12. januar 2004

Bad, bad prions Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, believed to somehow infect humans through meat from cows infected by Mad Cow Disease, is probably caused by a form of proteins called prions gone horribly bad. Once prion diseases infect a body, the proteins change shape and, with a kiss of death, turn their neighbors into clones of themselves. Clumps of misshapen proteins form, overwhelming neurons and poking holes in the brain. Death is inevitable. This much scientists know. And this much is nearly all they know. Despite decades of study and high-profile outbreaks among beef eaters and cannibals, researchers are still mystified by the workings of a small group of diseases that turn prions -- normally benign proteins present in all human brains -- into killers. Both vCJD and the slightly more common sporadic CJD (which seems to occur out of thin air) are incurable, very hard to detect and always mortal. 8:01:07 PM    comment []  trackback []

Diana, Princess of conspiracy theories I wrote an article about Diana conspiracy theories and the recent inquiry into her death some days ago. I have now updated and revised it and added it to my articles section: Diana Princess of Wales - Victim of conspiracy to murder or a tragic accident? 5:43:44 PM    comment []  trackback []

Quoth the pagan... Dave Haxton has moved and renamed his excellent blog to MacRaven. 4:50:44 PM    comment []  trackback []

Stick to finances, O'Neill If I wanted to know details about the US economy, I would not ask Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld or Secretary of State Colin Powell. I should think the logic of this will be pretty obvious even to most journalists. So why, when former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reveals his experiences in the Bush White House, is the press and pundits concentrating on his statements about WMDs in Iraq? Sure, I can take his word for it when O'Neill says he never saw any direct evidence for proscribed weapons, but why should we care? It wasn't his job to know or learn about weapons in a faraway country. I can't imagine he was given all the up-to-date classified intelligence reports on a topic so far from his expertise and job. Perhaps more bewildering, but greatly popular in the leftist press, is O'Neill's "revelation" that Bush wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein before 9/11. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill said, according to CBS. And this is controversial? Did the whole world think Saddam was a good guy before some totally unrelated Islamist madmen murdered 3000 people? The fact of the case is that not only Bush, but also Clinton, was absolutely convinced that Saddam was evil and should be removed. Bush expressed his desire to remove Saddam openly during his own presidential camparign! And, indeed, O'Neill may well have seen a document showing that the administration had plans for post-Saddam Iraq (it is a relief to me!), but so did the Clinton administration. Naturally, the US administration has plans for a large number of possible policies and occurrences worldwide, and even if the US had not invaded Iraq, there world would one day have to come to terms with post-Saddam Iraq. What 9/11 did, was to change the landscape and convince many world leaders, not only Bush but also Blair, Aznar and Berlusconi, that regime change in Iraq was not merely desireable, but necessary. On the other hand, I think people should listen with care to what O'Neill says about the US economy and how the Bush administration brushed aside words of caution about the massive tax cuts that have contributed to a massive deficit, and which has caused the international markets to have record-low confidence in the US economy. Somehow, this doesn't get much attention. Sour grapes acknowledged, assuming O'Neill is not totally making things up, it is worrying that inconvenient facts have a nasty tendency to not penetate the Bush/Cheney bunker. But the same can surely be said about many journalists and columnists writing about the Iraq war. Perhaps the greatest irony is that O'Neill, who was widely ridiculed by the leftist press for shooting his mouth off all the time while he was in office, now has found himself an unlikely fan club among the same people. 2:50:07 PM    comment []  trackback []

"Who designed this crazy system, anyway?" We have journalists watching the candidates, Howard Kurtz writes in an interesting WaPo piece on journalistic punditry leading up to the democratic nomination and election. Then we have journalists watching each other. Columnists watch them all. Bloggers are watching the big media, and bloggers are watching each other. 2:30:06 PM    comment []  trackback []

Yes, please! "Climate Model Predicts More Long Hot Summers" (Scientific American headline) 10:21:21 AM    comment []  trackback []

The laws and habits of life, the universe and everything The Edge has asked some very bright minds to formulate laws with their names on it. Here are some of my short favourites, but you should read the (long) list for yourself: Leonard Susskind: Don't ask what they think. Ask what they do. (my comment: opinion pollers take notice) Rupert Sheldrake: The "laws" of nature are more like habits. Robert Sapolsky: It's okay to think about nonsense, as long as you don't believe in it. Adam Bly's second law: High public interest in science without growing public understanding of science is worse than low public interest in science. Matt Ridley's first law: Science is the discovery of ignorance. It is not a catalog of facts. Mark Mirsky: Imagination precedes reality. Karl Sabbagh: Never assume. Maria Spiropulu's first law: The anthropic principle in cosmology is just a (silly) corollary of the anthropic principle in religion: We are, therefore god is. Richard Dawkins's Law of Adversarial Debate: When two incompatible beliefs are advocated with equal intensity, the truth does not lie half way between them. Allan Snyder: The most creative science is wrong, but the deception ultimately leads to the benefit of mankind. Think Freud! Andy Clark's law: Everything leaks. Beatrice Golomb: Everything in biology is more complicated than you think it is, even taking into account Golomb's Law. Howard Morgan's second law: To a first approximation all appointments are canceled. Art De Vany: The future is over-forecasted and underpredicted. Keith Devlin's First Law: Buyer beware: in the hands of a charlatan, mathematics can be used to make a vacuous argument look impressive. Keith Devlin's Second Law: So can PowerPoint. Link from BoingBoing. 9:40:06 AM    comment []  trackback []

Royal blog The popular chief of state of Cambodia, King Norodom Sihanouk, has a blog, apparently containing almost daily communiques! I am pretty sure that makes him the first royal blogger in history. Probably the first head of state with a blog too. One can of course argue that it is not a real blog, since what is posted there comes from his handwriting, but given that it is not professionally edited, I think it qualifies. More serious is it that it doesn't follow the reverse chronological order typical for blogs, but I seriously think we have to give some leeway to a king. 6:38:50 AM    comment []  trackback []

Iranian hardliners disqualify lawmakers for election Making a mockery of the whole idea of democracy, a hard-line judicial panel of religious leaders have barred half of the candidates for the Iranian election next month, including 80 current members of Parliament. The reform process has been halted in Iran primarily because unelected hardliners, including self-styled Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hold positions where they can block any decision by elected bodies that it deems un-Islamic. There is an appeal process for the disqualifications, and a number of reformists are calling for boycotting the election altogether if this decision is not reversed. Then Iran could be moving towards a long-expected showdown between hardliners and reformists. 4:56:33 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.02.2004; 11:32:25.