Bad News for Stem Cells

Brain cells have been created directly from skin cells without going through the intermediate step of regressing the skin cells into stem cells. (Are induced stem cells now obsolete? Already?).

"Skin cells from a 30-year-old woman have been turned directly into mature nerve cells similar to those found in the brain using a procedure that promises to revolutionise the emerging field of regenerative medicine.

"Scientists said they were astonished to discover that they could convert a person's skin tissue into functioning nerve cells – bypassing an intermediate stem-cell stage – by the relatively simple procedure of adding a few short strands of RNA, a genetic molecule similar to DNA.

"The breakthrough could soon lead to the generation of different types of human brain cells in a test tube which could be used to study a range of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

"'A major problem in neurobiology has been the lack of ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif good human model. Neurons aren't like blood. They're not something people want to give up,' said Gerald Crabtree, professor of pathology at Stanford University Medical Centre in California.

"The findings may also one day allow doctors to grow nerve cells directly from a patient's skin cells to regenerate damaged parts of their brain or spinal cord. It would for instance bypass the need to produce stem cells by creating human embryos or embryonic-like tissue."

Wired.com

Borneo Rainbow Toad Rediscovered After 87 Years

This post has no bearing on anything. The picture is too cool to resist though. Oh wait, I know: it's global warming that brought it back from the dead. Sort of abiogenesis by CO2.

From Wired

Ruminations

What am I missing here?

If I were to be able to pay my bills only by putting them on a credit card as increased debt, while paying only the interest on the debt, is not that a precursor to bankruptcy? While this position is irresponsible, it is real for the USA, and new, increased income is the only solution that will prevent, in the longer term, bankruptcy.

For the government there are options for avoiding default that I as an individual don't have. As an individual, I would need another job. The government has three options for increasing income. First, confiscate more money from the populace. Second, stimulate the economy with less taxation in order to produce more revenue from an increased economic flow. Third, inflation as means of paying back in devalued dollars, and receiving more dollars from current taxation levels.

Stopping increased spending is not a solution to paying off the debt, but it would help stimulate the economy. Decreasing spending would have to be radical in order to free up dollars to apply to the debt, but it too would stimulate the economy. But neither of these is likely to happen.

So. Increased taxation is not sufficient to pay the debt, and it would choke the economy even more. It could happen, but it won't be of much help.

Decreased taxation is a leap of faith for the Right and a heresy for the Left. It won't happen.

Printing more money seems the only practical means of avoiding the default, long term.

We can argue about which is worse: high inflation or the consequences of default. But it really doesn't matter, because inflation will have to be the winner. Default would be political death for many politicians.

So the question becomes: how does one protect oneself from inflation? The obvious answer was gold or metals in general. But apparently many are now opting for land. Not developed land, just land, even farmland. Around here real farm land has more than tripled in price in the last decade. Farm land is too expensive to provide a decent return on investment from farming any more, so farms are either being rented out to neighboring farms in order to cover the cost of property taxes, or are sold as hunting areas or rural retreats for the town-based wealthy. Land is like gold in that it is tangible, limited, doesn't decay. (Neither does ammunition).

More seriously, inflation alone won't solve the problem unless the unconscionable increase in spending is halted. If the orgasmic spending spree is not stopped, then inflation will have to be destructively radical in order to provide the extra dollars.

In seriously inflationary economies there have been stories of people who were desperate to spend their wages on the very day they were paid, or they would lose value overnight. The key seems to be not to keep dollars. Exchange them quickly for things that keep long term value, at least value to me, if not to others, but also value to others for future exchanges. Under the Jimmy Carter hyperinflation, the money market was a place where a dollar from yesterday kept its value, because the interest rate increased with the inflation rate. But that is not happening now. The government reported inflation rate has been applied with a stealth coating of obscure manipulations; it doesn't match the rate of increase at the grocery store. We know the truth only by our bank balances at the end of the month. Or maybe when a cart of groceries at Wal*Mart costs $120.

It's tricky. It will be much easier to lose than to win at this game.

Secular Morality Controls the Narrative

Not long ago, Obama removed the ability of health providers who object to certain procedures to be exempted form providing those procedures. At issue was the government’s power to force doctors and nurses to provide abortion, regardless of the consciences of those providers. In the past few weeks tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered on a document asking Obama to reverse that decision, and the document has been delivered to the president. Obama’s decision is one of many that seem to enable the power of the governing to force moral and/or economic decisions that are contrary to those made by individuals.

In Britain a similar battle is being waged, this one between the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the British Humanist Association. At issue are four cases, two of which are discrimination against the wearing of the cross at work, one of a counselor who declined to advise homosexuals, and one of a “registrar” who refused to marry homosexuals.

