First of all, thank one or more Gods — and more probably none — it’s Friday (Stole it from Futurama), and that it’s a holiday weekend here in the states! A decent day for meta, and since this is the first here, it will be the beta. No doubt as part of the beta some will insist this be alpha. Speaking of which, if I don’t get some new computers soon, it may be my omega.

There’s an interesting diary on the reclist at Daily Kos about education and climate change. The author, screen name lawyernerd, complains his or her child’s science teacher has willfully joined the walking brainless dead by dissing climate change.

I am so mad I can’t hardly see straight. My kid came home from school yesterday and said that the science teacher for the middle school says that global warming is a myth. She is also going to have all of the 7th and 8th graders do a “lab” which “proves” global warming is a myth. she also told them that it is a lie made up by scientists to keep getting money for research.

I’m not sure what it is about thermometers that these clowns haven’t grasped yet. It’s a simple invention by today’s standards, anyone who knows how to count can use one, I’m willing to bet if a single cheap thermometer indicated that teacher’s own cute little baby was running a few degrees above normal they’d take it damn seriously. But thousands of ultra precise thermometers all over the world monitored by experts 24/7, backed up by optical and infrared satellites and sensitive proxy data going back as far as one wishes to study? No, the silly scientists must have it all wrong or be making it up.

Anyway, an interesting thing happened in that Daily Kos diary: the author found support and information via comments that helped them pursue an effective and proactive course of action to address the issue. Yay science, yay community.

FreeThoughtBlogs could soon become a thriving online community the way things are going. Here’s a thought to stir your noodle over the long weekend: How could we encourage that process? Does it just have to happen, or are there steps which might help?

Among those who value a clump of cells more than a person, the idea of diverting material headed for a medical waste incinerator to the research lab is somehow akin to killing children. And that’s with material in the earliest stages of development, called blastocysts, as small or smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. No fingers, no toes, surely no brain, not even a single nerve cell.

If the usual suspects get wind of this new treatment in late stage testing, it’ll be a full on wingnut freakout jamboree:

“Data from the laboratory safety tests, neurological examinations and neurofunctional tests conducted thus far indicate that the ReN001 treatment is safe and well-tolerated at the initial dose,” the company said in a statement on Thursday. The procedure involves injecting ReNeuron’s neural stem cells into patients’ brains in the hope they will repair areas damaged by stroke, thereby improving both mental and physical function. It uses stem cells derived from human fetuses rather than embryos, which were used in a stem cell trial to treat patients with spinal cord injuries by Geron Corp of the United States.

Oh yeah, fetal stem lines, from fetuses, of the human species, or the human kind for you flat-earthers. OK, it’s a little gory sounding. But not nearly as much as, say, removing the still beating heart from a brain-dead corpse and putting it in uncle Jim’s chest, or work on grafting artificial skin made from a derived pus gland on the underside of large arachnids into the freshly seared flesh of a burn victim.

The fact is human trauma is gory, it is after all the definition of blood and gore. That’s why only a segment of the population at large look forward to a career up to their elbows in someone else’s blood and guts. There was a time when they would have been heretics, when cutting into a dead human body or a live one — with the possible exception of saving their immortal soul with horrific torture of course — was considered a sin. Fortunately we got past that, despite the same kind of resistance among the same kind of authoritarian shitheads trying to stop stem cell research.

         

Left Oldowan tools, right, classic Archeulean hand axe, via the Wiki, click pics for more info

Paleo-anthropologists have unearthed evidence for complex stone tools being used 350,000 years earlier than  than thought in Northern Kenya:

“We suspected that Kokiselei was a rather old site, but I was taken aback when I realised that the geological data indicated it was the oldest Acheulian site in the world,” said lead author Christopher Lepre, a geologist from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University, both in the U.S., of the paper published in Nature today.

