Tal Afar - the worst place to live in Iraq for the last 3 years

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/10/60minutes/main1389390.shtml

Tal Afar is the town in Iraq that was the homebase for Al Qaeda for a long time. USA army had captured the town before, but could not hold it for long before Al Qaeda returned. And then after another year USA had to capture the town again fighting for every house. But the best part was that when they were ready to make the final blow and take out all the militants that were surrounded in the center of the town, an order came to hold the attack for several days. After those days passed the troops proceeded and only found one dead body and no militants - they all escaped.

In my mind the military did all what they were supposed to do quite nicely, but the politicians of the Bush administration interfered and gave the terrorists the time to escape. It almost looks like they did that on purpose. You have to admit that if one assumes that Bush has some good childhood friends among the organizers of Al Qaeda, then a lot of his and his administrations actions suddenly start to make much more sense.

It also looked like the military did well to secure that town now, but the amount of troops needed for that is mind numbing - to secure a single town of 200k people the military is forced to deploy there permanently both USA 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (5000 solders, 320 tanks, 80 aircraft) and the Iraqi 3rd Division (3000+ solders). That is a lot of firepower just to insure peace. To cover the whole Iraq with that kind of protection more then 1′150′000 troops would be needed. Currently USA is about one million troops short on that.

I am happy about people living in Tal Afar, but really with this tiny number of troops there, there is not much of a security - Al Qaeda can easily move to another place and continue where they left off.

Back to homosexuality studies

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/09/60minutes/main1385230_page3.shtml

A bunch of interesting studies on homosexuality was presented in this segment: identical twins where one is homosexual and the other is strait, twin boys where one boy was clearly feminine and the other was clearly masculine at 18 months already, studies that show that homosexual people move quite differently from strait people of the same sex, hormone injections at birth making male mice behave like a female. And the most surprising of them all - the more older brothers a boy has, the bigger is his chance of being homosexual, but only if the boy is right-handed. And the numbers are statistically significant. Now that is one really fun field to study

Some time ago I did a post about what I think about homosexuality. These studies clearly show that it is not genetic, but more of hormonal nature. My understanding now is that there are many separate parts of the human body that develop at different times during the development of the child (mostly before birth) and that level of several hormones, mostly testosterone, could cause a probability on which way do those body parts develop - feminine or masculine. Some of those parts are parts of brain and then this twist in the early brain development is what determines what kind of interests and behavior will a person have.

We have two words to describe persons physiological gender - “male” and “female”, but do not have good words to describe a persons psychological gender or the combination of two. As I have said in my post before, I think we should simply move to a system with four genders - that will solve most of our problems with this issue.

Henchman confesses

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/09/60minutes/main1386966.shtml

The right hand man of the second most wanted man in the USA (after Usama) was talking about what he and his boss have done in their lives. The man himself was already trialed and after making a deal with the prosecution has already done the 7 years he was sentenced to and now can freely talk about his past.

I really was not too trilled about the story - I have no feeling to the mob. In fact for me a mob is almost like a product of a Hollywood directors mind - I have never seen a mobster or have been influenced by them in any way. There is no real mobs in Latvia - a few single gangsters or rappers and a bunch of “grown up” pseido-mobsters in politics. Basically in Latvia organized crime is organized in such way that people do not get affected by it - they do not do drugs or extortion.

Andy about Oscars dress code

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/09/60minutes/rooney/main1386880.shtml

Andy reflected on Oscars, who won, who lost and who got the lowest-cut dress.

I talked about Oscars before, but to extend about the dresses I agree with Andy that men should dress up in fancy and strange wear for the Oscars just like the women do, otherwise there is not much eye candy for all those cowboys out there

Note: Mike we will miss you.

Extending family via sperm donor link

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1414965.shtml

The story mainly is about a website http://donorsiblingregistry.com/ - a kind of a matchmaking website where children that are born via sperm donations could find their half-sisters, half-brothers and sometimes even meet their own biological fathers. The whole process is voluntary for all participants and is basically a string matching exercise. For some sperm donor codes up to 20 children have been registered.

I think this is a very interesting way how people can forge new family relationships and extend their understanding of family further. I think that is quite wonderful - imagine that you know that you have a lot of relatives all across the world. It would help more cross-cultural understanding and it will definitely calm people down a lot.

Rewriting the science

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml

Now this story got my full attention, because it is just horrible misconduct by the current USA administration for which we all will be paying in a short while. The story basically is that every scientist that is involved in weather studies must pass his/her press releases trough an approval in the White House and the “approval” is made by a former lobby to the oil industry who blatantly rewrites the reports to either play down or simply remove any reference to global warming an predictions of its cause, magnitude or probable effects.

