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the center for ethics in science and technology (CEST), based in san diego, is hosting a free public conference on stem cell ethics this friday at salk. it has some of the heavy hitters in the field (check the brochure). one has to wonder, though, why the organizers scheduled the event from 1-6pm on the most solemn and holy of days in the christian year… to wit, the very hours jesus hanged on the cross. they’ve insured that no practicing christian will attend the event; perhaps a more apt name for the organization would include the prefix “the in-group” (and thus, IN-CEST).

from the advertisement:

A free, public program for the San Diego Community in collaboration with the San Diego Research Ethics Consortium which includes the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, The Scripps Research Institute, and UCSD.

in case you haven’t heard, the copyright royalty board recently demanded a hike to webcasters’ per-song royalty so high that it puts smaller and independent webcasters at risk of closure. if you ever listen to online radio, please take a moment to stop by free press, a public-interest organization with a focus on media that’s helping raise awareness about the issue. they have a pre-written “Email your Congressman” form that takes a few seconds to send. thanks!

on the heels of the last post, a good friend mentioned paul leonhardt’s article in today’s nytimes. it’s a conservative assessment of the direct and indirect cost of the war (other estimates, referenced in the article, hit $2 trillion; all agree on a ‘direct costs’ estimate of $700 billion). leonhardt, an economist, frames his approximation in terms of other potential costs to and concerns of the federal government.

to put it in perspective for the scientist, 1.2 trillion is more than the number of neurons in the human brain. it’s also more than the number of stars in our galaxy. if you were to line up 1.2 trillion one dollar bills edge-to-edge lengthwise, it would stretch from the earth to the sun and, on its return trip, nearly make it back to mercury!*

here’s his punchline:

“This war has skewed our thinking about resources,” said Mr. Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group. “In the context of the war, $20 billion is nothing.”

As it happens, $20 billion is not a bad ballpark estimate for the added cost of Mr. Bush’s planned surge in troops. By itself, of course, that price tag doesn’t mean the surge is a bad idea. If it offers the best chance to stabilize Iraq, then it may well be the right option.

But the standard shouldn’t simply be whether a surge is better than the most popular alternative — a far-less-expensive political strategy that includes getting tough with the Iraqi government. The standard should be whether the surge would be better than the political strategy plus whatever else might be accomplished with the $20 billion.

* nerdalert: i calculated this from $ length = 15.5956 cm, so in total = 187 billion meters. earth-to-sun = 149.598 billion meters = 1 AU, earth-to-mercury is .3 to .4 AU, depending on when you measure;).

i can’t resist linking to krugman’s latest op-ed in nytimes (it’s here on lexisnexis). from the article:

Hundreds of news articles and opinion pieces have described President Bush’s decision to escalate the Iraq war as a “Hail Mary pass.”

But that’s the wrong metaphor.

Mr. Bush isn’t Roger Staubach, trying to pull out a win for the Dallas Cowboys. He’s Charles Keating, using other people’s money to keep Lincoln Savings going long after it should have been shut down — and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors, not to mention billions in taxpayer dollars, along the way.

The parallel is actually quite exact. During the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, people like Mr. Keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success. Mr. Bush has kept a failed war going by faking military success.

as connecticut democrat chris murphy said in august, asking democrats for a war strategy “is like dropping a raw egg and asking me what my plans are for putting it back together.”

at some level, he’s right. you can’t argue successfully that anyone but bush (and the wolfowitz/neocon war machine) has ruined iraq. but, he’s also wrong: democrats can’t leave the strategy table. fortunately, they haven’t.

here’s a list of some things i’m thinking and reading about bush’s plan. sure, it may sound one-sided… but, one might say, so do the facts. by all means, please add suggestions and positions…i’m still learning a lot on this issue.

arguments for his plan:

1. it’s what the iraq study group (ISG) said to do.

this claim seems wrong, and particularly pernicious. it starts from part II.B.3. of the ISG’s report, called the internal approach: helping iraqis help themselves; security and military forces. the report has several things to say on introducing more military forces:

