Kent Conrad- Hypocrite on Finances

Democratic senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota is now wallowing in the pig trough with that pile of southern senators and governors who decry the stimulus bill but hold out their hands for the money. Here's the news clip:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is voicing concerns about President Barack Obama's increased spending on health care, calling it an already "bloated system."

Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, also said he worries that Obama's policy proposals do little to lower deficits in the second half of the budget's 10-year projections.

Conrad on Thursday addressed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was testifying in defense of the administration's budget policies. The Obama budget would increase spending on health care by more than $600 billion over 10 years.

----------------------------------

What most Americans [and the citizens of North Dakota] clearly don't know about 'Federal spending' is that the state of North Dakota is one of those "bloated," fat-cat states that takes more Federal money than it sends to Washington. And, it is in the top 10 list of pig trough states. North Dakota gets back $1.65 for each dollar it sends to DC. That's a 165% return on the dollar; not bad, eh? North Dakota ranks #6 in Federal welfare.

Conrad hopes that this dirty little secret doesn't get told within the state so that his re-election chances do not diminish. Right now, his constituents think that he is a fiscal conservative- railing against 'government spending' when, in reality, his state is nothing more than a welfare state.

Blue Circadian Clock Plant

CLOCK-WATCHER. This mustard plant is genetically engineered to show blue in tissues where the protein CHE is active. CHE is a newly discovered component of plants’ circadian clock that helps plants tell night from day.Image courtesy of Steve A. Kay and of Science/AAAS

The story here

The Third Creation Story

Actually it is really the second creation story, but as Genesis already has two creation stories, this then would be the third. From NewScientist:

The search is on for a "shadow biosphere" - life forms that are unrelated to the life we know because they are descendants of an independent origin of life. We know for sure that life got going on Earth once, so why couldn't it have happened twice? Many scientists argue that there is no reason why a second genesis might not have taken place, and no reason why its descendants should not still be living among us.

So the appearance of an "alien" organism seems imminent - we may find one that arose naturally, or engineer one in the lab. Either way, it's a momentous step. Until now, biologists have had to base their understanding of life on the plants, animals and microbes that surround us, which all share a common ancestor. That doesn't give much perspective.

No it doesn't. I've often wondered if there weren't 'alien' life among us that looks so much like other 'life' that we assume it is all from a common ancestor. Of course, those 50's Sci-Fi films helped me imagine it all much better. I often joke that perhaps I, myself, am alien yet what proof would I offer to substantiate it? The article goes on:

Discovering - or engineering - a second genesis wouldn't just broaden our view of life. Alternative life forms could supply biotechnologists with fresh molecules and new functions that they could apply to practical problems. A synthetic, made-to-order living system might even serve as a self-maintaining, self-improving, adaptable assembly line for producing everything from pharmaceuticals to petrochemicals. Over the next four pages we first report on rapid progress in the lab, and then bring news from the field, as researchers race to make what could be one of science's most far-reaching breakthroughs.

How to hunt for shadow life was published on NewScientist a month ago and it is interesting reading. Astrobiologist Paul Davies says, "One way to do this is to look for organisms that break the rules of known biochemistry. For instance, all known terrestrial life builds its proteins out of amino acids with left-handed orientation. Organisms that use right-handed amino acids could very well be alien."

Davis goes on, "Along these same lines, shadow life could build itself out of chemical elements unused by other life. Davies expressed scepticism in the possibility that silicon could replace carbon in any life form.

"Rather, arsenic might make a good substitute for phosphorous, which links together individual DNA letters and stores cellular energy. Arsenic is poisonous precisely because it mimics phosphorous so closely."

Arsenic and old lace. By the way, I read somewhere the other day that some organisms living beside the geysers in Yellowstone render arsenic non-poisonous. Perhaps these creatures are aliens that Dr. Davis seeks.

Here's a tough ethical, moral, political and religious question that rises up to be answered: if scientist do find an 'alien' species or two, do the customary set of 'values' that we place on 'our' species transfer directly to these aliens or will there have to be a summit meeting to decide their fate? Heavy stuff to contemplate, for sure.

