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Things That Caught My Attention

Dana Hunter

I actually had time to catch up on a little reading today.  Even updated me blogroll to include some of the geology blogs I’ve gotten addicted to recently.  I’m a little distracted just now with terminal PMS and Rocko’s Modern Life, so now’s a good time to share some finds.

Brian Romans at Clastic Detritus made me drool with this Friday Field Foto.

More drooling: Dan McShane shares Notes from the Metaline Formation.  Old, pretty rocks; lovely water. Mmm!

And Callan Bentley’s guest blogger Filip Goc is responsible for some severe water damage to mah domicile – drooling turned to a gusher when I saw this post on the rocks of Glacier National Park.  Bonus drool: tension gash (which is a lot prettier than it looks). 

Lockwood found a box of crayons I dearly wish I’d had as a kid – oh, hell, I’d like them now.

I know most of you have seen this by now, but for those who haven’t: Chris Rowan’s excellent exploration of what lies beneath Yellowstone.

Courtesy of Ron’s Geology Picks, a fascinating new look at plate tectonics.

In non-geo news, Orac explains what happens to herd immunity when the herd refuses vaccination, and lays the smackdown on bogus vaccine ingredient calculators.

For the one of you who doesn’t read Pharyngula, PZ explains the importance of being a dick.

And Cujo’s right when he says it’s time for our better selves to show up – which has nothing to do with DBAD and everything to do with the horrific suffering in Pakistan.

We like to end with sunsets whenever possible, and thanks to Suzanne, we’ve got a beaut.  Go feast your eyes.

I know I’m missing some stuff.  However, my brain has been fried by hot flashes, and it’s time to crawl into bed with me oceanography textbook (yes, I read textbooks for pleasure).  Let me know what I’ve missed!

Things That Caught My Attention
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"Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning"

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Everyone – whether you have a kid or not – needs to read this:

The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. 

I come from Phoenix, where the news keeps a daily count of the children who’ve drowned, and I still didn’t know this stuff.  Read this article.  It will save lives.

There’s some literature after the jump for ye, if you want to learn more about drowning behavior and the Instinctive Drowning Response.

The following is from Pia Enterprises, and can be found in their document Reflections on Lifeguard Surveillance Programs:

Drowning Behavior

As mentioned earlier an active drowning person struggles on the surface of the water in a highly predictable, patterned, and to the trained eye, recognizable way. The Instinctive Drowning Response represents a person’s attempts to avoid the actual or perceived suffocation in the water. The key concept in understanding a drowning person’s behavior is to keep in mind that suffocation in water triggers a constellation of autonomic nervous system responses that result in external, unlearned, instinctive drowning movements.

Research has shown that this response is present wherever active drownings occur ( pools, lakes, beaches, rivers, and waterparks). The reader must keep in mind that the drowning process starts at the point when person are no longer able to keep their mouths above the surface of the water. The aspiration of water which leads to a wet or dry drowning occurs at a later point in the drowning process. It is therefore misleading to tell lifeguards that distress covers all behavior up to the aspiration of water and drowning includes all subsequent behavior.

Characteristics of the Instinctive Drowning Response (IDR)

The following information describes the movements of the Instinctive Drowning Response, explains why certain behaviors are or are not occurring, and offers insights into what physiological processes are prompting drowning persons’ movements. The IDR is a group of signs and symptoms which collectively indicate an active drowning is occurring and differentiate it from the characteristics of distress.

The first characteristic of Instinctive Drowning Response is that persons, except in very rare circumstances, are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing; speech is the secondary or overlaid function. This means the primary function breathing must be satisfied first, before the secondary function speech can occur. The second reason drowning persons cannot call out for help is their mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning persons are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help.

When the drowning persons’ mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water. While their mouths are below the surface of the water drowning persons keeps them tightly closed to avoid swallowing water. The second characteristic of the Instinctive Drowning Response is that drowning persons cannot wave for help. Immediately after drowning persons begins gasping for air, they are instinctively forced to extend their arms laterally and begin to press down on the surface of the water with their arms and hands.

This response, over which drowning persons have no voluntary control, renders them unable to wave for help. The arm movements of drowning person’s are intended to keep their heads above water so they can continue to breathe. By pressing down on the surface of the water, they lift their mouths out of the water to breathe. The third characteristic of the Instinctive Drowning Response is that drowning persons cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning persons who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and performvoluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

These actions require a swimming or floating skill, which by using the definition of the term drowning, drowning persons do not have. When a drowning person grabs a rescuer, it is because the rescuer did not give the drowning person enough support to stop the Instinctive Drowning Response. Rather, the rescuer only provided enough support to use either the rescuer or the rescue device as a base of support to grab the lifeguard. In such cases, lifeguards did not give drowning persons enough support to convince them they were no longer suffocating.

