Obsidian Wings

A Mouse With A Human Brain ...

Via bioethics.net comes news of a National Geographic News article called "Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy". The article is, in my judgment, really confused: confused in a way that makes it much more sensationalistic than it should be, and obscures the really interesting questions that human/non-human chimeras raise.

For instance, it says that "at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains." Now, I don't know what, exactly, they are planning to do at Stanford, though I can guess. But it's really unlikely that they are going to try to make mice with human brains. Why? Well, for starters, think of the size problems. You have a little mouse body a few inches long, weighing maybe an ounce, and then attached to it a mouse head big enough to house an entire human brain, weighing a couple of pounds. Leaving aside such questions as, how would it walk? How huge would its neck muscles have to be? and so forth, just ask yourself how, exactly, a human brain is supposed to fit inside a mouse cranium, even assuming that crania have some capacity to expand early in development.

You might at this point be thinking: silly hilzoy! Obviously, what the article means is that they will create a mouse with a mouse-sized human brain, just as, if someone said they were going to build a Matchbox car with a working automobile engine, they would mean a Matchbox-sized engine, not a regular one. But how would this work? A mouse-sized brain made of human neurons would not be (what we normally think of as) a human brain, any more than something small enough to fit into a Matchbox car chassis, but made of (a small number of) normal-sized engine parts, would count as a normal working engine. The obvious solution would be to make the engine, or the brain, out of tiny replica parts. But we don't have tiny little replicas of human neurons. Nor is there any reason to think that it's even possible to create a tiny version of the human neuron that works the way a human neuron works, so that if we arranged those tiny neurons the way normal neurons are arranged in the human brain, they would work (a) at all, or (b) the way a human brain does. So the idea of a mouse with a human brain, in anything like the normal sense of that phrase, is just a non-starter.

Likewise, the article raises this (im)possibility (quoting a bioethicist who should know better):

"an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice."

Just try to imagine how the logistics of this might work. The two mice mate, and conceive a child. It begins to develop. Then what? Presumably, one of two things happen: the fetus dies, or the female mouse bursts. What could not possibly happen is that a female mouse could actually, literally, carry a human infant to term and then give birth to it. (Through a mouse pelvis? After spending the better part of the entire mouse lifespan pregnant with a child that would, at birth, weigh on the order of a hundred times as much as she does? Please.)

As I said, though, all this just serves to obscure some interesting questions, to which I will now turn. (Warning: it's going to be one of my wonky posts. But it will be interesting to me to see whether anyone makes it through, and if so whether they think I'm right.)

Aaargh.

The following comes from Von, and only Von:

I'm concerned that a double standard is being applied by some (not all or even most) of our lefty commentators in calls to "ban" folks on the right.  (I'm specifically not referring here to e-mails to the site, which have been very helpful, but to comments in threads.) 

In any place where right and left meet, there will be disagreements, misunderstandings, harshness, bad assumptions, broad brushes, insults, and poor insta-reactions.  It goes with the territory.  I would ask that our loyal readers and commentators recognize that.

If someone says something that you perceive to be nasty or off-topic, I'd ask that "ban them" not be your first reaction.  No one commentator, after all, can individually take a thread off topic.

I'm not singling out any commentator; I'm noting a tone.  I specifically don't want this thread to devolve into "I only called for X's banning because ...."  Indeed, I'm not assigning any blame.  But I am telling you my impressions and frustrations, and would ask that y'all give me yours in comments.

(Again, this message is from Von, not any other member of ObWi's hive mind.)

Wal-Mart Gets It...Kind of

On one hand this is a good thing, IMO:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is expanding the definition of "immediate family" in its employee-ethics policy to account for laws in states that recognize domestic partnerships and civil unions.

The change drew quick praise from a major gay-rights lobbying organization.

The revised policy, which was disclosed Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission recognizes that in some states "immediate family" includes an employee's same-sex partner.

