Healthcare revisited

This was a hot topic last time. Now with the Senate passing its bill, what are some thoughts on the current legislation? Both the House and Senate have bills. Can we call this an accomplishment for citizens?

This is your brain (egg), this is your brain on...(broken egg sizzling)…television?

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (1) reported that children and young adults (8-18 yrs) spend an average of 44.5 hours in front of a television screen, computer screen, media device (e.g., IPOD), or cell phone. Basically, this is their job plus some overtime. Is this the new addiction of the 21st century, or just a changing of the times where technologies for work and play merge?

Source:
1: http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/Executive-Summary-Generation-M-Media-in-the-Lives-of-8-18-Year-olds.pdf

Power to the people?

Jean Jacques Rousseau writes in “The Social Contract” that leaders have 3 different wills. First, their individual wills which strive for self-promotion. Second, the corporate will, what Rousseau calls “vis’a’vis the will of the government” and includes the wills of other leaders. And lastly, the will of the people or sovereign will.

I will posit that in a perfect society leaders silence their individual wills, place the corporate will as a subordinate, and allow the general will of the people to dominate.

Any thoughts on whether the above is something we should strive for and ask of our leaders. Any qualms with the 3 general wills (additions, subtractions)?

Graymailing: A Blackwater Update (changed its name again?)

"

Two sources familiar with the arrangement say that Prince's handlers obtained provisional operational approval from senior management to recruit Prince and later generated a "201 file," which would have put him on the agency's books as a vetted asset. It's not at all clear who was running whom, since Prince says that, unlike many other assets, he did much of his work on spec, claiming to have used personal funds to road-test the viability of certain operations...

Prince was developing unconventional means of penetrating "hard target" countries--where the C.I.A. has great difficulty working either because there are no stations from which to operate or because local intelligence services have the wherewithal to frustrate the agency's designs. "I made no money whatsoever off this work," Prince contends. He is unwilling to specify the exact nature of his forays. "I'm painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091221/scahill2

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121502690

Kondratiev Waves

An explanation:

In this paper, it is claimed that the effective causality of long-term macroeconomic rhythms, most commonly referred to as long waves or Kondratieff waves, is founded in our biological realm. The observed patterns of regularity in human affairs, manifest as socioeconomic rhythms and recurrent phenomena, are constrained and codetermined by our natural human biological clocks, themselves the result of instructions impressed in the human genome and human cognitive capacity by the physical regularity of fixed cosmic cycles. Considering that a long wave can be conceived as an evolving learning dissipative structure consisting of two successive logistic structural cycles, an innovation cycle and a consolidation cycle, and applying considerations from population dynamics, chaos theory and logistic growth dynamics, a Generational-Learning Model is proposed that permits comprehension of the unfolding and time duration of the phenomenon. The proposed model is based on two kinds of biological constraints that impose the rhythm of collective human behavior - generational and cognitive. The generational consist of biologically based rhythms, namely, the Aggregate Virtual Working Life Tenure and the Aggregate Female Fecundity Interval, both subsets of the normative human life span or human life cycle. The cognitive consist of a limiting learning growth rate, manifest in the alternating sequence of two succeeding learning phases, a new knowledge phase and a consolidation phase. It is proposed that the syncopated beats of succeeding effective generational waves and the dynamics of the learning processes determine the long-wave behavior of socioeconomic growth and development. From the relationship between the differential and the discrete logistic equations, it is demonstrated that the unfolding of each structural cycle of a long wave is controlled by two parameters: the diffusion-learning rate and the aggregate effective generation t_G, whose product maintained in the interval 3<t_G<4 (deterministic chaos) grants the evolution and performance of social systems. Moreover, it is speculated that the triggering mechanism of this long-term swinging behavior may result from the cohesion loss of a given technoeconomic system in consequence of reaching a threshold value of informational entropy production.

This is a bit complicated, but I have noticed that this article in wikipedia has been changed several times in the last month or so (more attention focused on it for obvious reasons). I believe these kondratiev waves are real and that they correspond with the human lifespan not the 2 generations cited in wikipedia. They correlate with the human lifespan in this way: humans live a certain amount of time and society is a collection of humans which are demographically divided to young, middle, old. The lessons taught by the old (elders) to the new generations are lost when they die and therefore history is to repeat itself. This may be a key part of the equation for the recent and ongoing economic crisis. The question is can technology dampen or perhaps even eliminate these economic fluctuations. If people use it like we do, then probably, but most people don't (as addressed in a previous article by Taggart). So we may continue to see these economic cycles for years to come. Also, the artificiality of markets may play a role which I can't yet comment on (as in, power centers may influence markets to create boom-bust cycles or potentiate them at least as this would mean quite a bit of profit for those power centers).

1) Devezas, Tessaleno. A wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessaleno_Devezas

2) Devezas T.C.¹; Corredine¹ J.T. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 68, Number 1, September 2001 , pp. 1-57(57)http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00401625/2001/00000068/00000001/art00136"

Endocrine Disruptors and Public Health, NY Times Article

A lot of stuff we've been saying all along.

"Likewise, asthma rates have tripled over the last 25 years, Dr. Landrigan said. Childhood leukemia is increasing by 1 percent per year. Obesity has surged. One factor may be lifestyle changes — like less physical exercise and more stress and fast food — but some chemicals may also play a role.

Take breast cancer. One puzzle has been that most women living in Asia have low rates of breast cancer, but ethnic Asian women born and raised in the United States don’t enjoy that benefit. At the symposium, Dr. Alisan Goldfarb, a surgeon specializing in breast cancer, pointed to a chart showing breast cancer rates by ethnicity.

“If an Asian woman moves to New York, her daughters will be in this column,” she said, pointing to “whites.” “It is something to do with the environment.”"

Kristof, Nicholas. Cancer From the Kitchen? A New York Times Article accessed on their website December 6, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06kristof.html?_r=2

The World According to Monsanto

I watched a documentary on topdocumentaryfilms.com last night about Monsanto (a food company which was scrutinized in Food Inc.). (1) This company, using only that documentary to judge mind you, appears to be the most evil corporation perhaps ever. The most amazing thing is that this company is not simply working within our borders, but it seems to have supplanted itself as a powerhouse for food (their soybeans in particular) all over the globe. The documentary makes the claim that they are trying to control all of the food across the world.

I'd strongly suggest watching that documentary, in the meantime I'll post some of the wikipedia article:

It's 10 pages long and mostly about various corruption cases and scandals. The most interesting part is this:

"Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of Monsanto are: Frank V. AtLee III, John W. Bachmann, Hugh Grant, Arthur H. Harper, Gwendolyn S. King, Sharon R. Long, C. Steven McMillan, William U. Parfet, George H. Poste, Robert J. Stevens.