The fourth characteristic of the Instinctive Drowning Response is that drowning persons’ bodies are perpendicular in the water, and they are not able to move in a horizontal or diagonal direction. Also, there is no evidence of a supporting kick. The fifth characteristic of the Instinctive Drowning Response is that drowning persons struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds. This data was obtained and validated over a 21 year period at Orchard Beach, Bronx , New York where approximately 40,000 rescues, an average of 2,000 per summer occurred.

Observations at Orchard Beach also revealed that drowning persons were often surrounded by patrons who did not realize that a drowning was occurring next to them. It is therefore imperative that new lifeguards be trained to rely on the signs of drowning to begin their rescue procedure and not wait for patrons or more experienced to tell them that a person is drowning. Because manipulation of variables in my observational drowning studies at Orchard Beach were neither ethically nor morally possible, the only way to obtain this data was direct observation of drowning persons during rescues.

This methodology conformed to the qualitative research methods noted by Patton and others. This behavior of drowning persons, originally studied at Orchard Beach in the 1950’s and l960’s, and then written about in the 1970’s has been shown to exist in other areas. The confirmation for this conclusion consists of letters and telephone calls
from lifeguards, parents, camp counselors, and park employees who noted that drowning person recognition concepts contained in On Drowning, Drowning: Facts & Myths, and The Reasons People Drown enabled them to identify a drowning person that was surrounded by bathers who did not recognize the Instinctive Drowning Response.

Tip o’ the shot glass to Highly Allochthonous.

"Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning"

Attention, Women's Rights Supporters: the Senate Needs a Kickin'

Dana Hunter

It’s not enough for Dems to be so in love with bipartisanship that they’re trying to neuter healthcare reform for a few pitiful Con votes they don’t even need. Now they’re talking insanity:

As Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) prepares to unveil the Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan health care reform legislation later this week, several blogs are reporting that Republicans on the Committee are pushing legislation that would require insurers operating within the new Exchange to to deny coverage for abortion services. From Raising Women’s Voices:

The Senate Finance Committee has been writing a health care reform bill and struggling to create legislation that will have bipartisan support. Chairman Max Baucus (pictured left) considered several compromises to win Republican support, so they can claim it is bipartisan legislation. One of these potential compromises comes in the form of an abortion exclusion, which would prevent abortion services from being covered by some or all insurance plans in the Health Insurance Exchange. We fear that members of the Senate Finance Committee are considering such a compromise.

Should it pass, the Senate Finance version would be the only bill that specifically prohibits a medical service.

These fucktards can’t overturn Roe vs. Wade, so they’re just trying to make that law a dead letter. I say we don’t let ’em.

Raising Women’s Voices raises some good points:

This is potentially very dangerous, and poses a great risk for the health and lives of women all over this country. There is no excuse for excluding health benefits from health insurance plans based on politics and ideology. We don’t want politicians deciding what health care services we have and do not have. We need to look out for the women with the least access to resources and capital and ensure that their needs are represented.

Please contact your members of congress, encourage them to oppose this amendment or any language about restricting women’s access to reproductive health care services. We most strongly encourage women and men from states represented on the Senate Finance Committee to contact their representatives: Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Alaska, Oregon, New York, Michigan, Washington, Florida, New Jersey, Delaware, Iowa, Utah, Maine, Arizona, Kentucky, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, and Texas. Make your voice heard and make sure this possibility doesn’t become a reality.

Darlings, grab your Smack-o-Matics and get whackin’.

Attention, Women's Rights Supporters: the Senate Needs a Kickin'

Prop 8: It's Only a Setback

Dana Hunter

You’ve probably already seen the news: California’s Supreme Court upheld Prop 8. They’ve tossed the ball back to our side of the court, practically begging us to score:

The court’s majority concluded “that if there is to be a change to the state constitutional rule embodied in that measure, it must ‘find its expression at the ballot box.’”

That means those of us who support same-sex couples’ right to get married have a job o’ work ahead of us:

In response to the court’s decision, the Courage Campaign will hit the California airwaves in the next 72 hours with a 60-second TV ad version of “Fidelity”—the heartbreaking online video viewed by more than 1.2 million people, making it the most-watched video ever in the history of California politics.

We are launching this provocative new TV ad in the spirit of Harvey Milk’s call to “come out, come out wherever you are” and proudly tell the stories of the people most affected by the passage of Prop 8—in moving images set to the beat of Regina Spektor’s beautiful song.