Interesting Day at the U.S. Immigration Center

This morning we took a woman from the African nation of Burundi to the immigration Center in Detroit to get fingerprinted so that she can receive her green card. it is officially called the USCIS Application Support Center, an inauspicious looking building on East Jefferson. Actually it is in a strip mall next to the Army Recruiting Center and the Payday Loan office. A Thai diner and donut shop is in the same string of connected buildings.

Driving from Toledo to that location is quite the nightmare as I75 ends in downtown Detroit during construction. Just ends. Of course, I knew that ahead of time so I was armed with my Google Map that took me north of the city and then down to the river. Naturally, there was fly in the ointment as the I94 ramp to I 75 was closed, forcing me to make some quick navigational rebooting. After some serious curves and many potholes, there we were smack in the heart of downtown Detroit.

There wasn't much traffic on Jefferson because, I suppose, the city is in the death throes, with the Big Three auto industry in dire straits. Rather than a massive traffic jam in the 'olden days' of Detroit, we zipped through as if it were a small town. We headed east on Jefferson and found the shopping strip and spotted the sign 'Support Center' above the door. Luckily our Burundian friend was able to spot the office because those two words could mean many different things.

A guard pointed our friend to a desk on the left and my wife and I took one of the 50 straight-row folding chairs on the right. A TV with "DO NOT TOUCH" droned away in the corner with some silly movie that no one was watching. The walls were gray cement block with a few cheap posters nailed to them. Our friend came back with a yellow card with a large "M" on it. "I have to wait until they call "M," she said. A family of 5 came in next, the father headed to the check in desk. He left with 5 clipboards and 5 pencils. He gave one to his three children, his wife and himself. They probably came from Syria or Lebanon. Each, when finished, handed it back to the dad who checked each line to see that it was correct.

An elderly Asian couple were already waiting, ticket number in hand. "Number 4129" the woman at the check-in desk called. A man in the back jumped up and was told to sit in the other room, farthest chair on the left. "4130" jolted a very dark-skinned man to his feet, Same message, on the left. A young Asian couple entered, father pushing a buggy, mother holding a 2-year old. When the father stopped the infant inside began to cry. He motioned for his wife to get the clip-boards while he soothed the child.

Letter "O" the woman at the desk called, and a tall blond man followed a lady to the other room. "I'm letter M," said our friend. "Doesn't M come before O?" Well, of course it does but those rules didn't apply here. I suggested that perhaps the letters were random.

"4131, 4132, 4133, 4134" were called and all but one of the family of 5 rose to enter the other room. The father stopped to inquire about '4135' and the desk-lady motioned for the eldest daughter to come with her family; she was quite relieved.

An hour had gone by and I decided to walk over near the guard to look into the 'processing' room. My wife cautioned, 'They said everyone was to be seated here." "I know," I said as i walked there, tired from sitting in the car and on the hard and uncomfortable steel chair. I pretended to read a sign on the wall, and quickly shot a glance in the 'secret' room on my way back.

"Letter M" a stocky uniformed woman announced. "Finally," said the Burundian. She had told us that she had a 10:00 appointment, but apparently everyone else there received the same message. Twenty minutes later she came back and we were allowed out of our chairs, and left the building.

The starkness of it all reminded me of how many immigrants to America faced those same stark conditions after landing past the Statue of Liberty. I also thought about those anti-immigrant groups who whine about 'those people' polluting their version of white, Christian America. Lots of thoughts went through my head as I sat on that  metal chair.

Cuban Cigar Anyone?

Ah, the aroma of a fresh Cuban cigar!  Of course, if you possess one you could be jailed.  Communism, you know, as well as the Batista Cuban lobby in Miami. Oh, those Batistias, still angry about the Castro coup back in the 50's. Their 'good life' was interrupted, their mansions confiscated. Such an insult!

Obama has said he supports easing travel to the island and cash remittances from relatives working in the United States to loved ones in Cuba, but has resisted calls to lift the entire decades-old US embargo.

The budget bill would block enforcement of rules that keep Cuban-Americans from visiting their homeland more than once every three years, allowing them to visit once per year instead.