Former Monsanto employees currently hold positions in US government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) and the Supreme Court. These include Clarence Thomas, Michael Taylor, Ann Veneman, Linda Fisher, Michael Friedman, William D. Ruckelshaus, and Mickey Kantor.^[19] Linda Fisher has even been back and forth between positions at Monsanto and the EPA." (2)

1) The World According to Monsanto. A documentary on topdocumentaryfilms.com http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/

2) Monsanto. A wikipedia article. Accessed December 8, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

Research and Business Report for University of Minnesota

This is a fairly important piece tying several important ideas together. Recall that Minneapolis was not identified by Richard Florida as part of its own economic center (it's instead part of the Chi-Pitts megaregion). I will highlight several important points:

Thomas Lee Star Tribune:

1) Judging from the university’s recent track record of converting its vast reservoir of research into cash, the U faces an uphill climb. The school that’s known for inventing the pacemaker, the heart valve and one of the Web’s first Internet browsers is desperate for a hit.

At a time when the state’s economy is slowing and its medical device sector is maturing, the U’s long commercialization slump has attracted the urgent attention of lawmakers, venture capitalists and others concerned about where Minnesota’s next Medtronic or St. Jude will come from.

2) According to the U’s own business development people (see link to Powerpoint presentation at bottom http://www.cvm.umn.edu/img/assets/8965/Doug%20Johnson-Industry%20Academic%20Partnership.pdf), the 20-year success record of the U’s technology company spin-offs is only half the university average nationally — and less than one-fourth the success record of the nation’s premier schools. What’s more, in one recent year (2004), for example, the U of MN spun off only one company compared to 14 at the University of Michigan and 16 at the University of Illinois [Do you believe there is a correlation to this data and the fact that Michigan's business and law schools are ranked so highly?]. Why I am focusing here on spinoffs? Well, because, according the U’s own business development people, creating university spinoffs is “much more profitable than licensing (revenues)” to the school.



The University is a top 10 University (graduate) because of its link with the automobile industry in post-ww2 America. With America's main manufacturing base in 2009 being biotechnology and IT, if Minneapolis misses the opportunity it has with all of the surrounding companies, then it really deserves to be a middle-tier University forever.

Points to argue, America itself lacks the drive to be a manufacturing economy in any sector (this may very well be true) and so any effort on Minnesota's part is somewhat moot. Thoughts?


1) Thickens, Graeme. The Latest on U of M Technological Innovation and Commercialization.
An Article from minnov8 online magazine. Written Saturday October 18, 2009 and Accessed December 2, 2009. http://minnov8.com/2008/04/19/the-latest-on-u-of-m-technology-innovation-and-commercialization/

2) Stevens, Randall. See the Richard Florida Article.

10.78 G-Force Units

We have some wide receiver named Decker who was impacted (on a well-timed attack) by a Cal Safety.

See video here (00:03:39 in time length):
http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_148395.html

"At one point it was as if Decker weighed 2300 lbs" (1)

We really shouldn't need MRI-imaging of these players' brains and spinal cords to know that serious damage incurs should we? Weigh this cost to the individual against the societal need for violence and destruction; the discussion becomes much more complicated.

1) Morrison, Deanne. "Gee' whiz, Dan Dahlberg University of Minnesota Physics Professor calculates the G-Forces in a Football Collision. UMNews.

Chomsky for a good laugh?

"I had a startling experience a few weeks ago. I travelled to Mexico City for talks at the National University, an enormous and very impressive institution with high standards of achievement and scholarship. Entrance is selective, but the university is virtually free. I then visited an even more remarkable institution, the college in Mexico City established by former mayor Lopez Obrador. Again, the facilities and standards are quite impressive. It is not only free, but has open admissions, though sometimes that requires some delay and sometimes assistance for students lacking adequate preparation. Shortly after I went to San Francisco for talks, and learned more about the California institutions of higher education. They have been at the very peak of the international higher education system. By now tuitions are quite high, even for in-state students, and cutbacks are affecting teaching, research, and staff. It would be no great surprise if the two major state universities, UC Berkeley and UC Los Angeles, will soon be privatized while the remainder of the state system is reduced considerably in scale and level. Needless to say, Mexico is a poor country with a struggling economy, and California should be one of the richest places in the world, with incomparable advantages. I mention these recent experiences only to emphasize that the recent cut-backs in higher education seen in much of the world cannot simply be traced to economic problems. Rather, they reflect fundamental choices about the nature of the society in which we will live. If it is to be designed for the wealthy and privileged, mostly engaged in management and finance while production is transferred abroad and most of the population is left to fend somehow for themselves at the fringes of decent and creative life, then these are good choices. If we have different aspirations for the world of our children and grandchildren, the choices are shameful and ruinous." (1)


Very succinct, very precise, very accurate. He just did what doctors do to patients but on the society level (doctors rarely make a diagnosis simply off one symptom even though it's possible). If that Mexican girl is in BIG this week, then I'm going to ask her more about the educational systems.

1) An email from Noam Chomsky. Chomsky.info Accessed Dec. 1, 2009
http://chomsky.info/letters/20091130.htm

Stormfront.org

After reading the Wikipedia page for Fight Club and seeing that some of the more major literary critics completely missed the usury bit, I took the search to google and ~6 down was a site called Stormfront.org. The '.org' is White Power. On their forums I found some very philosophical people, highly educated and as well versed in cognition as I am (and I might add even more articulate). And they are neo-Nazis. I soon received a Trojan Virus storm and have not visited the site since. These guys are smart and their web-counter was over 100,000. Palahniuk was not meaning for his work to be used in this way. Fight Club had nothing to do with eugenics, it had to do with power and slavery. It's clear how these ideas could be manipulated or taken in the wrong direction (made possible by those who do not value human life in the way which ironically their own God intended), but let's hope history does not repeat itself in this regard.

Do NOT visit this site. It is heavily guarded.

Strength, Valor, Style

I was looking for deals at Express over the holiday weekend and found a new line of Fitted Men's Collared Shirts called the MK2 (perhaps introduced the MK1 sometime in the past few years, maybe around the time we started the Iraq War).






The catalogue reads:

"Strength. Valor. Style. Military specs get a modern update. Refined details and at ease comfort create the perfect uniform. Strong in tradition. Modern in style. Cut slimmer through the shoulder, chest and waist from versatile cotton stretch fabric." (1)

Do you think that military-type clothing falls into fashion in and around times of war (or recession)? Regardless of what you say I'm going to still buy this shirt.



1) Express Fashion Website, MK2 label. Accessed November 29, 2009. http://www.express.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=18917

DMCA and WIPO

Laws, international and then federal, which attack me personally!

WIPO: World Intellectual Property Organization
In 1967, 16 member nations of the United Nations met to discuss the protection of laws in place for intellectual property (when did Darpa first go online? The implication here being that the internet would test the law in ways it had never been tested regarding intellectual property)(1). Of course the United States does not really take this seriously for almost 30 years when they give us the enormously uncreatively titled Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, in 1996 (signed by Clinton 1998):

"It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users" (2)

So, how do I assimilate this information? Time to dl everything I think I'll need for the next 10 years. And it's interesting that the United Nations knew what was happening in 1967. That seems very prescient.

