Gold Star Awards, January (!), 2012

I debated just skipping a month and making these FEBRUARY'S Award winners, but at the onset I said I would do these every month, and I know from past experience that it's not a good idea to get into the habit of laziness. And hopefully, this will keep me blogging this month, since I'd hate for the NEXT post to be FEBRUARY'S winners! (Especially if that were in MARCH!)
So here are LAST MONTH'S Si;ver Star Winners. The year is 1971, and the Veterans Committee was VERY BUSY inducting SIX new members:


The Jake Beckley SILVER STAR #41: TV Tropes

Have you ever tried to write fiction?  It's harder than it sounds. (I know: I'm trying!) And it is both amusing and informative to learn more about the tropes used by fiction writers accross so many mediums.  According to their own home page: "TROPES are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not cliches.  The word cliched means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them." And do they EVER! Every movie, every TV Show, Every Comic Book, Every Amine... So many forms of media. If you want to see a tongue in cheek look at the tropes used in ANY work of fiction that has more than TWO FANS in the entire world, check this out. 


The Harry Hooper SILVER STAR #42: Flipside

I've been reading this web comic for AGES and I'm still only about halfway though it! It 's been running for YEARS and IMHO is one of the best drawn and best written web-comics out there. Very professional.Amazing work.  It a fantasy, Swords-and-sorcerers story, with subtle Manga influences.  The two leads, Maytag and Bernadette are two of the most interesting, compelling characters I've come across in a very long time.  The authors also manage to work modern issues (such as gender discrimination and homosexuality) into the plot seamlessly, which elevates the work well above the level of a typical hack-and-slash fantasy comic strip. So check it out, you won't be sorry. And be sure to read it from the beginning.


The Joe Kelly SILVER STAR #43: Pandora

I'm sure I don't need to tell you what Pandora is.  What I find so amazing is the idea behind the Music Genome Project, how they will break music down to it's basic elements and recommend songs based on fundamental similarities rather that the "Amazon"/"Netflix" model of "people who liked this also liked...:"  There is a deeper understand of music at play here, and one that deserves some recognition.  Just one observation: Be careful what you give a "thumbs-up" to!  "Thumbs-up" just a single funky bit of 1970-'s soul, and you'll be thumbs-downing so much bad 1970's disco, you'll think you're in a pornographic film!  Despite these shortcomings (which have more to do with ME that with the system, I'm sure!) I really appreciate this site, and the FREE service they provide. So many of the songs I put on my Music Page were discovered through Pandora. (Steven Lynch, Dave Van Ronk, Carbon Leaf, Great Big Sea, and MANY others.)


The Dave Bancroft SULFUR STAR: World Net Daily

Have you ever smelled Sulfur? Have you even read the World Net Daily? Can you see what they have in common?  It was inevitable that I would eventually bestow one of the dubious honors upon this heap of steaming, Right Wing Trash. Some of us like our information to be ACCURATE. For those who prefer it to be CONSERVATIVE, this is the site for you.


The Chick Hafey IPECAC STAR: The Media Research Center

Brent Bozell is to objective journalism what Syrup of Ipecac is to fine dining.  This guy is sofa king brain damaged that upon first viewing I would almost be inclined to view the puddle of bile that he calls his life's work as some form brilliant Liberal-created irony.  Sadly, no: He's serious. And pathetic. And about as easily debunked as the myth that the Sun revolves around the Earth.  How are Conservatives not embarrassed to be associated with these brain-damaged jack-holes?


The Rube Marquard COPPER STAR: Coston's Complaint

Honestly, this Right-Wing Blog is no more or less brainless, nor more or less biased, or more or less factually inaccurate that pretty much any other Right-Wing Blog, he and I just had the mutual misfortune of crossing paths at one point.  I'd love to debate him, but he never replied to my comments. (And I can't even find them now.) Anyway, if you're Conservative, I'm sure you'll love it. If you think people opinions should be at least partially based in reality, you'll probably get a headache.

Another failure of free-market economics and health care...

By now y'all are well aware of my disadain of the for-profit, free-market model of health care.

