What precisely makes rocks move around on their own leaving obvious tracks in the sand? Even more important, there are no other tracks around them and no one has ever seen them move — yet they are moving and leaving notable trails in their wake. “The exact mechanism of their movement is not known…”
Need proof? Go look at today’s Earth Science Picture of the Day for an example. Be sure to check out the larger version of the photo for the best view of this interesting, if not bizarre, phenomenon.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – In a debate with powerful echoes of the turbulent civil rights era, four Republicans running for Alabama’s Supreme Court are making an argument legal scholars thought was settled in the 1800s: that state courts are not bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedents.
The Constitution says federal law trumps state laws, and legal experts say there is general agreement that state courts must defer to the U.S. Supreme Court on matters of federal law.
Yet Justice Tom Parker, who is running for chief justice, argues that state judges should refuse to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedents they believe to be erroneous. Three other GOP candidates in Tuesday’s primary have made nearly identical arguments.
“State supreme court judges should not follow obviously wrong decisions simply because they are ‘precedents,'” Parker wrote in a newspaper opinion piece in January that was prompted by a murder case that came before the Alabama high court.
Sadly, this is a case of following the example already set. Dubya has blatantly and repeatedly discarded law, the Constitution, Congress, and the judiciary in his activities, generally claiming he is above all of them and not bound by their actions. Why shouldn’t the rest of his party do the same?
What frightens me is the inherent anarchy, inter alia, that such actions would create. The law would become useless, unenforceable, and relegated to the history books. Their idea is that judges should have the ability to decide what they will and won’t follow from courts above them in the judicial chain of command. Essentially, if you disagree with a ruling, set it aside and pretend it’s not there, a course of action that would indeed flip jurisprudence on its ear as precedential and constitutional trusses become worthless.
Since the Constitution itself clearly dictates federal law trumps state law, this is yet more conservative intent simply to do away with that whole document.
Grand Rounds 2.36 is extensively robust this week. As always, go enjoy the best of the medical blogosphere. This is good stuff.
Go take a look at Birds in the News 60 (v2n11). You must expect by now that you’ll find some stunning photos along with plenty of avian news and science.
The 69th Edition of the Carnival of Education is up and running.
Circus of the Spineless – Edition #9 is a great place to learn about the latest in invertebrate research and news.
This is interesting… It’s a pop music video. There’s only one important piece of information to note: it’s from the Indian music scene. You have to watch the whole thing to get the gist of what makes it feel like you’re watching the proverbial train wreck at reduced speed. It’s oddly entertaining in ways I doubt were intentional.
Look! It’s an evangelical Christian who understands the need to treat everyone with respect and dignity regardless of their religious beliefs. The example he gives is perfect.
Remember when slimy French journalists claimed Lance Armstrong was doping? I said back then such a proposition was near laughable and that the episode could likely be blamed on French jealousy: they can’t even win their own race anymore. Well, now we know the truth. The witch hunt was a farce and fabrication by French media as Armstrong has been cleared of all charges. The report found major problems with the testing, the French newspaper that illegally reported what should have been confidential information, the French Ministry, the Tour de France officials, and pretty much every other French person who was somehow involved in the whole fiasco. And what has their response been? To try and discredit the report, to claim that this does not exonerate Armstrong, and to otherwise stomp their feet and wail like the spoiled children they are. Those impudent French; what chutzpah.
Ooh, pretty… I love photography blogs.
If you remember, South Dakota’s government banned abortion earlier this year. Guess what? South Dakota’s citizens didn’t like that idea and are intervening. They’ve forced a repeal of the law onto November’s ballot. Kudos to them for reigning in the idiots in office.
A new cave discovered in Israel appears to contain a wholly isolated prehistoric ecosystem. Thus far, eight new species have been discovered, and they are all believed to be ancient (millions of years old). More discoveries are expected as further exploration and study take place. The cave is completely sealed off from the outside (including from water sources and nutrients that might seep in from above), and all of the species discovered thus far have no eyes.
Cognitive dissonance is the premise that we can hold incompatible ideas as relate to behaviors, emotions, beliefs, attitudes, or any other kind of knowledge. Essentially, it states that we can hold two mutually exclusive ideas without our brains exploding. To better explain, here are some personal examples:
– I believe in the rule of law; I have been known to speed when driving, an obviously illegal act.
– I know it is imperative for us to protect the environment and do all we can to reduce the damage we inflict on our planet; I love my car and have no intention of giving up driving.
