Ten Years Ago at Grasping Reality: June 22, 2008
Higher-Level Languages and Genetic Programming: The Quintessence writes....
Wait...did you say "eldritch?": Comparison of the various chordate genomes reveals that there are very few chordate-specific genes. Specifically, the authors described 239 "chordate gene novelties" out of 22,000 genes in the lancelet. The nature and function of these genes is intensely interesting, and indeed the authors devote a separate report to issues related to this. But think about it: only 1% of the genes in chordates (vertebrates and all their relatives) are "novel" among genes from all other organisms. So if the toolbox isn't all that different between lancelets and lions, despite divergence at least 550 million years ago, then what is different?... The likelihood that changes in regulation of a (mostly) common genetic toolkit is a major factor in evolution of form....
Now that is scary. The DNA genome is best conceptualized not just as machine language for the cell and the organism, not just machine plus assembly language, not just machine plus assembly language plus Fortran, but all of those and overlaid over the whole, controlling everything, the highest-level genetic code for our humanity written in the molecular equivalent of Java.
Paul Krugman Critiques Guillermo Calvo on Commodity Prices: The fact that somebody has bought an oil futures contract means that somebody else has sold one--hence no effect on demand without real storage. Paul Krugman critiques Guillermo Calvo and others...
Atlantic Monthly Death Spiral Watch (Ambinder on McCain on Offshore Drilling Edition): The number of mulligans that America's press corps gives John McCain is truly remarkable. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it's because he doesn't threaten them--just as George W. Bush doesn't threaten them. By contrast, Bill Clinton and Al Gore and John Kerry and John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are scary-smart, in the way that my ex-boss Alicia Munnell once spoke of Lloyd Bentsen: "It only takes fifteen minutes before it is very clear why he is the Secretary of the Treasury and I am the Assistant Secretary." That seems to provoke an adverse reaction from many journalists--I am not sure why. Outsourced to Mark Kleiman: "The Reality-Based Community: Ambinder on McCain on offshore drilling: Does not compute..."
Then--I won't call her "Ombudsman"--[unprintable] Deborah Howell tries to hide the fact that the Washington Post had rules for outside income in an attempt to constrain conflicts-of-interest and worse that were only binding on the little people: Washington Post Death Spiral Watch (Robert Woodward and Deborah Howell Edition): "I find this a very interesting journalistic tick: you draw the dots, but you do not connect them, and the person you are writing about--in this case, Robert Woodward--breathes a big sigh of relief because there is no bottom-line quote that can be pulled out of the story that makes him look bad.
And I must point out that Sidwell Friends is not a "charity" in any proper sense of the world. Don't get me wrong--it is a wonderful school, from which I received a truly excellent education from many teachers who were paid far less than they were truly worth. Five stick out in my memory right now: Peter Cohen, Joe Wildermuth, George Lang, Florence Fassinelli, Richard Brady.
But it is not moral or just to classify gifts to Sidwell as worthy of the charitable deduction on your income tax form...
Washington Post Death Spiral Watch (David Broder and Deborah Howell Edition): Ken Silverstein.... "When Broder was first confronted he lied about the speeches.When he was faced with clear evidence he then admitted that he broke the rules but then tried to blame it on others by saying that he had told them.They, of course, didn’t remember him saying a word (remind you of Judy Miller at the NYT?). Mr. Broder is obviously a serial liar who thought he could BS his way out of a mess of his own making. So the only question left to ask is--what is the Post going to do about his repeated unethical conduct?" The answer, of course, is "nothing"...