1) World Intellectual Property Organization. A wikipedia article accessed November 29, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization

2) Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A wikipedia article accessed on November 29, 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

3) On Piracy and the Future of the Media. A documentary from topdocumentaryfilms.com. Watched November 30, 2009. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/on-piracy/

No Fat Alumni!

Lincoln University (never heard of it) in Pennsylvania is requiring students with a BMI over 30 (and therefore clinically obese) to take an "exercise" course in order to graduate. (1) Let's see if this catches on, my guess is that it will not. Is it right to require this of students? Should it not be a choice (that is, to be fat)? This is going to be a major debate in healthcare in the next 20-30 years (Kessler's End of Overeating once again comes to mind).



1. Norris, Michele (host). Pa. University Targets Overweight Students, a segment on All Things Considered. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120784381&ft=1&f=2. Accessed November 25, 2009.

Oxford-Style Debates

I've watched a lot of debates on tv and internet (much easier to find on the internet). Here I've found NPR's podcast section for debates on a variety of important and interesting topics:

After I listen to a few I'll comment. I would also like to compare this to how debates are carried out on cable news.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6263392

Book Review: A Long Way Gone

Title
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Author
Ishmael Beah

Date of Publication
2008

Reason for reading
A general interest in foreign cultures & current events.

Visualization

I noticed one of my co-workers was having trouble typing. He looks at the keyboard when he types and his overall speed is low. I told him about how when I was in high school and wanted to improve my typing speed I used what I learned recently is called 'visualization'. This is where you picture yourself doing a task in your mind and it turns out the motor neurons actually used in that task light up in brain studies. Gymnasts use it now apparently (1)


1) Winston, Robert. The Human Mind, a documentary. BBC. Viewed at http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-human-mind/

New Direction for Educators at the U?

Read the attached opinion article from the Star Tribune. Then let's discuss.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/70662162.html?page=1&c=y

Should they be asking students to consider these issues? Should all citizens consider these issues? What would be the arguments against the task force's goals mentioned in the article?

Fish, how do we know what is good?

They all are, they're delicious and that's how we know to eat them. I'm joking of course.

Rosh and I go to dinner on Thursdays and I was looking for a website which offers an assessment of fish species cross-referenced for how and where caught. I'm going to order the Halibut tonight and ask the waiter where it was caught. If he answers the question, I will remain a customer of this restaurant, if he does not, I will not.

NOTE: This article is influenced by Food Inc., a film which was influenced by Michael Pollan who was influenced by Upton Sinclair who also wrote Oil, a book which was made into a movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair

1) Monterray Bay Aquarium Website
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_alternatives.aspx

McChrystal's Assessment

He's calling for a "civilian surge", among other things. He is trying to put this conflict into an historical perspective, which is nice to see. He is also taking cues from NATO, which again is nice to see (as opposed to unilateral action). Read the first 7 pages and you have enough (supposing your background is sound with the geography, history, current deployment in the region, and understanding of the current leadership).

The question really boils down to a simple one. Can America tackle a region where time and again, past powers have failed? (read for history of Afghanistan) I do not think that we can and certainly not in the short-term (<4 years). It would take 20-30 years probably and involve huge resources on our part. We'd have to build up infrastructure (including but not limited to schools, government offices, roads, and maybe even some factories) and provide HIGH levels of security the whole time. And let's not forget the Heroin-Trade.


http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf

What is Justice?

Socrates would ask this question to the everyday citizens in Ancient Greece (supposedly). Today, Michael Sandel asked it in the context of the bank bailouts and societal fairness. (1) It seems we're seeing through conflict (recession) that the most basic values are reasserted and assessed. Conflict may be inevitable until we can improve human memory/learning which ironically may require instituting broader social equality itself.






1) What is justice?Broadcast: Midmorning, 11/12/2009, 10:06 a.m.

Pollution and City Dwelling

New study compares 'walkability' in Vancouver neighborhoods with local levels of air pollution
A study done for Vancouver Metro (in anticipation of the 2010 Olympics) examined urban life and pollution and health sequelae resulting therefrom (1).

""There is urban planning now that focuses on walkability and exercise-friendliness," Marshall says. But while that idea is on planners' minds, "the connection to air pollution isn't as much." (2)

This forces me to question what my own community's pollution index is. I have a friend who works for St. Paul City Planning; I'll ask him next time I see him.

1. "Healthy Neighborhoods: Walkability and Pollution" Environment and Health Perspectives Journal. Volume 117, Number 11, November 2009. Accessed November 11, 2009.

2. Walking and Clean Air. UMN news. http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_146640.html. Accessed November 11, 2009.

Fort Hood Shootings

This may be a tough topic but let’s address the Fort Hood shooting and media/populist reaction. Major Nidal Malik Hasan attacked fellow comrades last week leading to over 40 casualties including 13 deaths. Many news organizations immediately started questioning his heritage (Arab descent), his possible connections to extreme Muslim groups, and positing whether or not this was a terrorist attack. We all know this was a deplorable and cowardly act, so we don’t need to focus on that. Let’s instead talk about any of the following topics:
1) Does the media question other attackers connections to extreme groups (ex. abortion clinics) and therefore was their immediate reaction fair?
2) Not too long ago an American soldier killed 5 comrades at a base in Baghdad (1). Was this covered similarly to Hasan?
3) Should more attention be paid to stress surrounding military life during a time of war (ex. Stop loss)?

Let’s avoid “hindsight 20/20” conclusions such as, “the warning signs were there and Hasan should have been removed before he had a chance to carry out this act.”

Source:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?_r=1&hp

Blackwater (Xe) update

A rare picture of the devil? Okay, maybe not. Update on our Blackwater following. NY Times just reported that Blackwater spent $1 million to bribe Iraqi officials after Blackwater (unprovoked) killed 17 Iraqi citizens (1). And we still pay this firm to fight for us (2)?


Sources:
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/middleeast/11blackwater.html?_r=2&hp
2) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill2

IRV for better or worse now in Minneapolis and St. Paul

So, as was discussed on a post last month, IRV is NOT proportional voting. We seemed to arrive at the conclusion that proportional voting is better than plurality (a subtype of which we currently use nicknamed "first past the post" voting). What's the difference? From what I gather, a vote in proportional voting has the potential for sending MORE THAN ONE representative in voting for a single office. For example, and this is probably extreme, pretend we are voting for our House representatives. In Minnesota we have eight House representatives and all right now are either Democrat or Republican. Each district votes for two-year terms and the first with a majority in a two man/woman race or plurality in 2+ wins the seat and represents the entire district. What about the other votes? If a Republican wins in my district with 60% of votes and 20% goes to the Republican and 20% goes to an Independent. Where do the other 40% of votes go? The answer: under the current system they disappear. Proportional Voting takes these votes and gives them to the House in the form of another person (I'm not quite sure yet how, but maybe 10 people go per district or perhaps districts would need to be removed and simply vote by state). So in the last example, maybe 6 Republicans go, 2 Democrats, and 2 independents and then my district is represented not completely, but more than it was in the plurality system. A particular type of proportional voting, party list, is show here as an example of which other countries use this voting system:

"There are many variations on seat allocation within party-list proportional representation. The three most common are:

• The D'Hondt method (or Jefferson's method), used in Albania Croatia, Spain, Portugal, Israel, Austria, Finland and Poland, among other places;
• The Sainte-Laguë method (or Webster's method), used in many Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, and the German state of Bremen;
• The largest remainder (LR) methods, including the Hamilton method."

