The world that we live in

In a column about the oil spill in the Gulf, David Brooks describes the world we now live in:

Over the past decades, we’ve come to depend on an ever-expanding array of intricate high-tech systems. These hardware and software systems are the guts of financial markets, energy exploration, space exploration, air travel, defense programs and modern production plants.

These systems, which allow us to live as well as we do, are too complex for any single person to understand. Yet every day, individuals are asked to monitor the health of these networks, weigh the risks of a system failure and take appropriate measures to reduce those risks.

If there is one thing we’ve learned, it is that humans are not great at measuring and responding to risk when placed in situations too complicated to understand....

In the weeks and hours leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, engineers were compelled to make a series of decisions: what sort of well-casing to use; how long to circulate and when to remove the heavy drilling fluid or “mud” from the hole; how to interpret various tests. They were forced to make these decisions without any clear sense of the risks and in an environment that seems to have encouraged overconfidence.

Over the past years, we have seen smart people at Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, NASA and the C.I.A. make similarly catastrophic risk assessments. As Gladwell wrote in that 1996 essay, “We have constructed a world in which the potential for high-tech catastrophe is embedded in the fabric of day-to-day life.”

Unfortunately, the latest information reported in the New York Times about the behavior of employees at BP in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster show just how fallible human beings are... and why vigorous oversight is so important as the world becomes increasingly complex.

Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.

The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.

The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.

On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.

“This would certainly be a worst-case scenario,” Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. “However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur.”

As The Killers sing, "This is the world we live in, maybe we'll make it through."

(Video link)

Tiny bubbles

Wow, here is quite a visual:

The blue bubble on the left represents the volume of all of the world's water--oceans, lakes, rivers, and so on. And the pink bubble on the right is the Earth's atmosphere.

Standing on the beach and staring at the sea--or looking down from a airplane at cruising altitude--it's easy to forget how thin the livable skin our planet is.

The image is the work of Adam Nieman. More on him and his work in this New York Times piece.

Obama's press conference

Here's the full press conference which focused largely on the oil spill in the Gulf, but fast forward to the 59 minute mark for President Obama's personal thoughts on the disaster.

(Video link)

Another step forward on DADT

From the New York Times:

The House voted on Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban, which would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on Friday. The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members. The report is due by Dec. 1.

The House vote was 234 to 194, with 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in favor, after an emotionally charged debate. Opposed were 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats.

Supporters of the repeal hailed it as a matter of basic fairness and civil rights, while opponents charged that Democrats and President Obama were destabilizing the military to advance a liberal social agenda.

“On Memorial Day, America will come together and honor all who served our nation in uniform,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech, noting the symbolic timing of the debate. “I urge my colleagues to vote for the repeal of this discriminatory policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and make America, more American.”

Remembering Granny

She used to love to recite the lyrics to this old Pete Seeger song, "Get Up and Go."

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Quote for the day

I have lived so long because in those moments when I am dancing I am beyond time and space.

-- Ruth St. Denis

Apple is the new Microsoft

I've been thinking that Apple is becoming the new Microsoft for awhile, with their heavy-handed rules about how developers can build iPhone/iPad applications and where they can sell them (even if an app is rejected by the App Store, the developer isn't allowed to sell it anywhere else!). I also find their veto power over what is sold in the App Store to be offensive.

Apparently the government is thinking the same thing: the Justice Department is investigating Apple's control of online music distribution (where they have 69% of the market).

What happened to the old Apple?

(Video link)

Quote for the day (again)

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.

-- Gilda Radner

Or as I told a friend yesterday:

There's never a perfect answer. It's always this: what decision are you going to make right now? And then you have choice again in the next moment. We want 2 + 2 to equal 4, but we never really get to the other side of the equals sign.

One step closer to ending Don't Ask Don't Tell

The White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress seem to be ready to take action on ending the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, though the agreement may still give the Pentagon time to complete its assessment of potential impacts:

Under the deal, lawmakers could vote soon to repeal the contentious 17-year-old policy, which bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed services; the House Democratic leaders are considering taking up the measure as soon as this week. But the policy would not change until sometime after Dec. 1, when the Pentagon completes a review of its readiness to deal with the new policy. President Obama would also be required to certify that repeal would not harm military readiness.

