The latest Q fantasy

Now they’re thinking a very silly and unbelievable Nicolas Cage movie (sorry, guys, you can’t do near-instant transfers of faces from one skull to another) and imagining a Perpetual Trump.

I say we should lean into it. Yeah, Joe Biden is possessed by the malignant spirit of Donald Trump, so stand down, Proud Boys. Your president won. Put the guns away, accept everything the Democrats do and say, and start worshipping Biden the same way you did the petty tyrant of the last four years.

One problem: the original Trump is going to be running around screaming at the same time. That corpus is going to have to be…liquidated. Maybe we can just lock him up in some institution somewhere?

$cience gets a seat at the table

We got some wonderful news from Joe Biden last week.

President-elect Joe Biden announced Friday that he has chosen a pioneer in mapping the human genome — the so-called “book of life” — to be his chief science adviser and is elevating the top science job to a Cabinet position.

It’s about time! It’s astonishing that we’ve gotten by without a science advisor to the president or congress, or when we do have one, they’re ignored, but that’s Republicans for you.

Then, this being Joe Biden, he just has to screw it up. He has nominated Eric Lander for the position. If I had to name anyone who is the personification of Big Science, of Corporate Science, of $cience, I’d immediately say Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute in Boston. I can see why he was chosen: he’s a successful player, a brilliant man, a knowledgeable molecular biologist, a fantastic organizer — he knows how to run a big lab and a big institute, and is going to fit comfortably into an even bigger position. The man is a machine, and is good at running other machines. One thing Lander has in buckets is ambition.

But…

(You knew that was coming, right?)

First, let’s get a minor issue out of the way. Lander had a brief, tangential association with Jeffrey Epstein. He was photographed attending a meeting at Martin Nowak’s office (Nowak was a significant recipient of Epstein’s largesse and should be looked at more critically), but I’m saying, “So what?” I’m sure Lander gets dragged into all kinds of meetings he’d rather not participate in, as the head of the Broad Institute. There’s no evidence of any other association with Epstein other than that a well-known Harvard professor invited him to meet, and Lander seems to have been uninterested in Epstein.

“Martin invited me to an informal sandwich lunch at his institute to talk science with various people,” Lander told BuzzFeed News by email. “I was glad to do it. Martin didn’t mention who’d be attending. I had not met Epstein before, didn’t know much about him, and learned that he was a major donor to Martin’s institute.

“I later learned about his more sordid history,” Lander added. “I’ve had no relationship with Epstein.”

I think it’s fair to say that Epstein went out of his way to brush shoulders with every big name scientist he could find, Lander is one of the biggest, so he tainted him along with a lot of others.

Far more concerning to me is his attitude towards other scientists who were not under his thumb. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2020 for their work on CRISPR/Cas gene editing, and only Doudna and Charpentier. Eric Lander was behind a massive campaign, using all his clout with science publishers and corporations, to promote Feng Zhang, who had also done work on CRISPR, but most importantly, was an employee of the Broad Institute. Lander really wanted the Broad to get the credit for such an important discovery.

So Lander wrote a paper titled “The Heroes of CRISPR” (I was already cringing at just the title) which downplayed the role of Doudna and Charpentier — barely mentioned them at all — and played up the role of others. Like Zhang. Like the Broad Institute. It was bad science and bad history, but it would have been great propaganda if it wasn’t so blatant that everyone caught on to what he was doing.

This controversy does not mean that the work on CRISPR-Cas9 was not initially motivated by a desire to advance scientific knowledge, as Lander asserts in his review. Prizes and patents pollute the story and increase what is at stake, but do not, it is to be hoped, prevent curiosity from being one of the wellsprings of scientific discovery and innovation.

What is new and remarkable is the form that Eric Lander gave to his participation in the debate: the writing of a comprehensive history. Many readers have already pinpointed some problems with this historical record, in particular factual errors. The emphasis Lander places on those involved varies: Zhang’s work from his institute receives a full-page description, whereas the contributions of Doudna and Charpentier are much more briefly described. Rhetorical strategies, such as positioning in paragraphs, were also used to emphasize the value of some contributions over others. For example, Doudna is first mentioned in the middle of a paragraph, as the direct object rather than the subject of the sentence. Charpentier’s name appears at the bottom of a paragraph.

Oh, and he was neck-deep in a patent dispute over CRISPR, a significant fact that he did not mention.

What that all means is that Lander’s reputation among scientists isn’t exactly glowing.

Current and former colleagues contacted by STAT described Lander as brilliant, prickly, and brash, as having “an ego without end,” as “a visionary” who “doesn’t suffer fools gladly,” and as “an authentic genius” who “sees things the rest of us don’t.” Lander won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award in 1987 at age 30. Since 2009, he has co-chaired President Obama’s scientific advisory council.

In case you’re wondering why Biden picked him, there’s a hint in the above sentence.

