Fetzthechemist's Weblog

Why are incumbents sacrosact?

fetzthechemist — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:20:18 +0000

In this presidential year, it strikes me again that this unwritten rule that a US president holding office is very rarely challenged by anyone in his own party. Barack Obama is at best a very flawed candidate. He is totally rejected by REpublican, as can be expected. But many Democrats find him to be weak, indecisive, and pusillanimous. The right shouts about Obamacare, when in reality it did very little to reform the health-care system. Obama caved to the doctors, the hospitals, the insurers, and the pharmaceutical industry. The final law changed nothing for three-quarters of the people, guaranteeing that they or their employees would continue to be gouged by health insurers.

Obama was the one to stay the course in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with no substantive changes from the Bush approaches. On illegal immigration, Obama has come up with a gray area approach of no prosecution and deportation of illegal aliens who are not dangerous criminals. This displeases everyone since it just sweeps the issue under the carpet. After 8 years of anti-environment policies, Obama was expected to create a long-overdue tidal wave of new environmental regulations. What resulted was a trickle. Et cetera, et cetera on every major issue.

So why aren’t there grassroots movements to put forward an alternative? This might at the least wake the Democrats and Obama up to trying to something other than just complaining about the opposition.

Google and other Internet companies are hytocrites

fetzthechemist — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:09:59 +0000

It strikes me that the vehemence of Google, Apple, Facebook, and other Internet-based companies over the flawed legislation of SOPA and PIPA wending their ways through the US Congress are not consistent with these companies other business practices. If they emphasized that their role to police content was onerous and misplaced, that millions of users are hard to monitor effectively, I’d concur. But they wave the flags of liberty and freedom of the Internet. They totally dismiss the topic of Internet piracy being a profit loss for publishers and those who produce movies, TV shows, and music.

But in their operations regarding another kind of intellectual property wicj they profit from, that of patent rights, these same companies are the most aggressive group as an industry. Patent holders in the Internet business and the affiliated areas of software and hardware, use their issued patents to routinely squelch any potential competition. Small companies are smashed by the current behemoths on any pretext that their hordes of patent attorneys can come up with. Innovation be damned! The sainted Steve Jobs was one of the foremost advocates of this slash and burn marauding, using Apple’s broadest interpretations of its patents to try to kill anything involving downloaded content, applications for mobile devices, et cetera. I just find it cynically ironic when anyone touts one right that they ignore in another context (like the Occupy movement advocating their rights to both free speech and to shout down anyone who opposes them.)

Update on those new books

fetzthechemist — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:15:08 +0000

After a few months of reading, I can tell you about the books I purchased last October and November. But I will not give descriptions to spoil the reading, just assessments of where these new books fit compared to others by the same authors.

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier is a very good read and is at least as good as Cold Mountain and Thirteenth Moon. Out of Oz is Gregory Maguire’s self-proclaimed last n the Wicked series. It is as enjoyable as Wicked and in my opinion better than the other two in the series. Maupin’s Mary Ann in Autumn is a nice continuation of the Tales of the City series and ties together a lot of stories from the other books.

But the best, by far, is Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. It is now my favorite book of his, which is saying quite a lot since I loved Windup Bird Chronicles. Even at over 900 pages of rather small print, it is a very compelling read. It did not fit my usual reading pattern for long books, which is to read a large chunk of a quarter, third, or half and then intersperse others from my to-be-read pile to change gears for a bit. I’ve had to read 1Q84 straight through, often fitting in 50 or 60 pages in a day.

A new country to be visited

fetzthechemist — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:07:02 +0000

At the end of this month, I am scheduled to be in Oman. This is a nation I have not been to yet. So my paltry listing of visited countries will inrease from 13 to 14. But I’ve heard Oman is very beautiful and that parts of it are quite different than the other Arabian Penninsula countries.

UNESCO votes in Palestine, Israel retaliates

fetzthechemist — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 22:56:54 +0000

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=244014

UNRSCO voted 31st October to admit Palestine as a full-member state. 1st November, Israel shows its true colors and intentions by accelerating 2000 settlement house in the pre-1967 areas that are not internationally recognized as Israeli territory and freezing tax monies they collect for the Palestinian Authority. Taking more Palestinian lands and freezing money rightfully belonging to the Palestinians, and at the same time painting themselves as the agrieved victims of injustice. The Jewish are proud of their chutzpah, which means in this case a boasting bullying of the Palestinians and saying the Palestinians are the roadblocks to real peace. The US, European Union, and the United Nations will ignore this and take the usual blind-eyed approach of not pointing out Israel’s errors, but will trumpet those of the Palestinians. It is no wonder that after almost 65 years, the Palestinians and other Arabs see no hope in a peaceful solution.

7 billion unserved

fetzthechemist — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:27:29 +0000

The UN says that yesterday marked the day in which the human population hit 7 billion. Even with its one-child policy, China is still growing. India, with no restraints other than a strong preference for male children and the corresponding high rate of female fetus abortions, is growing much faster. Both are emerging economic powers that look at any restraints on growth as a form of economic warfare that limits their nations and cultures. Their populations are now becoming the acquisitive capitalistic ones in the “West” over the past century and a half. This means an unbridled attitude that will be hard to change. They want all the “advantages” of Western society – nice house, nice cars to drive around crowded cities, et cetera. Will this just cause an even greater snowballing of population in the two? Will other nations with large populations in similar circumstances, such as Indonesia, follow suit? Will 8 billion happen in only a few years, with each successive billion occurrng faster? It looks more than likely, with real economic wars being more and more likely.