The two early primary stone tool cultures are Oldowan and Acheulean, shown above. Oldowan tools tend to be simple flakes sharpened along one edge, while Archeulean hand axes are generally bi-faced, tear-dropped shaped, and sometimes rather beautiful pieces of work. Most scientists speculate the simpler tools were made by Homo habilis and/or his close kin, whereas the oldest hand axes now firmly overlap the time period of H. ergaster, a larger brained hominid considered the best candidate to give rise to several successful clades of hominid including the classic Home erectus and H. heidelbergensis. (Although, who used what probably wouldn’t be completely settled even if a complete fossilized hand from a specific hominid was found wrapped around one tool or the other).

As important as stone tools and fossils are, wouldn’t it be fascinating to actually see these early humans? Anthropologists have been able to extract and infer a great deal from bits of bone and chipped stone, but imagine what creatures in the distant future would make if they found a few petrified ivory keys stuck in a chunk of fossilized wooden frame from a grand piano? They might infer it was intended to be operated by fingers, maybe even the idea of a musical instrument. But the rich and diverse history of symphonies and operas and rock and roll would be forever lost to time.

Or in this case, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s dominionist version of the ancient rain dance he performed on cue last month in Houston. You remember it, right? It was called The Response — there’s even a dedicated webpage for the fond memories — and featured the latest bat-shit crazy or devious, cunning fundamentalist grifters. They prayed to God-eh and praised the super rich. But alas, no rain followed. If the idea was to produce a drop of rain, we can now safely pronounce Perry’s Response a complete failure.

Now, weeks later, the one system that could have brought sweet drenching rain to the crumbling Texas hill country and baked coastal plains may not quite make it. Although there’s a good chance the system becomes tropical storm Lee, perhaps even hurricane Lee similar to the surprise Humberto bestowed, it is forecast to stay just slightly to the east of the crooked Houston-Austin-Dallas line. No rain soon, praise be to science!

I blame Perry (Yeah, get used to it, Rick).

Interesting article about how a certain pest is adapting to genetically modified corn created by Monsanto. The little critter has developed resistance to the pesticide engineered into the plant:

What the rootworm’s evolved resistance to Monsanto’s crop says about the future of genetically modified agriculture depends largely on your opinion of GM crops. Those who are fundamentally opposed to the practice of crop biotechnology as a whole — i.e., the individuals quick to decry GM crops as “Frankenfood” that will spell the demise of the human race — are probably liable to assume a position of “I told you so.”

There’s a whole group of people who are convinced GMO foodstuffs are evil or harmful. I’m sure it’s possible to produce a variant that’s bad for you or outright poisonous in some way, although that would sure defeat the profit motive purpose. But on the modification point, aren’t all plants genetically modified? Descent with modification?

Plants and their ancestors have been modified since the end of the Hadean eon roughly 3.8 billion years ago. Over billions of years a sort of bacterial collective developed that uses sunlight to make simple sugars. Thru the Cambrian, past extinctions and meteors and who knows what else, the plants evolved. Then, we came along and intensely modified the shit out of a few of them for millennia until most can no longer reproduce or survive in the wild without our constant nursing.

They’ve already been about as genetically modified as they can be. Hard to image how anything Monsanto does is somehow more modification than all that. If companies were cooking up corn that commits genocide, if they are engineering a corn-stalk that chows down on raw human meat while playing chess, then yeah, there might be cause for concern. But until something like that happens, I have to admit, I just don’t get the skepticism about GMO food.

Update 11:10 AM CDT: Some great comments below, including this one by Kewball, “I think I can speak for the agriculture producers: it’s not about the scary genetic DNA hoodoo, it’s about the damn patents. That’s a real and growing *cough* problem as I’m sure you well know. All it takes is some wild oat pollen floating about the county and before you know it, your field of organic, artisan cotton is “owned” by Monsanto and the burden of proof is on you to show that you did not steal seeds from the Corporationperson.”