Lander was not present at the creation of the $3 billion project in 1990 [the human genome project], but the sequencing center he oversaw at the Whitehead Institute became a powerhouse in the race to complete it. Much of that work was done by robots and involved little creativity (once scientists figured out how to do the sequencing). Some individual investigators felt they couldn’t compete against peers at the sequencing centers in the race for grants.

“He became a symbol of plowing lots of resources into industrialized, mindless science that could be run by machines and technicians and so wasn’t real biology,” said one scholar of that period. “Eric came to embody Big Science in that way.”

More than that, Lander played an outsized role in the project relative to his background and experience. A mathematician by training, after he graduated from Princeton in 1978 and earned a PhD in math in 1981 at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, he taught managerial economics at Harvard Business School from 1981 to 1990. He slowly became bored by the MBA world and enchanted with biology, however, and in 1990 founded the genome center at the Whitehead. It was hardly the pay-your-dues, do your molecular biology PhD and postdoctoral fellowship route to a leading position in the white-hot field of genomics.

Maybe Lander is the future of Big Science, where the Little Scientists get replaced by armies of technicians marching through protocols with the goal of getting a patent and corporate sponsorship, but I don’t have to like it.

Rudy lives in a fantasy world

Oh man. Rudy Giuliani is wearing a wacky filter over his glasses — look at this bizarre comparison he made:

Earlier this month the New York Mayor whipped up a crowd of angry Trump-supporters shortly before they marched the Capitol in Washington DC, telling them ‘let’s have trial by combat!’ Speaking about the comment, which referenced challenging Democratic election officials attempting to count the votes and confirm Joe Biden as president, Giuliani said he was instead referencing the HBO series and its character Tyrion Lannister (played by Peter Dinklage). He told The Hill’s White House reporter Brett Samuels: ‘I was referencing the kind of trial that took place for Tyrion in that very famous documentary about fictitious medieval England. ‘When Tyrion, who is a very small man, is accused of murder. He didn’t commit murder, he can’t defend himself, and he hires a champion to defend him.’

I’m trying to wrap my head around the phrase “documentary about fictitious medieval England”. None of that works. Game of Thrones not a documentary, nor does it claim to be, and while loosely assembled from scattered bits of Western European history, it’s not about England. But what do I know, I’ve only been to that country like 4 times, which is not an adequate sampling. Maybe I just happened to miss the dragons, and I’ve only made a couple of forays north of Hadrian’s wall, are there gangs of wildings and zombies up there?

But that’s not even the most delusional thing he said.

Trying to make his comments seem any better, Giuliani – who went on to claim that antifa was behind the violence and that Mr Trump bears ‘no responsibility’ for the events – attempted to explain he meant a combat ‘between machines’ and not people. He went on: ‘It incited no violent response from the crowd. None.
‘The crowd didn’t jump up saying, “Lock him up, throw him to jail, go to hell.” I’ve had speeches where people jump up and say, “lock him up.” It was not an emotional — it was not an emotion-inspiring part of the speech.’

There was no violent response from the crowd, except that right after his speech they marched on the capitol, crashed through the fences, smashed windows, dragged policemen into the crowd and beat them, and killed a guy. Yeah. Not violent.

This has been a common assertion by right-wing news liars. Ben Shapiro has claimed it, so has Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones, it’s a common refrain. But we’ve all seen the videos — that was a violent, angry mob, shrieking and wrecking and looking for blood. Read this harrowing account of the insurrection in the New Yorker.

“We have guns, too, motherfuckers!” one man yelled. “With a lot bigger rounds!” Another man, wearing a do-rag that said “fuck your feelings,” told his friend, “If we have to tool up, it’s gonna be over. It’s gonna come to that. Next week, Trump’s gonna say, ‘Come to D.C.’ And we’re coming heavy.”

Later, I listened to a woman talking on her cell phone. “We need to come back with guns,” she said. “One time with guns, and then we’ll never have to do this again.”

Although the only shot fired on January 6th was the one that killed Ashli Babbitt, two suspected explosive devices were found near the Capitol, and a seventy-year-old Alabama man was arrested for possessing multiple loaded weapons, ammunition, and eleven Molotov cocktails. As the sun fell, clashes with law enforcement at times descended into vicious hand-to-hand brawling. During the day, more than fifty officers were injured and fifteen hospitalized. I saw several Trump supporters beat policemen with blunt instruments. Videos show an officer being dragged down stairs by his helmet and clobbered with a pole attached to an American flag. In another, a mob crushes a young policeman in a door as he screams in agony. One officer, Brian Sicknick, a forty-two-year-old, died after being struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. Several days after the siege, Howard Liebengood, a fifty-one-year-old officer assigned to protect the Senate, committed suicide.

