Up From Facebook

“In an  interview with The New York Times  published Thursday, Trump was asked whether there were any constraints on what he could do on the world stage, following the U.S. military operation that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and amid renewed rhetoric from senior Trump administration officials about the United States potentially taking control of Greenland. ““Yeah, there is one thing,” Trump replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”   “I don’t need international law,” he added.” This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word “morality.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-limits-to-his-power_n_6960aa14e4b088e2524e3775?origin=home-latest-news-unit

There’s been a lot of crowing by Trump about how he’s seizing Venezuelan oil to hand it to American oil companies and skim profits for the United States. What oil, and how much? “ According to figures widely cited throughout the media and the oil industry itself, Venezuela is sitting on around 300 billion barrels' worth of "proved" oil, meaning barrels that have, in theory, been confirmed as commercially viable by conclusive testing or actual production.” *snip* “ This is a self-reported figure, however, and is published — but not verified — by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member. Holistic and conclusive evaluations by independent experts have never been conducted. “And up until 2007, Venezuela's self-reported proved reserves sat at around 100 billion barrels, according to data reported by OPEC. By 2013, that figure was updated after a reclassification of fields controlled by the country's state-run P...

I vividly recall a meeting when I was a young assistant professor and all the other male faculty, all MDs, were wearing white coats. The topic of “evidence-based medicine” came up. It was the first time I’d heard the phrase, so I asked the white-coat next to me (sotto voce, of course): “As opposed to what, magic-based medicine?” He replied, with more courtesy than I deserved: “As opposed to tradition-based medicine.” It hadn’t occurred to me before that there would exist any standard for medical practice other than evidence. Now I know better. The MAHA brand has become a mockery under RFK Jr and his minions. On the one hand, they’ve discovered that eating a healthy diet is a good idea, which is like discovering water at the bottom of the ocean. On the other hand, they’re promoting policies that are already making America sicker. Chief among them is the anti-vax agenda, which has led to an explosion in cases of measles and whooping cough, both deadly and preventable childhood diseases. ...

The definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and expecting a different outcome. By that definition, the Trump coup in Venezuela is insane.   Maduro was a corrupt and illegitimate ruler. And the same was true of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Bush deposed Saddam, freeing Iraq from one nightmare but plunging it into another. The excuse in Iraq was phony charges of WMDs. The real reason was access to oil. Trump has deposed Maduro based on phony charges of drug manufacture and gang support. The real reason is access to oil.   Historian Juan Cole summarizes the five mistakes that Bush made in Iraq and that Trump is making in Venezuela:   “1. Violation of the UN Charter and the International laws of war   “The Bush administration attacked Iraq in 2003 without any foundation in international law. Iraq had not attacked the United States in the decade leading up to the American intervention. The UN Security Council, led by France, Russia and China, specifically decline...

I started college at the dawning of the age of cloning. Recombinant DNA technology represented the transition from descriptive molecular biology to genetic engineering. By the time I started teaching medical students, the genes mutated in terrible diseases like cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, hemophilia and Fragile X were cloned. There was always an obligatory paragraph at the end of the paper to the effect that now the door was open to gene therapy. For decades, the cloning of such genes made the diagnosis in affected individuals much simpler, freed from pedigree analysis. The bottleneck to gene therapy was not cloning the affected gene, it was delivering a therapeutic gene in useful amounts to the appropriate organ or tissue.  Since the turn of the century, genuine progress has been made in gene therapies. Unfortunately, this has presented a new barrier to these technology—cost. Pharma companies have priced gene therapies so high that they are out of the reach of middle class and poo...

“Documents obtained by   the New York Times   found that the third-highest-ranking official in the Interior Department failed to disclose her family’s financial interest in a controversial government-approved lithium mine.   “ Frank Falen, who owns Home Ranch in northern Nevada, sold water to Lithium Nevada Corporation, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, for $3.5 million in 2018. The mining company was planning a new lithium mine near the ranch called Thacker Pass. Falen is the husband of Karen Budd-Falen, who currently serves as Associate Deputy Secretary of the Interior.   “ At the time of the sale, Budd-Falen was deputy solicitor of the agency, which manages the country’s natural resources and land. Falen’s water contract was dependent on Thacker Pass securing a permit from the Interior Department, according to the New York Times. ” Government official busted for apparently using their post in the Trump administration for personal gain.  In other news, dog bit...