1) Barran, Madeleine, "St. Paul voters re-elect Coleman, approve IRV" http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/03/st-paul-mayor/

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_representation

Open Source Voting

Gregory Miller and John Sebes are making a case for something called 'open source voting'.

“Currently two vendors impact 80 percent of the vote” nationwide, Miller said, referring to Premier/Diebold and Election Systems & Software, which recently merged in a sale. But if all the states that have expressed interest in adopting the open source system follow through with implementing it, about 62 percent of the nation’s electorate would be voting on transparent, fully auditable machines he said." (1)

Apparently these companies make it very difficult for us to have standardization of practice (for reasons which are not obvious, we can extract and dissect in the discussion). Miller purports, "If they simply sold the machines to all the precincts, they would have three million sales and that would be the end of their business." So what do we see instead? Machines which frequently and according to Miller, malfunction, planned obsolence, long-term Draconian-termed contracts and continual "updates".

1)Zetter, Kim, "Nation’s First Open Source Election Software Released" Accessed November 4, 2009, -http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/open-source/-published in Wired online magazine October 23, 2009

Top Tax Bracket: A brief history

Brent and I were discussing this Saturday night. Scroll down near the bottom of this page to see the history of the top tax bracket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

How fiscally “responsible” of us to have rates at 80-90% between 1940-1945 when we were funding a war. I’m guessing this was just (i.e., justice) because the top earners were probably those associated with the military-industrial complex and benefiting the most due to the war (probably needs fact checked). Compare that to what Reagan did in 1981 (70% down to 50) and then in 1986 (50% down to 35%) then Bush did in 2003 (Bush: while funding two wars). Fiscally “Conservative”? Someone needs to define this for me, because I don’t get it.

Original Documents

The letter on the left is from Heinrich Himmler to his superiors. It is an answer to the Jewish Problem. The letter on the right is from an 14-year-old Fidel Castro asking FDR for $10.

1) American Originals, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/origina2.html

Authorship rules

Was Osha breaking them?

http://www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html

"Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3."

Since the paper was never published, I guess not. What has been done in the past however, e.g. Bilal, was to publish several years after his exit from the lab without giving him notice of the pre-publication procedures and therefore not allowing him to participate in the writing process. This has is how she justifies putting him in the "Acknowledgemet" section.
P11: "All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support."

James Lovelock - he stole my idea!!

It's not really my idea, but I had come to this conclusion maybe 1-2 years ago on my own. He calls what I am talking about the Gaia Hypothesis (1). He uses empathy as his primary hypothesizing system, again something I've been doing now for a while and I wrote an essay on the matter which is in the process of publication. Empathy here has a different connotation than you might be thinking. It is almost synonymous with imagination. Empathy could mean that you are pretending to be an influenza virus in a respiratory droplet and are watching as the host sneezes you out and you land on a different host's shoulder. It could also mean, as is the case with the Gaia, that you are the Earth and operating like a cell or machine, have various functions of homeostasis (among which is humans but other things are included). So empathy here is imagination, not pretending to be someone else as it is normally utilized. This is interesting to think about. Empathy clearly has survival advantage, but it can be used in these other ways which give rise to entire branches of science. Essentially though, empathy is best suited for what it evolved to do, predict the actions of other individuals. How useful could it possibly be when applied to what appears to be completely different situations? And is empathy the seed of imagination/creativity? I'll see what some of my neurology and neuroscience books say, but from what I remember of them, this question is not addressed.



1) Lovelock, J.E. (1965). "A physical basis for life detection experiments". Nature 207 (7): 568–570. doi:10.1038/207568a0

2) http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/03/midmorning1/

The Wire - Greatest television show of all time?

Last night I finished season 5 of The Wire. I am more documenting that than anything else as I think I'll need time to process the show and write something meaningful on its behalf. This is likely the best show I have ever seen and may in fact be the best television show of all time. This, of what I've read of Shakespeare, lines right up there (even though the aims of the two are different). It really is like literature on screen.

David Simon the shows creator, worked with Ed Burns, a former detective (and I thought crime journalist for a Baltimore or Washington based newspaper but I may be thinking of Simon). I highly recommend reading any of his books or watching any of his interviews (easily found on google or youtube one of which is linked below). I'll try to find some of his articles from the Baltimore Sun and bring those for discussion here.


http://www.hbo.com/thewire/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire#cite_note-greatest-2

Bill Moyers compares him to Dickens but before that Edward Gibbon!!!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=david%20simon&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

Internet Freedom Restrictions (Brent's nightmare)

Under the clever guise of the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, John McCain recently introduced a bill into senate that would drastically change how the internet functions (1). In its current form, the internet has an infinite number of sites and given an infinite amount of time an individual could visit each of them, regardless of his/her internet provider (e.g., Comcast). The IFA ’09 has the potential to treat internet sites like DirectTV, Comcast, Qwest, and Time Warner treat cable channels. For instance, if you have DirectTV you may have HBO and the Big Ten network, however, if you have Comcast you may have Showtime and the NFL Network. This could be the future of the internet. Let's keep an eye on this.

Telecommunications donated over 3 million dollars to McCain during his campaign (2). Interesting for someone who is a self-proclaimed internet illiterate.

Sources:
1) http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=7ccc25b5-9d63-321c-0238-805ed7bafc6b

2) http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00006424&type=I

Pre-book review

I'm currently reading Cannibals All! Slaves without Masters by George Fitzhugh:

http://reactor-core.org/cannibals-all.html#fitz33

It's an argument for slavery and I think toward socialism at the same time. I'm reading it mainly because a quote by Eric Foreman in an episode of House where he said all the masters thought they were doing slaves a favor (and for hundreds of years slaves apparently did not mind). I really want some insight into the mind of the average slave. I think our society currently may have it about right (where young people working their way up go through a semi-slave phase where they do equal or greater work than adults but receive little to no pay). If I were designing a society, this is probably how I'd do it. Quinn objects to this of course and makes a strong argument against it, but I believe the argument in favor of young-slavery is just as strong + is tradition so it is the prevailing system.

Newspaper Assessment: La jornada

This is a segment on nuclear proliferation from a talk Noam Chomsky gave earlier this month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3kAld2YwgU

He mentions La Jornada and seems to give his recommendation for it, maybe. He does say that it's independent and maybe the only independent newspaper in the hemisphere (of course none in the United States).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jornada

Should journalists have a licensing examination?

Communications is arguably one of the easiest majors at university. Currently in the United States, virtually anyone can become a journalist (while most major at a university in journalism, mass communications, or English). There is no licensing as there are with most other professionals (and those without licensing tacitly favor PhD's). Let's try to imagine how journalism would be different if such licensing existed.