Reprinted in full below — DS

AUSTIN, TX, AUG 30, 2011 – The Texas Space Alliance (TXA) urged Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and the rest of the Texas Congressional delegation to give their full support to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s call for transferring funding to American spacecraft companies and end plans for a giant “pork” rocket being promoted by the Senator and others. On Wednesday, 24 Aug 2011, Rep. Rohrabacher (R-CA) boldly called for an emergency funding transfer of NASA’s unobligated funds into their commercial crew program in response to the failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket to deliver a Progress supply freighter to the International Space Station (ISS).

“This funding transfer will rapidly accelerate the progress of American companies currently developing innovative crew and cargo transport vehicles here in the United States – all of which are based in or have significant and expanding operations in Texas,” said TXA’s Rick Tumlinson. “These companies; SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and Blue Origin are leading a revolution, and they need to see our legislators fighting for them – not against them.”

The TXA believes Congress should cancel plans for what many are now calling the Senate Launch System (SLS), a $38 billion dollar earmark to produce a giant government rocket not due to fly until 2021 – if ever. SLS would cannibalize funds previously intended for other projects, including many based at Johnson Space Center. It would also gut the aforementioned commercial crew programs intended to create a new US commercial space fleet to carry astronauts to the space station rather than outsourcing the job to Russian government vehicles.

“While it is well meant attempt to save jobs, it seems doomed to fail in the end – something our workers, space program and taxpayers cannot afford…literally.” said TXA’s Wayne Rast. “SLS may even starve the space station – a Houston based program – eat exploration technology dollars that would be spent right here, and force our Texas-based Astronaut corps to fly to space on Russian rockets. SLS would be better off de-funded so that money can be spent on true American innovation and progress. Let’s keep our Texas workforce on the leading edge of tomorrow, and build that future in Texas.”

Concluded Tumlinson: “Senator Hutchison, you and others can continue to force funding for dead-end white collar “jobs” programs like SLS down NASA’s throat and continue exporting US jobs to Russia or you can support space exploration and our own private companies – who will preserve American leadership on the frontier, lead to the birth of a Texas NewSpace industry and progress for the state and for the nation. The people of Texas are watching.”

So sayeth Allan Lichtman, a professor whose analysis has picked the winners in seven presidential contests in a row:

Lichtman developed his 13 Keys in 1981. They test the performance of the party that holds the presidency. If six or more of the 13 keys go against the party in power, then the opposing party wins.“The keys have figured into popular politics a bit,” Lichtman says. “They’ve never missed. They’ve been right seven elections in a row. A number that goes way beyond statistical significance in a record no other system even comes close to.”

As Texas politics heat up, there may be some cooling relief in sight for the blistering local weather and record drought. Via Jeff Masters:

One other area we need to watch later this week is the Gulf of Mexico. A significant shift in the atmospheric circulation is predicted for the region, with the ridge of high pressure that has brought Texas its record heat and drought predicted to shift eastwards and allow a flow of moist, tropical air into the state. A low pressure region is forecast to develop in the Gulf near the coast of Texas on Wednesday or Thursday, and this low will need to be watched for tropical development. The shift in the large scale weather pattern does not signal a permanent end to the Texas drought, but it should bring welcome rains and cooler temperatures to the Lone Star state beginning on Thursday. This will be a relief to the residents of Austin, where the temperature topped out at 112°F yesterday–the hottest day in Austin’s recorded history ..

That would be great. It’s awful here, not just baking hot, but dry as a bone too. I was out at a local lake over the weekend and it looked more like a narrow desert river snaking through the bottom of an impressive limestone canyon. We need rain desperately. The one thing that worries me about that quote above is the part I put in bold.