…

During Trump’s speech on January 6th, he said, “The media is the biggest problem we have.” He went on, “It’s become the enemy of the people. . . . We gotta get them straightened out.” Several journalists were attacked during the siege. Men assaulted a Times photographer inside the Capitol, near the rotunda, as she screamed for help. After National Guard soldiers and federal agents finally arrived and expelled the Trump supporters, some members of the mob shifted their attention to television crews in a park on the east side of the building. Earlier, a man had accosted an Israeli journalist in the middle of a live broadcast, calling him a “lying Israeli” and telling him, “You are cattle today.” Now the Trump supporters surrounded teams from the Associated Press and other outlets, chasing off the reporters and smashing their equipment with bats and sticks.

No violent response from the crowd, my ass.

Candace Owens is the right-wing persecution complex on steroids

Candace Owens is suing the “fact checkers” because they keep checking the facts in her videos. How dare they! In the name of free speech, she is therefore suing a couple of news sites to silence them.

Our freedoms are being stripped away. The overlords of Big Tech are determining what Americans can and cannot say, share, like, and post. Support our legal efforts today as we fight back against Facebook’s fact-checkers, confronting those who are suppressing free speech, thought, and expression across our great country.

We have begun pursuing two of Facebook’s fact checkers, Lead Stories & USA Today, for wrongfully “fact checking” posts that I put up earlier this year. Both USA Today & Lead Stories silenced me when I posted a different opinion on Covid – in their minds there is only one opinion: theirs. Censorship of conservatives across the world of social media is rampant and without challenging these alleged “fact checkers” we will all be silenced, disenfranchised and marginalized.

As a result, we have filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Delaware against Lead Stories LLC, a Colorado company & Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC, d/b/a USA Today for malicious publication of false “fact check” articles, wrongfully leveraging their power as Facebook Third Party Fact-Checking partners for the purpose of redirecting web traffic away from me, abusing Section 230 of the Communications Deceny Act and interfering with the commercial enterprises of Candace Owens LLC. Access the lawsuit HERE.

We will be seeing them in Court in 2021.

She made this announcement on multiple social media outlets. On Instagram, she has 3.1 million followers; on Periscope, the video got 1.2 million views; on Facebook, she has 4.5 million followers; she has 2.6 million followers on Twitter. She uses her social media clout to spread misinformation about the coronavirus and BLM and the election. The announcement video itself is a fancy production shot in a professional studio, with what seems to be multiple camerapersons, slick lighting, and a backdrop with glowing letters spelling out “Candace” — there is clearly a lot of money backing her. Yet she claims she is being silenced, disenfranchised and marginalized.

Meanwhile, over here in the real world, here’s the status of my last YouTube video.

Maybe you couldn’t hear me over the sad trombone playing loudly in the background, but who do I sue? I’m clearly being oppressed.

Also, I’m putting myself in great danger here. Notice that I did not link anywhere to any of Candace Owens multiple sites, and I’m telling you that she is a dishonest fraud, and that her message is string of lies — she’s an anti-vaxxer, a Trump enabler, an anti-democratic propagandist, and a shill for the rich. Next thing you know, she’s going to sue me. You are not allowed to criticize Candace Owens or expose her mendacity!

TREASON

Ilhan Omar is writing up articles of impeachment, which is fine, but far too polite.

Meanwhile…

Pence has issued his own statement saying that “those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” However, that also remains to be seen. Having gathered his followers together under the promise of a “wild” time; having spent months inflaming them with lies about a stolen election; and having spent years teaching his followers to disregard every other source … there is every reason to expect that, far from prosecuting the terrorists, Trump will issue a blanket pardon.

At 4 PM EST, President-elect Joe Biden issued a statement in which he said: “This is not protest. It is insurrection.” He called on Trump to go on national television and end this attempted overthrow of the nation.

Fifteen minutes later, Trump issued a statement to the terrorists saying: “I love you. You’re very special. I know how you feel.” In the video, Trump continued to insist that the election was stolen and he won in a landslide.

Trump did say for terrorists to “go home in peace.” That’s one hell of a lot different from “prosecuted the fullest extent of the law.”

Twitter has suspended the account of the criminal-in-chief for 12 hours, which is rather pathetic.

Trump has committed and incited treason against the United States. The police have arrested 13 or 14 rioters; I’d be content if it were just one. They should walk in, arrest Trump, and drag him out in handcuffs. That is the only appropriate response to this level of treason.

Moscow Mitch is lying again

The Republicans are trying to spin everything. Now they’re trying to claim the tepid relief bill that made it out the door recently is all their doing, and the Democrats only agreed to prop up the incoming Democratic president-elect.

As Congress passed a new $900 billion economic rescue package on Monday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered a choice bit of spin on how we got to this moment:

“A few days ago, with a new president-elect of their own party, everything changed,” Mr. McConnell said on Monday. “Democrats suddenly came around to our position that we should find consensus, make law where we agree, and get urgent help out the door.”

