October 26th 2008
Sunday Scan – 10/26/08
Mysteries Of Evolution
H
ere’s a story that might give Darwin pause:
Amoebas glide toward their prey with the help of a protein switch that controls a molecular compass, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered.
Their finding, recently detailed in the journal Current Biology, is important because the same molecular switch is shared by humans and other vertebrates to help immune cells locate the sites of infections.
The amoeba Dictyostelium finds bacteria by scent and moves toward its meal by assembling a molecular motor on its leading edge. The active form of a protein called Ras sets off a cascade of signals to start up that motor, but what controlled Ras was unknown.
Amoeba have a sense of smell? They know how to build a molecular motor? Darwin certainly never suspected a single-cell critter could have all that!
It requires more faith to believe such a complex system can evolve out of the primordial mud than it takes to believe the amoeba is part of God’s design.
Hey! Let’s Screen UN Peacekeepers For Torture!
I
t would seem to be a suggestion that doesn’t have to be made, but the UN appears to be muzzled and confused regarding UN human rights expert Manfred Nowak’s suggestion that since many UN Peacekeepers come from countries that condone terror, they should be screened regarding their foundness for torture and sexual abuse.
For my liberal readers, the countries fond of torture included Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Myanmar and North Korea – not the U.S.
Reports Inner City Press:
The UN should screen prospective peacekeepers to make sure they are not implicated in torture, UN human rights expert Manfred Nowak told Inner City Press on Friday. Nowak added that many UN peacekeepers come from countries with questionable human rights records — he named Pakistan and Nepal — and end up, during peacekeeping missions, engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse. …
Inner City Press later on Friday at Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson’s noon briefing asked for any UN response to Nowak’s comments, but five hours later no response had been provided.
There’s still nothing up on the UN News site’s transcript from Friday’s press briefing, but the spokesperson’s statement at the time was indicative of how screwed up the UN peacekeeper system is:
We certainly depend on the troop-contributing country to send us people that they have vetted.
Uh huh. Let’s trust Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe to vet Peacekeepers; that’ll protect the women and children.
Worse, Nowak has no authority. He has to defer to the UN various rapporteurs to take the lead; for example:
This leads one to wonder whether a torture victim in Myanmar might be worse off because of the country-specific rapporteur than without one, and whether torturing countries, rather than fight the appointment of a rapporteur for their country, oughtn’t to welcome such country-specific posts, as long as they get to chose the occupant.
In other words, is business as UN-usual, which is far removed from anything normal humans can understand.
It’s Not Easy Being Green (Unless You’re Rich)
G
reat Britain, faced with real and daunting challenges up the wazoo, has nevertheless decided it’s a good idea to tilt at global warming windmills and decree that all new homes in the British Isles shall be zero carbon footprint homes by (gulp!) 2016. As in about seven years from now.
Never mind that the Renewables Advisory Board (an interesting bunch, no doubt) says that achieving that goal requires renewables on a scale so huge that it would represent all of Great Britain’s manufacturing capability for all renewables and, in the case of some technologies, the equivalent of all existing global capacity. I’m sure it’s still a good idea.
And never mind that a recent study indicated that a zero carbon home will cost £36,000 (nearly $59,000) more than a “normal” house. Sustainability fanatics says that cost is sure to drop as production increases – but face it, building a three-paned window with inert gases interjected between the panes will always cost more than building a conventional window. Ditto the extra plumbing required for solar, and on and on.
And never mind that housing starts in England are down 20 percent from last year’s levels. It is apparently still a good idea to penalize new home building with unattainable carbon footprint goals while letting the real heavy footprint stuff – the existing housing stock – go unpunished and unchanged. How many of the geniuses behind this scheme do you think are content where they live and have no intention of moving into a new, more expensive, greener home any time soon?
And never mind that whatever tiny and insignificant incremental decrease in man-generated carbon emissions are achieved by this looniness will have no measurable impact whatsoever on whatever is happening in our global weather systems. If you’re rich, it’s still great for you. You can afford to say you did something.
A New Sarah Palin Revelation
M
y friend the hat-tip king Jim passes this along:
So, Sarah Palin’s advisors decide that it is time for her to meet a bunch of serious world leaders. They head to Europe, where, first up, she has an appointment with the Pope.
The Pope and some of his Cardinals invite her for a boat ride on the Tiber. As they are sitting in the gondola talking, a wind starts up and blows the Pope’s hat into the water. Palin looks around and realizes that no one is going to do anything about it, so she calmy rises, takes off her her high heels, and steps off the side of the boat. Instead of diving into the water, however, she walks across it, to the hat, picks it up and walks back across the water to the boat. She climbs in, hands the Pope his hat and continues discussing whatever it was they had been talking about. The Cardinals are open mouthed in astonishment at what they have just seen.
The news media, in nearby boats are busy discussing among themselves how to report it. Headlines the next day at the New York Times, The Washington Post and the networks all blare:
“New Revelation: Sarah Palin Can’t Swim.”
Good News From Bajur, Loi Sam And Tang Khata
T
hings are going badly for the Islamist jihadists on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Just a couple weeks ago, the Bajur region was, in the words of local Pakistani government officials, a “mega-sanctuary” for Taliban and al-Qaeda forces (and a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden), but the tide is turning.
The AP story refers vaguely to “troops” fighting in the area, making no clarification to whether they’re US, NATO or Pakistani. Nevertheless, they’ve:
- Killed 11 Islamist jihadists in the last couple days
- Taken the strategic crossroads of Loi Sam back from the Islamists
- Defeated an Islamist raiding party at the border check point of Tang Khata
All in all, says the Pakistani government, 1,500 Taliban/al-Qaeda fighters, 73 troops (presumably Pakistani) and 95 non-combatants have died so far in the fighting. More important, perhaps, Pakistan has announced it will ” flood the border regions with development aid” and set up a compensation program for civilians, aimed at diminishing local support for the jihadists.
That will require the cooperation of the International Monetary Fund to help Pakistan stem its own financial crisis – and the IMF has lots of similar requests before it. Pakistan’s should rise to the top.
It Happens When You Hang Around Radiation
T
he Prophet of Doom, the Nuclear Nutcase Mah -I’m in the- moud for radiation sickness Ahmadinejad (rhymes with “I’m glowing! Is that bad?”) has gotten sick. I mean in the body; we’ve known about the mind for some time now.
AP calls it thusly:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fallen ill due to exhaustion brought on by his heavy workload, the state-run news agency reported quoting a close associate.
But actually the Iranian News service FARS says he’s already all better:
Iran’s Ahmadinejad Recovers from Illness
TEHRAN – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is often laid low by overwork and exhaustion but has gone on to make a full recovery, the culture minister said on Sunday.
“He is in good shape and better than me,” Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi told reporters.
Exhaustion? Nuke jokes aside, I wonder if Ahmadinejad is just reaching the end of his usefulness to the Mad Mullahs of Tehran and is being edged out. That could be bad for one’s health!
Posted in Ahmadinejad, Al Qaeda, England, Evolution, Global warming, Green building, Humor, Iran, Pakistan, Palin, Taliban, United Nations | No Comments yet » | |
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