On the other hand, though, this change represents additional responsibilities for Wal-Mart's gay employees, but not necessarily any additional benefits:

The revisions deal with sections of the company's ethics code that bar employees from using confidential information to benefit themselves or immediate family members and from approaching Wal-Mart's suppliers about jobs for immediate family members, the company said Thursday.

Wal-Mart spokesman Gus Whitcomb declined to say whether the change would affect benefits for employees of the nation's largest employer or whether the revision meant the company was taking a position on same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Believing that progess happens best one step at a time, overall I'm happy to see this. Gay Americans should be willing to accept responsibility first and receive benefits second. All Americans should. Let's just hope Wal-Mart's sense of "family" doesn't stop at the first step.

I'm sorry, Jim

.... but pointing out that certain newspapers will spin the coming Iraq elections one way doesn't mean that spinning it the other is any better:

However the election goes will be one thing; how it’s reported is another. The thing to watch is the position of the Damning But, the old DB. The DB will probably bob up in the first or second paragraphs of most dispatches. “The election went as planned in 95 percent of the country, but violence marred polling in the disputed Sunny D Triangle, where insurgents opposed to Tropicana Juice fired automatic weapons into an juice concentrate factory.” That’s one spin. “The election, long anticipated as a flashpoint for insurgent activity, went off with few delays. Despite sporadic gunfire marred the overall mood of success in several provinces, observers said that the process was ‘smooth as a Sade groove,’ adding that they were annoyed Sade had simply faded away instead of letting her career end with a tasteful layout in Playboy.” See? No DB there. We’ll see.

Though, like Glenn Reynolds, I have no dispute with Lilek's point regarding Sade's career nadir.

My view is that the very fact that Iraq is having elections, as violence marred as they may be, is a significant and important step forward. 

No, the elections won't be perfect.  No, the resulting insurgency will not end the next day in a groping love-in of hugs and puppy dogs.  Yes, we might still lose in Iraq.  But Bush's decision to set and firm date for elections, and to keep to that date even when it seemed impossible to achieve, was the right strategic choice.  The elections have become (and are) inevitable, and the next phases -- the drafting and ratification of a new Iraqi Constitution -- are taking on the same sheen. 

Don't get me wrong:  I'm still highly critical of Bush's handling of the war.  He has made many, many mistakes.  But he has also done some things right.  This is one of them.  And it deserves to be praised.

Frustrations With the Social Security Debate

I have a few deep frustrations about how the Social Security debate typically plays out. 

1.  Is it a pension program or a safety net program?  It seems that whenever I have the debate, the Social Security advocate will adopt whichever position is orthoganal to what I'm talking about--often flipping back and forth in the same conversation.  It I talk about how bad a return Social Security is on investment its I'm accused of wanting to throw old people out on the street.  If I talk about how stupid it is to pay $10-15 billion per year to rich and upper-middle class people its status as a universal pension system. 

2.  We can't break our promises to the retired. That's nice rhetoric.  No one is proposing that we do that.  All of the proposals have phase-in periods.  The implication of this charge is that having made a specific social security promise to one generation, we are now obligated to make that promise or better to all future generations.  We aren't.  We can choose to admit that we made promises slightly too grand and for future generations we are going to be scaling back to a real safety net that only kicks in when you are approaching poverty.  We can ask 25 and 30 year olds to plan for their own retirement.  This isn't about breaking promises.  It is about not making stupid ones.  Waiting until 30 years from now is far more likely to lead to broken promises of some sort than anything we do now. 

3.  The trust fund and assets. Loans by one branch of the federal government to another aren't assets.  They may be promises to pay of some sort, but when it comes down to it cashing them out doesn't help the economic situation one bit.  If there are T-bills cashed to pay Social Security liabilities these will be paid for by taxes.  If there are not T-bills cashed to pay Social Security liabilities, they will be paid for by taxes of the exact same amount.  Pretending that everything is fine just because the Administration has bonds is silly. 

