Amazingly cool science story

I know it is probably disgusting, but for a few years during my undergraduate career, I thought I might want to go into the field of parasitology. Studying the living things inside us fascinates me. (Did you know that there are more foreign cells inside your body than human ones? It's true!)

Maybe it's because I'm almost impossible to disgust (and I mean be physically revolted). I can handle seeing blood. I can handle seeing bodies. I can handle working with untreated sewage samples (had to for a college project when I was in high school). I can even put my nose into a dog's mouth (right after he 'free-ranged' some poo from the floor) to subjectively rate the smelliness of the dog's breath (by far the WORST job I've ever had... pay wasn't even good).

When you can handle these things, dealing with tapeworms, insects, and microbes don't seem so disgusting.

Well, the amazing biological diversity of parasites wowed me again today. Who knew wasps could be so resourceful?

Valentine's Day

This year, I have resolved not to be depressed by the upcoming holiday. For a lot single people, Valentine’s Day holds a special dread that leaves us feeling left out. It’s like when you walk the corridors of school and hear everyone talking about a big party that went down this weekend (and everybody was there, of course) but to which you were somehow not invited. Everyone talks about how awesome the party was, and how much they are looking forward to doing it again, but you know deep down that you won’t be invited to the one next weekend either.

Well, normally, I fall into that trap of feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I’m alone, but not this year. This year, I have decided that playing the martyr is perhaps a little more immature than I care to be.

I’m a successful bachelor (well, as successful as a bachelor student can be, I suppose), meaning that I have a nice place to live, acceptable food to eat, decent entertainment at my fingertips, and few immediate worries. Despite my consummate laziness, I’m doing well in school and am bettering myself in (some) of my spare time by working out and learning a new language.

It’s been a long journey, but I’m coming to accept certain harsh realities about myself. At one point in my life, I imagined that I would be 5’ 7” like my brother, but the longer I have gone without another growth spurt, the more I’ve had to realize that I’ll always be short. Well, sometimes you have to face the facts of your life even if you wish that they might be otherwise, and what’s more, learn to see the silver linings in your situations.

Sure I might be short, but I don’t have to duck underneath tree branches, never have to worry about fitting comfortably in a bed, and will consume fewer natural resources than a larger person with my habits. (There’s a novel idea for saving the planet, eh? Sleep with short guys.)

So I’m not great relationship material. I may be intelligent, but I’m also lazy. I may have occasional moments of sweetness and consideration, but by and large, I’m very self-involved and conceited. I may have brief flashes of humour, but more often than not, I don’t get the joke and secretly worry that the joke is about me. I can’t dance. I have bad habits, and sometimes when I don’t make the three-point shot into the hamper with my socks, I just leave them on the floor.

So my life isn’t perfect. Boo-Eff’ing-Hoo. Being a bachelor isn’t so bad. I can get up at whatever time of the morning I want to without anyone telling me that I should be up earlier to be more productive. I can stay up half the night with the lamp on reading a book in bed without disturbing anyone. I can listen to my awful music (I’m willing to admit I have bad taste in music) and nobody will grimace and cover their ears. I can fix whatever I want to eat for dinner and don’t have to listen to anyone else’s input. I can come and go from my apartment without having to tell anyone where I’m going or when I’m coming home. Basically, I can do whatever I want to do without anyone telling me ‘No.’ The downside, of course, is that I can do whatever I want to do without anyone telling me ‘Yes,’ either.

You know what? I’m an okay guy… No. Check that. I’m a damned good guy (I hadn’t meant the double-entendre there, but I’ll leave it anyway). Even if I don’t have everything I want out of life yet, as long as I’m living honestly and well, that should be good enough for a man.

So, Valentine’s Day? Do your worst. I’ll be the one standing on my feet, facing into the storm, laughing his fool head off.