If it passed, the measure could clear the way for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military as early next year, ending a policy that Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, all say they oppose.

Not acceptable

I'm a little late to the party, but I'm increasingly dismayed by the Obama administration's response to the Deep Horizon disaster in the Gulf. I'm not sure what exactly the government should be doing right now to fix BP's blunders, but I know that continuing to grant environmental impact waivers for other deepwater projects--despite the president's moratorium--is not the way to go.

I do find it amusing that conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh think the government isn't doing enough to clean up BP's mess. Aren't these guys the ones who are so opposed to government takeovers of just about everything?

Quote of the day

Home is not where you live but where they understand you.

-- Christian Morgenstern

Quote of the day

It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder that you want to climb than halfway up one you don't.

-- The Office (Season 1, Episode 6)

Quote of the day

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.

-- John Churton Collins

Quote of the day

Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.

-- Arnold Bennett

Quote of the day

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

-- Louis L'Amour

Quote of the day

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-- Albert Einstein

Quote of the day

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

Allergy or not an allergy?

Here's an interesting article that clarifies the difference between food allergies and food intolerance:

Part of the confusion is over what is a food allergy and what is a food intolerance, Dr. [Matthew J.] Fenton said. Allergies involve the immune system, while intolerances generally do not. For example, a headache from sulfites in wine is not a food allergy. It is an intolerance. The same is true for lactose intolerance, caused by the lack of an enzyme needed to digest sugar in milk.

And other medical conditions can make people think they have food allergies, Dr. Fenton said. For example, people sometimes interpret acid reflux symptoms after eating a particular food as an allergy.

A wonky but informative article on regulating the shadow banking system

I found this pretty interesting... Pimco's Paul McCulley explains the basic premise of banking and why and how we should handle those institutions that have been playing bank but flying under the regulatory RADAR.

Move on, MoveOn.org

I took myself off MoveOn's mailing list today. Why? I'm opposed to their efforts to raise money to defeat Senator Blanche Lincoln in her re-election bid. Their beef: that she didn't vote for healthcare reform. I told them that their position smacked of Tea Party tactics and that I didn't approve of political litmus tests...

Looks like it's Kagan

After several days of signals in this direction, it appears that President Obama has made his decision: his next Supreme Court nominee will be Elena Kagan. SCOTUSBLOG has a lengthy profile here.

From the New York Times:

In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, as well as the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience....

In making his second nomination in as many years, Mr. Obama was not looking for a liberal firebrand as much as a persuasive leader who could attract the swing vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and counter what the president sees as the rightward direction of the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Particularly since the Citizens United decision invalidating on free speech grounds the restrictions on corporate spending in elections, Mr. Obama has publicly criticized the court, even during his State of the Union address with justices in the audience.

Howard Dean to Obama: repeal DADT this year

Howard Dean has released a letter he wrote to President Obama urging him to follow through and repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell this year:

Americans clearly understand that if someone is brave enough to take a bullet for the USA, then they should have the same equal rights guaranteed to every American under the law -- whether they are serving in the military, or when they come home.

While I understand the need to research how repealing DADT will affect members of the military, the law can still be repealed with an implementation timeline this year.

The time to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is now. I urge you to take immediate action to insure that Congress includes the repeal of DADT -- with an implementation timeline -- in the Defense Authorization bill currently under consideration.

You can sign a petition to express your support for a 2010 repeal here.

AIDS/LifeCycle 9 - Just passed my goal!

Three years ago I rode in the AIDS/LifeCycle: a 545 mile journey on a bicycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles. What an amazing experience. (Recap and pics here and here).

This year I'll be volunteering as a member of the medical team; I got my EMT-Basic certification just in time. So excited to be a part of the ride in this new capacity.

While roadies don't have to raise any money, I set a goal of $2000. And the response to my Mother's Day plea for contributions just put me over the top, woo hoo!

So... I've raised my goal to $2500. :-)

Today's fundraising email:

Hello, again,

In less than a month AIDS/LifeCycle 9 will begin. This month I became certified as an EMT, and I'm proud to be volunteering as a memberof the medical team for this year's ride. I'm writing today to ask for your support in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The 545 mile ride begins June 6th and runs from San Francisco to Los Angeles. AIDS/LifeCycle benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. I was a rider in 2007, and it's truly an experience that I'll remember for a lifetime. It's an opportunity to meet amazing people, and I was repeatedly humbled by how far people would go to make a difference: rising before dawn, cycling up and down hills mile after mile, overcoming what they thought were their limitations, and sharing their stories of living with HIV or of the friends and family members they had lost to the disease.

