Yearly Archives: 2008

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That’s My Clone, Not My Twin

Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells – washingtonpost.com, By Rick Weiss

Cloning involves fusing an ordinary body cell with a female’s egg cell whose DNA has been removed. Chemical factors inside the egg reprogram the body cell’s DNA so that the newly created cell develops into an embryo that is a genetic twin of the person or animal that donated the body cell.

I’ve long had a question about cloning. As I understand the process, you take one cell (typically an egg cell), remove its nucleus and insert a nucleus from another cell, creating a clone of the cell the nucleus came from. If the cell into which this nucleus was inserted is an egg, you grow a cloned individual.

What I never hear discussed in this is mitochondria. Mitochondria are the so-called powerhouses in cells, responsible for converting fuel into energy. Oddly, mitochondria reproduce themselves separately from the more famous mitosis. As I understand it — and I’m no scientist, as may be more than obvious to one — your mitochondria all come from your mother. Which is to say, mitochondria come from the egg.

So, my clone and I are not exact duplicates. I have my mother’s mitochondria (as would my twin). He does not. Is the explanation simply that lay-people misunderstand the word ‘clone’ to mean an exact duplicate? Or do scientist simply shrug this off because — as far as we know now (the key phrase in science) — mitochondria are irrelevant to individuality? mjh

NADA

Nice Mike

Confederate Flag Takes Center Stage Once Again – New York Times

“You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.

“In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole; that’s what we’d do.”

At a news conference on Thursday night, he said, “It is not an issue the president of the United States needs to weigh in on.” [mjh: But just right for a presidential candidate?] Mr. Huckabee, who did not say whether he considered it offensive to fly the Confederate battle flag, made his remarks as he toured the state with David Beasley, a former South Carolina governor, who had angered some conservatives by removing the flag from the Capitol dome in Columbia and displaying it elsewhere on the Capitol grounds.

And a radio advertisement paid for by an independent group used the flag issue to attack Mr. McCain, of Arizona, and praise Mr. Huckabee. “John McCain assaults our values,” it said. “Mike Huckabee understands the value of heritage.”

Dump Duhbya

Screw the Environment (again and again)

Navy Wins Exemption From Bush to Continue Sonar Exercises in Calif. – washingtonpost.com, By Marc Kaufman, Washington Post Staff Writer

The White House has exempted the Navy from two major environmental laws in an effort to free the service from a federal court’s decision limiting the Navy’s use of sonar in training exercises.

Environmentalists who had sued successfully to limit the Navy’s use of loud, mid-frequency sonar — which can be harmful to whales and other marine mammals — said yesterday that the exemptions were unprecedented and could lead to a larger legal battle over the extent to which the military has to obey environmental laws.

In a court filing Tuesday, government lawyers said President Bush had determined that allowing the use of mid-frequency sonar in ongoing exercises off Southern California was “essential to national security” and of “paramount interest to the United States.”

[mjh: Right — national security. To stop all those terrorists who use submarines instead of donkey carts.]

Dump Duhbya

One Year and Five Days Left

ABC News: New Lows in the New Year for Bush Ratings, ANALYSIS by GARY LANGER, ABC News

Beset by growing economic concerns on top of the long unpopular war in Iraq, President Bush starts the last year of his presidency with the worst approval rating of his career.

Just 32 percent of Americans now approve of the way Bush is handling his job, while 66 percent disapprove. Bush’s work on the economy has likewise reached a new low. And he shows no gain on Iraq; despite reduced violence there, 64 percent say the war was not worth fighting, 2 points from its high.

Given these complaints, 77 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the country is headed off on the wrong track — the most since the federal government shut down in a deeply unpopular budget battle in early 1996.

Three post-World War II presidents have gone lower than Bush in overall approval — Jimmy Carter (28 percent), Richard Nixon (24 percent) and Harry Truman (22 percent). But after three straight years in the doghouse, Bush is just two months away from Truman’s record of 38 months without majority approval — far beyond any other.

Bush’s ratings have stayed remarkably stable lately; he received between 33 and 36 percent approval in nine ABC/Post polls in 2007. The change in this poll, while not statistically significant, marks his first foray below one-third approval.

Intensity of sentiment, moreover, remains very heavily against the president. Fifty-one percent strongly disapprove of his work overall, while just 16 percent strongly approve — strongly negative by better than a 3-1 ratio.
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Poll: Americans Think U.S. On Wrong Track, Economy And The War Have Americans Voicing Pessimism About The Future Of The Country – CBS News

Assessments of the current state of the nation are grim as Americans have begun to choose who will vie to be the country’s next president. 75% of Americans think the country is off on the wrong track – matching the highest number ever recorded in the CBS News/New York Times Poll – and approval of President Bush remains low.

