Science – Page 3 – The Wrongologist

Climate Talks

The climate is speaking to us, but is anybody listening? Here is what the climate is telling us:

50% of Forest Bird species will go extinct in 50 years
99% of Rhinos gone since 1914
97% of Tigers gone since 1914
90% of Lions gone since 1993
90% of Sea Turtles gone since 1980
90% of Monarch Butterflies gone since 1995
90% of Big Ocean Fish gone since 1950
80% of Antarctic Krill gone since 1975
80% of Western Gorillas gone since 1955
60% of Forest Elephants gone since 1970
50% of the Great Barrier Reef gone since 1985
40% of Giraffes gone since 2000
40% of ocean phytoplankton gone since 1950
70% of Marine Birds gone since 1950
97% – Humans & Livestock are now 97% of land-air vertebrate biomass, while 10,000 years ago humans were just 0.01% of land-air vertebrate biomass
1,000,000 – The number of humans, net, that are added to earth every 4½ days

But, you gotta admit, antibiotic resistant germs are doing really, really well!

Now, maybe you accept climate change as a reality. Or, you may be a climate change skeptic, or a climate change denier, but no one should misunderstand what the climate is telling us. Slowly, the world is seeing more greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere, destroying ecosystems and encouraging global warming. The greenhouses gases can be caused by many different things, however, a lot of the earth’s greenhouses gases comes from various industrial businesses that burn hydrocarbon fuels. Some of these businesses have been asked to pay carbon tax as a result. The money from this tax gets contributed towards fighting climate change. Hopefully, more businesses will realize the impact they are having on the world and will look to lower the amount of carbon dioxide that they emit.

And, given the above, shouldn’t activists on all sides be discussing what can be done to stop the decline in flora and fauna? There cannot be a more important global problem that needs solving. Even Mr. Market should be working to help solve the die-off of species. Yet, we haven’t heard any ideas from him.

Here’s an idea: Getting human population growth and global GDP growth under control must be job one. Income inequality shouldn’t automatically prompt politicians to make calls for ever higher GDP growth, so that trickle-down will help the masses, since growing our way out of the die-off of species isn’t a viable long-term strategy.

You’d think politicians and economists would be asking: “Do we need to rethink our entire conceptual framework about population and economic growth?” Well, they aren’t interested in that thought.

They offer the same old thinking, just rearranged. If you want a Thanksgiving metaphor, your dinner plate is filled with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. And you take your fork and mix them all up, but they’re still the same. Even when you put gravy over all of it, it’s still not new. But it looks new, if somebody doesn’t think too carefully about what’s behind the new analysis.

Here is a view of the political divide on global warming in the US from The Economist:

And the NYT reported that on Tuesday, Republicans undercut Mr. Obama’s pledge at the Paris Climate Summit by approving two measures that Obama is sure to veto. The vote was largely along party lines. After the votes, Sen. John Barasso, (R-WY) said: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

While the president is at this climate conference, the American people [believe] that [his pledge] has a very, very low priority…

When Republicans in the Senate think the American people see climate change as a low priority when the poll above says they actually think its a pretty big deal, you know why we can’t get at solutions to the die-off of species.

Isn’t it curious that intelligent, educated conservatives denigrate climate change and its consequences, as some kind of phony science? They must see that there are plenty of business opportunities, and fortunes to be made as a result of climate change. This would normally have their hearts all aflutter at the chance to put their money behind a few disruptive innovations. But they have no interest, and are simply standing pat on the problem.

They are not alone. The Economist says the climate change just ain’t a big issue globally: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

A giant opinion-gathering exercise carried out by the UN finds that people in highly developed countries view climate change as the tenth most important issue out of a list of 16 that includes health care, phone and internet access, jobs, political freedom and reliable energy. In poor countries-and indeed in the world as a whole-climate change comes 16th out of 16.

It’s beginning to look like a few billion lemmings are just gonna follow their reproductive organs off a cliff.

And even if a few of today’s lemmings think they’re doing something new, for all of them together, well, things look grim.

