blogger.

Stem Cells: Science at the Steps of Decency

(Technorati Tags: Stem Cells, Stem-Cell-Research, Bioethics)

Victims of a wealth of diseases, disorders, and crippling injuries enjoyed hope for what lasted only a short time, when on last Thursday President Bush threw down his gloves and swaggered “Bring ‘em on” to scientists and free-thinkers alike:

“I hold to the principle that we can harness the promise of technology without becoming slaves to technology and ensure that science serves the cause of humanity. If we are to find the right ways to advance ethical medical research, we must also be willing when necessary to reject the wrong ways. For that reason, I must veto this bill.”

His only veto of his entire presidential career, I guess we should have expected it would have come in the form of stalling scientific progress. Science and Ethics are always considered polar opposites when we listen to the perspectives of those on the Pro-Life side of the debate. However, this is a gross oversimplification that is simply not true: science and morality are more often interwoven than not, research scientists themselves being some of the most honest, truth-abiding people out there in our society. I pose this question: what type of person would choose a job that paid little, expected lots, and placed intense scrutiny from educated peers on his or her ongoing research constantly? There is no room for intellectual dishonesty with an occupation rooted in empirical evidence, where logic and honesty are the only realities possible.

Science and Ethics are particularly in agreement when it comes to the issue of embryonic stem cells, and to better understand this we need to deconstruct the sale of Morality by our opponents.

President Bush said in his veto photo-op:

“Yet, as science brings us ever closer to unlocking the secrets of human biology, it also offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity.”

Bush’s justification for his stance on embryonic stem cell research picks and chooses tenets of a morality that he cares to employ and to preach (protecting the sanctity of aspiring life), while skipping over others (protecting the sanctity of existing life). He packages his own version of morality and sells it to the nation as evidence for his actions, one of the reasons even his political party, and some of them Pro-Lifers, are divisive about the issue. This dissent comes from the same group of misfits that all recently agreed to embrace the Iraq War—yes, that one nation that has descended into chaos under our watch— as a key issue this fall. How could it be that a bloc of politicians can agree to run on the war amidst failing public opinion and security, with a linearly increasing civilian death toll, but not seem to get their opinions squared away with Bush’s principled delivery? It seems there are some forces at play here that rival the mystique of quantum physics.

Well, maybe not. President Bush again highlights the inherent variability of his morality by his response to stem cell research. He claims that science tempts us to “manipulate human life,” which it does. In fact, we do so on a day-to-day basis, and are lauded for our achievements. Human egg cells are routinely fertilized and destroyed in an unnatural laboratory setting, cell division and thus the growth of new and healthy cells is inhibited by chemotherapy, cadavers are donated for medical research and practice, organs donated and transplanted hither and thither, volunteers for clinical studies on drugs that need to be proven to work, and the list goes on. All of these endeavors were absolutely necessary for science and technology to have advanced as far as they have, and there’s still an infinite amount more we need to accomplish. Bush asserts that his stance on stem cell research is because it is temptation to manipulate life, an ethically-challenged position that is provincial to the myriad other ways that scientists do—and must—manipulate life to effect change, an ethical decision made by those who are passionate about engendering a more enjoyable life for society through advances in science.

While the case against abortion on the grounds of morality might be tenable through a moral principle to uphold life at any cost (no matter how insanely intrusive this compels our government to be), that same principle does not hold water with this issue, as I’ve explained before. Is it really an ethical decision to assume a 5-day-old embryo (or blastocyst), a structure comparatively not unlike that of a lone sperm or ovum, warrants the same rights and liberties as that of an independently-living human being, even when this decision trumps the rights of the suffering to potential panaceas? What’s more, opponents often cite the dreaded slippery slope of such a moral distinction between life and non-life, saying that if the “utilitarian” case for ESC research is made, what’s to stop “immoral” scientists from pushing the envelope and claiming embryos in the 1st and fetuses in the 2nd and 3rd trimester are also non-life? This is preposterous in the sense that the envelope can more easily be pushed in the opposite direction: if 100 cells constitute human life, why not 50, or 10, or even a lone sperm and egg, seeing as how they, too, have the potential to merge and implant in the uterus and lead to a pregnancy? Are we to then conclude that male masturbation and a woman’s period are also morally reprehensible?

