On December 5th, Forbes.com described the “National Defense Authorization Act” as the “Greatest Threat to Civil Liberties“:

“[The law] would place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists.”

Shortly thereafter, the NYTimes posted a great article called “Guantanamo forever“, in which a lot of very serious issues were raised.

Spencer Ackermann also wrote an extensive report on wired.com about the consequences if Obama signed the act:

“So despite the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end. And because the Senate is using the bill that authorizes funding for the military as its vehicle for this dramatic constitutional claim, it’s pretty likely to pass.”

Yesterday, Obama signed the bill.

“The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,” Mr. Obama said in a statement issued in Hawaii, where he is on vacation. “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.” [...] [He] said that he would never authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens, because “doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

To sum up: Obama signed a bill which gives himself and any future president the power “to break with America’s most important traditions and values as a nation” (quote Obama).

He didn’t even try to talk himself out of this. You can find the full speech on thinkprogress.org.

Change we can believe in.

EDIT: Jon Stewart talked about the Law on December 7th (the first 10 minutes of the show). The first time I see him being very critical about Obama.

Worth living today: The Iliac Crest

A small, little-known branch of the National Institutes of Health, NCCAM was launched a dozen years ago to study alternative treatments used by the public but not accepted by mainstream medicine. Since its birth, the center has spent $1.4 billion, most of it on research.

They spent the money to see whether coffee enemas heal pancreatic cancer, whether intercessory prayers help heal AIDS, and invested various forms of energy healing.
Surprisingly, they found that these things do in fact not work.

“Lots of good science and good scientists are going unfunded,” said Dr. David Gorski, a breast cancer researcher at Wayne State University, who has been a vocal critic of NCCAM. “How can we justify wasting money on something like this when there are so many other things that are much more plausible and much more likely to result in real benefit?”

I do think we have to give them credit for some of the things they are looking into though. E.g. they ran a study showing that Gingko Biloba does not protect against or have a therapeutic effect in dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

DeKosky headed a $36.5 million study, including $25 million from NCCAM, on ginkgo biloba, a popular supplement taken as a defense against dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. DeKosky’s study concluded that it did not lower the overall incidence rate of either condition in elderly people who were normal or already had mild cognitive impairment.

However, more and more money seems to be put into causes that are already shown to be ineffective, like acupuncture (Berman et al., 2008, New England Journal of Medicine).

“We have to be good stewards of public money for science,” said Gorski, the cancer researcher. “I don’t view NCCAM as being a good steward of our public money at the moment. Even if they are doing rigorous science, they are still looking at incredibly implausible things.”

Source: ChicagoTribune.com

Joseph Beuys – Lass dich fallen

Laß dich fallen,
lerne Schlangen beobachten,
pflanze unmögliche Gärten.
Lade jemanden Gefährlichen zum Tee ein,
mache kleine Zeichen, die „Ja“ sagen und
verteile sie überall in deinem Haus.
Werde ein Freund von Freiheit und Unsicherheit.
Freue dich auf Träume.
Weine bei Kinofilmen,
schaukle so hoch du kannst mit deiner Schaukel bei Mondlicht.
Pflege verschiedene Stimmungen,
verweigere „verantwortlich zu sein“,
tue es aus Liebe.
Glaube an Zauberei,
lache eine Menge,
bade im Mondlicht.
Träume wilde phantasievolle Träume,
zeichne auf die Wände.
Lies jeden Tag.
Stell dir vor, du wärst verzaubert,
kichere mit Kindern,
höre alten Leuten zu.
Spiele mit allem,
unterhalte das Kind in dir,
du bist unschuldig,
baue eine Burg aus Decken,
werde naß,
umarme Bäume,
schreibe Liebesbriefe.

A dear friend of mine sent me this five-minute Youtube video about two years ago in which Richard Feynman talks about doubt, uncertainty and religion. I like it a lot and have therefore quoted it many times since.

I was excited when I found a lecture yesterday Feynman gave as part of a lecture series in 2011. A transcript of the speech was posted on a blog, and after reading it on the airplane today and decided to repost it.

There are some typos in the original transcript, I corrected a couple, but it is a very long text, and I’m sure you’ll be able to read it, even with some mistakes in it.

Some things I don’t agree with, but there are many things we can learn a lot from. I will post the most important quotes first – if you’re in a hurry, at least read these – and then post the whole lecture below the excerpt.