The EHRC claims that the British legal system is biased against Christians. The BHA claims that the EHRC is biased toward Christians.

”The BHA has an ongoing complaint lodged with the EHRC over recent comments by its chair Trevor Phillips in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, that the EHRC’s ‘business is defending the believer’. The first response by the EHRC to the complaint and request for the remedy of an apology was that Mr Phillips ‘[stood] by’ his comments and no apology would be made. The BHA is appealing that decision.”

EHRC; BHA

Back in the USA, California Governor Jerry Brown has just signed into law a dictate that all school children be taught that homosexuals are good role models. Apparently, parents are not to be consulted or given notice.

”Sacramento --
“Public schools in California will be required to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans starting Jan. 1 after Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a controversial bill to add the topic to the social sciences curriculum.

“Textbooks now must include information on the role of LGBT Americans, as well as Americans with disabilities, though California's budget crisis has delayed the purchasing of new books until at least 2015.

"History should be honest," Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. "This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books."

(…)

“Leno said the mandates apply broadly, though, telling reporters it would affect kindergarten through high school curriculum, "and, of course, in an age-appropriate way."

“Gay rights advocates said they will be vigilant about making sure schools across California comply.

“Carolyn Laub, the founder and executive director of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, which works to establish gay-straight clubs in schools, said such clubs exist in 55 percent of California's high schools.

"We'll certainly be letting all of our constituents know about this bill, and when it goes into effect I can assure you there will be thousands of students" watching to see how it is implemented, she said.”

SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle)

And,

“Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a conservative family group, said under the new law parents will have no choice but to take their children out of public school and homeschool them to avoid what he said was "immoral indoctrination." The new law applies only to public schools, not private schools or families who homeschool.

"Jerry Brown has trampled the parental rights of the overwhelming majority of California fathers and mothers who don't want their children to be sexually brainwashed at school," Thomasson said. "This new law will prohibit textbooks and teachers from telling children the facts that homosexuality is neither healthy nor biological."

“The bill was supported by gay rights organizations including Equality California and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. Teacher groups also said the bill would help students prepare for a diverse and evolving society.

"There is no room for discrimination of any kind in our classrooms, our communities or our state," said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association. “

ABC Channel 7, San Francisco

Traditional logic does discriminate, though: 0 is not 1; false is not true; bad is not good; abnormal is not normal. Under the new logic of total nondiscrimination, there is no non-valid worldview or personal predilection, except to claim that some worldviews or personal predilections are not valid: to say that would be discrimination, a hate crime, which is discrimination against certain speech. The internal contradiction and paradox is obvious.

Moreover, the schools do discriminate. They allow no non-secular teachings, which means that Humanism and Materialism are promoted and rigidly protected as the only acceptable worldviews in the government schools. That discrimination is A-OK with Humanist Homosexual Materialists, i.e. Secularists. Unfortunately, that is a basic internal contradiction to the entire Secular theory of education, rendering it irrational at best, immoral at worst.

Homeschooled students perform better in every classification of knowledge and ability: this is proven. Check the studies for yourself.

Germany Cancels Nuclear Plants and Heads To Coal

“The German government wants to encourage the construction of new coal and gas power plants with millions of euros from a fund for promoting clean energy and combating climate change.

“The plan has come under stiff criticism, but the Ministry of Economics and Technology defended the idea. A spokeswoman said it was necessary as the government switches from nuclear to other renewable energy sources and added that the money would promote the most efficient plants possible.

”Funding for the initiative is limited to five percent of the energy and climate change fund’s annual expenditure between 2013 and 2016.

”Annual funding for the new plants could total more than €160 million per year between 2013 and 2014 alone, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported on Wednesday.

”The fund was first established to encourage nuclear plant operators to develop new, renewable forms of energy production. Now that nuclear power is to be phased out by 2022, the fund will pay for research into reducing carbon dioxide emissions from buildings, developing renewable energy sources and storage technologies for them.”

The Local: Germany's News in English

Just make sure that the coal is chock full o’ sulfur; that’s the global cooling ticket. Never mind the acid rain; just make the stacks 20 miles high.

Afterthought: The EPA has forced the scrubbing of sulfur from US coal plants for the past 4 or more decades. With the removal of that sulfur form the atmosphere as a counterbalance to increased CO2, the EPA is responsible for AGW. Disbanding the EPA and its dictates seems necessary or we will all die when the oceans finally swallow Denver!

Actual Teeth From Stem Cells

Stem cells from mouse molars have been used in Japan to produce teeth, which were transplanted into the mouth of juvenile mice. The teeth became functional, even with detectable nerves, allowing the mice to chew normally.

From Medical Xpress:

”Researchers from Japan recently published a paper in PLoS One describing their successful growth and transplantation of new teeth created from the stem cells of mice.

