08.11.07
Broadband in the US
It’s an ugly story:
There are no good guys in this story. Misguided and incompetent regulation combined with utilities that found ways to game the system resulted in what had been the best communication system in the world becoming just so-so, though very profitable. We as consumers were consistently sold ideas that were impractical only to have those be replaced later by less-ambitious technologies that, in turn, were still under-delivered. Congress set mandates then provided little or no oversight. The FCC was (and probably still is) managed for the benefit of the companies and their lobbyists, not for you and me. And the upshot is that I could move to Japan and pay $14 per month for 100-megabit-per-second Internet service but I can’t do that here and will probably never be able to.
Despite this, the FCC says America has the highest broadband deployment rate in the world and President Bush has set a goal of having broadband available to every U.S. home by the end of this year. What have these guys been smoking? Nothing, actually, they simply redefined “broadband” as any Internet service with a download speed of 200 kilobits per second or better. That’s less than one percent the target speed set in 1994 that we were supposed to have achieved by 2000 under regulations that still remain in place.
Don Young, corrupt Senator
There are earmarks, and then there are earmarks.
Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has taken the political art form to an ethically questionable level that even some experts in the trenches have never seen. In 2005, Young waited until after the House and Senate passed a transportation bill, but before the president signed it into law, to rewrite a passage that would have granted $10 million for an interstate in Florida. His new wording targeted the money to a much smaller, more specific project to connect Coconut Road to that interstate. It’s an unpopular project in the area, but a boon for real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, who held a $40,000 fundraiser for Young in Florida just before the earmark appeared.
Young has refused multiple requests for comment from different publications on these, and related allegations. Once he made an obscene gesture at a New York Times reporter who approached him about the earmark. His spokeswoman did not get back to us today.
I asked a few experts today for historical and ethical perspective on Young’s move.
The Right hopes for another 9/11
I received a message from a reader recently in which the statement “If the Surge fails, it will be good for the Democrats” was taken as meaning “The Democrats hope that the Surge fails.” I tried to explain that the statement is just trying to make judgments on the consequences of outcomes and is no different than the statement, “The GOP has tied itself to the Iraq War and to the Surge, and if the Surge succeeds, it will help the GOP; if it fails, it could pull them down.” Just a statement of outcomes.
But on the Right, there really does seem to be hope that another 9/11 will happen to the US. From ThinkProgress. So the Right really is hoping for the death of thousands of American civilians in a terrorist attack. Really. Go to the link and see it, including a video clip:
The Surge and its success/failure
Glenn Greenwald has a post on a number of topics (including Gen. Petraeus’s consistently optimistic and sunny reports on the situation in Iraq over the past several years—things always going well, getting better, etc.). I thought this portion would be of interest:
As Greg Sargent first noted, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies accompanied Ken Pollack and Mike O’Hanlon on their storied 8-day-field-trip to Iraq and reached a much different conclusion than they did (”my perceptions of a recent trip to Iraq are different from that of two of my traveling companions and those of several other recent think tank travelers to the country”). [My article concerning just how massive a fraud was this trip, subsequent Pollack/O'Hanlon Op-Ed and follow-up frenzied media coverage -- based, among other things, on my interview with O'Hanlon -- will be published tomorrow.]
Prior to the issuance of Cordesman’s report, Pollack went on television and insinuated that Cordesman shared the conclusions he and O’Hanlon reached, as when, for instance, he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “And it’s one of the first things we should say, which is Mike and I, and, also, our colleague Tony Cordesman, who all traveled together, we came back optimistic — but very guardedly optimistic.”