Excerpt:

‎If you ask [any scientist] intelligent questions — that is, penetrating, interested, honest, frank, direct questions on the subject, and no trick questions — then he quickly gets stuck. It is like a child asking naive questions. If you ask naive but relevant questions, then almost immediately the person doesn’t know the answer, if he is an honest man. It is important to appreciate that.
[…] Read the rest of this entry »

“But the lucidity of her old age allowed her to see, and she said so many times, that the cries of children in their mothers’ wombs are not announcements of ventriloquism or a faculty for prophecy, but an unmistakable sign of an incapacity for love.”

“Úrsula wondered if it was not preferable to lie down once and for all in her grave and let them throw the earth over her, and she asked God, without fear, if he really believed that people were made of iron in order to bear so many troubles and mortifications.”

“More than a bookstore, it looked like a dump for used books, which were placed in disorder on the shelves chewed by termites, in the corners sticky with cobwebs, and even in the spaces that were supposed to serve as passageways. On a long table, also heaped with old books and papers, the proprietor was writing tireless prose in purple letters, somewhat outlandish, and on the loose pages of a school notebook. He had a handsome head of silver hair which fell down over his forehead like the plume of a cockatoo, and his blue eyes, lively and close-set, revealed the gentleness of a man who had read all of the books.”

– One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garciá Márquez

The journal Science announced the breakthrough of the year 2011 today: a study reported in the paper “Prevention of HIV-1 Infection with Early Antiretroviral Therapy“.

The study involved more than 1700 heterosexual couples, of whom one partner was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the other was not at the start of the trial. All those infected still had relatively intact immune systems. The study gave antiretroviral drugs to half of the infected people and delayed giving treatment to the other half until their immune systems declined to a dangerous degree. The results of this early treatment with a cocktail of antiviral drugs were dramatic, lowering the rate at which the HIV-free partner became infected 20-fold, while also improving outcomes for the infected partner. In combination with other promising clinical trials, the results have galvanized efforts to end the world’s AIDS epidemic in a way that would have been inconceivable even a year ago. “The goal of an AIDS-free generation is ambitious, but it is possible,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told scientists last month.

Bruce Alberts ends his summary about the year 2011 with very critical words:

Not all of the news for science has been good this year. Regrettably, we live in an age where “science denial” has become fashionable. For instance, in the United States, the pressure to conform has become so great that even many politicians who know better have become unwilling to speak out to support what science knows about climate change. Part of the reason is that politicians need to raise funds to compete effectively in elections, and the large amount of money spent by special interest groups distorts the public debate. To counter such science denial, I have repeatedly argued on this page that scientists need to pay much more attention to science education. Teaching is not the same as simply telling students what one knows—a common approach pursued through lecturing. Instead, the scientific community needs to strongly support evidence-based methods for improving how students learn science both in college and at lower levels, focusing on empowering all students with the reasoning and problem-solving skills of scientists [...]

– Source: Science Magazine

Brand New – Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis

With one or two I get used to the room
We go slow when we first make our moves
By five or six bring you out to the car
Number nine with my head on the bar
And it’s sad, but true
Out of cash and I.O.U’s

I got desperate desires and unadmirable plans
My tongue will taste of gin and malicious intent
Bring you back to the bar
Get you out of the cold
My sober, straight face gets you out of your clothes
And they’re scared that we know
All the crimes they’ll commit
Who they’ll kiss before they get home

I will lie awake
Lie for fun and fake the way I hold you
Let you fall for every empty word I say
Read the rest of this entry »

This quote is quite remarkable:

Though not a party to the case, the US Department of Transportation said it “strongly objects, on both legal and policy grounds, to the EU’s plan to impose its own policies on other countries”.

– Source: eubusiness.com

What happened?

The US says EU plans for an emissions tax on airlines must be dealt with by the international aviation body. It had tried to block European Union plans to levy the emissions tax, saying they were invalid, but the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Wednesday that they were legal.
[...]
“Application of the emissions trading scheme to aviation infringes neither the principles of customary international law at issue nor the Open Skies Agreement” across the Atlantic, the ECJ decided.
“It is only if the operators of such aircraft choose to operate a commercial air route arriving at or departing from an airport situated in the EU that they are subject to the emissions trading scheme,” it added.
As a result of this choice, the EU system “infringes neither the principle of territoriality nor the sovereignty of third states, since the scheme is applicable to the operators only when their aircraft are physically in the territory of one of the member states of the EU”.
The EU has made it clear that it will not bow to US pressure following Wednesday’s decision.
“We will neither abandon nor delay [the Emissions Trading System]. The measure will fully enter force on 1 January 2012,” said the spokesman for EU climate change commissioner, Connie Hedegaard.

– Source: a wonderful article on BBC.CO.UK