When there is a lawyer in the Washington that can with a wide strike of his pen strike out findings of most respected scientists of the field and scribble “inconclusive speculation” instead, you know something is very deeply wrong with the science in the USA. Also the same administration simply denies interview requests with the scientist offering their own trained PR people instead. Since when people have to ask permission to the White House before taking an interview from a scientist??? I would believe that being the case in Soviet Russia, but in the USA ?!?!

The Americans must have lost their minds - a couple decades ago there would be nation wide strikes and million people protests just for that. Now it is enough for president to say that it is unpatriotic to be against the president and everyone suddenly comply. That is worse then Soviet Russia. This is voluntary.

Note: the scientist also stated that if we do not start stopping global warming in next ten years, it will become unstoppable. I personally think that he is being optimistic there.

Anti-terror terror in NY

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1416824.shtml

After 9/11 the New York police department expanded rapidly and formed a special anti-terrorism unit doing tasks that FBI and CIA are supposed to do. Every day random police drills are conducted across NY. Every day all the potential bombing hot spots are checked for explosives. Helicopters monitor the territory for unusual activity. Shopkeepers have manuals on what to watch for and where to report what they saw. Blogs are mined for data and every detail of any foreign bombing is analyzed to find new ways how terrorists could attack NY. Billions of dollars are spent on making NY safer.

I will not argue with the fact that there have not been any new successful attacks on New York or that some terrorism plots were intercepted in progress by the NYPD. What I do want to say is what exactly happens with people that are protected so closely? Doesn’t the constant proactive anti-terrorism defense terrorize everyone that it is supposed to protect? There is this phrase - “Global Terror”. I think it is very correct, but not in the way it intended - what we actually have is a terror all around us, people being in terror - afraid of terrorism attacks. And the governments just fuel this flame of terror because it makes them look good - you need authority to fight terrorism. The USA has spent on war in Iraq 20 times more then it would take to end world hunger. Apparently securing some oil and showing off their anti-terrorism skilz is more important then world hunger.

I am not saying that NYPD is doing something wrong - they are doing as good as they can without relying on the help from the federal government. The federal government of the USA however it the one being fatally inefficient.

Lottery winners vs. losers

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/16/60minutes/rooney/main1412330.shtml

Andy raises a nice point this week - a lot of poor people spend lots of their money on government lotteries. Rich people do not play lotteries. So basically a lottery is a way to get a lots of money from the poor people to the organizers and a few of the participants. People are stupid. But it is not governments job to cash in on that.

That’s all folks! What do you think? What else do you want me to rant about? Leave a comment to let me know!

Hospitals overcharging uninsured people

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1362808.shtml

The bulk of the story in not really that hospitals make uninsured people pay more, it is that they make insurers pay less. It looks like it is common practice in US hospitals to charge their patients for work and materials with 300-500% profit margin. Only most of the country does not know it because they have either health insurance or Medicare and those insurers and government programs negotiate for themselves discounts in range of 75-90%. Also noone can find out the prices of specific procedures in different hospitals making going to a hospital look like blind shopping.

In my mind two thing must be done legislatively about this: demand that all price lists of all publicly accessible hospitals also be freely accessible by the public, ban any kind of discounts or bulk prices that hospitals could give to insurers or government programs. That will ignite a price war and bring the prices down considerably. And in the mean while make a court case that any uninsured person receiving medical attention can demand to be charged as much as Medicare would be charged for the same procedure.

Willie Brand and torture in Afghan prisons

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1364163.shtml

There is just incredible amount of lies buzzing around the current US administration especially with relation to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know that just from shreds of evidence that leaks out despite military discipline. Now top generals claim that prisoners have never been tortured or hanged from ceilings in Afghan prisons run by US army forces, while guards at those prisons claim that the same generals saw the procedures and did not disprove of them in any way. Now the generals blame everything on the guards themselves and even their direct captain claims that he did not see anything. Bullshit!

It is long time that NATO and ANO should step in and report USA to the Security council and impose sanctions on USA for breaking the Geneva convention. Because, if USA can do that and go unpunished, why should other countries uphold human rights of their prisoners?

The Prince of Pot

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1364163.shtml

A Canadian is being charged with drug trafficking by USA for selling marijuana seeds in his shop in Canada. It is formally illegal there, but even if charged, he would only have to pay a fine. However if he is extradited to USA, he would face up to a life sentence. The man is a leader of marijuana legalization movement in Canada.

It may come as a surprise, but I agree with him. Marijuana no more harmful then alcohol or tobacco. Some even argue that marijuana is less harmful to the body and mind then alcohol or tobacco in same doses. If those two substances are allowed, then marijuana should be allowed too, in the same regulated manner as those two. If marijuana is banned then alcohol and tobacco must be banned too - be consequent. By pushing marijuana into the black market governments only make the black economy stronger. Also marijuana acts as a gateway drug just because government says it is as bad as heroin, so people after trying marijuana start thinking “Well marijuana is not that bad, maybe government is lying about heroin too”. And after a few months a new unalive junkie is formed out of what could have been a contributing member of society.