Jonas Salk

I was aware of his work with polio (per med school and college and high school) and then was reminded of him in Michael Moore's Capitalism, but did not know anything of his philosophy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

I would recommend reading this article in its entirety before discussion, at which point I'll try to find a book which covers him.

Rosh was wrong about the gays!?

Utah scientists hard at work:
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/sciencentral/696-reversing-sexual-orientation-video.htm

We know from embryology that we all start out as women (see SRY gene for more details) so the line between heterosexuality and homosexuality is fuzzy from the beginning. Also recall Ron White's standup where he says he prefers porno where the guy has a big throbbing $#%@ instead of a small one. There's a bit of woman in each man and probably a bit of man in each woman.

Rosh's argument was that homosexuality is a choice. It almost certainly isn't a (conscious) choice. What's interesting here is that even if it's largely genetic, it may be changeable through gene manipulation. And then this becomes an ethical question: would we want to change the genetics of babies before they are born (which would actually be the mother/father) to favor heterosexuality? Let's discuss this aspect of the nematode experiment.



Also, what's up with that scientist's hair? I didn't think that sort of hair was allowed in Utah.




Note: Labeled under human science even though experiment was carried out on pseudocoelomates.

Culture of Corruption

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113816661&ft=1&f=3

connect to this book

http://www.lucifereffect.com/

by zimbardo aka the guy who conducted the stanford prison study

Muslims on Capital Hill: scare tactics?

Fox News Special Report: "Four House Republicans on Wednesday accused the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group of trying to "infiltrate" Capitol Hill by placing interns in the offices of lawmakers who handle national security issues.

The four lawmakers, members of the anti-terror caucus, asked for an investigation into the Council on American Islamic Relations after discovering an internal memo noting the group's strategy."

This seem ridiculous to me. First, it sounds like the CAIR is becoming just like anyother organization trying to lobby congress to pass bills fit to their needs. So, if congress wants to stop them, then stop all lobbying. Second, the way this is presented poses CAIR as a terrorist group and fails to mention the Christian groups that have sought to infiltrate congress in the same manner. If correct, Jerry Falwells college and law school specifically trains Christians to become leaders and politicians to push the Christian agenda.

Should this draw the same concerns?

Source:
1) Fox News Article
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/14/gop-lawmakers-accuse-muslim-advocacy-group-planting-spies-capitol-hill/

2) Info on Falwell Law School
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4632072

The Banks, Geithner, and the President

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113803587&ft=1&f=2

Matt Apuzzo breaking some potentially revealing news. The piece is 4:06 long. We'll have to keep an eye on this guy.

Jazz, what's so good about it?

I'm going to the Dakota tonight (it's a jazz club downtown).

I have never understood music.

As far as I could ever tell, people were in love with the idea of being a rockstar as much as they were the music itself. The 80's were more honest about this (kind of) by focusing on the beat and making the tunes very catchy, at least that's how I've seen it and I could be wrong. It does not help that I can never actually understand the lyrics to a song whether it's Hip to Be Square or something more recent like [insert Dave Matthews song title]. When I look up the lyrics online, the themes are almost always sophomoric at best - most songs seem to be about love or other emotions. Jazz is supposed to be different (the image coming to mind is the mercenary in Collateral played by Tom Cruise who despite his criminality I considered a very thoughtful character of meticulous-nature). I found this article in "WikiHow":

http://www.wikihow.com/Appreciate-Jazz-Music

1. "Start where jazz history started, Ragtime. Listen to Scott Joplin, the Entertainer especially, then the Maple Leaf Rag, these are extreme favorites. try moving to these. You might develop a love specifically for ragtime!
2. Now, try listening to the swing. You can dance to these easily. Possible favorites can be "Hit the road jack" by Ray Charles. You will love this one! Otherwise try listening to this upbeat instrumental called In the Mood by the Glenn Miller
3. At night to cool down, listen to Cool Jazz. Artists such as Chet Baker in songs such as "Someday my prince will come" and artists such as Gil Evans and Stan Getz are also quite good. This is also a distinct style. If this doesn't please your tastes, try be-bop.
4. Many people love be-bop. try listening to Dizzy Gillespie. he is quite good, with a lot of energy in his songs. Charlie Parker and him played together once.
5. Try listening to the blues, this will get you used to the soul and heart put into some jazz songs. Try Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle, Sir Charles Jones, Bettye LaVette, and Peggy Scott-Adams. Try to learn the lyrics so you can sing along. You don't have to buy the CDs listen to them on youtube, or buy it from iTunes, but sample it first!
6. Figure out what you listened to before, and try to find a genre of jazz that you may like off of that. If you enjoyed, say, New Age, try listening to artists like Keith Jarrett, or if you listened to rock, try out Fusion. Later forms of jazz started shaping around mainstream popularity, so there is a genre of jazz for almost all music (even Jazz Rap)! But be sure not to get stuck on the sub-genre; try branching out to more solid forms of jazz."

It starts with the history. I believe music may be a way to connect to the past. Let's assume that music is a way to connect with emotional states. Emotions are highly connected to memory........... And if these guys are doing more than just writing music themed on sex and love but on political problems of the time, society itself, then a thorough understanding of history and music will allow me to better understand both. I will fill in the composers later as they are the vocabulary in this new language (I likely will need to download these from bittorrent as they are too expensive any other way).

Music likely is cultural transmission, it almost certainly is not completely disconnected.


Steve will probably not understand this article, Jarrod will.

Out Foxed?

A 2008 Pew Research Center analysis found that Fox News’ 2008 election coverage was very balanced compared to MSNBC (see graph above). This is going to focus on Fox News from now on. I check their webpage once a day, though I don’t have access to their cable news channel.
Conclusions:
1) PRC rated just Fox News’ news sections and not the commentary programs (i.e., Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly).
2) Polling was wrong
3) I am biased against Fox News and therefore cannot see that they were the most balanced
4) False dichotomy. Though the coverage (negative/positive) of McCain and Obama was balanced, it should not have been because one candidate works less with logic and more with ad hominem. This is like bringing 1 republican and 1 democratic on a show to discuss a topic and claiming this is balanced, even if you are discussing plate tectonics and one of them does not believe it in (hope that makes sense).

Anyone have a thought about this? The above may not be mutually exclusive. I probably am a little bias toward Fox, but I also think they use a lot of false dichotomy and guise their commentary programs as real news.

Einstein Physics

http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_133361.html


"In his theory of general relativity, Einstein described gravity as a curvature of space, like the sag in a mattress beneath a bowling ball. He predicted that cataclysmic events like the merging of two black holes would send ripples called gravitational waves coursing through the fabric of space at the speed of light. But they would be too feeble to detect."

Until now. The LIGO experiment, which includes this installation in Louisiana, is testing this prediction with their "gravity telescope" Two lasers at perpendicular angles which can detect these ripples if they exist.

Is Nature free? What about Science?