Here's another example of just how utterly uselss it is.  The same kind of thing applies to rare diseases.  Get a disease that "only" kills a few hundered people a year?  Well, sucks to be unprofitable you.

What wrong with the NIH? Depends on your point of view.

I just read an interesting article in Newsweek about why so many scientific discoveries aren't advancing medicine to the point of having more cures for things. Now as an engineer - someone who turns science into something practical for a living - the very idea of all this science going to waste is truly depressing. That it happens because of the very system designed to prevent it is even more depressing.

And that's what makes this so interesting: The TRUTH of the matter depending on one's point of view.

Now... the clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because only a great fool would reach for what he was given...

Sorry, wrong argument. But truly I have a dizzying intellect; Just wait 'til I get going! Now where was? Oh yeah...

Back to the article... In reading this, I just keep hearing the voice of every conservative I know saying, "See? The Government gets involved and they just screw everything up!" And they'd have point, at least as far as a very shallow analysis will reveal. But in my opinion - a liberal's opinion - the answer is clear: The government needs to get MORE involved and this is yet another dismal failure for the power of the free market!

The basic problem is this: NIH grants don't cover the research & grunt work needed to determine if a discovery can be made into a usable drug (for example.) This is because the NIH is meant to fund SCINECE not FOR-PROFIT drug making. See: It's a system he has FAITH in the free market's ability to pick up where the basic science leaves off. It stays out of the way, and let's those big Pharma companies take care of the investment in return for keeping all of the profits. Trouble is...the Pharmaceutical companies, big and small, don't want to invest in ANYTHING that isn't reasonably certain to be commercially viable. (And given the costs, who can blame them?) And... you can't know that without doing the necessary - and both rather unglamorous and unprofitable - research to determine it! (Has everyone read Catch-22? Good.)

So strike down one more for the free market, and give one more point to those who think that we need MORE government spending, not less and MORE government involvement in medicine and not less, and MORE medical research, NOT LESS. 

(And yes that includes stem cells.)

Abortion vs. Embryonic Stem Cell Research

I said in my last (real, non-Friday Fun) post that I would do a piece on ABORTION. And I will. But not just yet.

I'd like to do a bit on EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH first, because the two issues often get conflated and IMHO they are completely different. What’s more, to demonstrate this, I will offer a simple proof which shows you can go as far as prohibiting ALL abortions and yet still allow ESC research completely unrestricted AND do this in a logically consistent, principled way. (Completely banning all abortions IS NOT my position, BTW, but the point of this is to demonstrate that being “pro-life”, regardless of how strongly you feel about it, simply does not enter into the ESC debate at all.)

One last thing, before I get into the proof. I am not, and do not claim to be, approaching this issue from a completely objective POV. This is a highly personal issue for me, and I feel that I should disclose that right up front. I have two sons with Autism. And while Autism is not one of the disorders that you hear about very often with regards to the promises of ESC research, and while I am very realistic about the fact that in the unlikely chance that ESC research finds anything to help autistics, it will likely come far to late to have a huge impact of THEIR lives, I am still part of that community. And I am sympathetic to their POV. And many of them DO see this as promising research. It does not drive my entire philosophy on this, of course, but I think it’s important to disclose up front that I DO kind of have a dog in this fight.

Now… ON TO THE PROOF:

First off, we need to define terms:

1) UNIVERSALLY AGREED UPON LIFE: OK. Obviously there must be a line drawn on one end of the spectrum that represents a milestone in which EVERYONE (other than metaphysical philosophers and certified sociopaths) agrees that we have full-fledged human life, and that the entity in question is ABSOLUTELY entitled to ALL legal protections that the law provides. Although there’s always some nutter who'll will quibble about this, to keep things simple we’ll take this to be a live birth. This is the point in time after which we agree there is NO DEBATE, from ANYONE, that this LIFE must be protected. (Note: Henceforth if I refer to “life” THIS is the condition I am talking about!)

2) POTENTIAL LIFE: Here’s where the compromise comes in. “Potential Life” represents everything between the point in which the potential for life begins until we reach the milestone of "universally agreed upon life." It is a concession to the liberal camp to acknowledge the existence of this grey area. In what is a HUGE concession to the conservatives, we’re going to go ahead and agree that ANY AND ALL potential life will receive EVERY LEGAL PROTECTION that “LIFE” does. So, while we don’t accept the “life begins at conception” theory, we WILL extend every legal protect potential life that we do to life. That should satisfy the conservatives moving forward, correct? Good.