Sadly, nothing about the sugar, rum and cigar embargo yet. We have to keep 'punishing' Cuba, you know, for their communist government. Some punishment for the Cubans, eh?

Of course, on the Internet, Cigar One can sell them to you- through Switzerland. Yes, a Swiss/Cuban cigar sent right to your mailbox, all nice and legal. Those Swiss sure know how to make the money.

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

That is the title of an article yesterday in the Christian Science Monitor.  Author Michael Spencer begins:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

Oh, can you hear the crying and gnashing of teeth?  Whoa is we.   What did we do wrong? they ask.  We tried to be oh-so righteous, calling out everybody's sinfulness.  We obeyed Deuteronomy and Leviticus.  And now this!

Eli Eli lama sabachthani?

"Vampire' Discovered in Mass Grave

NewScientist reports:

A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of the "vampires" widely referred to in contemporary documents.

Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth (see right) while excavating mass graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island in Venice.

At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by "vampires" which, rather than drinking people's blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. Grave-diggers put bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires to stop them doing this, Borrini says.

----------------------------------------------

The woman died in 1576. It's hard to imagine these days with all of the science and technology that is available to us that humans believed in vampires and that a brick in the mouth would stop vampires from 'chewing on their shrouds.' Then again, modern humans seem to be capable of 'believing' in lots of nonsense and unproven 'truths' as long as some 'authority figure' says that it is true. Oh well, so goes life.

Stem Cells Replace Stroke-damaged Tissue In Rats

One day after President Obama negated George Bush's ban on stem cell experimentation, scientists announced that an effective stem cell treatment for strokes has taken a significant step forward. Scientists revealed how they have replaced stroke-damaged brain tissue in rats.

ScienceDaily reports:

The team of scientists is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and led by Dr Mike Modo of the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. The work, carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry and University of Nottingham, shows that by inserting tiny scaffolding with stem cells attached, it is possible to fill a hole left by stroke damage with brand new brain tissue within 7 days. The work is published in Biomaterials on March 9.

Using individual particles of a biodegradable polymer called PLGA that have been loaded with neural stem cells, the team of scientists have filled stroke cavities with stem cells on a ready-made support structure.

Wow! The next 8 years ought to bring more and more of these victories as scientists here in America are able to begin anew their experiments, unfettered by political ideology. The British scientists had no such restrictions.  Parkinson's and diabetes patients now have real hope that cures for their disorders will be discovered.

Temporarily Suspended Comments

The blog has been infected with a fundamentalist/homophobic virus once again. In the short time that my wife and I had dinner, coffee and dessert, 6 comments were left festering like piles of dog shit.  For the third time in the history of this blog, I am forced to amend the comment section due to an attack by oh-so righteous christians.

Hopefully, the 'fun' that the mother-son duo receives from such an invasion will subside and I will be able to open the comments again.

Until then, enjoy reading my postings and hold your comments for later.

Obama Wants to Overhaul Education

Well, it's about time. The idiotic factory model of schools that are in place in America needed to be changed when the Studebaker went out of production. He plans a major overhaul of the country's education system "from the cradle up through a career."

"We have let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short and other nations outpace us," Obama said in an address to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "The time for finger-pointing is over. The time for holding ourselves accountable is here."

One can only imagine the uproar among the traditionalists, the ones in education who thwart change and innovation at every turn. He also pledged to boost federal support in the form of "Early Learning Challenge" grants to states that develop plans to strengthen early education programs. The GOP has traditionally been against early childhood education, preferring to spend money on prisons rather than early intervention.

He called for the promotion of educational "innovation and excellence" by renewing his campaign pledge to support charter schools. He called on states to lift caps on the number of allowable charter schools. Charter schools, publicly funded and publicly chartered can serve the needs of many children who do not fit the mold of the 'traditional' classroom. Church-sponsored charter schools as well as for-profit ones, however, have no place in a reformed educational system.

Let's see who will first complain about this plan. My hunch is that the GOP and the Federation of Teachers will be first out of the gate.