Tropical waves coming off of western Africa aren’t the only way hurricanes form in the Atlantic. Any low pressure system over warm ocean water a few degrees of latitude away from the equator can turn into one. This is what happened in 2008 with Tropical Storm Edouard. The disorganized system formed in the gulf, and wandered west near the Texas coast. In a short burst, the storm went from tropical disturbances to a strong Tropical Storm. Had Edouard not been a couple of hours away from landfall when this happened it could easily have blown up into a major hurricane and caught the nearby coast completely off guard. The year before a similar system popped up and did reach Hurricane status. Humberto came out nowhere and intensified faster than any storm I’ve ever seen before striking east Texas as a category 1.

Right now the gulf is so hot almost any disturbance could become a depression. And in these conditions, any depression could bloom into a major hurricane with little in the way of warning. That would probably mean great relief for much of Texas, at the small risk of disaster for a section of coast.

So right now the race for the Republican presidential candidate is between Millard “Gordon-Gecko” Romney and Rick Perry. And today and tomorrow Mittens is taking it to Perry’s home turf:

Romney speaks this morning to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in San Antonio while Perry is elsewhere in the state raising money. The former Massachusetts governor has avoided taking direct swipes at the man who is now his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, but that’s starting to change.

It’s about a hundred and ten degrees in the shade down here Millard, enjoy.

Really, what difference does it make which one of them wins in the end? Both these creeps are going to do the same thing, trick the faithful into bowing their heads and closing their eyes in pious prayer while an army of conservative hit men cut taxes on zillionaires, run every social program they can get their hands on through a Koch owned chop shop and hand out the severed parts to more zillionaires, and continue with the right-wing class war against the rest of us any way they can. Because make no mistake, the kooky conservative rich and powerful are not satisfied with millions and billions, they want it all, every last cent, and there’s a long line of enablers whispering in their ear that God wants them to have it all. They don’t just want your social security – which is luring them like a giant over funded pension plan to a corporate radier – they don’t just want your unemployment benefits such as they are, or your worker’s comp and your vacation time and your two fifteen minute breaks. No, they feel they are entitled to all of it. This is what God wants.

It’s just despicable.

Someone help me understand what goes through the mind of a likely Republican voter with any critical thinking skills whatsoever? We tried conservative foreign policy in Iraq; it was a spectacular bloody failure costing a trillion dollars, thousands of lives and limbs, and still counting (And Obama’s efforts have been far more effective and literally magnitudes of order less expensive in every way measurable). We’ve tried conservative economic policy, slashing taxes and deregulating virtually every type of business. The end result of that was record deficits and the worst economic cluster-fuck since the days of Hoover.

What mental process is it that leads from those undisputed empirical facts of recent history above to the ineffable conclusion that the best way forward is to elect people promising to those very same things again and again?

Great article in the WSJ about Hewlett-Packard. And boy, does it deliver on the title and lead: Let’s say you were given a year to kill HP. Here’s how you do it:

Announce plans to maybe sell the PC business. Or maybe spin off PCs as a stand-alone company. Uncertainty will damage the price. Never mind the years of effort H-P spent — including a controversial merger with Compaq — becoming the world’s largest PC maker. .. From former CEO Carly Fiorina’s spectacular flame-out, and former chairwoman Patricia Dunn’s illegal spying scandal, to Mr. Hurd’s alleged sex scandal that apparently didn’t involve any sex at all, this sort of dysfunction has become “the H-P Way.”

It’s a fun read! Well, for me anyway, I was once a portfolio manager for a large Wall Street firm. It brought up fond memories of other companies, Novell for example, who somehow managed to languish even as their field was exploding. But what strikes me these days is stories like the one unfolding at HP aren’t unique. They seem to be more common than ever. People build a company into a giant success; new people come in and shoot themselves and everything nearby in the head endlessly. And yet they never seem to get fired.

Meanwhile, mid-level managers and entry-level employees are penalized if they’re five minutes late. Miss more than a couple of days in one month and superiors become cool and aloof, you could be fired in a ‘right-to-work’ state for that kind of absenteeism! It’s a weird system, one that guarantees sub par performance and failure. But I guess it pays a tiny sliver of influential people really, really, well.