Soon, Antibiotics Won’t Work

It’s estimated that more people will die from bacterial infections than from cancer by 2050. Two disparate factors are driving this. First, scientists in China say they’ve identified a gene that makes common, dangerous bacteria resistant to “last-resort” antibiotics called polymyxins. The mutated gene, called mcr-1, was found in the Enterobacteriaceae germ in both pigs and people in South China, according to a report published in The Lancet.

Study author Jian-Hua Liu, a professor at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, China, said:

The polymyxins (colistin and polymyxin B) were the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell…

The new gene was found on mobile forms of DNA that are easily copied and transferred between different bacteria. According to the researchers, this suggests a much greater potential for the gene to spread and diversify in different types of bacteria.

Liu went on to say that the discovery points to the emergence of a gene which can create multidrug resistance that:

is readily passed between common bacteria, including E. coli and the Klebsiella pneumoniae germ, which can cause deadly pneumonias or bloodstream infections.

We have all heard that extensive use of antibiotics in agriculture may contribute to this resistance gene. Liu’s team said that pigs were more likely than people to have bacteria with mcr-1 gene-related colistin resistance. That suggests that the resistance originated in animals and then spread to people.

The discovery bodes ill for public health worldwide. Timothy Walsh, Professor at the University of Cardiff in Wales, told BBC News: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

All the key players are now in place to make the post-antibiotic world a reality. If MCR-1 becomes global, which is a case of when not if, and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era.

According to the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, drug-resistant infections could kill an extra 10 million people across the world every year by 2050 if new antibiotics are not found. That’s 350 million people lost. By 2050, this could cost the world around $100 trillion in lost output: That’s more than the size of the current world economy, and roughly equivalent to the world losing the output of the UK economy every year, for 35 years. Here is a graphic representation of the scale of the problem:

The second factor driving this disaster is our Bad Corporate Citizens. There are two classes of these bad actors. The food conglomerates that feed antibiotics to animals raised for meat, so that pig farmers can make more profit, and the Big Pharma companies that spend their intellectual calories on corporate inversions (such as Pfizer is doing in its merger with Allergan) rather than on antibiotic research. As David Cox reports about drug company research:

They’re happy to sell existing antibiotics, but they’re not interested in researching and developing new ones.

Professor William Fenical at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego discovered a new antibiotic capable of attacking the bacteria MRSA, a hospital superbug. However, most large pharmaceutical companies abandoned their antibiotic programs by 1995. And even though we know that animals raised with no antibiotics are less likely to contain drug-resistant bacteria than those routinely given antibiotics, about 80% percent of antibiotics sold in the US are given to animals raised for food production.

So, we have a perfect storm brewing: To enhance corporate profits, we give antibiotics to animals, weakening the value of those antibiotics in controlling human disease. And we look the other way when the big drug companies use innovation to avoid taxes, while saying that research into new antibiotics is “too risky” for their shareholders.

Again, the strategy of big business is “privatize the gains, socialize the losses.” And maybe when you get sick, the doctor will only be able to prescribe you a pork chop.

The world needs a new capitalism. Mr. Market isn’t going to fix this.

More GOP Dickitude

Dickitude was on display at the House Oversight Committee hearing into Planned Parenthood (PP). Committee Chair, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) repeatedly interrupted PP President Cecile Richards as she tried to answer his questions Tuesday. Richards’ testimony was part of an investigation into PP’s business practices after sting videos were released that allegedly showed company executives discussing the sale of fetal tissue. Chaffetz took the time to note Richards’ salary.

Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000. Is that correct? he asked. ‘I don’t have the figures with me, but —‘Richards said. ‘It was,’ Chaffetz replied, ‘Congratulations.’