One of the most important elements of our support would be the imbedding of substantially more U.S. military personnel in all Iraqi Army battalions and brigades, as well as within Iraqi companies. (p49)

retort: this suggestion is not tantamount to deploying more troops. it could simply refer to a reorganization of the existing american military machine to insure sufficient training and support for the iraqis.

fair enough, but the critic might point out that, on p50, the report states:

we considered proposals to make a substantial increase (100,000 to 200,000) in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. We rejected this course[…] We could, however, support a short term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

so, as far as i can tell, there are two conditions for the ISG’s support of a surge:

condition 1. US commander in iraq determines it would be effective. for the record, as i mention below, the former US commander says it won’t be. i don’t know about the current one…

condition 2. the complete ISG report must be followed, according to the conclusion in its executive summary (p8). the recommendations of the ISG “are comprehensive and need to be implemented in a coordinated fashion. They should not be separated or carried out in isolation.” judging from what bush has chosen to do in the days following the report, it seems clear that he has focused on the more militant issues and shirked the bulk of the suggestions in the report (primarily, that nagging d-word bush can’t seem to get his head around… diplomacy). in fairness, he did rearrange his military and diplomatic team in iraq, according to the week. the issue of diplomacy shockingly and embarrassingly went unmentioned during bush’s wednesday night description of a troop increase. if only he had couched the increase in the broader terms the ISG proposed, his escalation might have been more palatable.

for the sake of completeness, and to insure anti-war folks don’t run too far with this, the report goes on to say “We also rejected the immediate withdrawal of our troops, because we believe that so much is at stake.” (p50)

2. there’s no other option to the “scare the living sh*t out of iran” strategy.

retort: there are other, better plans. one from john murtha, several from the iraq study group, and more floating online. some are summarized on dailykos, which also brings up chris murphy’s point, stated at the top of this post.

3. the sunk cost fallacy - since we’ve already invested so much, we can’t quit now.

in the nytimes, krugmann dubs the going-for-broke bush as ‘delusional’, and acknowledges that bush may, instead, be cynical.

like a gambler on a losing streak, he’s hoping one last big bet will save him from his previous mistakes.

barack obama also brought up this point in a senate foreign relations committee meeting, according to freakonomics.

and just a few arguments and pointers to articles against his plan:

1. its reliance on the unreliable.

harold meyerson of the wash post says that bush’s new strategy is doomed because it relies on al-maliki, the current prime minister, whose shiite ties have made him unreliable in punishing shiite militias. for details, see here.

2. bush is ignoring sage advice.

from the bbc:

Senator Richard Durbin said the president was ignoring the advice of the former US commander in Iraq, Gen John Abizaid, that increasing troop numbers would prevent the Iraqis from taking more responsibility for their own future.

3. there are other, better options.

one final thought: bush’s “apology” on wednesday was misplaced. he claimed responsibility for faulty intelligence, but not for the administration’s spin on available intelligence, which suggested malice rather than ignorance. the village voice makes this point anew, referencing its 2003 article WMD Lies Could Be the New Watergate.

in case you’ve been in hydrogenation-induced coma over the last few weeks, nyc passed a measure on tuesday that prohibits restaurants from using trans fat. this is disturbingly hilarious on several fronts.

1. the LBJ-style uber-maternalization of government. of course trans fats are bad for you, but so are skittles, butter, and cake. historically, government was around for building roads and establishing security. now, it’s here for welfare, education, healthcare, building self-esteem, and establishing insecurity. i once read a delightfully non-pc book by a blissfully out-of-touch southern preacher detailing how the rise of feminism was the cause of all sorts of social evils, including this shift in politics from the safekeeping of the state to that of the individual. if you’re interested, ask me for the title; in public, i’d never admit to believing a word of it.
2. super-confused social liberals’ and conservatives’ heads are exploding. clove-smoking, tree-hugging vegetarians want freedom to choose their own food… they’ve been shouting ‘1984′ the whole week. on the other hand, though, they want to help obese people live more wisely, establish the “positive freedom” of good health, and end socioeconomic exploitation by mcfood. meanwhile, bowtie-wearing, hair-parting stiffs love enacting laws to enforce their conception of what’s right, but they don’t want to let down a great corporate lobby or give up that delicious mcchicken sandwich. here’s an all-too-graphic visual aid to help you remember this point:
3. the government is, almost literally, spoon-feeding us. reality has become a parody of itself. i’ll leave you the pleasure of coming up with other examples.