Cordesman’s full report (.pdf) is well worth reading. It includes the following [click images to read - LG]:
These facts are not new, but it is so striking how rarely one encounters them, even for those who read extensively about the war. I would be interested in seeing polling data as to what percentage of American realize that our invasion has resulted in the displacement of four million human beings, the deaths of “at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians” (and, indirectly, many more), and “severe hardship” suffered by at least 8 million Iraqis. These facts are virtually whitewashed from our public discourse by the opinion-making guardians who are responsible for this war and want to avoid recognition of what they have unleashed.The war cheered on — still — by the Brookings Institution and the Washington Post and Tom Friedman and the Foreign Policy Community and Bill Kristol and his comrades has decimated and continues to decimate the lives of millions of innocent Iraqis. The ethnic cleansing and genocide which they manipulatively invoke with such solemn and profound concern in order to justify staying has already occurred and continues unabated, thanks to them.
What we have done and continue to do in Iraq is monumentally grotesque and the cold and inescapable facts which demonstrate that are barely acknowledged. Worst of all, of course, is that those responsible have not only evaded accountability, but continue to occupy the positions of greatest influence and establishment credibility.
Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence
I got to thinking more about the Dependence thing. Stephen Covey wrote a book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, that I think (a) is worth reading and (b) bears on this question. (It’s not a particularly well-written book, BTW, and is more obscure in parts than it needs to be. If you do read it, this outline (PDF file) may help.)
The 7th habit is the habit of renewal: taking care of your body, mind, and spirit to ensure overall health and continuing improvement. Of the other habits, 1 through 3 are designed to bring you from a state of dependence to independence. These three habits you do by yourself, and you learn to stand on your own two feet, as it were. Habits 4 through 6 are designed to bring you from a state of independence, relying on yourself, to interdependence—able to work cooperatively and blend your strengths with the strengths of others, thus being able to accomplish more. These habits you work on through your interactions with others. There are some interest correspondences between 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6, by the way—but read the outline and the book for more.
The idea is that interdependence is the highest level—not independence. The one who stands alone can accomplish only so much. With a group, working effectively and cooperatively, dividing up tasks and responsibilities, each depending to some extent on the others—i.e., interdependence—so much more can be done. He also points out that, to reach this, you first have to master the skills of independence.
I thought I’d bring this up, in case any believe that independence is the highest state.
What you can see if you observe
The Wife and I were at Cornucopia, a little health-food store in Carmel. It has the usual bins of whole grains for bulk sales, handmade this and organic that, and the checkout lanes are pointed at the front door.
The Wife, standing aside while I paid for my stuff, saw a bird come darting the door, running on the ground with its head down. It looked at the checkout lanes, picked one that was empty (no clerk, even), and dashed down it, still running with lowered head. It was clearly heading for the grain bins, and it acted as if it had done this before.
Diabetes: it may be the bones
If your blood glucose is out of whack, the problem may be in your bones. New research in mice shows that bone cells exert a surprising influence on how the body regulates sugar, energy, and fat.
THE ARM BONE’S CONNECTED. A bone-cell protein called osteocalcin influences energy metabolism through its effects on pancreatic and fat cells.
N. Heim/Columbia Univ. Med. CenterThe discovery could lead to new ways to treat type 2 diabetes, a disease involving poor regulation of blood glucose. It also means that skeletons act as endocrine organs, which affect other body tissues by releasing hormones into the bloodstream.
“I’m already changing my teaching slides” about the functions of bones, comments Jennifer Westendorf, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Now we can add that [the skeleton] affects energy metabolism as well,” she says. “It’s certainly an exciting breakthrough.”
The team announcing the finding, led by Gerard Karsenty of Columbia University, had previously found that fat cells secrete a hormone that influences bone-forming cells called osteoblasts. Because hormone regulation between two cell types is often reciprocal, Karsenty and his team reasoned that osteoblasts might also be emitting hormones that control fat tissue. Osteoblasts make bone throughout a healthy person’s lifetime, while cells called osteoclasts tear down bone—processes that constantly remodel the skeleton.
Osteocalcin, a somewhat enigmatic protein produced only by osteoblasts, seemed like a good hormone candidate, Karsenty says. “[It] has been the flagship molecule of the [bone-research] field for 30 years, but nobody knew what it was doing.”