That had to be the first time in the recorded history that a Republican has criticized a CEO for making money. But, Richards provided the best moment of the day when Chaffetz was caught in a Fiorina-like lie after he pontificated on a projected slide:

CHAFFETZ: You’re going to deny that…
RICHARDS: I’m going to deny this slide that you just showed me that no one has ever provided us before! We’ve provided you all the information about everything — all the services that Planned Parenthood provides. And it doesn’t feel like we’re trying to get to the truth here. You just showed me this.
CHAFFETZ: I pulled those numbers directly out of your corporate reports!
RICHARDS: [legal team tells her something] Excuse me. My lawyers have informed me that the source of this is Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group. So I would check your source.
CHAFFETZ: [looking caught off-guard, stammering] then we will get to the bottom of the truth of that.

Shouldn’t they call the anti-abortion groups that created the fake chart (and the fake videos) to testify?

But, Dickitude doesn’t require a dick. We know that Carly Fiorina did not start the PP fire, but fanned the flames by her vivid comments during the 2nd Republican debate on Sept. 16th. Then, no one could find the section of the video that Carly said she saw.

Things seemed to go from bad to worse when a new video entitled “Carly Fiorina was right”, issued by The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, and purporting to show a PP abortion showed up this week. It quickly got traction in the media, but then things went from bad to worse: Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a board-certified OB/GYN took to her blog after viewing it. Dr. Gunter’s conclusion is that it was a premature delivery. She disputed Greg Cunningham, curator of the video, and the founder of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s finding, who told Time Magazine that it had to be an abortion:

Owing to the lack of medical treatment offered to the fetus.

Dr. Gunter says that Cunningham was wrong, since the fetus is 17-18 weeks and thus, previable, and that no doctor would render care in that circumstance. She goes on to say:

A neonatologist who attempts to resuscitate a 17 week delivery would be considered unethical.

Her final point was that there is no proof this video is in a PP clinic much less in the US. And hours after the publication of the video, several medical experts contacted by Time Magazine raised questions about whether the video showed an abortion.

These attempts to defund PP are a form of pandering to the anti-abortion wing of the Republican base. The base doesn’t care about literal truth when all them little angel babies are being massacred by the socialists.

Fiorina’s description of video evidence of PP performing a horrible procedure looks to be untrue, particularly since the footage:

• Didn’t come from the videos Fiorina was discussing
• There’s no evidence that the footage comes from PP
• There’s very good evidence that it doesn’t involve an abortion

Even if we grant that Fiorina was confused on the night of Sept. 16th when she made her statement about the video, the only way to explain her continued insistence that what she saw is real is to say she’s too stupid, too stubborn to admit she’s wrong, and/or that she’s a liar.

None of these are good qualities to have in a president.

Yet, the Right sees it exactly the other way: They think these are great qualities to have in a president. It’s a perfect projection of themselves onto an extremely powerful person, one who doesn’t give two fucks about reality, facts and evidence, and will lead from the gut.

That’s how we ended up in Iraq.

Friday Cartoon Blogging??

It sounds like an old story, but the Wrongologist and Ms. Oh So Right are again headed to a wedding in Vermont, so there will be no new posts until Monday. Therefore, cartoons!

We can’t ignore the visit of Pope Francis. Yesterday, he spoke to the Congress, and the usual spin ensued. Like the Liberty U folks when Bernie spoke there, the defining political issue for 90+% of Republicans is abortion. As long as the Pope remains with them on that issue, there’s no contradiction between their faith and political affiliation.

They will no more listen to this Pope on other issues than they did to John Paul II’s anti-war messages.

Liberals, including liberal Catholics, appreciate Francis because he says some things that they’ve believed for a long time. It’s always nice when an authority figure affirms one’s beliefs. But the three Catholic POTUS candidates, Christie, Jeb, and Santorum, have already rejected anything Francis has to say on climate change and income inequality. As have all the GOP members of Congress regardless of their religious affiliation.