the one good reason for outlawing trans fat is that state-funded healthcare costs associated with it are exhorbitant (more on healthcare costs in a future post). but other arguments are weak. for example, some people claim that the public didn’t elect to have trans fats in their foods, so they shouldn’t have a say in phasing them out. um, i’m no economist, but i’d say the public demand for crisco since 1911 is a pretty good indicator of its popularity. if consumers are the end-users, they can decide, just as they do with cigarettes. in fact, public information campaigns and heavy taxes on fast food might be a better alternative. as another example, some say there’s a precendent for this measure in laws against drugs and alcohol. but this is a slippery slope argument; it could take us all the way to outlawing too little sleep because it makes you fat.

a lot of the arguments against the law are obvious, but a few warrant mention. first, it’s legally dubious that a city could outlaw something the fda has approved. second, to get the same taste in food, restaurants might use excessively high amounts of saturated fat, which aren’t much healthier (in fact, they’re one of the reasons for the success of the hydrogenated stuff to begin with). third, it could hurt, or even phase out, smaller restaurants more than the chains that are really to blame. fourth, it doesn’t outlaw all the trans fat sitting on grocery shelves: it’s still accessible.

eh, at least we don’t have to worry about the denizens of houston, winner of america’s fattest city four of the last five years. they’d never let legislation like this slip by. i mean, even new jerseyites, not exactly known for their fitness, didn’t let it slide: “elected officials in Chicago and New Jersey met with resistance — and even ridicule — when they proposed similar measures. Democratic state Sen. Ellen Karcher, who proposed the New Jersey measure in October, received such a wave of angry calls and letters that she temporarily closed her office.” (la times)

nature neuroscience ran an editorial this week arguing that scientists should counsel policy-makers. because science is becoming increasingly specialized, politicians will necessarily have more trouble interpreting results relevant to science-related law (as for medicine, space, geoscience, etc). the article describes the uk’s office of science and innovation, an examplar for dealing with scientific policy-advising. for a recent example, a ‘Foresight project’ committee recently studied the implications of neuroscience on society and identified several issues that the government should be considering now, especially regarding intelligence enhancement, addiction, and recreational drug use. by comparison, surprise surprise, the u.s. bureaucracy isn’t great:

The situation in the United States is more complicated. US science policy is largely managed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which coordinates with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). In theory, these organizations should have direct access to the White House; the NSTC is a cabinet-level council, and, as implied by its name, PCAST is expected to advise the president. In practice, however, the roles and access of these organizations depend on the preferences of the incumbent. For example, unlike in previous administrations, the PCAST now reports to the OSTP director, not to the president. Compared to other advisory institutions (such as the National Security Council), there is little continuity in science advice between administrations, making the sort of long-term policy making exemplified by the Foresight projects very difficult—a problem compounded by the scarcity of direct interaction between scientists and politicians.

the article goes on to mention another disappointing fact: “[…]the OSTP is significantly weaker under the present administration. Only two of four associate director positions are currently filled, and the offices have been relocated away from key White House staff.” man, even their website is clunky.

should we expect anything less of this president? alright, to be fair, we’d do well to remember, among all these “facts”, the wisdom from the great colbert: “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

the christian coalition has (again) appointed and removed a president, this time because he wanted to expand the mission of the organization to include tackling hiv/aids and poverty. tsk tsk… did he even bother reading kuo’s tempting faith? wash post reports:

“My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we’re not carrying out the full message of Jesus,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday. “They began to think this might threaten their base or evaporate some of their support, and they said they just couldn’t go there.”

nytimes has a sweet video whose 6-min ‘first chapter’ is on black leadership, political protest, social power, and effective activism. it focuses on the reverand calvin butts, the pastor of abyssinian baptist church in harlem. he’s prophetic.