4.  Social Security isn't the Problem. So what?  Missile defense isn't THE problem either, but drastically cutting it might not be a bad idea.  This often comes in the form of "Medicare is a Worse Problem".  That is undoubtedly true.  It is also much harder to solve.  In fact I haven't heard a single really good proposal to solve any of the many problems that plauge Medicare.  There are a number of highly equitable changes that could be made to Social Security now to make it much cheaper for taxpayers in the future.  The fact that farm subsidies should be ended or that Medicare is a problem or that the tort system is ugly doesn't change that. 

I would also like to draw attention to an excellent post at the FlyBottle.  I hope he will forgive me for quoting almost the whole post:

It is now clear to me that the forecasting debate works by choosing your favored assumptions about growth, aging, immigration, etc., extrapolating into the future, and then arguing either that we are "headed for an iceberg" or that there is no iceberg, or at least there is no iceberg that can't be evaded with marginal tinkering.

However, the fact remains that no one knows what the growth rate is going to be in ten years. No one can tell you whether there will be a huge jump in life expetancy due to technological innovation in 20 years. No one can tell you whether President Jeb Bush will usher in a new era of mass immigration. Maybe those fascistic millenials will have six kids per pair!

Whatever the case may be, whether or not social security-as-we-know-it is sustainable depends on a lot of what we don't know and can't know. We can and should try to see what the future will look like if certain trends continue, given various different assumptions. Yet, we don't know how to assign probabilities to the assumptions or to the possible futures. It is likely that some unpredictable exogenous factor will render any such assignment moot.

But frustrations about the futility of the forecasting debate point to a deep flaw in the design of social security: the system is fragile. Brittle, even. The fact that the projected sustainability of social security is so sensitive to fairly small changes in growth rates, demographic change, unemployment rates and is a sure sign that it is extremely poorly designed policy.

Advocates of status quo-ish approaches are stuck arguing that the future's going to thread the needle of conditions under which the system is viable. Now, I don't know, and neither do they, whether their favored forecast will become reality. But it remains that a well-designed institution should be robust under a broad range of future conditions. Our PAYGO system just isn't. Small differences in the rate of growth, rate of increase of life expectancy, and so on, shouldn't make or break the system. Of course, there is no system that can reliably withstand dramatic changes in any variable. But we should at least aim for a system that is fairly adaptive and robust against moderate changes in growth, population, employement, and aging.

The Pro-Toture Right.

LGF's commentators aim low -- and hit!  Sully's the latest target, for having the gumption to suggest that torture is wrong.  Charles responds by proving he's not really all that clear on such nuanced things as "dictionary definitions," "the issues," and "the kind of website he chooses to run." 

So it goes.  If you want uninformed political commentary from a guy whose reaction to the Madrid bombings was to make fun of the mourners; who presides over one of the most insular and profane commentaraits in the blogosphere; who has the fervor of the zealot without the restraining humility of actual belief; and who engages in rational thought only to the extent that he needs to rationalize the latest fact into his preset response tree -- well, by all means, read Charles Johnson. 

Incidentally, the guy isn't pro-Israel.  He's anti-Moslem.  There's a difference.  (I wouldn't rely on him in a pinch.)

UPDATE:  Presumably under the principle that "if you can't refute it, ignore it," Charles Johnson has blocked access to LGF.  You can view the relevant threads here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=14477#comments;  http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=14492_Sullivan_Off_the_Rails_Again#comments.   

"How Can I Break His Reliance On God?"

Katherine linked to this AP story in a comment on an earlier thread. It concerns allegations in a manuscript written by a former translator at Guantanamo. I post excerpts without comment.

Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account. (...)

In another case, Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could "cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer.'"

The man closed his eyes and began to pray, Saar writes.

The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.

The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.

The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.

Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.

"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret."

The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.

"She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.

"She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" — so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.

"He began to cry like a baby," the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself."