Federal Courts class

Two observations:

1. Some students in that class are incredibly ballsy. Three guys who sit in one of the corners of the room never seem prepared for class (and in a class where you can guarantee to be called on about every other day or so, that's a big deal). When they do manage to have an answer to a question, it is clear that their knowledge of the case or the material we were to have read is cursory at best. Well, last class (because of their lack of preparation), the professor told them explicitly that he would be starting with them when we reconvened today. Today, the professor lectured through almost half of the class, giving the guys a thirty-minute reprieve from having to talk. When they were put on the hotseat though, to talk about a single case, again, they failed to have any in-depth analysis and one even admitted to the professor that he hadn't read the case.

When the professor singles you out and says that you haven't prepared, and tells you IN ADVANCE that you will be called on again next class, what on Earth would possess you not to even bother reading the case assigned for that day's class? Cajones of steel, my friends.

2. As much as I love professor 'Glassy' because he is willing to wear what has to be the most hideous tie in the world to school and to all of his classes, solely because his kids made and decorated it for him, I think I've found a replacement for 'Glassy.' The Fed. Courts professor is amazingly cool. He came to school today with his arms covered in reddish splotches. He explained to us that an 8-year old girl in his neighborhood was giving out 'henna' tattoos. Seriously. A law professor took time out of his day to sit with a little neighbor girl while she painted bracelets on his arms. Isn't that adorable?

What kind of messed up crap is this?

Immigration law is really starting to chap my hide. The more I learn about the disarray of our immigration legal system, the more I think that the entire structure needs to be torn down and built from the ground up.

One of the new bits of material I learned this week is that if I were not a citizen of the United States (say I was a citizen of South Africa or something), and I wished to immigrate from Africa to the United States, I would be "inadmissible" to enter the U.S. on account of my political beliefs.

Yes, that's right. The United States - the ostensible birth place of political freedom of speech and the country so devoted to the idea that we enshrined it in the very first amendment to our Constitution - discriminates among potential immigrants on the basis of their political beliefs.

While some of the particulars in the admissibility requirements concerning beliefs are somewhat justifiable (no nazis who participated in genocide, etc.), they seem to be justifiable simply because we don't want to be admitting people who commit crimes against humanity. But what of our prohibition of anyone who subscribes to Marxist historical trending? Join a communist party because you want to and you can't get into the United States. Overly critical of democracy as a political system? Too bad. Have fun back in your old home country because you aren't coming here.

What in the world permits us to encourage homogeneity in our immigration policy when it would be patently illegal if practiced on a citizen?

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wait for an unbearably long time.

An ex-roommate of mine from my undergraduate days is a big movie buff. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who has a greater love of outstanding cinema than he does, and I'm not sure I ever will. Periodically, he trolls the web looking for interesting short films (and occasional feature length movies) to download and burn onto discs.

Yesterday he sent me a link to a short film that I found to be absolutely incredible. It's one of the best short films I've ever seen. Entitled "Grimm," the story is narrated as a children's fairy tale with excellent and moving original music and a narrator whose voice is so luxuriently smooth that it is a reason to watch the film on its own.

It took an obscenely long time to queue up on my computer (why buffering a movie clip took so long is beyond me, but it did). So if you have about 15 minutes to spare sometime, open the movie and then go have lunch. When you get back, you'll be in for a cinematographic masterpiece.

EDIT (11:40, 02/09/06): I've just watched it again for the third (fourth?) time. God, that voice is enchanting.

Job ideas:

Sometimes I wonder why I’m here. I don’t mean that in the cosmic, ‘meaning-of-life’ type of way, but instead mean something far more prosaic. Why am I in Topeka, attending law school in the first place? It’s a question that I wrestle with when I have to confront the dark things before I fall asleep.

I never wanted to be a lawyer, really. It has never – not for a single instant – ever been my ambition to be in a courtroom arguing in front of a jury. I’ve never been engrossed by things like ‘service of process’ or ‘jurisdictional grants.’