The Pope’s big job:

Brian Williams returned from banishment to anchor coverage of the Pope:

We may see a government shutdown this fall. One thing to keep in mind about the Republican debate over whether or not to risk a government shutdown for the “defund Planned Parenthood” movement is that this isn’t a fight over goals or principles. There isn’t a single Republican presidential candidate who does not favor “defunding Planned Parenthood:

The GOP is moving on to Carly:

Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned on Wednesday over the emissions cheating scandal, saying “I’m not aware of any wrongdoing on my part.” Strange choice of words, probably written by his PR team. This is a rogue company that undertook anti-social activities for profit. Anyone can see that this is the outcome we should expect if Mr. Market is allowed to run free:

The Beetle morphs:

Monday Wake-Up Call – September 14, 2015

Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican contender for the presidency, moved to cut off $730,000 in Medicaid reimbursements to the state’s two Planned Parenthood clinics in late August. The question then arose, where would Louisiana women get these services in the event the funding was cancelled? From MoJo:

The task seems straightforward: Make a list of health care providers that would fill the void if Louisiana succeeded in defunding Planned Parenthood. But the state, which is fighting a court battle to strip the group of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicaid funds, is struggling to figure out who would provide poor women with family planning care if not Planned Parenthood.

So the state’s attorneys did some research. They said in a court declaration that there are 2,000 family planning providers ready to accommodate new female patients. John deGravelles, a federal judge who reviewed the list in a September 2nd court hearing, found hundreds of entries for specialists such as ophthalmologists; nursing home caregivers; dentists; ear, nose, and throat doctors; and even cosmetic surgeons. From Judge deGravelles:

It strikes me as extremely odd that you have a dermatologist, an audiologist, a dentist who are billing for family planning services…But that is what you’re representing to the court? You’re telling me that they can provide family planning and related services?

Dentists? Don’t dentists who do “Pap smears” wind up losing their licenses?

Anyway, the judge’s disbelief sent the state back to the drawing board. They came forward with a new list that did not include dentists, dermatologists, ophthalmologists and others. You will be shocked to learn the state was lying: Their new filing listed just 29 health care providers.

But even with this pared down list, it only got worse. MoJo reports that in Baton Rouge, the site of one of two Louisiana Planned Parenthood clinics, the state lists five alternate providers. But according to the state’s own filing, only three of those offer contraception, and two of those have wait times ranging from two to seven weeks. One of the Baton Rouge clinics the state suggested is not accepting any new patients for STI, breast cancer, or cervical cancer screenings.

Since Reagan, Republicans have been able to say whatever stupid or completely false thing they want. They keep doing it because their supporters don’t mind, and they almost never get called on it by the media. It’s been “regarding shape of the earth, opinions differ” for decades.

This tendency to make shit up or say ridiculous things is particularly pronounced whenever the subject is abortion, birth control, or any other aspect of female sexuality. Sadly, the notion that patients could turn elsewhere remains a key rationale when Republicans attempt to strip Planned Parenthood of $528 million in federal funding as part of this month’s budget talks.

So what Jindal’s minions are attempting is more of the same. But, perhaps you remember Mr. Jindal saying in 2013 that the GOP had to “stop being the stupid party”? He didn’t mean that. The GOP reserves the right to be as anti-abortion, anti-women, and anti-science as they want to be.

Let’s make an effort to wake up Mr. Jindal and his fellow GOP’ers, even if it may be futile. Here is Bon Jovi with “We Weren’t Born to Follow”, a top 10 hit for them in 2009:

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

Sample Lyrics:
We weren’t born to follow
Come on and get up off your knees
When life is a bitter pill to swallow
You gotta hold on to what you believe
Believe that the sun will shine tomorrow
And that your saints and sinners bleed
We weren’t born to follow
You gotta stand up for what you believe

Monday Wake Up Call – July 27, 2015

The Connecticut Democratic Party has decided to change the name of its “Jefferson-Jackson Dinner”. Apparently prompted by the national controversy over the Confederate flag, the state’s Democratic Party last week voted unanimously to change the name of its annual fundraising dinner and remove the names of two slave-owning American presidents.

The clear implication is that there’s something wrong with Thomas Jefferson which puts him in the same category as the Confederate Flag. The Hartford Courant reported this quote from the state Democrats’ resolution:

As members of the Democratic Party, we are proud of our history as the party of inclusion. Democrats have led the way on civil rights, LGBT equality and equal rights for women…It is only fitting that the name of the party’s most visible annual event reflects our dedication to diversity and forward-looking vision.