More than 700,000 Courage Campaign members are ready to restore marriage equality to California. Will you help us get to “1 Million for Marriage Equality”? Watch our powerful new 60-second “Fidelity” TV ad and sign the pledge.

If you like TV ad, please contribute to put it on the air in Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco.

Let’s get it done. We can’t have California falling too far behind Iowa, now, can we?

Prop 8: It's Only a Setback

Speak Out for Stem Cell Research

Dana Hunter1 Comment

We’ve got until May 29th to beat out the floods of anti-stem cell research hysterics and let the government know we’d really, really like to get the science going:

From Don Reed, national stem cell research advocate:

The next 12 days are crucial in the stem cell research struggle.

Here’s why.

Remember when President Obama signed that document removing the Bush stem
cell restrictions? That same day he called upon the National Institutes of Health to draft a new set of guidelines for scientists wanting federal
funding.

Those guidelines have just been issued. see
http://stemcells.nih.gov/policy/2009draft.htm

The next 14 days are the comment period for the new guidelines for stem cell research, which American scientists will have to live with if they want federal funding. This is the public’s only chance to shape those guidelines, which can be improved-or made worse.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the proposed guidelines!

Not only are the guidelines far more conservative than we had hoped, but
opponents of the research are systematically flooding the comment process.

Conservative religious bodies, have launched a national campaign to attack early stem cell research by mass emails to the NIH.

Go to this page and leave your comments.

Stem cell research is one of our best hopes for curing diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and a myriad of other horrors. Yet frothing fundies would prefer we just incinerate unused embryos rather than use them to save lives. Go fucking figure.

Let’s make sure the NIH knows there’s plenty of support for stem cell research. You can come up with your own wording, or filch the following:

P.S. Here is a sample letter from Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR)

You can copy and paste into Comment section of NIH comment form and edit as appropriate for you.

Embryonic stem cell research holds great promise for millions of Americans suffering from many diseases and disorders. I am not a scientist, but I have been following progress in this field with great interest. Significant strides have been made over the past decade, and the final guidelines issued by NIH must build on this progress so that cures and new therapies can get to patients as quickly as possible. The final guidelines should not create new bureaucratic hurdles that will slow the pace of progress.

I am pleased that these draft guidelines — in Section II B — would appear to permit federal funding of stem cell lines previously not eligible for federal funding and for new lines created in the future from surplus embryos at fertility clinics. However, as drafted, Section II B does not ensure that any current stem cell line will meet the criteria outlined and thus be eligible for federal funding. It will be important for the final guidelines to allow federal funds for research using all stem cell lines created by following ethical practices at the time they were derived. This will ensure that the final guidelines build on progress that has already been made.

I also believe that the final guidelines should permit federal funding for
stem cell lines derived from sources other than excess IVF embryos, such as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Sections II B and IV of the draft
guidelines do not permit such federal funding and I recommend that the final guidelines provide federal funding using stem cell lines derived in other ways. If not, it is essential that the NIH continue to monitor developments in this exciting research area and to update these guidelines as the research progresses.

Thank you!

Let’s put discarded embryos to good use and get some diseases cured, shall we?

Speak Out for Stem Cell Research

Prosecutions. Now.

Dana Hunter2 Comments

This is what the Bush regime turned us in to:

Marcy Wheeler scrutinized some of the Bush administration’s torture memos and discovered a striking statistic.

According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. […]

[T]two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you’d need 18 applications in a day. Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you’ve waterboarded 90 times — still just half of what they did to KSM.

[snip]

If waterboarding was an effective torture technique, why on earth did officials feel the need to administer it 183 times on one individual? What kind of sadist thinks, “We didn’t get the information we wanted after torturing him 182 times, but maybe once more will do the trick”?

The kind of sadists who are now walking free after committing war crimes. They’re giving speeches, teaching law students, and presiding over courtrooms. We used to prosecute and imprison other torturers. We used to be morally outraged over sadism like this. Now, our leaders seem to think it’s not that big a deal.

It’s time we got outraged. They need to understand that this isn’t partisan or dwelling on the past. Crimes against humanity must be prosecuted. We have to face what we’ve done.

I was going to write a long, detailed post about this. Cujo got there first, and said all that needs to be said:

The New York Times published an editorial today on the Dept. Of Justice (DoJ) memos released last week by the Obama Administration. These memos were an attempt to put legal lipstick on the pig that was the Bush Administration’s desire to torture detainees suspected of terrorism. The editorial starts out:

To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity.

Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.