Getting the story right here is highly consequential. It will shape the arguments that determine the outcome of the Georgia runoffs — and control of the Senate — and should leave little doubt that continued GOP control means McConnell will strive to sabotage the recovery to cripple Joe Biden’s presidency.

This is what McConnell wants to obscure. Because as he has privately admitted, the failure of Congress to deliver a robust aid package to people is putting his Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R) and David Perdue (R) at risk.

So McConnell wants voters — especially those in Georgia — to believe Republicans supported generous aid all along, particularly the stimulus checks in the new deal, and that Democrats refused to act, to harm President Trump’s reelection campaign.

It’s an astonishing bit of political theater. He opposed any relief bill, fought against any proposals for months and months, and only now when when he’s trying to provide good news for Republicans in Georgia does he come around.

McConnell even acknowledged that a vote would disrupt plans to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and refused to commit to a vote before Election Day. That wrecks the story McConnell is telling: He opposed a vote before the election, despite his revisionism that Pelosi did not want compromise to hurt Trump.

It’s projection all around. He accuses Democrats of obstructing relief efforts; it was the Republicans all along. He accuses Democrats of only coming around when they saw political gain for their party; the truth is he’s only supporting it because Loeffler (who opposed all relief!) and Perdue need the help.

The romance is over

The heartbreak of a breakup is worse when you get the news secondhand. Putin has parted ways with Trump.

More than a month later than most world leaders, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday congratulated President-elect Joe Biden for his victory in the election, a delayed recognition that could set the tone for icy relations.

“In his message Vladimir Putin wished the president-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which bear special responsibility for global security and stability, can, despite their differences, effectively contribute to solving many problems and meeting challenges that the world is facing today,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

I knew all along that the relationship would never work out — it was a friendship of convenience between two spoiled, selfish people who would only stick together while they thought they could get something from one another. Oh well, Donald still has a few potential dates for the prom on Saturday.

Putin was one of the last heads of state to acknowledge Biden’s win; Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un are other holdouts.

I can see where Bolsonaro and Kim have a lot in common with the loser-in-chief, but I was baffled by Obrador. Shouldn’t Mexico be happy to see a bigoted basher out of office? But here’s a brief explanation:

Few expected López Obrador, elected in July 2018, to openly embrace Trump and his hard-line border policies after all the dirt thrown. But that’s just what happened.

At heart, the two men are nationalists more concerned with domestic business than foreign affairs, experts say.

“I think we need to understand that AMLO has an uncommon worldview,” said Duncan Wood, director of the nonpartisan Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute in Washington, D.C. “He is much more focused on what happens internally than what happens in the United States. He wants the world to know he isn’t beholden to the United States.”

OK, I can respect that — it’s not so much an affection for Trump as it is a need to stand independent of the US, no matter who holds the office.

No rest for the weary

Time to crash down into reality. Meet Bob Good, the newly elected congressvermin from Virginia.

You think electing Biden made everything all better? Think again.

  • Virginia just elected a Trumpkin. He’s going to be poisoning congress for the next few years.
  • He’s addressing a rally of unmasked people, not wearing a mask.
  • His message is that we have a very serious virus, but the pandemic is fake.

Huh. The US didn’t suddenly become smarter on 4 November. I guess the work has only just begun.

The Wall Street Journal opinion pages have always been garbage, anyway

In case you hadn’t heard already, the WSJ published an appalling bit of nonsense from a Joseph Epstein in which, for some unexplained reason, he decided the important issue of the day is to berate Jill Biden for using the title “Dr.” I know. It’s idiotic. She earned the title, use it. There’s a serious reek of sour grapes here, since Epstein has, at best, a BA. Nothing wrong with that, all of my students graduate with a BA, and I’m proud of them. If you want to see it dissected, with excerpts, here’s the summary for you, complete with summary diagram.

But here’s the deal: among themselves, academics tend not to use fancy titles for each other. We might use them when introducing a colleague to others (but see below), but many of us won’t expect it even with our students, or anyone else for that matter. That goes for all you readers, too — I’d rather you didn’t address me as Dr Myers. That feels weird.

One exception, though: if you try to tell me that you’re not going to call me Dr because I only have a mere biology Ph.D., then for you, I’m going to have to insist on the formality.

Also, these data bring me up short. There’s a tendency for male academics to be more informal with female academics than with their fellow men.

Wow. When women introduce women, they’ll nearly 100% of the time use their title; when men introduce women, it’s down to less than half the time. That’s simple misogyny, diminishing the accomplishments of women, which Epstein has to an extreme degree, but a surprising number of us men also share. I think I tend to get formal when doing formal introductions, so I don’t think I’m guilty of that, but I’ll be more conscious of the problem in the future. I wouldn’t want to Joey Epstein myself, you know. No one wants that.