If we extend the same morality inherent in Pro-Lifers fighting for human rights for the developing fetus to the prospect of scientific research with blastocysts, we come to the conclusion that scientists are operating with a similar morality in mind: to defend the sanctity and security of human life at all costs. We manipulate life in the way that science has always done so, with respect for our fellow man and the dignity of mankind, to aim for advancing our consciousness and understanding our purpose on this earth. In the context of ESC research, our best hypothesis is that this branch of science will offer tremendous help in understanding developmental biology and the mechanisms of cancers and genetic disorders, in testing new drugs, and even in cell-based therapies involving healthy tissue generation. It would be downright, dare I say, immoral to pick-and-choose certain aspects of morality but not others to justify stalling this research.

Alas, that is the key difference between our morality and Bush’s: we do not screen ethics for principles that best suit us and our purposes (read: riling up the rapture-ready conservative bible-thumping base for an election year), nor do we flip-flop on our commitment to sustaining and promoting the welfare of life. We unequivocally and morally advance society through intellectual stages of development as we have done since the beginning of time, desiring nothing less than continuing the pursuit of unknown knowledge, for ours and our children’s sake.

Eureka! Smoking Lowers B.A.C.

Here is some potentially good news for incoming freshman girls planning on drinking to excess this coming welcome week, and who would also not like to sleep with that creepy guy living down the hall:

To mimic more closely the effect in human drinkers, Chen and his colleagues studied the effects of binge drinking in adult rats. They injected rats' stomachs with a dose of alcohol roughly equivalent to around four or five drinks in quick succession; enough to make their blood alcohol hit double the United States legal driving limit of 0.08%. The team also gave the animals a range of nicotine doses similar to those in the bodies of light, moderate or heavy smokers.

In 'heavy smoking' animals, the nicotine slashed the rats' peak blood-alcohol level, which came about an hour after injection, in half. Blood alcohol of 'moderate smoking' animals dropped by around 30%, and animals mimicking light smokers were not affected. The results are reported in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

A lower blood-alcohol level means less intoxication: the nicotine-dosed rats were less drunk than their colleagues. But Chen notes that smoking would not ameliorate the other effects of alcohol or prevent a hangover, because the toxic by-products of alcohol breakdown still remain in the body.

Or, for that matter, alcohol poisoning. On second thought, freshman girls, skip the smoking, and drink with friends. Still, this might be a handy tip for everyone to know.

Embryonic Stem Cells and Abortion(?)

(I wrote this as a comment on another thread but feel it adequetely gets across my point. I have another piece on this topic that I'll upload whenever I finish it.)

One of the problems we run into with this debate is conflating it and its ethical dilemmas with abortion, even though the two are not alike. Logically, one can still consider oneself Pro-Life on abortion and also support federal funding of ESC research, and I wish scientists would say it more often.

Take a look:

Fetal Development

Abortions normally take place within the 1st trimester, or first 13 weeks of a pregnancy. The embryo is developing at this stage, implanted in the uterus, growing with the help of nutrients supplied by its mother. Having an abortion is normally the mother’s choice and results in termination of the pregnancy and little other effect on society. However this influences your stance on abortion, it really has no bearing on the topic at hand.

ESCs are taken from extra 5-day-old embryos artificially fertilized in a laboratory by the wishes of the aspiring parents. Markedly early in development, the embryo numbers about 100 cells (compare that to the 10,000,000,000,000 cells in an adult). At this stage in the natural female body this bundle of cells has not even reached the uterus, the mother’s womb, where fertilized eggs have to initially implant for a pregnancy to even begin, as is the medical consensus. Thus one may argue that abortion is unethical because gestation has without a doubt occurred, but will equivocate about how a 5-day-old embryo is technically still almost a beaming baby boy, even when the medical community begs to differ. Framing the debate with this in mind would assist more Americans in keeping an open mind to the logistics and implications of ESC research.

Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, those who feel morally obligated to interfere with scientific research into ESCs because of a doctrine that life beings at the onset of fertilization should also be calling on a ban of oral contraception, but you can imagine how well this political stand would hold up. To clarify, withholding federal funds from a normally federally-funded entity that relies excessively on these funds constitutes a ban on that entity. Cut this funding out from the rest of our research programs and you'd see our pursuit of scientific and technological breakthroughs quickly come to a halt.

The fact that ESC research—or any scientific research, for that matter—needs to be funded by the government is evident by the benefits it gives to society. Scientific and technological advances provide cures for diseases, prolonged health into old age, and knowledge about the physical world around us. Everyone partakes of these benefits, making it a good reason our tax dollars should be footing the bill. Should highways, education, and domestic security also be funded by private donors?