The Torturers’ Manifesto

[snip]

We’re bound both by treaties we’ve signed and as a civilized nation to investigate these crimes. Doing any less will not only be a stain on our honor as a society, but will probably encourage more such crimes in the future. If we don’t behave by these rules now, we can’t expect that anyone else will do so later when they are holding our people.

What’s worse, if we don’t do our duty as a civilization, there are others who will do it for us. Should that happen, we will be forced to choose between extraditing former Bush Administration officials as Article 7 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture demands, or not living up to that treaty obligation, as well. History won’t be kind if others are required to clean up the mess we’ve made, especially if we refuse to cooperate in that effort.

One thing you can do to demand that these crimes be investigated is sign this FireDogLake online petition that demands that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate these memos and decide if charges should be brought.

Take action. We must show our current leaders that the crimes of the past can’t simply be buried and forgotten.

Prosecutions. Now.

Hilzoy on Torture Memos

Dana Hunter

Her posts have been outstanding. Here’s a compendium:

Redactions

The Obvious Comparison

Something Is Missing

“Prolonged Mental Harm”

Torture: The Bureaucracy In Action

More Things That Are Missing

Barack Obama doesn’t want to look back. He wants to do the touchy-feely let-bygones-be-bygones thing. Firstly, allowing torturers to go free is morally reprehensible. Secondly, it’s illegal under the international laws we agreed to abide by.

The ACLU has a petition going demanding prosecutions. You can sign here.

The only thing more horrific than Bush and his goons turning us into a nation of torturers would be letting them do that and get away with it.

Hilzoy on Torture Memos

Fighting Nukes With Sir Stephen Colbert

Dana Hunter

Why didn’t anyone tell me Stephen Colbert’s been knighted? And by no less a queen than Queen Noor of Jordan. Don’t you people know I’ve been behind on my Daily Show/Colbert Report viewing lately? Someone has to tell me these things!

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
H.M. Queen Noor
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

I love how she forced him to sign the declaration before she did the deed. Smart woman, that!

Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is definitely something I can sign on to, and I won’t even demand Queen Noor knight me first. Care to join me?

Fighting Nukes With Sir Stephen Colbert

Doing the Right Thing

Dana Hunter2 Comments

From time to time, Obama earns a trip to the woodshed. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that he’s also doing a hell of a lot of good, and taking the country in directions it should’ve been going all along:

I’ve been ragging on Obama relentlessly over the ways in which he has continued the vile policies of the Bush administration. Here’s a big attaboy for changing one ridiculous decision:

The Obama administration will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that then-President George W. Bush had refused to sign, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. officials said Tuesday they had notified the declaration’s French sponsors that the administration wants to be added as a supporter. The Bush administration was criticized in December when it was the only western government that refused to sign on.

Administration sources only spoke anonymously because they had not yet informed Congress of the decision, but they said exactly the right thing:

[snip]

“In the words of the United States Supreme Court, the right to be free from criminalization on the basis of sexual orientation ‘has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom’,” the official said.

Amen, brother. Amen.

It feels good to see us headed in the right direction. There was no reason not to endorse the U.N.’s declaration. Unless, of course, you’re a homophobic, frothing fundie. I’m glad Obama’s announcing this is no longer the case for the United States as a whole.

In other doing right news, Tim Geithner’s fessed up:

Claiming full responsibility for the situation, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNN today that his office “asked Sen. Chris Dodd to include a loophole in the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses.” He said he requested the measure to prevent costly governmental litigation.

It looked for a little while like the Obama administration was going to play the coward and let Dodd be their scapegoat. Kudos for resisting the urge.

You might also want to throw a little support Obama’s way to ensure that obnoxious Bush Health Care Denial rule gets nixed. Y’know – the one that would’ve let religous fuckwit doctors impose their morality on their female patients. Obama’s moving to axe that one. Let’s show him we’ve got his back.

Doing the Right Thing

Eliot Spitzer Watches the Magicians' Hands

Dana Hunter

It’s always nice to have a reminder that the smoke and mirrors are a distraction calculated to prevent us from seeing what’s really going on (h/t):

Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.

[snip]

The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.

Eliot Spitzer, you may remember, knows Wall Street well. As a prosecutor, he made their lives hell. He’s definitely a man worth listening to as these companies scramble for every last cent they can wring from taxpayers. He sees them for what they are.

Read the whole thing. Screw your outrage to the sticking place, and then start shouting before 10am Eastern. We can turn their smoke-and-mirrors into a conflagration. We can turn the magicians’ tricks against them.

Eliot Spitzer Watches the Magicians' Hands