“materialism is the unconscious missionary faith of the west… people prostrating themselves before an altar of gold and going to the church of unlimited credit.” (ch 2)

to quote what i think the great linda richman (mike myers) of coffee talk fame would say, if she cared to think about politics: “the republicans’ october surprise is neither in october nor a surprise. discuss.”

well, here, she’d be right. if you haven’t heard, the GOPs ostensibly arranged for saddam’s verdict to be announced on the first sunday before the first tuesday after the first monday of november. at least one PEW political analyst said it won’t matter. but, a labmate pointed out that the republicans, with their penchant for messing with voting machines, could use this as a nice scapegoat.

another interesting contender for the title of “non-october non-surprise” is alberto gonzales’ announcement yesterday that police arrested 10,733 fugitives accused of serious crimes, like murder, rape, armed robber, and financial support of democrats. oh wait, maybe not rape.

in other news, the onion reports that the GOP is putting the remainder of its campaign cash behind just one candidate, in hope of retaining at least one seat. they also report that bush needs 1000s of registered dems for an extremely important mission “to begin immediately and continue at least until election day.”

september gallup polls indicate, according to dailykos, that evangelical support of the gop is waning. the most surprising stat i read was that:

the percentage of evangelicals who think that Republicans govern “in a more honest and ethical way” than Democrats has plunged to 42 percent, from 55 percent at the start of the year.

42% of any group believes that!? yikes. i guess bertrand russell said it best (this once): “Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.”

(thanks to sam wang for the heads-up on dailykos)

msnbc just posted a great article discussing conservative christian david kuo’s new book tempting faith. he’s the former second-in-command of bush’s office of faith-based and community initiatives, which in principle is a good office, i say. but i also agree with the many people who have accused bush of using the office to secure the evangelical vote without actually making good in his promises.

i’ll let kuo speak for himself, since i haven’t read his book yet (quoted from msnbc):

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

…he discovered “we were actually spending about $20 million a year less on them than before he had taken office.”

is this an october surprise, or any surprise at all?

david brooks raises some good points in his ny times oped comparing the social acceptance of female sexual predation in the vagina monologues and the universal outrage at the congressman’s frustrated flirting.

just came across this exhibit by artists ligorano/reese, created on 29 april 2006, the third year anniversary of the iraq invasion. the icy word melted in about a day.

just found out about the very small release of mike judge’s new film idiocracy and read a nice review at slate. apparently, it’s everything you’d expect from the creator of beavis and butthead in the time of george w bush: a humor that laments incompetence and laziness. i’m in no rush to see it, thanks to a few other reviews, one of which sums it up best: the movie is “so puerile and gross that[,] though the movie wants to say something about the dumbing down of America, it winds up not so much commentary as part of the problem.” there’s also a conspiracy theory saying that the distributor (FOX) intentionally squelched the film…

forgive the current events, but this is important.

reuters reported this morning that the bush administration has been keeping a major intelligence activity secret from the house and senate. michigan republican pete hoekstra, chair of the house intelligence committee and an ardent bush supporter, sent him a four-page letter of criticism warning that his decision was potentially illegal. two more years…

a reflection on oppressive policy by a 60s poet.

Stupid America

stupid america, see that chicano
with a big knife
in his steady hand
he doesn’t want to knife you
he wants to sit on a bench
and carve christfigures
but you won’t let him.

stupid america, see that chicano
shouting curses on the street
he is a poet
without paper and pencil
and since he cannot write
he will explode.

stupid america, remember that chicanito
flunking math and english
he is the picasso
of your western states
but he will die
with one thousand masterpieces
hanging only from his mind.

