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.

Too Much Socialism

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.

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.

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.

Waterboarding Demo

Also check out this commentary on why Obama doesn't want to pursue torture investigations. But I agree with Benen, there is that damn "rule of law" thing going on.

Torture(gate) Another Watergate?

In the early Fall of 1972 I was enroute to my Navy duty station at the National Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda, MD. My cousin, who lived in DC at the time, kindly offered to pick me up at National Airport and bring me to Bethesda. He asked me "What do you thing about the Watergate scandal"? I answered...."huh"? In any event, the break-in at the Watergate complex became a history changing event. Many, many people were convicted of obstructing justice, illegal campaign activites, contempt of Congress and lying under oath. It wasn't until almost two years later that Dick Nixon was forced to resign by a Congress under Republican control.


The current debates over torture are now giving me the same feelings that were prevalent in the Fall of 1972. What was the purpose of torture? Was it to get information to support the invasion of Iraq? Were any laws broken in authorizing torture? Laws almost certainly were broken or the argument that it "wasn't torture" wouldn't be so prevalent. Who is lying and who is telling the truth? Did Democratic leaders know about the torture? Clinton was impeached for lying. Nixon resigned before he could be impeached for lying. Did G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney do anything less than Clinton or Nixon? We don't know because no one seems to want to find out.

I think things are coming to a head. I think there will be some sort of investigation and eventually someone is going to spill some startling information just as Alexander Butterfield reluctantly admitted that everything said in the Nixon Oval office was recorded (John Dean had already admitted that he believed there was a taping system in the Oval office).

Personally, I believe waterboarding is torture and is illegal. If this turns out to be the case, then the law was broken and those responsible need to be prosecuted.

The More I See The Less I know

Community

This comedy is bound to be successful this Fall. It's about a community college and a group of students that attend the college. One of the students is Chevy Chase! I found the link to this show on 'InsideHigherEd' in an article about how we make fun of community colleges.

ECAC Men's Rowing Championships

Men's ECAC rowing championships were held in Worcester, MA on Sunday. Here are a few pictures. In a bit of a surprising turn, Brown U. upset the favorites Harvard and Wisconsin to win the championship. My Alma mater, UW, placed 3rd.

MMWR

What do you do when a student comes to you and asks if there is a resurgence of TB in the USA? For me the answer is obvious.....go to MMWR. The Centers for Disease Control publishes a weekly online report, 'Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report', that provides current statistics on reportable diseases in the USA. The weekly report also contains articles on current events concerning diseases no matter where they may occur.

It was quite easy to go to the CDC MMWR website and immediately find an article entitled "Trends in Tuberculosis --- United States, 2008". The answer to the students question is "In 2008, the number of TB cases and annual TB rate reached all-time lows in the United States."

If you are interested in disease, MMWR is for you. My question....how many cases of leprosy have there been in the USA so far this year? A cookie for the correct answer.

Does Mike Pence 'Believe' in Evolution?

I enjoyed watching this last night. Here is one of the highest ranking Republican members of the House of Representatives that cannot or will not answer a question, however poorly the question is put. "Do you believe in evolution"? I would have asked whether he accepted the overwhelming amount of evidence that supports the theory of evolution and he might even have prefered that question.

Unfortunately, Rep. Pence may actually accept evolution but can't say so because it would put his political career in danger. Or, he doesn't accept evolution and doesn't want to admit it because it makes him appear ignorant or at least appear not to support science. In either case, he is too big a coward to answer the question. He typifies the type of person we have representing us in Congress these days whether they be Republican or Democrat.

But whose fault is that? It is we the voters that continue to send such people back to Congress every 2 years. In Pence's case, it is the Christian fundamentalists who insist upon having a science ignoramous represent them. Democrats sometimes have the same problems with "New Agers" who are probably even more ignorant in terms of science than are Christian fundamentalists.

Save Wardenclyffe

Todays NYT Science Times has a disturbing article. It seems that Wardenclyffe, Nicola Tesla's laboratory in Shoreham, NY is up for sale by the Agfa Corporation. Now, if ever there was a man that might have come from the future or an advanced civilization on another planet, that person was Nicola Tesla. It seems to me that 1.6 million dollars isn't too high a price tag to preserve a labortory of such an interesting scientist.

I found the two more recent pictures at the coyote.






Link to Science Times slideshow on Wardenclyffe.

Wolfram/Alpha is coming

Remember on Star Trek how Captain Kirk could as his computer questions and get an answer? That day is arriving momentarily with the Wolfrum/Alpha computer. Sure, you can google for information. But here we are talking about the computer that can provide new information. For example, you can ask the computer to compare the height of Mt. Everest with the length of the Golden Gate bridge and get an answer. Google can't do that.

The Wolfram/Alpha website is accessible to everyone yet, but it will be soon.

Check out this video on the Wolfram/alpha computer.

Falling Into a Black Hole

Colon Cleansing and Flu Protection - yes!

There is a surefire way to protect yourself against influenza. You can read all about it at the Huffington Post website. What is the magical potion? Colon cleansing of course. Kim Evens of 'antibiotics cause cancer' fame, explains how a good washing of your colon will protect you from influenza as well as almost anything else that ails you.

Colon cleansing gets rid of the 'bad' bacteria in your colon, yet antibiotics kill the 'good' bacteria in your colon. Oh yeah, cancer is also caused by a fungal infection.

Ok, now do you want to read the skeptic take on colon cleansing? Go here or here

Orac comments on Evens, influenza, colon cleansing and other woo here.

About Influenza

Human influenza is caused by infection with influenza type A and type B viruses. These viruses consist of 8 "genes" or segments of single-stranded RNA. Two major surface antigens can be found in influenza viruses - HA (hemagglutinin) and NA (neuraminadase). The hemagglutinin protein is used by the virus to recognize, attach to, and enter a cell. This results in influenza infection. Unfortunately, both the HA and NA genes are very good at slightly changing their structure over time. The figure below shows a model of influenza virus structure taken from Hampson, AW, Med. J. Aust. 2006 Nov 20;185(10 Suppl):S39-43 which is available free online and is recommended reading.



Influenza changes its antigenic makeup via antigenic drift (small changes) and antigenic shift (large changes). Pandemic influenza (a widespread infectious disease) occurs at irregular intervals of about twice a century and usually results from antigenic shift which occurs in Influenza A. The figure below (taken from the Hampson review article) shows how genetic reassortment through antigenic shift is thought to occur.


What is key is that pigs are susceptible to both avian and human influenza A viruses. This "dual-infection" provides an opportunity for the avian and human influenza virus to share and switch (reassort) their genes. This often results in the appearance of a much more infectious and pathogenic influenza virus. But, this is not always the case.

Below is a link to the current swine flu epidemic showing where cases are occuring in worldwide.

Current swine flu cases map

To Investigate or Not to Investigate

In a Banana Republic there would be no investigation of wrongdoing. Who said:

"It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. ... It's very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. ... In other words, people want to know the truth.

"That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation."

Ok, the bolded words give a pretty good hint. That was G.W. Bush explaining the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy. Bush things allegations of abuse (wrongdoing, law breaking) should be investigated. Maybe someone should ask him if he still feels this way.