Back to Ishmael and Daniel Quinn

Is Dr. Robert Epstein ripping off Daniel Quinn or perhaps arriving at the same conclusions independently?

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/13/midmorning1/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein

Epstein believes the education system needs to be completely changed considering that teenagers in many cases are as adept as adults. Indeed many adults are incomepetent compared to teenagers. Do we agree and didn't Quinn already say this?

Free Market System?

I recently read that more than 20 of the Fortune 100 companies in 1993 would not exist as independent companies without government intervention at some point in their company history (i.e., government subsidy). Here is the list of Fortune 100 companies in 1993:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/1993/

My search was cursory at best, only looking for evidence for the companies that jumped off the page (i.e., Oil Companies, military). A simple search on google of “Company Name” + Government subsidy was all that was required to find the results I needed:

Lockheed Martin, ConocoPhillips, GM, ExxonMobil, Ford, Boeing, ConAgra Foods, Chevron, Shell, Marathon Oil, Honeywell, Monsato, Texaco, ADM, and Occidental Petroleum. That’s 15 out of 100; I found in just 15 minutes.

So, next time someone tries to tell me that the “free market” determines which companies succeed or fail I will call their ignorance out, and so should you.

Noam Chomsky points out “that the modern corporation is almost completely totalitarian.”

Do we agree?

Fusion Documentary

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/an-experiment-to-save-the-world/

I'd like to discuss this film. It's on the use of sonoluminescence to create fusion.

Minneapolis Surprises Me

I'm not sure if I've made a post regarding proportional vs pluralistic voting systems, but although I missed the MPR radio program, here we have this article:

"Broadcast: Midday, 10/12/2009, 11:00 a.m.

MIDDAY offers a primer on what's also called Ranked Choice Voting, which will be used in the Minneapolis general election in November. St. Paul voters will decide if they want to employ IRV in future elections.

• Rachel Smith: Director of the Election Administration Project at the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. Former elections manager for Anoka County.
• Curtis Gilbert: Minnsota Public Radio reporter and producer." 1

Let me also reference pluralistic and proportional voting, specifically Duverger's Law 2,3,:
"In political science, Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that a plurality rule election system tends to favor a two-party system. This is one of two hypotheses proposed by Duverger, the second stating that “The double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to multipartism”"

Argument: Minneapolis and Minnesota are politically more evolved than most of the rest of the country.


1) How Will Instant Runoff Voting Work? MPR Midday Program hosted by Gary Eichten
Accessed October 12, 2009.

2) Proportional Representation, Wikipedia. Accessed October 12, 2009

3) Duverger's Law, Wikipedia. Accessed October 12, 2009.

Book Review: Who's Your City

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

Author
Richard Florida

Date of Publication
2007

Reason for reading
My roommate had Florida's 2002 book in his favorite books (on Facebook). I read the background of the author and then read the book at the bookstore and have now ordered it on amazon.

Genre and/or Themes
Environment and psychology, society (public vs private collaboration), systems and networks

Author Background
Richard Florida is a professor at the University of Toronto and does research social theory and economies. He has a PhD. from Columbia and worked at the George Mason University School of Public Policy and at Carnegie Mellon's I-school (information school). He seems like a decent person but it's hard to say - his temperament is even (from what I've read of how he responds to his criticism) but again my data here is too limited to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Synopsis
This is the best book I've ever read on networks (and the only one outside of my business classes). The last and greatest utility of man that has not been replaced by computers is innovation and creativity. Our economies are now reflecting this but not in a homogenous fashion. Certain parts of the country (and world) "have more spikes" according to Florida. The creative output is higher in places you may have already guessed: San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburg/Chicago beltway etc. Florida believes (and has large data to support) the thesis that creativity is the valued commodity and certain regions are better than others for those who want to exploit this.

Review
At the level of the idea, this is not entirely new. It synthesizes what we already had intuited and presents the information in a way that is more scientific but I'd argue quasi-scientific (which doesn't normally bother me but some of his assumptions appear to be false). The book is broken into four parts. Why Place Matters is the first section detailing Florida's "mega-regions". I would like to direct you to this article by Florida: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13070_23-193140.html which gives the data on the mega-regions. Are you wondering if Minneapolis is one of the regions? It does not make his top 10. A megaregion must meet three key criteria. First, it must be a contiguous, lighted area with more than one major city center. Second, it must have a population of 5 million or more. Finally, it must produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. By that definition, there are some 40 megaregions in the world.
Historical Context: David Ricardo and Adam Smith analogy - these mega regions of 2009 would equal Ricardo's "nation-state." Ricardo and Smith both seem to borrow this term for more classical thought. If we recall, Socrates describes nation-state in The Republic. I'd postulate every civilization has had its version of a nation-state. See the wikipedia article for more information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state) Also, these ideas have been in science fiction. Futuristic concepts of what cities actually can become (think Judge Dread sp).

I remember in college looking at this picture:
http://members.wolfram.com/billw/images/earth_lights.jpg

This appears to be the impetus for Florida and his research team. "The use of light footprints to define megaregions produces a precise and complex boundary to each region." He and colleauges then combine this and cross-analyze with other metrics such as traffic density and GDP by region. He goes onto to say that Thomas Friedman was wrong about the world becoming flat (flat here means that technology basically connects us all and gives everyone equal opportunities for financial success). Minneapolis falls into the Chi-Pitts megaregion. This is very interesting because about 2 weeks ago I remember listening to an MPR piece on creating a high-speed railway between Minneapolis and Chicago and then I found this just now: http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/richard_florida/2009/05/mega-regions_and_high-speed_rail.php

The highspeed railway does not look to be built anytime soon (in short, too much opposition from existing mass transit authorities and employees eg bus, plane).

Section 2 deals with how the individual will respond to this (assuming part one is true). There will be greater opportunities to the person who can not just move to the economic megaregions but remains mobile in mindset. Those who are rooted to one area will find more economic hardship basically.

In Section 3 Florida explains the results by linking the dominant forms of employment in the areas with the personality traits: manufacturing regions require people who are agreeable (follow rules) and conscientious (work with dangerous machinery), openness comes from areas with high immigrant populations, and extroversion from areas with management headquarters and sales related jobs. Florida finds that his Gay and Bohemian Index, which connected gay and artistic communities to high growth and wealth generation areas, is actually a proxy for regions with large concentrations of the openness personality trait.

Florida is taking a lot of liberties in this part of the book but making the argument that culture of a city contributes to its economic success is hard to make with pure data alone. Part of it is going to have to be subjective and I'm willing to buy this idea. But, referring to psychological profiling, I'd simply say open-mindedness in culture begets open-mindedness is the economy of ideas (and ultimately financial power).