Abelardo “Lalo” Barrientos Delgado, 1969

i just got back from al gore’s new documentary on global warming, though it more accurately could be titled:
“Al Gore: Public Crusader for Tomorrow’s World”
or simply
“How to Scroll through a Powerpoint (Keynote) Presentation on a Plane, in a Room, at a Desk, in a Car, on a Couch, …”

that last one made it to the final cut, when the editors (yes, there were editors! but more on this later) finally decided it was too clunky.

at any rate, i spent a lot of time in the movie thinking about the movie (which usually isn’t a good sign). for proper reviews, check out IMDb’s list of external reviews. i just want to comment on a few specific things.

this movie was intentionally appealing to the archetypal republican.

everyone knows the democrats (and republicans) are intensely concerned about this year’s senate elections and the presidential election in 08. republicans just spent more than $5 mil on a winning election campaign to replace san diego’s corrupt, republican ‘duke’ cunningham. how can republicans continue to win, in california no less, with the state of affairs in america as they are?

in answering that question, democrats have strategized, i think, to present its candidates as ‘real americans’, with as much apparent genuineness as W (i say “apparent” with full knowledge of its connotations here). in my mind this movie is one of the most overt recent attempts to “humanize” and “americanize” a democrat. forget that gore is “no longer in politics” and that global warming is “not a political issue; it’s a moral issue.” gore is still part of the democratic machine, and global warming is still a political issue. i’ll spell these out:

1. gore is part of the democratic machine.
even if he’s no longer talking to democratic strategists, he’s forever emblazoned in this generation’s conscience as a democratic figurehead. his activities out of office are a good indicator of what ‘democrats are really like’. the man we see out of office is a hard-working, compassionate son of a politician-farmer, with great foresight and reputable goals. in short, he’s everything W claimed to be, but, well, wasn’t. as if those associations weren’t enough, gore, as if stealing pages from the republican playbook, sounded more like W than i’d ever remembered: i never knew him to be so laborious in his speech, so awkwardly deliberate in his presentation. sure, at times there were light jokes and cheap shots, which, if they weren’t wit, were at least evidence of a brain. but he was, i think intentionally, being awkward… mostly when he talked about himself, his home, his family, the stuff of life in almost entirely contrived and unnecessary cut-to scenes of where he grew up and motivations for working on global warming. to me, it seemed blatant that he was at the same time demonstrating his political prowess and social conscience (a one-up on W) and showing that he was more down-home american (beating W at his own mid-west game). still, it left a bad taste in my mouth, since these kind of irrelevant appeals to political genuineness have the distinct flavor of, well, bull sh’t.

2. global warming is a political issue.
here’s the logic:
global warming results from oil. oil is republican. republican is political. thus global warming is political. as we say in math, quod erat demonstratum.

percolating in the public conscience is the conviction that oil makes rich, corrupt, republican tycoons richer (and perhaps more corrupt and more republican…witness: Iraq war). oil fatcats and their federal compatriots piss off most americans. so, by lining up against the oil companies, democrats befriend the american public. they’re with “us” on this issue…and it’s an issue inextricably linked to the wars and corruption of this mismanaged republican administration.

so in both of these respects, democrats are the good guys in an uphill battle we americans have to join. if that’s not political, what is? fortunately, though, i think they’re on to something. oh the power of grassroots in the internet age… but that’s another post. who knows if it’ll work in awakening republicans to the possibility of voting democratic.

so, do i think you should see this movie? global warming is an extremely important issue, but the facts you get from the movie (plus some) could be learned in fewer than 15 minutes at realclimate.org (see below). so unless you wanna see gore toting his mac all over the globe, don’t bother. BUT, change your habits, if necessary, to produce less (or no) CO2 emissions.

postscript 1. this movie does give tons of evidence for the importance of addressing global warming. i appreciate that it’s bringing a sense of urgency about the problem to a wider audience.

