Saturday, May 23, 2009

Republican Honesty?

It would be a whole lot easier to take the current Republican wingnuttery if Republicans would only be honest with the American people. "We don't want to remove terrorist prisoners held at Gitmo to the US mainland because the prisoners might have legal options under the US Constitution". That is an honest argument. Please don't give us this stupid talk about "releasing" terrorists into the USA as if they would be free to roam our streets. Bush put the captured terrorists in Gitmo simply to remove their rights under our laws.

Or, how about the "waterboarding isn't torture argument"? Republicans have to claim that waterboarding isn't torture because if they admitted that it is torture they know they would be breaking the law. We all know that Republicans are the party of law and order and the rule of law, at least that is what they claim. Stop giving us this stupid "enhanced interogation" nonsense. If you truly believe torture works and that we need to use torture to defend our country, please be honest and just say so. Maybe you might even work to change the law so torture will be legal in the USA. I bet they would love that in Texas. It would be awesome to torture someone before we execute them, wouldn't it? Why bother with jury trials? We can just torture suspects to make them admit the truth about what they did.

Lastly, the argument that President Obama and Democrats are "taking away our freedoms" is just absurd. Exactly which freedoms have been taken away? Are we talking about the right of Habeas corpus, or the right to be free from warrantless wiretapping or the right to hold someone in prison indefinitely without the right to legal council? Sorry, but those were things Republicans took away or did you just forget about that? Ok, I admit that Democrats want to take away the freedom of not having access to healthcare, you got us on that one.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Chemical Level of Organization



Teaching Anatomy & Physiology I in a six week Summer session involves cramming 3 weeks worth of material into one 3 day week. Yesterday we started discussion of the chemical level of organization of the human body which we will finish today. We covered subatomic particles and why understanding the structure of an atom is important in human medicine. We discussed chemical bonding, hydrogen bonding, activation energy and chemical reactions. We didn't quite cover what I hoped we would cover.

Today we will discuss water, pH and organic compounds followed by protein structure enzymes and nucleic acids. Next week we start on the cellular level of organization.

Do you know where a proton is located, how much it weighs and what charge it has? What does atomic number indicate? Why is the atomic weight of carbon expressed as 12.011? What does having more neutrons than protons indicate about an atom? How many electrons are in the first orbital? Why do we care how many electrons are in the valence shell? What is the difference between an ionic bond, a covalent bond and a hydrogen bond? I hope my students can answer these basic questions.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

An American Hero is Dissed

Listen to at least the first minute and one-half of this report.

I'm Still Here


It's been a long week here at Lake Wo...Saranac Lake. What with the academic awards banquets, Graduation and getting ready for Summer session, I've actually had to do some work. Summer session started yesterday and I have 19 really good nursing and rad tech students in my A&P I course. They have to be dedicated to come to study 3 days a week, 5-6 hours a day. Yesterday we had an introduction to A&P and discussed body structure. Today and tomorrow we will cover (review?) the basic chemistry needed to understand physiology.

I will attempt to post some rants on my "days off": Mondays and Fridays.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Torture Investigations

Ok, let me get this right. Nancy Pelosi must be prosecuted because she knew about the torture policies of the Bush Administration (which were not torture and were legal) and did nothing to stop it. The people that actually came up with the policies, justified their legality and implemented them should not be investigated.

There are a whole bunch of Democrats that just sat quietly on their asses while Bush and his cronies (Cronies and Bush?) broke the law. Everyone of those people should be identified and forced to resign.

I'm all for investigations into what happened, how it happened and who knew what when concerning torture. Then let's prosecute those who broke the law and put them in jail. Any Democrat that broke the law also needs to be prosecuted. I think most Democrats believe the same as I do.

There is a coming grassroots groundswell for investigations of which laws were broken during the last administration.

Ladysmith



Song is ok but get rid of the non-African instrumentation. Pictures are great.