“In order to create these teeth, Takashi Tsuji from Tokyo University of Science and his team removed two different stem cells from the molar teeth of mice. They took these stem cells to grow in the laboratory. In order to control how the teeth grew, as far as shape and length, the stem cells were placed in a mold to grow.
Once the cells grew into full tooth units, the researchers then transplanted them into the jaws of one-month-old mice. These transplanted teeth fused with the jaw bones and tissues on an average of about 40 days. The researchers were also able to detect nerve fibers growing in the new teeth.

“The mice that received the transplanted teeth were able to eat and chew normally without any complications.

“Tsuji hopes that this new development will help further the research being done to allow for the growth of human organs from a patient’s own stem cells. Currently researchers do not have the ability to culture three-dimensional organs outside of the body. The hope is the growth of these teeth will be the beginning step that is needed.”

I love adult stem cell science. If I were to start over, it might be in this part of biology (certainly not evolution apologetics). The bad news here is that I don’t have my molars any more. Plus it's way too late to start over.

According to analyst Veronique De Rugy the of federal spending for the past 3 decades is shown in the graph below. It would appear that the Iraq and Afganistan wars did not cause excess borrowing, probably due to an adequate economy to support them. That changed in 2008.



Another analyst, this one on PBS Nightly News last night, claimed that if the debt ceiling is not raised, then the government will have only 60% of its needed funding for the duration of the period during which the government can't borrow above the ceiling to pay its debts. So what would be cut? Defense or Social Security? Now if the Congress had not stolen all the funds out of Social Security long ago, then SS would not be on the table.

Apparently that's why Bernanke is in play, claiming the Fed will buy. Is that a circumvention of debt somehow?

"Fast and Furious" is Studiously Ignored

The worst US Federal Administration scandal in memory, including involvement in the deaths of peace officers in two countries, is still unreported in much of the Leftist media. The LA Times is taking it to heart, though, and is pursuing the ATF and DOJ “Fast and Furious” program of giving guns to outlaws. Reported now is that some of the Mexican cartel members might be paid by the US government as informers. On last night's coverage, this deadly scandal was not reported by either NBC or PBS on their prime time news. I don’t know about the other news outlets. But imagine if this had been done under Bush…

If the Congressional investigations can force Holder to take responsibility for what was done under his auspices (and after all, Bush has been blamed for everything done under his administration, plus several years beyond…), then the national media will be forced to give it at least a head nod. Undoubtedly Obama will take zero responsibility for it, just as he has done with the economy. Perhaps even "Fast and Furious" can be blamed on Bush, too.

The Republicans should take this issue and run it to ground. It is actually not just an illegal action by the Feds, it is an insanely stupid and immoral, murderous action. But the highly morally sensitive Dems are taking this opportunity, albeit quietly, to foster an illegitimate case for increased gun control, even though no amount of gun legislation would have had any influence on what the Feds did in “Fast and Furious”. Once again it is the Leftist irrationality in positions of dangerous power that produced this bloody saga, not private citizens with guns.

Peter Farrara on Egalitarianism

At Forbes, blogger Farrara looks at egalitarianism and its consequences, some of which we currently see in the federal government now. Farrara quotes Vonnegut effectively, and then continues with our current dash toward disaster:

"Finally, this vision of equality as a social goal, with equal incomes and wealth for all, is severely counterproductive economically, and so makes for a poor society as well. Pursuing such a vision would require very high marginal tax rates on anyone with above average production, income and wealth, which experience as well as theory shows us leads to less production.

"If income and wealth is going to be equalized, why would anyone save or invest? Savings and investment just adds to wealth, and wealth is anti-social under a social justice regime of equal wealth for all. Indeed, the only rational strategy for everyone under such a regime is to consume all income and not save or invest anything. For anyone who saves and invests more than others will see that savings and investment expropriated, and anyone who saves and invests less than others will be rewarded with a grant from the government to make their savings equal to all others.

"The only difference between the prosperity of modern industrial society and the subsistence living of cavemen is savings and investment. All the tools and equipment that enable us to produce more than what was enjoyed during caveman days come from investment, made possible by savings.

"Under a social justice regime of equal income and wealth for all, there would be no reason for anyone even to work. If you work more than others, and earn more income as a result, the above average results of all that work would be expropriated. If you don’t work at all, then you would receive a grant from whatever government might possibly be functioning so that you still consumed the same average amount of goods and services as everyone else.

"So under a social justice regime of equal income and wealth for all, the only rational strategy for everyone would be, literally, “Party till you drop.” Maybe this is why the Bible tells us that envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Observe the similar logical results under a strict regime of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” With above average ability taxed at a marginal tax rate of 100%, any such ability will be very hard to find. With all needs heavily subsidized, expect a cornucopia of such need.