Here following is a list of things I used to think I might be ‘when I grew up’ dating from elementary school through undergraduate career:

Lounge singer: My father and mother are both blessed with excellent voices and I (though not my brother so much, strangely) inherited their vocal chords. Give me my morning ride in my car on the way to school and I’ll work my way through a little Sinatra, Mel Torme, and maybe a showtune or two. As much as I love music, I haven’t turned on the radio in my car since I was a freshman at my beloved Alma Mater.

Dinosaur Wrangler: ‘Nuff said.

Gymnast: This one was more from my elementary school days. I watched the gymnasts on the Olympics and I thought that the guy gymnasts looked really cool and was impressed by how they could hang on the rings and do weird flips and such just with the exertion of their arms. It looked fun. There is zero possibility of this as a serious career now.

Veterinarian: I’ve always felt a lot of sympathy for my non-human animal friends, mainly because they were always there for me, even when my non-‘non-human animal’ friends were downright mean. My little dogs never had insults, torments, or slights; only fuzzy, happy goodness. I have a hard time putting aside that sympathy sometimes, and I think that a job that deals with helping to ease the suffering of beings fits me to a ‘T.’

Highschool teacher: I’ve been in love with the idea of teaching high school since I was in high school myself. I could picture myself teaching civics, government, psychology, philosophy, and maybe even a basic course in human biology or microbiology. I could be the faculty sponsor for things like chess clubs, debate and forensics, or academic trivia competitions.

Politician: In my own mind, I think I would make one of the best political figures of the 21st century. I have a deep compassion for the suffering of the downtrodden and a strong sense of duty and a mind filled with deep principles of human conduct. I’d be the politician who refused his salary and instead took the check to the local food bank or homeless shelter. I’d be the politician who publicly demanded to know why the military needed those dozen new tanks instead of a laptop for every student in my district. I’d be the politician who pulled no punches on denouncing the corruption of other politicians and would expect – no… demand – that others live up to the duties imposed on them by the public trust. And that’s why I would never get any votes and would only last one term in office. What I’m most afraid of if I ever would get to be in office is either that I would prove myself unable to resist temptation (I have a dark fear that I don’t possess enough self-control to live justly and free from corruption), or that a term in office would so jade me that I would find myself apathetic about relieving the suffering of others and righting the wrongs of the world.

Visionary: I wish that this job existed. The first time I heard a recording of Bobby Kennedy saying his famous line (“Some men look at things the way they are and ask ‘why.’ I look at things that never were and ask ‘why not?’”) I knew that this described how I deal with the world. It’s why I’m drawn to radical theories and creative solutions. Don’t like urban sprawl? Build an Arcology somewhere. World too overpopulated? Why not have O’Neill cylinders orbiting the Earth? Why should people have bones made out of bone when we could replace those bones with synthetic plastics that are stronger? Don’t like how inefficient car travel is? Why not subscribe to my ‘underground egg’ transportation idea? Power problems? Cover Antarctica with solar panels and use microwave radiation beams to send the electricity to shore. Without the courage of the people willing and able to dream the big dreams, where would we be?

Theorist/Writer: Every once in a while, I pick up my political treatise and work on it. I have in mind what seems to me to be a straightforward explanation of how civilizations start, of the proper role and organization of government, of how human interactions in general are structured, and more. I think it is a fabulous blending of moral philosophy and biological systematics. Who knew that a brief education in biology and economics could lead to such fascinating advances in my study of politics? One of my greatest dreams (next to being a husband and father) is that a government teacher in 200 years will have her students reading excerpts from Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mussolini, Marx, and [Academian].

The closest I have been able to come to an answer in my quest to come up with a career-oriented reason for my presence in Topeka at law school is a thought that I might make a good judge. As hard as it is for me to try to walk the path of justice myself, I think that black robes and a gavel might just help me make my little dent in the injustice of the world.

How does the "Happy Animals Act" sound?

How many more reasons?