Section 4 is about how you personally respond to this information. I'll simply cut and paste from wikipedia (as their treatment is as good as mine or better since I don't know how to make tables in the blog-composer):

The final part of the book, Where We Live Now, suggests that the average life has three big moves: when leaving a parent's home, when starting a family, and when retiring (or when children move out). When youth leave their home (or when they leave college), those who can move away, choose to locate in areas that offer attractive job markets, cultural or recreational amenities, and rank high in quality of life factors. When they get married or have children, people are choosing areas that are perceived as safe and family-friendly. Florida suggests using a Trick-or-Treater Index, do parent feel safe allowing their children to go door-to-door on Halloween; or Catherine Austin Fitts's Popsicle Index, how far are parents willing to allow their children to walk to buy a treat. Once retired, or when kids leave home, the parents tend to gravitate towards similar areas as young people, but in quieter neighborhoods. They desire opportunities for hobbies or a second career and proximity to grandchildren. The final chapter lists five factors to consider before choosing a location to reside followed by a 10 step plan to help people choose. The five factors to consider are (1) short and long term career goals (2) importance of being physically close to family and friends (3) desirable lifestyle options (e.g. access to beaches, water bodies, mountains, etc.) (4) locating close to similar personality types, and (5) current life stage. The ten step plan is outlined below:

Florida's ten-step plan to help narrow the field and make a decision on where to live

	Description of step	Notes
1	Get your priorities straight	Write down preferences, including the grand and trivial.
2	Generate a short-list	The previous step should rule out many locations and identify suitable broad regions.1
3	Do your homework	Collect information on each potential location by doing research, such as reading local newspapers or asking questions of local residents.2 considering leadership or direction of officials, social values of people or organizations, and aesthetics of the place.
4	What do they offer?	Assess and rank the potential locations by local economic conditions, especially with respect to jobs, professional development, and networking opportunities.
5	Getting the basics right	Assess and rank the potential locations by educational facilities, safety, health care, housing, transportation and other similar services.
6	Does the place get it?	Assess the potential locations by the initiatives that political and community leaders have been taking
7	Values check	Assess the potential locations by the predominant social values displayed by residents and organization, especially in attitudes towards tolerance, trust, and self-expression.
8	Come on city, light my fire	Assess and rank the potential locations by recreational, cultural and aesthetic interests.
9	Tally it up	From these rankings, weigh the pros and cons of the short-listed places and decide which place fits best.
10	Go there	Before committing, visit the decided upon location first. Choose the location that meets expectations upon a visit.

Problems with the logic:

Richard throws into the Creative Class almost everybody and groups them in two categories: the Super Creative Core and the "creative professionals". These two groups include: scientists, professors, poets, novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, architects, non-fiction writers, editors, cultural figures, researchers, analysts, programmers, engineers, filmmakers, financial services, legal and health care professionals, business management and the list goes on.

I of coure do not think (actually I KNOW) that health care professionals are not in his creative class. Physician-scientists are, but just barely. And the argument for financial services needs to be stronger. Of course, whoever controls the capital controls the people (labor supply), but the average financial service person is doing nothing creative; he's just making money. The Federal Reserve and central banks however, have a lot of control (arguably the most). Politicians you note, are left out. This is very interesting and leads me to my addition to this book.

If you can recall Sim City, then this will make perfect sense, if not then it won't. Politicians actually are not like the nerve-center deciders that they should be. They seem more to play games where they protect themselves first and worry about resources/people second. Keep in mind, no formal training is required to be a mayor but he still gets to handle the resources. I am forced to ask the question of whether this kind of governance will work in the future. If the society is truly democratic, then if it's possible I believe adults will have to live three lives: the life of their specialization and job (the ant function), their family life (especially if they decide to have kids), and their societal job (sim city function). As has been discussed here already, we do not seem to have democracy. The assumption for this model changes to take into account the kind of democracy we do have and we find that while the rest of the society is evolving and adapting to technology, politics is not. I'd like a focus of our discussion to be whether this is dangerous and incompatible with the current society.

Quotes
I'd simply say to look at the images I've provided and the additional reading (figures and tables sections). This is better than any quote I could give you to aid your memory.

Additional Reading:

http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/earth_lights_lrg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2008_01_01_archive.html&usg=__DqUg-3lKlzNkjb2fPMmY9ugjgfg=&h=1200&w=2400&sz=535&hl=en&start=22&sig2=TNzrH1rLKUjx1hRzKxYSJg&um=1&tbnid=o6sBlhky9YpPhM:&tbnh=75&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dearth%2Blight%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1&ei=tk7TSt3qFqKyNNKPgZUD

Is Sanjay Gupta a fraud?

So this guy was at the marathon this morning promoting his new book Cheating Death. I of course have not read this book, but the premise as supposed by a reading of the title makes it seem like this man is setting up a straw man in matters of inevitability. I'll take a look at it the next time I'm at Border's and give a more thorough review.

In the meantime, I found this:

http://crooksandliars.com/2007/07/11/michael-moore-vs-sanja-gupta/

It seems Sanjay Gupta, Larry King, and Wolf Blitzer were all involved in a bit of a soiree after Sicko came out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKoN40K7mA

My gut feeling (for what that's worth) tells me that Gupta is a bit of a drone and I'm not sure how he's qualified to be a journalist (neurosurgeons aren't as smart as you think, I speak from experience, it's really more about effort and capability to deal with attrition). But let's examine this idea more closely; if I remember correctly this man was in line at one point to be our next surgeon general (a job that pays ~200k/year less than neurosurgeon and probably .5-1.0 million less than CNN analyst). He declined I believe.

Science Funding

Again, NPR spurring this discussion (1). We seem very well suited to have this conversation but notice that we have not yet had it on here. How is science funded and what kinds of behavior spawns from that funding? Conservative? How does a single person make an impact or is incrementalism the name of the game (caveat before joining a lab: get used to that fact)? David Montgomery (the MacArthur Genius Grant Winner 2008 for geoscience) said at one point, "my risky projects are dove-tailed to nights and weekends... not one has been funded." The other guest on the show is Kenneth Waters (who I just met last Friday), philosophy of science professor.

Noted by Waters was T H Elliot's 20-year-old undergraduate who brought in the new idea of how to map drosophila phylogenetics (does anyone know this?).


1) Audacious Science, Minnesota Public Radio Website. Accessed Sept 30, 2009.

Core Standards Initiative

On NPR this morning a lively discussion regarding national education standards covered the feasibility and reliability of implenting new standards for public education. The difference between this and past attempts according the Hoover Instiute expert and National Governor's Association (1, 2) apparently is that this time the standards are being called for by a coalition of states (all but Texas and Alaska's governors if memory serves).

Maybe Julie knows something about this?

We're looking at questions along these lines:

Why is this set of standards better and how are they different from the MCA's?
Are the standards appropriate for college entrance (and exit), is college entrance the goal?
Are the standards high enough (or maybe they're too high)? Compared to the current standards?
Should there be national standards for teachers (as there are for accountants, doctors, etc)?
Will these standards help the US compete against other countries (we are still lagging I presume)?
Are the standards created objectively or possibly to make sure everyone passes?


1) Hoover Institution, Wikipedia. Accessed Sept 30, 2009

2) Hoover Institution Stanford University Accessed Sept 30, 2009.


http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/30/midmorning1/

http://www.corestandards.org/Standards/index.htm

Dara O'Rourke and Consumer Reporting

He seems to be the main person responsible for this: http://www.goodguide.com/

Let's study this and see if what we're buying is as nice as we think it is. Apparently Organic foods might night be as organic as we think (how many times can these companies perpetrate blatant lies to the public and get away with it?)