Andy

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/rooney/main1363712.shtml

Andy rants about outsourcing this week. Fear not Andy - it is easy to outsource labor intensive jobs, but outsourcing creative jobs is much harder - no asian guy can replace you (well maybe except for George Takei :)).

Stem Cells

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/23/60minutes/main1341635.shtml

I must say that I have not been following the stem cell research closely enough in last couple of years and I am very amazed that we can now actually tell a stem cell to develop into a particular type of cell. The sight of a bunch of cells grown into a slab of heart tissue was especially fascinating.

First of all there are at least two problems that I see with the research as it was shown in the program: they are not using cells from the patient, they are simply injecting the cells “in the general direction of the problem”.

The first is probably a problem caused by politics - in a perfect world we would take a cell sample from a patient, take nuclei of those cell, put them in place of the nuclei of the stem cells and we would basically have cloned stem cells of the same patient that we plan to be treating. There would be no problem with nonacceptance of donor organs or confusion of living with another persons DNA inside your cells. Politics block those developments.

The second problem is mostly the simple immaturity of the field of research and microsurgery in general - it is still very hard for us to grow a full slab of heart and surgically replace damaged tissue with it. There are pros and cons to that approach too. Injections do have lower level of post operational risks in the area of effect - there are no tissue scars to worry about. However, having heart tissue flowing in the blood stream does seem quite risky in that it could have unforeseen consequences in other parts of the body. For better or worse.

However, even taking in consideration all that problems (that the scientists of the field) surely do know about very well, it is just plain ridiculously stupid how much the religious right in general and that incompetent president of theirs is grinding all the research to a halt. And do not tell me about that last weeks of him touring bio-diesel facilities, I will come to that too. In short - go California, but I would rather see Bush just getting his marbles together and banning stem cell research in USA altogether, so that all those scientists can come to us, to EU and other places with more reasonable legal systems, because otherwise it seems that they are just asking for trouble there. Trouble that will slow the research to half of its possible speed for next 10 years or so.

Port security

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/24/60minutes/main1344473.shtml

I can only say one thing about security and USA - 90% of the USA security forces only work to ensure that people feel secured: that they see the police, that they are searched regularly enough, that they are stopped from time to time to answer some questions, that they are being “protected” on the Internet (read: being spied upon), that they are feeling harassed enough to feel safe. If the regular people are harassed enough they will never forget that the police is there and they will assume that the real criminals get harassed even more. That instills both content and fear: content for being protected and fear because there is clearly something to be protected from. After four and a half years of this treatment people are becoming very cattle-like, i.e. easy to govern.

And in the same time the real experts can easily see that for real terrorists all those protection measures are completely irrelevant - real terrorists do not try to hijack planes with matches or nail clippers. Real terrorists have people inside, good supplies of profession equipment and have all the information that your government will not tell you “for security reasons”. Cocaine is being smuggled into USA by tons. If put a nuke or two into that stream with enough “green” wrapping, no one will notice anything. Anyone having enough resources to buy a suitcase nuke will have enough resources to get it into USA even if you implement the strictest police state measures the likes of which have not been seen before. Even if you mandate all citizens to implant RFID chips that could be used to track their location from satellite and shoot on (satellite) sight anyone without such chip, there will still be ways to nuke any place in USA if there were any motivation. Clearly there is none.

This again show that only thing that are considered “ok to be debated upon” are being raised in USA nowadays - there has been more debate about that duck hunt incident then about millions of Americans being spied on by their own government. That says much about any country.

I want to bring just one quote from this segment - “It is impossible to do proper inspections of everything without basically stopping all international commerce”.

Montana coal diesel

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/24/60minutes/main1343604.shtml

The idea of making diesel from coal is new to me, but it really is just an old, forgotten technology put into action by Nazi Germany at one point.

The idea is a nice plan in the local perspective (cheap gas, lots of jobs, …) but from a global perspective that is a very dangerous idea. Anything that prolongs the inevitable transition to pure hydrogen economy is. I think that only thing that has a big future is pure electric power with storage in some kind of metallic hydride. You see, I am worried about global warming quite a lot. And burning any kind of fossil fuel bring carbon that has been laying in the ground for millions of years and throw it back into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO ₂). That both speeds up global warming and reduces the amount of oxygen that we have left for breathing. Does look bleak in the long term perspective, doesn’t it?

Yes, digging up coal in your backyard is better then fighting wars halfway across the globe for oil, but not too much.

Dogs

This week Andy was talking about dog shows. Not for me that kind of thing - I like cats much more. And not those lazy show cats, I like simple cats that must rely on their smart to survive (at least be calling their owner to feed them when they are hungry :)).

So here we have the end of my first coverage of 60 minutes. Lets hope that it is not the last and lets also hope that you foud at least something here to be of a value to you.

As always, feel free to comment on what could be done to improve all this.