postscript 2. this movie is intensely boring. all i wanted after 8 straight days of 16+ hours of daily work was a relaxing movie. instead, i got a very poor, needlessly long lecture. admittedly, i shouldn’t have gone to a documentary. but my friend suggested it, and it was decently reviewed (nobody wants to be ‘that guy’ who says the global warming movie sucks; that’s tantamount to making a ’special olympics’ joke.) without enough footage of the majestic glaciers we’re out to save, the audience was left watching gore–not known for stirring speeches–being gore. most of the time (75%ish), he’s lecturing to a bunch of other people, who themselves get antsy by the end (i swear there were people in his audience ready to fall asleep, let alone the old guy snoozing across the row from us in the actual theater). he also takes a page from michael moore, incorporating instructional cartoons, albeit less humorous than moore’s galumph through the history of the white man’s oppressive politics. and then, there’re the non-sequitor flashbacks…

for serious information, visit realclimate.org, especially their index, organized thematically. (hat tip to Yeung for this reference)

this past week, wired news had a two-part series (”what if they gave a war?” and “you say you want a revolution?“) from copy editor tony long. it’s another tired, political wake-up call for an overly materialistic america. in fact, it reminds me in some roundabout way of the now-classic onion article “nation’s liberals suffering from outrage fatigue” back in 04:

“With so many right-wing shams to choose from, it’s simply too daunting for the average, left-leaning citizen to maintain a sense of anger”
while long’s articles are a bit clunky, i always applaud efforts to crawl out of the soul-sucking vortex that is american commercialism (i also applaud efforts to avoid mixed metaphors, but that’s another post…). not much is new in what he says (and in my opinion, some of it’s misguided), but there are a few nice points. in particular, social movements lose steam and originality when they’re used as profit engines: “Once Madison Avenue smells money, you can sound the death knell for any original idea.”

“And nothing sells to the “youth demographic” like the idea of being a rebel. Well, guess what? The iconoclast has been marketed out of existence, too. This is a nation of sheep. Slick magazines, TV and, increasingly, the internet tell us what to buy, what to wear, how to think. (Cosmopolitan even tells you how to have an orgasm.) Mass culture has extracted our collective rebel bone. If only the British had marketed themselves better in 1776, we’d still be swearing fealty to the Crown.”

in the end though, what do we do about our dangerous current situation in america? his to-do list is lackluster. essentially, he believes in self-improvement. sure, it looks like “broadening your horizons” or something, but in the end, it seems like a selfish schedule. to me, social justice is imbued with power and endurance when it has a firmer purpose.

but i want to get back to this idea: “the iconoclast has been marketed out of existence.” i’m afraid the traditional iconoclast is still alive and well, and with good reason. more crap gets published and ideas get thought everyday that simply aren’t worth paying attention to. but iconoclasm in the chic, counter-culture sense seems pretty dead to me, and i think this is the idea to which he’s referring. i think i know the very date of its death, in fact. american-teen-nouveau-iconoclasm died when the simpsons let us listen to a conversation two rockers–the archetype of this heterodoxal persona–are having at some concert:

“are you being sarcastic, dude?”
“i don’t even know anymore.”

the wall street journal editorial page ran an article on a new breed of evangelicals who seem to embrace big government ideals to accomplish covenantal responsibilities. though it’s a bit awkwardly written, the piece raises a good point by quoting a scholar from the Acton Institute:

“You can’t be compassionate with other people’s money. Even worse, they’re not thinking about the consequences of these policies. They’re too busy feeling warm and fuzzy and absorbing liberal ideas.”

it finishes with a look at the ONE campaign:

Groups representing more than 40 denominations have signed on to the public declaration of the so-called ONE campaign, whose mission is to dedicate 1% of the U.S. budget to foreign aid each year. ONE boasts the support of George Clooney, Naomi Watts and, of course, Bono. It’s all very hip, and very vague. “ONE isn’t asking for your money,” the Web site declares. “We’re asking for your voice.” Well, actually, ONE is asking for your money, but the checks go to the IRS rather than directly to charity.

i’m as glad as anybody that the evangelical community is trying to seek creative ways to fulfill its perceived responsibility and work for ‘common good’, whatever that is. but i agree with the columnist that, if it’s their responsibility, they should do it… not the government. between friends, i’m a small government guy at heart.