Tipping Points

http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2009/UR_CONTENT_132007.html


I read about this in the news this week but did not realize we had some people at University of Minnesota involved. Jarrod, we should add this guy to our list of interviewees.

Are these tipping points real?
There are tipping points in the human body (I'm always forces to draw this analogy to help my understanding and realize it may be completely false). Acidification, for example. In renal and respiratory physiology, this is a big deal. But we have clear understanding in medicine for how the body regulates pH and we have a good idea of how to intervene. Now who are the doctors for the planet and how can they intervene? I think the truth would be, they can't, the science is too new and there are limited ways to gather data (medicine can watch literally millions of people die and autopsy them, earth science cannot).

Teaching Students how to Argue

One of the sites I use to study the supreme court decisions had this article:

" For a scored discussion to work properly, students must be well prepared. This may include doing a practice discussion with students so that they understand the criteria for their grades. A practice discussion could ask students to spontaneously discuss a controversial issue within the school, such as whether the school should have a dress code. After the discussion, the teacher could tease out the positive aspects of the discussion and the negative aspects of the discussion, to come to a consensus as to what constitutes a good discussion and how the students will be marked.

For example, students might receive positive marks for demonstrating skills such as:

• stating a position
• providing evidence for a position
• challenging another student’s use of evidence
• linking the discussion to the course material
• inviting others into the discussion
• asking a question
• appearing to listen attentively
• responding to the comments of others
• building on the comments of others
• playing devil’s advocate

Students might receive negative marks for demonstrating the following:

• disruptive interrupting
• monopolizing the discussion
• personal criticism
• irrelevant or distracting statements"

I was wondering how we'd do in this kind of rubric and how well others we know might do.

Supreme Court Case of the Week: McCulloch v Maryland

Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution

"[The Congress shall have Power] . . . [t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

Case (with year)

McCulloch v Maryland, 1819

Chief Justice (just to familiarize ourselves a bit with the historical figures on the court)

John Marshall (1801-1835), nominated by John Adams

With the Federalists soundly defeated and about to lose both the executive and legislative branches to Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, President Adams and the lame duck Congress passed what came to be known as the Midnight Judges Act, which made sweeping changes to the federal judiciary, including a reduction in the number of Justices from six to five so as to deny Jefferson an appointment until two vacancies occurred. (1)

Soon after becoming Chief Justice, Marshall revolutionized the manner in which the Supreme Court announced its decisions. Previously, each Justice would author a separate opinion (known as a seriatim opinion), as is still done in the 20th and 21st centuries in such jurisdictions as the United Kingdom and Australia. Under Marshall, however, the Supreme Court adopted the practice of handing down a single opinion of the Court. As Marshall was almost always the author of this opinion, he essentially became the Court's sole mouthpiece in important cases. His forceful personality allowed him to dominate his fellow Justices; only once did he find himself on the losing side (1827 Ogden v Saunders case).

Background

On April 10, 1816, the Congress of the United States passed an act entitled "An Act to Incorporate the Subscribers to the Bank of the United States" which provided for the incorporation of the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank first went into full operationin Philadelhpia. In 1817 the Bank opened a branch in Baltimore, Maryland and transacted and carried on business as a branch of the Bank of the United States by issuing bank notes, discounting promissory notes and performing other operations usual and customary for banks to do and perform. Both sides of the litigation admitted that the President, directors and company of the Bank had no authority to establish the Baltimore branch, or office of discount and deposit, other than the fact that Maryland had adopted the Constitution of the United States.

On February 11, 1818, the General Assembly of Maryland passed an act entitled, "an act to impose a tax on all banks, or branches thereof, in the State of Maryland, not chartered by the legislature".

James McCulloch, head of the Baltimore Branch of the Second Bank of the United States, refused to pay the tax. The lawsuit was filed by John James, an informer who sought to collect one half of the fine as provided for by the statute. The case was appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals where the state of Maryland argued that "the Constitution is silent on the subject of banks." It was Maryland's contention that because the Constitution did not specifically state that the Federal Government was authorized to charter a bank, the Bank of the United States was unconstitutional. The court upheld Maryland. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Synopsis

Supreme Court of the United States Reversed lower courts and overturned McCulloch's conviction, holding that establishing a national bank is within the constitutional powers of Congress under the "necessary and proper" clause and Maryland does not have authority to tax a federal institution. McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Maryland Court of Appeals Upheld decision of lower court and affirmed McCulloch's conviction. McCulloch v. Maryland (1818)

County Court of Baltimore County Convicted McCulloch, the manager of the Baltimore branch of the Bank of the United States, for failing to pay the $15,000 tax levied by the State of Maryland McCulloch fined $2,500 ($31,259.40 in 2008 dollars according to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi) McCulloch v. Maryland (1818)

Consequences/Legacy

According to the necessary and proper clause, Congress generally may assume additional powers not specifically listed in the Constitution, sometimes called implied powers, if there is a link to a power that is listed in the Constitution. For example, Congress may allocate money to test a missile-defense system (something not specifically listed in the Constitution) because Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 gives Congress the power to "raise and support Armies".
While the above example may seem like an obvious extension of Congress's power, other powers that Congress has assumed over the years are not so obvious extensions of powers specifically listed in the Constitution.

I
Later History: McCulloch v. Maryland was cited in the first substantial constitutional case presented before the High Court of Australia in D'Emden v Pedder, which dealt with similar issues in the Australian Federation; while recognizing United States law as not binding on them, nevertheless determined that the McCulloch decision provided the best guideline for the relationship between the Commonwealth federal government and the Australian States owing to strong similarities between the American and Australian federations, and specifically cited Marshall's opinion in deciding the case.


Dissenting Opinions (what the argument against the majority opinion was)

"We are unanimously of opinion that the law passed by the Legislature of Maryland, imposing a tax on the Bank of the United States is unconstitutional and void."


Further Discussion

IMPLIED POWER: Congress gives licenses to broadcasters to play music on the radio.

ANSWER: Clause 3 may justify this activity. It gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. Broadcasting is a business. Thus, it is commerce. Airwaves cross over state lines, so it involves interstate commerce.

1. Congress sets a federal minimum wage.
   
   
   
2. Congress establishes the United States Air Force.
   
   
   
3. Congress establishes national parks.
   
   
   
4. Congress creates federal laws against pollution.
   
   
   
5. Congress makes laws regarding discrimination in employment.
   
   
   
6. Congress decides that televisions should have V-chips that enable parents to block certain shows.
   
   
   
7. Congress passes the Gun-Free School Zones Act prohibiting anyone from possessing a firearm in a school zone.

1) Stites (1981), pp. 77-80.

2) Wikipedia: McCulloch v Maryland

3) http://www.landmarkcases.org/mcculloch/fedimpliedpowers.html