Concern about the direction of the country is accompanied by growing alarm about the condition of the economy – now the country’s most important problem. Perceptions of the condition of the national economy continue to drop, and most Americans think the worst is yet to come.

Three in four Americans think the country is off on the wrong track, matching the highest number recorded in the twenty-five years since CBS News began asking the question. Only 19% say it is headed in the right direction, matching the all-time low reached last June.

Worries about the direction of the country coincide with a low job approval rating for the president. 29% of Americans approve of the way President Bush is handling his job as president. Approval has hovered around 30% for the past year.

The Atheist's Pulpit

Grief

Twenty-three years ago today, my Mother died of cancer. Just a few days ago, a character on TV asked another how she got over her mother’s death. “I didn’t,” she replied. I fought back tears. A few days before, in the movie, Millions, a mother returns from the dead to speak one last time with her youngest son. She explains that he is the miracle she brought into the world, a sentiment my Mother — like most mothers, I’d like to think — could have expressed to each of her children and grandchildren.

Grief is a crushing sorrow. I understand how it ruins so many lives and leads to suicide or revenge.

Kitty and meA few days ago, I pulled a box out of my closet and started working through the layers of paper that had accumulated. As I sorted through things, I wondered what had started this particular pile. Why have I been holding on to these things? The newspaper at the bottom was my answer: 7/3/07. The day Kitty died. Kitty was my friend for most of 20 years. Merri says Kitty was my daemon, in the sense of the Golden Compass.

Death is bad enough. But to suffer through the slow, painful death of someone you love is reason enough to doubt or curse god. It is the final reminder of Life’s utter indifference to all living things. mjh

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UVa German Club

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Tina Fey and I have some things in common. We are both graduates of the University of Virginia — Mr. Jefferson’s university. (Tina Fey graduated 15 years after I did.) We both speak German, as well. Which leads me to wonder/assume that Tina Fey studied German at UVa, as I did. Was she even in the UVa German Club, of which I was president at one time? I still have my brown T-shirt (yes, arguable taste) with “Mehr Licht” on the back.

Die Tina Fey is ja ganz toll, sogar ‘super’. Sie ist eine heutigen Lucille Ball. Friede, mjh

PS: Until the early 1900’s, German was America’s second language, more widely spoken than any other. (I grant that everyone may have been ignoring Spanish speakers at that point.) There were many native German speakers, immigrants and their descendants, and German was the most popular language in school. It is understandable that two world wars changed that. Deutsch is aber eine schöne Sprache, die klinkt so schön. Leide, dass so viele Leute erkennen das nicht.

PPS: “Mind providing some context for this cavedweller?,” a friend asks. Tina Fey is a comedian, even a comedienne, and a comic writer. I learned of her through her position as writer and weekend news anchor on Saturday Night Live, a popular late-night sketch-comedy show on Saturdays. As I said above, Tina Fey is reminiscent of Lucy Ball: She is hilarious, wickedly clever and beautiful. She currently writes, produces and stars in 30Rock, a must-see comedy on NBC Thursday nights. She co-stars with Alec Baldwin, whom I love nearly as much as brilliantly funny. They are a dynamic duo — both are brilliantly funny. A recurring thread in the show is that, now and then, Liz Lemon (Tina) and Jack Dohnagy (Alec) speak German, with subtitles. (Now, we learn, Kenneth the Page also speaks German.) Last night’s episode involved 3 Germans. Part of the joke hinged on Fey misspeaking in German, selling NBC rather than buying the German cable network. I am so grateful that this twist was not translated as it happened. I feel it was a deep-inside joke. Vielen dank!

[tweaked 1/12/08]

Dump Duhbya

Why I Believe Bush Must Go

Why I Believe Bush Must Go
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.
By George McGovern
Sunday, January 6, 2008; B01

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president. …

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly “high crimes and misdemeanors,” to use the constitutional standard. …

I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?

How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness? …

The basic strategy of the administration has been to encourage a climate of fear, letting it exploit the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks not only to justify the invasion of Iraq but also to excuse such dangerous misbehavior as the illegal tapping of our telephones by government agents. The same fear-mongering has led government spokesmen and cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the entire Arab and Muslim world — more than a billion people. …

Ironically, while Bush and Cheney made counterterrorism the battle cry of their administration, their policies — especially the war in Iraq — have increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the United States. …

Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.

As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, “it wasn’t until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country’s laws — that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors.” …
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See also: mjh’s blog — John Dean says to censure Bush

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