Sometimes the blatant gall of the Bush administration manages to break through my layer of cynicism to actually make me despise the man (well, his politics at least) even more than before.
He violates human rights treaties (which I should remind you are on the SAME hierarchical level in American jurisprudence as the U.S. Constitution due to the Supremacy clause of the Constitution). If you want evidence of that, check out the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) sometime. Pay particular attention to Article 7, too, and think about the broadness of the term “no one” in conjunction with our treatment of prisoners at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. The U.S. actually signed and ratified that treaty, so in theory, it is the "Supreme Law of the Land."

He violates the United States Constitution by rejecting the FISA courts (themselves possibly unconstitutional) and institutes wire taps on U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil, with absolutely no accountability to another branch of government or to the people. Why did the framers want for officials to have to get warrants to do such things? It must surely not have been to prevent abuse of power, right? Whether Bush has abused this new power or not, he has set a dangerous precedent in this power grab.

I balk at his Orwellian doublespeak when he champions legislation like the Clear Skies initiative that weakened the standards on air quality or the Healthy Forests initiative that opened large tracts of formerly protected forests to logging interests.

I’ve grown to expect such levels of harmful silliness from the hands of this administration. But today, I read a news story which made me wonder once again about the vast inconsistencies between the President’s words and deeds.

The Endangered Species Act is a piece of legislation which is dear to my heart. I flirt with the animal rights movement based largely on the writings of the philosopher Peter Singer, who wrote the book that first initiated the Animal Rights movement (“Animal Liberation” is to the AR movement what “Silent Spring” was to the Environmental Movement). Singer made a powerful statement when arguing about why non-human animals deserve some measure of legal protection when he suggested that what mattered was not the answer to the question, “Are they persons?” Rather, Singer countered, what mattered was the answer to the question, “Can they suffer?”

Normally the Endangered Species Act (the ESA) requires that certain animals, because of their rarity, are to be protected from hunting, harvesting, or over-consumption. Sounds like a good idea, for whatever reason. Whether because you view it as a way to preserve a special non-human animal species for the enjoyment of future generations, or a way to keep a species viable so that we can harvest again later, or to put the brakes on the wholesale genocide of entire species, the ESA is a good start to keeping non-human animals around for years to come.

Well, today, I read about a fun group of ‘ranches’ in Texas where for a nominal fee of about US $8,500, you can pick up a rifle and blast the endangered animal of your choice. Zebras, Oryx, Lions and Tigers… You name it - they’ve got it ready for you to shoot and mount on your wall.

Now, my horror at standard types of hunting and other bloodsports aside, hunting for trophies is infuriating. When a hunter kills a deer, say, in standard hunting, a shot in the body is quickly followed by a gunshot wound to the head to kill the suffering being much quicker. While in my mind nearly on the level of murder, a murderer who sees that his victim suffers as little as possible is surely preferable to a murderer who ensures the long suffering of his victim.

Hunting for trophies is precisely the second type of act. No blow to the head follows the shots to the body, because the head is precisely what the hunter wants intact and pristine, so that it can be mounted on a wall in his den. Hunting for trophies usually entails several shots to the abdomen or legs to disable the animal. Then to prevent any more damage to the animal, the hunter will simply let it expire from the wounds before collecting the body.

How is this all possible with the ESA in place? Shouldn't the ESA be keeping animals, clearly marked as endangered on the ESA lists, protected from hunting of any variety, particularly while on U.S. soil? Not anymore.

Bush created an executive enforcement exception to the ESA, exempting ‘hunting ranches’ from the requirements of the ESA. So go ahead and shoot that Mountain Gorilla. Even counting the ones left in the wild (about 700), there are only about 1,500 left alive anywhere on the planet.

Whoops. Make that 1,499.

And what if I wasn't sorry either?