A veritable cornucopia of new books

fetzthechemist — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:46:25 +0000

I get alerts from Amazom about new titles from a long list of authors I like. This year has been a long series of good news from those, all coming out in this month. The anticipation has been building since early in the year when Haruki Murakami’s latest 1Q84 (a play on the phonetics in Japanese of 8 and Q being the same). Later it was Chuck Pahlaniuk’s Damded, then Jeffery Eugenides (Virgin Suicides) new one of The Marriage Plot, then Charles Frazier’s Nightwoods (he wrote Cold Mountain and Thirteenth Moon, and both are very good reads). Finally I just heard that Gregory Maguire has the last volume of the Wicked series about his warped view of Oz, Out of Oz, due out on November 1st.

I already have the Frazier and Eugenides books, the others are ordered. These might be some of my last paper versions of books from Amazon, too, since I have a Kindle Fire on order.

Is the GOP the anti-science party? It seems to certainly be

fetzthechemist — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:24:57 +0000

Michelle Bachmann says the HPV virus is personal choice and can cause mental retardation. No proof of any kind on that latter claim, either. Personal choice is a liberaterian-sounding theme, but it does not involve science or personal responsibility. (If people who make health choices, like not having kids vaccinated would sign a waiver that they will not rely on government healthcare if their decision backfires, I might feel differently – but I digress). HPV is proven to prevent a cancer that is potentially spread through sexual activity. Doing it early is prevention, and making it mandatory is no different that other childhood shots. But those, too, are under attack by the “personal choice”, scientifically illiterate who fear the straw-man bugaboo of autism from shots for whooping cough or measles or smallpox or polio or whatever.

Climate change to the GOP is just driven by a bunch of job-killing scientists who are using science for social engineering towards a liberal, green world. It is either not real or not caused by people.

Evolution is just a theory, a dreamt up set of ideas. Creationism must be given equal exposure. It is based on “proven” science. Local control of schools is part of this, because Washington cannot and should not be involved in directing any curriculum.

These are the big, headline-getting themes. Others include that NASA is just wasting taxpayers money (except for the jobs it produces in Florida, Texas, Alabama, et alia). The NSF only funds ridiculous “science” that does not benefit taxpayers. The US EPA only creates burdensome and job-killing regulations that ought to be states’ decisions.

The Tea Party portion of the GOP, which now is dominant, has preyed on this scientific ignorance and phobia. They tout those themes of personal choices and local control to swath ideas that belittle any scientifically-generated ideas. For many, their Bibles will tell them anything and everything they need to know.

Is the GOP the anti-science party? Most definitely

fetzthechemist — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:00:18 +0000

Over the past few years, coinciding with the arising of the Tea Party as a dominating force in the Republican party, the GOP has moved further and further into an anti-science stance. Under the guise of local choice in school curricula, the GOP candidates and office holders tout creationism as a valid alternative that ought to be allowed in schools teaching biology. Michelle Bachmann adds personal choice and a libertarian Tea Partyist theme to another area by saying governments should leave vaccination for HPV up to individuals (which is only one tiny step removed from bringing the large number of misguided, scientifically illiterate parents who avoid vaccinations fr whooping cough, measles, smallpox, and other diseases out of Internet-fed rumors that they cause autism (Bachmann even accused the HPV vaccine of causing mental retardation, even though there has never ever been one report of that).

The GOP says climate change is either not real or if it is, it is not caused by manmade activities. They say it is just a job-killing movement. So is any environmental protection. Many Tea Partyers want to abolish the EPA, to the joy of many heavy industries, like oil and gas, mining, metallurgy, et cetera. Consumer-protection laws are some of the job killers, too. Regulations ought to go back to local governments, states being the most mentioned choice among the GOP stalwarts, like Rick Perry. Lead in paint? Let Iowa decide on its limits. Salmonella in food? Let Texas decide on its food. Sulfur and nitrogen in fuels leading to smog? Do not let California or New York decide because they will go overboard and be too limiting, but control how the US EPA does it to be some compromising, less strict version acceptable to all states.

NASA? A total waste of tax payer money, except for the facilities in Florida, Texas, Alabama and other GOP-strong states, where it is a needed job source. Cut everything useless, like efforts in California. Privatize NASA in those cases.

The National Science Foundation? A totally wasteful government bureacracy that funds ridiculous and useless science (except in GOP districts).

The ignorance of most American for science and technology is often preyed upon by politicians who make change and difference sound scary. The GOP now is the meeting place for all those scaremongers.

Career tip – A generational thing?

fetzthechemist — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:28:46 +0000

Grad students and postdocs are at the start of their careers. They think they understand this, but in reality are almost clueless when the pavement meets the road. Yes, the papers that come out then are the only papers that the person has – at that moment. In three, four, or five years, though, those will be minor past history, a trivial footnote or a few lines in the CV. They will no longer be that important.

Why does this issue come up? Because over and over again, grad students and postdocs quarrel with each other and the professor over authorship order and acknowledgements of that sort. These fights, in the longer term, leave behind an antagonized former professor who will never come to bat for that person. No good recommendations, no linking into that professor’s own network, no future opportunities through a good word here and there.

If there are also antagonized former labmates, too, then the chances for future damage are greater and that might include doors to opportunities being closed. That is an outgrowth of human nature. But the current generation has been raised to be more “in your face”, to be more confrontational. That makes these situations even more dangerous from a career standpoint.

Being in this situation of arguing over what you feel is right can lead to career-damaging things. But if the person takes the attitude that it is a negotiation to get as much as possible, then the interactions can be kept at discussions and dialogue.

The grad student or postdoc is really fighting a quixotic battle. One that sounds important now, but leaves the fighter battered and bruised for years. This does not mean to surrender completely, though. It means fight the battle that you can win. Get as much as you can, until the resistance says to let go and move on. Once a grad student gets the degree or a postdoc finishes up, then their next steps are to build their reputations in the next locale.