Wrongo doesn’t care if the Democratic Party stops naming their fundraisers after Jefferson and Jackson.

What is bothersome is the implication that Jefferson is a pariah. Andrew Jackson is another matter, despite the fact that the symbol of the party is the donkey, or jackass. “Jackass,” stood for Andrew Jackson. It came from an 1837 political cartoon referring to Jackson as a “Jack-ass.” Jackson thought it was funny, and used it to his advantage. Democrats embraced the symbol, and it has stuck for nearly 180 years.

What message does the CT Dems public disowning of Jefferson send? Do CT Dems understand history? We owe a debt to Jefferson. It’s easy to say that Jefferson did things that were wrong, but he wrote the Declaration of Independence, managed our relationships with France during the Revolutionary War, and was a highly successful president. It is a huge mistake to invalidate his accomplishments because of his personal foibles. He was a man of his time, and did what he did. But, without him, our revolution would have been different.

Making perfection the enemy of great is wrong-headed. It places the CT Dems in a similar intellectual place as Donald Trump, who says McCain isn’t a war hero because he was captured, or that John Kerry wasn’t a good negotiator because he fell off his bike.

Maybe we could all be adults? The effort at political correctness by the modern Democratic Party is fine, but we should remember that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a perfect man. African-Americans know that, but Dr. King is still revered by almost all Americans.

And the fact that today’s GOP embraces Abraham Lincoln does not make the modern GOP a racism-free party, regardless of how often the GOP invokes Lincoln’s name to claim credit for his greatness. Judging our founders, or our heroes by today’s standards, would condemn almost everyone past and present. Maybe, Democrats in Washington, CT, named after George, will want to change its name, since George Washington owned slaves.

Yes, there are egalitarian threads in both the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian traditions that resonate with Democrats today—but both men based the equality of some men upon the subordination of others.

Since CT Democrats are determined to replace Jefferson and Jackson as patrons of these events, and are holding a meeting to decide the new name of the event in September, without question, FDR-JFK could serve pretty well, despite each man’s foibles. Or maybe, Joe Lieberman?

Are you the one American without personal foibles?

So, wake up Connecticut Democrats. To help with their wake-up, here is #4 in our songs of summer series, “Summertime Blues”, the great Eddie Cochran tune done here by Brian Setzer on MTV, recorded live for the ‘La Bamba’ concert. It reminds that there was a time when MTV was watchable:

For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can see the video here.

Monday’s Hot Links:
Foreign Policy reports that back in 2000, the NSA intercepted a call to Bin Laden’s operations center in Yemen from a 9/11 hijacker in San Diego. They failed to follow-up, which should set off warning bells. Now 16 years later, the NSA denies they knew where the calls originated. That’s bullshit two ways: In 2000, the telephone network’s technology automatically provided a digital equivalent of caller ID to every phone switch, including NSA’s. And former NSA people like Tom Drake and William Binney say there’s no way the NSA wouldn’t have tapped this line.

Dark matter is the stuff that cosmologists think makes up some 85% of all the matter in the universe. A new theory says dark matter might be a known particle. If true, that would open up a window onto an invisible, dark matter version of physics.

Turkey launches war on Islamic State’s worst enemies – The Kurds. This blog site, Moon of Alabama, can be decidedly anti-American, but this is a must read article.

Gun deaths will surpass automobile deaths in the US this year, says The Atlantic. Car crashes killed 33,561 people in 2012, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Firearms killed 32,251 people in the US in 2011, the most recent year for which the CDC has data. The young are most at risk: CDC data show guns will kill more Americans under 25 than cars in 2015. Surely, a small price to pay for our Second Amendment freedoms?

Marilyn Tavenner, who served as the chief administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services from 2013 until February, is now in charge of an insurance industry lobby. This tells us all we need to know about where insurance companies see their next pot of gold. It is the Medicare Advantage program, which over the past several years, has become an increasingly important revenue stream for the country’s insurers. Revolving door much?

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Science