About the manuscript's author:

"Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an Arabic translator at the U.S. camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002 to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from prisoners, including alleged al-Qaida members caught in Afghanistan (...)

Saar said he volunteered to go to Guantanamo because "I really believed in the mission," but then he became disillusioned during his six months at the prison."

Full disclosure. Maybe.

This is funny (via Glenn Reynolds).  Still, it's kinda strange that the blogosphere is focused on the coming crypto-pundit invasion, but has wholly missed the enemy already within.  The blogosphere is utterly overrun by lawyers, including yours truly, who are virtual double agents -- and bound as fiduciaries to represent their clients' interests. 

(Incidentally, we lawyers prefer the term "overrun" to "crawling," given that more than 50% of us can stand on our hind legs.)

What's wrong with that, you say?  I guess it depends on the interests that are being represented.  Would you find it pertinent to know that I represent pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers?  Might that might influence how I write about drug patents or stem cell research?  What about the fact that I represent manufacturers who depend on foreign contractors and suppliers?  Could that influence my views on free trade?  Heck, I even help to represent a European manufacturer (based in France of all places) -- exactly what kinda "idiotonic" agenda might I have up my sleeve?

You see how it goes.  I'm fortunate in that my political views largely align with my clients' interests (pro-technology, socially liberal, generally pro-business).  But, if an issue directly affected one of my clients, my views won't matter.  It's the difference between principal and agent.  Regardless of the nuance or brilliance of my advice, at the end of the day I'm a set of hands.

Something to keep in mind -- and not just with me.

UPDATE:  As for my own double-secret agent hood, here's what I posted to Hilzoy in comments:  "This is a personal weblog. It is not a professional outlet. If an issue directly affects one of my clients, I will refrain from blogging it (and have so refrained in the past). "

Why Blogs Are Essential

OK, so I have not subjected this to thorough testing, yet, to see whether it's been photoshopped, but it's funny all the same. Via Wonkette:

BigBrainBoy posts this image a friend of his took (click on image to see larger)

BigBrainBoy's Caption:

Not much to be said here. This does rule out the terrifying possibility of an unkillable zombie Bin Laden though. Does anyone know how to become an ‘expert’ for the news media? Seems like an easy job.

Kos Theory

From today:

Republicans love [Joe Lieberman, aka the Ninja] for the same reason that Democrats love McCain -- because they both spend a great deal of the time beating up publicly on their own party.

But for that reason, especially given our minority status (when the party needs to stick together for survival), Lieberman must go. I don't want another six years of him bashing Democrats on Fox News next to a fawning Sean Hannity.

Hmm, that's interesting.  I have a thesis.  How shall I test it?

House Race Bloggers: So Little Knowledge, So Much Hot Air
By Stuart Rothenberg
Roll Call Contributing Writer
January 27, 2005

.... Contributors to two of the better known political blogs, Daily Kos and MyDD, seem to believe that they know more about House campaigns than do the professionals who have spent years actually working on races and running campaign committees.

The first rule of blogging apparently is "All Opinions Are Equal," with "Experience Doesn't Matter" a close second.

Last cycle, Markos Moulitsas ... of Daily Kos promoted a number of Democratic House candidates, including Missouri's Jim Newberry and Ohio's Jeff Seeman and Ben Konop as good targets for fundraising assistance.

Newberry drew 28 percent of the vote against Rep. Roy Blunt (R), while Seeman hauled in 33 percent against Rep. Ralph Regula (R). Konop topped the trio, taking 41 percent against Rep. Mike Oxley (R).

All three races were unwinnable from day one for the Democrats, so raising cash for those challengers was about as useful as flushing money down the toilet.

....

Blogging is getting more attention in the mainstream media and from the political parties. As vehicles for fundraising, blogs can't be ignored. And some bloggers have interesting things to say. But when it comes to campaign savvy or understanding how the campaign committees operate, two of the most high-profile liberal bloggers have an exaggerated sense of their own importance and insights.

(Via RedState.)

The thesis has support!