(…)

"What we fail to understand in America today is how far down this road we have already gone. In 2007, before Barack Obama was even elected President, official IRS data revealed that the top 1% of income earners already paid more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95% combined. The top 1% paid over 40% of the federal income taxes, almost twice their share of national income. The top 3% paid more in federal income taxes than the bottom 97% combined.

"We see the same in some states. In California, the top 1% pay 48% of all state income taxes. In New York, the top 1% of income earners pay 41% of all state income taxes. In New Jersey, until recently the top 1% of income earners paid 46% of state income taxes, and Castroite government employee unions want to bring those policies back.

"Yet, President Obama has devoted his Administration to raising their taxes even more. In 2013, with the Bush tax cuts expiring, and the Obamacare tax increases becoming fully effective, the top tax rates of virtually every major federal tax are already scheduled under current law to increase sharply. And in his 2012 budget, and in the debt limit debate, President Obama is proposing to raise taxes on the nation’s job creators, investors, and businesses large and small, even more."
[emphasis added]

The clueless Left thinks that the wealthy just illegitimately "have money", and it needs to be removed from them. For some, inheritance makes it true that they have money, but not illegitimately. For most of the wealthy, though, they have created their wealth and along with it, they have created jobs and wealth for others. This is of no consequence to the redistributionists; for them wealth is immoral, just because it exists.

For the wealthy Leftists (and there are many), though, most of their wealth is the result of parasitism on the spoils of the political system, with favored loans, marriage into wealth, political spoilage, and not paying the taxes which they actually do owe. Not to mention voting themselves favored tax rates for green technology and other similar schemes. So from their perspective, sure, wealth is illegitimate - theirs certainly is. If the Leftists were actually altruistic egalitarians, they would at least pay their taxes, and even shed their wealth into government coffers. But the Left is intractably elite, and no ethics stick to them: ethics are only for the masses, and ethics are what the elites declare they are for the masses.

When the wealthy Left asserts tax increases on industry, especially specifically hated industries such as oil, those taxes are paid by the non-wealthy average American. But they benefit the green, social justice industries, spreading wealth back to the Left.

All this seems obvious, but only the next election will determine how alert the rational voter is this time around, and how many non-rational egalitarian voters there really are. Will the Black bloc vote to maintain their residence on the Democrat plantation? Will the Hispanic bloc vote for amnesty for those extra-legals who want to get onto the Democrat plantation? It's a given who the Unions will vote for. And the corpses in the grave yards, as well as the cartoon characters registered by ACORN.

The election is too far off. I'm ready now.

Quote of the Day 07.12.11

"So the fondest Washington hopes for a grand debt-limit deal have broken down over taxes. House Speaker John Boehner said late Saturday that he couldn't move ahead with a $4 trillion deal because President Obama was insisting on a $1 trillion tax increase, and the White House quickly denounced House Republicans for scuttling debt reduction and preventing "the very wealthiest and special interests from paying their fair share."

"How dare Republicans not agree to break their campaign promises and raise taxes when the jobless rate is 9.2% and President Obama's economic recovery is in jeopardy?

(...)

"Keep in mind that Mr. Obama has already signed the largest tax increase since 1993. While everyone focuses on the Bush tax rates that expire after 2012, other tax increases are already set to hit the economy thanks to the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

(...)

"There are numerous other new taxes in the bill, all adding up to some $438 billion in new revenue over 10 years. But even that is understated because by 2019 the annual revenue increase is nearly $90 billion, or $900 billion in the 10 years after that. Yet Mr. Obama wants to add another $1 trillion in new taxes on top of this.

(...)

"Mr. Obama is also touting spending cuts he's willing to make in entitlements in return for bigger tax increases, yet the spending increases built into ObamaCare aren't even up for discussion in the debt-limit talks. The Affordable Care Act adds more than 30 million more Americans onto Medicaid's rolls, when that program is already growing by 6.5% this year. So Mr. Obama is willing to cut current entitlements on grounds that they are unaffordable, but he's taken what may be the most expensive entitlement off the table.

"We think this was the President's spend-and-tax plan from the very first. Run up spending and debt in the name of stimulus and health-care reform, then count on Wall Street bond holders and the political establishment to browbeat Republicans into paying for it all. He apparently didn't figure on the rise of the tea party, or 1.9% GDP growth and 9.2% unemployment two years after the recession ended."

Wall Street Journal

Quote of the Day 07.10.11

“If they’re calling for $2 trillion in tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis, it’s little wonder that it’s been 800 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget,” said McConnell spokesman Don Stewart.

Lori Montgomery, Washington Post