What if (hypothetically speaking, of course), a friend who needed the use of an outlet during class thought that the outlet in front of her was broken (because it had been broken earlier) when in reality someone had fixed the outlet more than a week previously? And what if I knew that it had been repaired, but kept silent, knowing that she would string her power cord over to the outlet in front of me? And what if I did that just because it gave me an excuse to interact with her for a slightly longer period of time during our morning exchange of pleasantries?

If I made a lie of omission for selfish reasons, does that make me a bad person?

Why CNN just got deleted from my IE bookmarks:

(What follows is a copy of a letter I sent to CNN):

I have followed closely the developing story regarding the protests of the Danish cartoon fiasco. From Damascus and Beirut where embassies burned, to Afghanistan where civilians died amid the protests, I have been puzzled about the relative silence of the news media in the United States to defend their brother and sister bastions of journalism in Europe. A journalist or publication which censors timely and pertinent details of a story (particularly when the story is of global import) to avoid offending someone is a poor journalist or an organization which has forgotten the inherent business of the world of the press. The freedom to express one's ideas in print, particularly in the forum of a newspaper, is the hallmark right and freedom of the developed world.

On your website, I discovered that you have elected not to reprint the cartoons out of respect for the views of others. Since when has that been a concern for CNN? I am an atheist, but over the last several years, on my daily visits to CNN.com, I have been assaulted by religious iconography in photos attached to stories dealing with religion. CNN did not censor photographs of religious figures out of respect for my views. CNN did not censor images of the recently-deceased teenager who is alleged to have killed the gay men in the Northeast out of respect for the gay community. CNN.com did not eliminate photographs of plane crashes, the recent ferry-sinking in Egypt, or the burning of the Danish flag out of respect for the victims of the plane crashes, the families of the ferry-riders, or the citizens of Denmark. Why not censor those photos - which offend some just as surely as the cartoons would offend some groups of Muslims? When the press gets into the business of censoring stories out of respect for one group but not another, the press has made an implicit declaration that one group's orthodoxy is preferred over another's. I have a suspicion that if any of these groups were to request that you censor your stories, you would refuse on the grounds of freedom of the press, and rightly so.

After the initial outcry and demand for censorship in Europe, many other newspapers had the temerity to stand up for the freedom of expression by reprinting the cartoons. I would have expected media centered in the United States - the birthplace of the experiment regarding freedom of expression (see J. Holmes, in dissent, Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919).) - to follow suit. By refusing to show the cartoons, CNN.com has taken the safe route for its shareholders (ensuring that CNN won't be boycotted), but has abdicated its honored position as a respected media outlet.

I don't expect your corporate policy to change, but by following your pocketbook and corporate policy, you revealed what you are: not the press, but a corporation. You just lost the readership and respect of a (formerly) loyal CNN news junkie to the BBC news online.

--[The Academian]

What a good weekend

It's hard to beat a weekend where you have nothing to do.

I wish I had some of those. That would be awesome.

But almost as good are weekends where you have things to do and make a conscious choice to do something else far more fun. This weekend, I dove into a collection of H.G. Wells' science fiction classics. Devouring my way through "The War of the Worlds," "The First Men in the Moon," "The Invisible Man," "The Island of Dr. Moreau," and "The Time Machine" makes for a happy Academian.

I wonder if there is a job that lets you do things like this for money.

Kansas should get with the times.

I’ve been thinking about renewable energy production since last week when the President’s State of the Union speech before Congress highlighted his plans to reduce American dependence on oil as a source of power. While the President’s goal is surely a lofty one, his plan seemed more than a little lackluster.

My musings have gone from the serious end of the spectrum (wind generation or tidal power) to the downright silly and farfetched. My favorite idea so far from the weird end of the spectrum? Gather up a bunch of those big sea turtles that travel thousands of miles through the open ocean each year. You could probably snag them while they are laying eggs on the beach or something. Anyway, National Geographic has been hooking cameras to their backs and filming the voyages, so why not take that same concept and make it work for us? Hook little turbines on their backs with storage batteries. Then when the turtles come up the next year to lay their eggs, you swap out the batteries.