3) POTENTIAL: This is the key. And this is where the real test lies. POTENTIAL, relative to LIFE, means that, left on it’s own, we’re dealing with an entity that, given nothing but time (traditionally around nine months, give or take) has a GREATER THAN ZERO PERCENT chance of developing into universally agreed upon life. NOTICE: I did not say 100% chance, 10% or even 1%. I’ve given the conservatives the most generous threshold I can: Greater than ZERO. So if there is ANY CHANCE AT ALL, as long as it’s not IMPOSSIBLE, that we will, at some point in the future have universally agreed upon life, we will extend ALL LEGAL PROTECTIONS to that entity? We game so far? Good.

SO NOW… THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION: What is the earliest point in which we can establish the POTENTIAL for LIFE and thus be obligated to protect that entity?

Obviously this line will be drawn well before BIRTH. So we’re not even looking at TRIMESTERS here or anything even like that. Save that for the ABORTION debate. Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum...

Let’s start by applying this logic to the earliest possible entitles: Individuals sperm and egg cells. (Just to test it.) I think it is apparent to all but the most insanely devout Catholics (meaning: limited primarily to the non-pedophilic priesthood) that there is simply no anyone will argue that individual sperm and egg cells can ever, EVER, become “life” on their own. So we all agree that their potential is “zero,” and thus most ration peoples views regarding contraception, masturbation, IVF, surrogate/sperm donation, research, etc... So those (and most rational peoples' views on such matters) both pass the test, and thus the the test WORKS, in this case.

NOW… let’s look at EMBRYO’S; the sperm / egg combination. Potential? Perhaps. Immediately, at CONCEPTION? No. That’s right, I said: NO. Not one bit. Absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for an embryo to develop into “life.” Won’t happen…

Until…

IMPLANTATION. That’s right, folks! Until the embryo is implanted in the uterine wall, it's chance on developing into universally agreed upon life is exactly: ZERO. Thus the appropriate milestone at which the POTENTIAL for life is established is thus IMPLANTATION, not conception! What sane person can argue otherwise? Whether the embryo is frozen in hydrogen, swimming in a Petri dish, sitting on a counter-top, being flushed down the toilet or for that mater ANYWHERE in the physical or anti-matter universerse OTHER that implanted in the uterine wall it WILL NOT become LIFE. Period. Not in nine months, not in a million years. It will NEVER be anything other than what it is, and if not frozen in hydrogen, after a fairly short time even the cells themselves will simply die. Since ESC Research take place BEFORE implantation, the is no rational reason that this research should be taboo. (How can you have LIFE if you don't even have POTENTIAL?!)

Bottom line: We can argue that the ABORTION line be drawn anywhere between IMPLANTATION and BIRTH, but there is just no reason to draw the line any farther back than IMPLANTATION. (Did you know: PRIOR to implantation, you body shows no signs of pregnancy, is not aware of the embryo’s presence and no pregnancy test in the world can detect it? So how COULD you have an abortion if no one, every your own body, can detect the pregnancy?!) Concepcion is an irrelevant milestone. Until implantation, as far as I’m concerned, the debate doesn’t even begin.

Embryonic Stem-Cell research should thus:
1) Be completely legal and without restriction. (Come on! Grow a set Barack!)
2) Be federally funded, just as most other medical research is.
3) Only have restriction placed based on it to make sure that the limited resources (embryos, money) be used for the best possible projects. We don’t need ESC research looking for the next big thing in lip gloss.

As for ABORTION… Well, according to this we can debate all the way back to implantation, which still cover any and all abortions. (Sorry Lib’s!) But the point here was to separate the two issues, not to ban abortion. So we can take that one up in the next post!

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(And, BTW... for all you shade-tree economists out there, that diddy on Keynes is still coming! I didn’t forget. But it’s been on and off the back burner for a little while now… so it’s not ready just yet. It’s coming though! Important stuff! LOL.)