And as already mentioned before, vetoing federal funding is pretty much the same thing as vetoing the entire project, which is a disillusioning thought. Scientists (real ones, with an honest interest in the subject rather than politics) are very enthusiastic about the possibilities with ESC, and with even a limited knowledge of what ESCs are and what they can be used for—which aside from the usual tissue repair reasoning, include giving some critical information about cell developmental biology and help with understanding the mechanisms of cancers and genetic disorders— it’s difficult to find them so morally corrupting.

Russia is big and so is China

I'm busy with work for the good part of today, but am working on a piece about the recent stem cell veto. In the meantime, satisfy yourselves with commentary by Cenk Uygur on our president. It just might make you smile:

"In the old empires, there would be a lot of marriages between the royal families. And from time to time, these inter-family marriages would produce a mentally challenged son who would inherit the throne. This would set the empire back for hundreds of years. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Russia is big and so is China."

Fourteen Thousand Civilian Casualties

...in the past six months:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- More than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year, an ominous figure reflecting the fact that "killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread" in the war-torn country, a United Nations report says.

Killings of civilians are on "an upward trend," with more than 5,800 deaths and more than 5,700 injuries reported in May and June alone, it says.

Maybe most ominous about this (although one-upping 100+ deaths a day requires quite a feat) is how quickly it was filed away in the Big Media Archive. CNN.com had the story on their front page for about a couple hours in the afternoon, and upon checking again after a long day at work, we are aptly informed of the impending marriage between Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, the ascending popularity of yoga for soldiers and sailors, and something about a monkey mumbling into a microphone-- the Iraqi story, filed furtively away, faired no better with other news outlets. With bloodied hands, we sweep yet another pile of filth under the rug.

No news is good news, but bad news is obviously no news. Plotting the trend of civilian deaths per month over the last year paints another rosy picture:




I forecasted the trend to highlight the continuing decay of security that nation is seeing (that's a rate of 236 additional heads over each previous month), and for readers to imagine how the coming months might look in Iraq.

Efforts to promote a rule of law and secure an interest in peace are being brutally torn asunder by sectarian violence between two peoples:

The blast scattered bodies and street vendors’ carts, blackened nearby walls, dyed the ground red with blood and ignited pandemonium in the street.When Iraqi police officers arrived, the crowd pelted them with stones. According to The Associated Press, many demanded that the militia loyal to Mr. Sadr, the cleric, take over security of the city.

Mr. Sadr counts an enormous following among the Shiite poor and dispossessed in Baghdad and southern Iraq. The militia loyal to him, the Mahdi Army, has been blamed for many recent kidnappings and assassinations of Sunni Arabs.

It's oft repeated to me by those of other political beliefs that certain nouns are simply inappropriate to use in the context of Iraq. I will do my best to appease these people, and ask readers to please respond with some of their favorite synonyms for Quagmire and Civil War.

The next dimension... and then some

As an exciting new beginning to my long-term residency on the internet, I've started up this sparkling new "web log" as an outlet to organize my thoughts and, maybe, express them.

As for the fancy title: the term "catalytic triad" describes the mechanism in which a large protein, an enzyme called chymotrypsin, can catalyze the cleavage of parts of other proteins, normally for digestive purposes. The area of the enzyme that does the bulk of the work, or the active site, has 3 separate functional parts that are arranged in space to interact together to cut a protein along certain sites. Without these 3 perfectly arranged in proximity, the enzyme loses its function, and its purpose in a living organism.

The idea of 3 parts working in concert to promote change in the system is one that best describes my motivation to begin writing here: together, science, education, and progressive policy will most effectively promote the formation of a technologically-sound, socially-just, free-thinking society, one that isn't afraid to address questions of where we came from, nor one that acts myopically in its treatment of different cultures and norms. Just as with the enzyme, if any one of these ideas is absent from our collective thoughts, there can be no forward progress. To put it chemically: We need to catalyze the change we wish to see in this world.

Aside from a passion for human progress and knowledge, I like to waste time on the internet (who doesn't?). I'm sure this aim will also be forwarded frequently amidst my entries, as is the case for this one:

How many dimensions are you experiencing currently (assuming no drug use, and that you're relatively sane)? Can you imagine life in several additional dimensions? What about the big 1-0? The Tenth Dimension has a mind-bending flash movie on imagining such a concept. Whoa.