Karsenty’s team fed a normal diet to mice engineered to lack the gene for osteocalcin. The mice became obese and had low blood concentrations of insulin, a key hormone for controlling blood glucose. The animals also had poor sensitivity to insulin, a hallmark of people with diabetes.
Another group of mice, which had been engineered to have extra osteocalcin, stayed thin despite being fed a high-calorie diet. These animals also maintained higher insulin concentrations and better sensitivity to insulin than the mice lacking osteocalcin did, the team reports in the Aug. 10 Cell.
Further tests on mice showed that osteocalcin causes the insulin-making cells in the pancreas to proliferate and ramp up insulin production. The bone protein also causes fat cells to store less fat and to secrete a hormone called adiponectin. In people as well as in mice, this substance improves cells’ sensitivity to insulin.
Previous research has shown that many people with type 2 diabetes have low blood concentrations of osteocalcin.
“Osteocalcin, if everything goes well, could be a treatment for type 2 diabetes. That’s where the excitement is,” Karsenty says. Columbia University holds a patent on the idea, and Karsenty says that he’s helping form a company to commercialize the treatment.
“This could also have important ramifications for cardiovascular disease because of the effect on metabolic syndrome,” a condition related to diabetes, comments Dana T. Graves of Boston University. “The fact that bone cells regulate energy metabolism, and that they do it through osteocalcin, is a major finding,” he says.
Dependence vs. delegation
One thing I’ve noticed recently is that those who oppose government services talk about our “dependence” on those services. Dependence in itself is not bad, of course: I depend on my glasses, my wife, my meds, and the like. Being able to rely on something is, in general, thought to be good.
But to a great extent, we are also delegating services to the government. I don’t want to have to band together with neighbors as vigilantes to fight crime—I’m happy to pay taxes to support a police force. (I also want there to be oversight of the police force, of course.) I don’t want to rely on word-of-mouth rumors about which medicines are reliable—I’m happy to pay taxes to support a functional Food and Drug Administration and delegat to them the responsibility to check the efficacy and purity of drugs—and I’ll vote to make sure that the FDA operates properly, with professional staff, ethical behavior, and effective oversight by Congress.
Same with so many things: airplane inspections, for example. Workplace safety. Social Security old-age and survivor benefits. And national single-payer healthcare. Those are things that are nice to have, and I happily pay taxes to support them.
Watch out for dry mouth
At the dentist last week, the technician told me, “Your mouth is very dry.” She explained that this could be the results of meds—and indeed, I spotted a couple of pamphlets on the shelf about dry mouth and diabetics. It’s not good at all: the dryness of the mouth—insufficient saliva—means that the acids created by bacteria around the teeth are not diluted, so they start dissolving the enamel. Even worse, people with dry mouths often will suck on hard candies to make more saliva, and the sugar helps the bacteria multiply. When the candy’s gone, the bacteria have increased, as has the acid that they create.
Better is to keep a small refillable (”Refill, not Landfill”) water bottle by your side and sip water. The idea is not to get a large volume of water, but to keep your mouth irrigated: small, frequent sips that you swish around your mouth before swallowing.
She also gave me a little pack of Biotène products, crated for dry-mouth therapy: toothpaste, mouthwash, moisturizing liquid.
So: if your mouth tends to be dry, don’t wait for your dentist to warn you. Try the sips of water and look into the Biotène products. Keep your teeth for later.
For font geeks
Interesting story on the creation and adoption of Clearview, the new font that is being used on Interstate and Federal highways.
Another rosy day
I liked yesterday’s rose shaving soap so much that I decided to run through a rose cycle, and this morning used the ebony-handled Sabini to make a luscious lather from Honeybee Spa’s Victorian Rose shea-butter soap. Lovely, thick, generous lather. And I got an Astra-smooth shave with a new Astra Superior blade in the Edwin Jagger Georgian.
The aftershave was Clubman Geo, and it was quite nice—a splash and a good fragrance.