– Drug use by the inept, ignorant, insubstantial, ineffectual, and/or incapable too often leads to ruined lives, crime, health problems, and death — just like alcohol; I feel drugs should at minimum be decriminalized, but more importantly they should be legalized.
– Animals deserve respect and protection; I eat meat.
It is that last example to which I am responding.
With relative ease I admit self-contradiction in this regard: my adamant conviction that animals deserve respect and to be treated with compassion coupled with my unrelenting carnivorous tendencies. I know beyond any doubt that the way in which most animals are harvested as food sources is disgusting and unethical. All one needs do is consider the video available showing the facilities responsible for beef, chicken, pork, and veal, to name a few. And what of the precarious balance of the food chain which we are tilting in our own favor without regard for what dangers might be caused by our mass captures of crab, lobster, salmon, tuna, crawfish, and other meat sources from the wild. The morally delinquent carnivore within me is constantly at odds with my upstanding and humane conscience that knows such activities are wrong.
To our credit, “[t]he theory of cognitive dissonance holds that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions.” When it comes to meat and how we farm it for human consumption, it would appear we have indeed been compelled to think of a better way: growing meat instead of butchering it.
You munch a strip of bacon then pet your dog. You wince at the sight of a crippled horse but continue chewing your burger. Three weeks ago, I took my kids to a sheep and wool festival. They petted lambs; I nibbled a lamb sausage. That’s the thing about humans: We’re half-evolved beasts. We love animals, but we love meat, too. We don’t want to have to choose.
[…]
The case for eating meat is like the case for other traditions: It’s natural, it’s necessary, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But sometimes, we’re mistaken. We used to think we were the only creatures that could manipulate grammar, make sophisticated plans, or recognize names out of context. In the past month, we’ve discovered the same skills in birds and dolphins. In recent years, we’ve learned that crows fashion leaves and metal into tools. Pigeons deceive each other. Rats run mazes in their dreams. Dolphins teach their young to use sponges as protection. Chimps can pick locks. Parrots can work with numbers. Dogs can learn words from context. We thought animals weren’t smart enough to deserve protection. It turns out we weren’t smart enough to realize they do.
Is meat-eating necessary? It was, back when our ancestors had no idea where their next meal might come from. Meat kept us alive and made us stronger. Many scientists think it played a crucial role in the development of the human brain. Now it’s time to return the favor. Thousands of years ago, the human brain invented agriculture, and hunting lost its urgency. In the past two centuries, we’ve identified the nutrients in various kinds of meat, and we’ve learned how to get them instead from soy, nuts, and other vegetable sources. Meat has made us smart enough to figure out how we can live without it.
[…]
[W]e can’t change our craving for meat, but we can change the way we satisfy it.
How? By growing meat in labs, the way we grow tissue from stem cells. That’s the great thing about cells: They’re programmed to multiply. You just have to figure out what chemical and structural environment they need to do their thing. Researchers in Holland and the United States are working on the problem. They’ve grown and sautéed fish that smelled like dinner, though FDA rules didn’t allow them to taste it. Now they’re working on pork. The short-term goal is sausage, ground beef, and chicken nuggets. Steaks will be more difficult. Three Dutch universities and a nonprofit consortium called New Harvest are involved. They need money. A fraction of what we spend on cattle subsidies would help.
Growing meat like this will be good for us in lots of ways. We’ll be able to make beef with no fat, or with good fat transplanted from fish. We’ll avoid bird flu, mad-cow disease, and salmonella. We’ll scale back the land consumption and pollution involved in cattle farming. But 300 years from now, when our descendants look back at slaughterhouses the way we look back at slavery, they won’t remember the benefits to us, any more than they’ll remember our dried-up tears for a horse. They’ll want to know whether we saw the moral calling of our age. If we do, it’s time to pony up.
Mohandas Gandhi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I could not agree more. I sincerely feel this very topic is one of the moral enormities of our time. If we can find ways to replicate meat through biotechnology, consider the benefits in addition to what is outlined in the article: we stop mass culling of animals from the wild, we restore at least some order to the planet’s food chain, we return tremendous amounts of land back to nature that currently are used for the production of butcher material, and we halt the inhumane slaughter of so many animals who are forced to live their lives in horrendous conditions just so they can end up on the dinner table.
I think there is undeniable promise in this idea. It certainly would be something I would prefer over our current methods, and I think a great many people would agree.
Meanwhile, I think more and more about my own carnivorous tendencies. And I think it might be time to give them up.
[via Andrew]