Fun, but probably unworkable on multiple levels.

Anyway, many states offer incentives for individual Citizens to invest in various renewable technologies for their homes and offices. This website gives you a complete listing of tax incentives, grants, and other government programs on a state-by-state basis on how to incorporate renewable energy into your energy consumption.

One thing that struck me, though, was that most states appear to have what is known as net-metering laws. Normally, if you have a solar panel on top of your roof, it will lower your energy costs by generating a portion of your total energy usage (a single solar panel will usually pay for itself in about 5-7 years). If you build an energy efficient home and have a dozen solar panels, you may pay almost nothing in your electricity bill each month. If you have something like a wind turbine on your land as well, you will be feeding electricity back into the grid rather than sucking it out of the grid.

In states with net-metering laws, your electricity meter actually can spin backwards to reflect the amount of energy you have added to the grid on your own. Instead of sending you a bill each month, the energy company has to send you a check for the energy you gave them.

Most states have this, and it’s a great incentive for people to add some electricity-generating machines to their property (like solar fields, water-wheels on local creeks, windmills, or geothermal venting pipes). Kansas, though, does not have one of these laws. In other words, you could build a system where you generate more power than you use, but all that excess would flow into the grid without you receiving a dime in return.

Why should a Kansan generate power in excess of what he or she uses, then? Social conscience? Perhaps, but that seems to rarely motivate people as much as I think it should.

Kansas should get with the times. Give people the incentive necessary to make money off their plains. What do you want to bet that there are a few farmers who would rather put up 300 acres of wind turbines rather than grow 300 acres of wheat? Wind generators wouldn’t need harvesting, planting, watering or irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, or expensive machines. An initial investment, plus periodic maintenance, is all that is required before the checks start rolling in on a monthly basis. And if you wanted to generate even more electricity, you could add lightning rods to the tops of the windmills.

If you want people to reduce their reliance on oil for electricity, you should make it profitable to generate power in some other way. Allowing the power company to steal excess energy without paying for it seems to be an odd way of doing that. Why don't we have net-metering laws?

Why not?

Two thoughts on the energy crisis.

1. What do we use upper Canada for, anyway? Sure, the Aleuts and Inuits have claimed a chunk of it for seal hunting and such, and I won’t begrudge them the right to continue their native traditions in the way they see most fit. Even after subtracting a generous amount of the northern tundras for the native population, we surely must be left with a large amount of land. Why don’t we put gigantic fields of solar energy collectors up there? Wire the fields up and hook them into a continent-wide power grid. It wouldn’t be very difficult, would provide a light economic boost to the northern provinces in terms of maintaining the solar fields, and would likely be able to power most of the continent in a clean way. Main problems: Ecological.

2. There could be potential ecological consequences that I've not thought of, and I'll admit that I'm not trained in macro-organismal ecology enough to know what would likely happen. But there is one place on the planet where ecological consequences could be minimized: Antarctica. The fields would only have light for half the year, but you have a much vaster field of area to cover with solar panels. Unlike the northern climes, there is virtually no chance of damage to the solar cells from storms or heavy precipitation (Antarctica is classified as a desert, actually). If solar panels can withstand intense cold, then we have a ready location on which to lay out hundreds of thousands of acres of power collection panels. The main problem with this method of power collection is transmitting the power to the mainland where it can be used. Fortunately, scientists think this type of problem will soon be a thing of the past. As it turns out, electricity can be converted into an intense microwave beam which can be shot up from the Earth to a satellite which will gather the energy and re-beam the microwave energy to a large collecter dish somewhere on the mainland where the microwave energy will be turned back into electricity. Main problems: Microwave beam is mis-aimed by computer-controlled satellite and frys a few square miles into glowing nothingness.

Overall, my vote is for Northern Canada, but I think the Antarctic idea would work just as well (it'd just cost more).