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Thursday, November 06, 2003Last night I happened across this thread on Slashdot. Experts have determined the damage that would have been caused had Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot succeeded in 1605. The University of Wales analysis itself is nothing special ("Had 2.5 tons of gunpowder exploded, we predict that lots of shit likely would have blown up."), but part of the ensuing discussion is whether or not the Gunpowder Plot was itself a setup by James I. I was a history major and took a lot of classes on Early Modern England, so I find this fascinating. Also, that time period has some bearing on our current situation in the Middle East. For those of you who were not history majors, Catholicism was illegal in England at this time. James VI of Scotland became the English king James I, and it was speculated that he would pass legislation that would tolerate Catholicism. (Due to allegiances between the Scottish and French royal families, the Scottish royalty was half French Catholic and James I was rumored to have Catholic sympathies.) Fawkes and his conspirators were extremists who felt that James wasn't moving fast enough toward legitimizing Catholicism and tried to blow up the palace; their capture was a signal to the populace that, since Catholic extremists were dissatisfied with him, James must therefore be loyal to the Church of England. It also reinforced the legitimacy of the English presence in Ireland, since the natives were a bunch of subhuman papists anyway. The English Man thereby continued keepin' my people down. Kill Limey! Err, anyway, this is relevant to the current Middle East situation as follows: I cannot conceive of killing someone because of their religion, but four hundred years ago it was the status quo. And this wasn't God vs. Allah vs. Brahmin stuff either, just different interpretations of Christianity. You think that during Communion the Eucharist literally assumes the spiritual essence of Jesus? I guess I'll have to stab you in the eye and burn you at the stake, you heathen you. Osama may be right when he refers to America as the Paper Tiger who will withdraw after a Mogadishu or two. We are a secular society and have nowhere near the fanatical conviction of someone who believes God wants him to fight. If we lose a hundred thousand soldiers in the War On Terror, we might just say Eff It, pull out of the Middle East, and become isolationists. By contrast, Khalid Sixpack is motivated to fight to the death without regard for the odds. We're fighting for National Security and The American Way; he's fighting for his Immortal Soul. Some people Get It, believing that the next ten years will be a war to preserve Western civilization. These folks are willing to fight a long war and make sacrifices for the cause. Most Americans, however, would rather go home to a stable job and family and have a pizza a glass of beer on a Friday night instead of think about abstract notions of civil society and separation of church and state. These people are called "swing voters," and they terrify me almost as much as Al Qaeda. Three Hundred Sixty-Odd days from now these people will have their say, and it is up to us-- bloggers, journalists, and ordinary people-- to convince them that national security is the main election issue, not Enron or Martha Stewart or the fact that the economy has gone to shit. Were this September 10th, 2001 I would vote for Howard Dean in a millisecond; however, I trust him with national security about as much as I trust Naked Warren Beatty in a Hot Tub with my girlfriend. 1970's sex symbol Warren Beatty, that is. The current Warren Beatty is all wrinkly, and that's before you factor in the variegated moisture droplets from the hot tub. posted by Nate on 11:13 PM link Tuesday, November 04, 2003Cure for cancer? The National Cancer Institute has agreed to fund clincal studies on a proprietary form of reovirus which kills cancerous cells. Oncolytics, the biotech company that created this form of the reovirus, explains how it works: The reovirus was identified almost half a century ago, but was found to be a fairly benign virus. Because of its safety profile, it has been used for decades by scientists interested in studying how viruses infect human cells. Through the 1990s, graduate students and professors working at the University of Calgary discovered through a series of experiments that the reovirus appeared to have a remarkable ability to infect and kill many types of cancer cells, withouting affecting normal, healthy cells. It enters normal cells, but when this happens, an anti-viral response mechanism is turned on and the virus is quickly eliminated. Anyone injected with reovirus is usually able to clear it completely from the body in about two weeks. Scientific studies have demonstrated that approximately two-thirds of all human cancer cells have an activated Ras pathway, one of the most common set of mutations leading to cancer. An activated Ras pathway leads to a constant barrage of growth signals to the cell, causing uncontrolled growth. In cells with an activated Ras pathway, the anti-viral response appears to be turned off. When reovirus infects one of these cancer cells, it is able to replicate and eventually kill the cancer cell. Up to 5,000 progeny virus organisms can then infect and kill surrounding cancer cells. Theoretically, the cycle of infection, replication and cell death will continue until there are no longer any cancer cells accessible. Hooray for biotech! Up until it creates microbe-sized assassination robot killing machines that ensure keiretsu-like business interests Rise To Power, plunging us into a bleak Gibsonesque cyber-future, that is. That part will suck. posted by Nate on 9:55 PM link
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your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson. Questions or comments? Email nate@swankypimp.com |
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