I've commited to raising $2,000, and I'm writing to ask you to make a contribution in support of the fight against HIV/AIDS. I still have quite a ways to go to meet that goal with only a few weeks left.

One of the most amazing stories I heard on the ride in 2007 was shared by the head of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, Lorri Jean. In the early days of the ride, she was riding in one of the vans that picks up riders who are injured. The van was parked next to a field in the vast Central Valley. Eventually one of the field workers, a migrant laborer, came over and asked what was happening. Lorri explained that the riders were cycling from SF to LA to raise money and awareness about HIV and AIDS. Less than an hour later, the field worker came back with a few dollars in change, money she had collected from the other laborers. That story about giving what you can still gives me the chills. Every dollar really does count.

I have far too many friends who are living with HIV, and every day more people are infected. After living with this epidemic for 20 years, it is easy to forget the impact the disease has had not only in the U.S. but worldwide. The LifeCycle serves not only to raise money but also to raise awareness of the ongoing toll of HIV on our communities.

Your contribution will be used to provide services to those with HIV/AIDS and to fund prevention programs. The SF AIDS Foundation is also actively involved in developing and promoting effective policies at the federal, state, and local levels to support efforts to reduce HIV transmission and provide support and services for those already infected.

To visit my LifeCycle home page which provides more information about the ride and a link to the SF AIDS Foundation, click here. To make a tax-deductible contribution, click here and then on the orange "Donate to Support Michael" button on the right midway down the page.

Every dollar counts; your generosity does matter.

I appreciate your support! Together we will make a difference.

Gratefully,
m

Quote of the day

Let us read and let us dance: two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

--Voltaire

From conception until death: environmental exposure to carcinogens

The President's Cancer Panel has just released it's annual report for 2008-2009. Nicholas Kristof summarizes it here.

The Panel's cover letter to President Obama (my emphasis):

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

Though overall cancer incidence and mortality have continued to decline in recent years, the disease continues to devastate the lives of far too many Americans. In 2009 alone, approximately 1.5 million American men, women, and children were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease. With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action. The Administration’s commitment to the cancer community and recent focus on critically needed reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act is praiseworthy. However, our Nation still has much work ahead to identify the many existing but unrecognized environmental carcinogens and eliminate those that are known from our workplaces, schools, and homes.

To jumpstart this national effort, the President’s Cancer Panel (the Panel) dedicated its 2008–2009 activities to examining the impact of environmental factors on cancer risk. The Panel considered industrial, occupational, and agricultural exposures as well as exposures related to medical practice, military activities, modern lifestyles, and natural sources. In addition, key regulatory, political, industrial, and cultural barriers to understanding and reducing environmental and occupational carcinogenic exposures were identified. The attached report presents the Panel’s recommendations to mitigate or eliminate these barriers.

The Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread. One such ubiquitous chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), is still found in many consumer products and remains unregulated in the United States, despite the growing link between BPA and several diseases, including various cancers.

While BPA has received considerable media coverage, the public remains unaware of many common environmental carcinogens such as naturally occurring radon and manufacturing and combustion by-products such as formaldehyde and benzene. Most also are unaware that children are far more vulnerable to environmental toxins and radiation than adults. Efforts to inform the public of such harmful exposures and how to prevent them must be increased. All levels of government, from federal to local, must work to protect every American from needless disease through rigorous regulation of environmental pollutants.

Environmental exposures that increase the national cancer burden do not represent a new front in the ongoing war on cancer. However, the grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the National Cancer Program. The American people—even before they are born—are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures. The Panel urges you most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.

The European debt crisis

I found these articles about Greece's debt crisis--and the wider economic issues that Europe is facing--to be informative.

Peter Boone at the London School of Economics talks about the worst case scenario of a Greek debt restructuring, and a Fidelity fund manager argues that European governments need to act as decisively as the U.S. government did in order to restore confidence in their financial system.

More on the superweeds

More on the superweed story in today's New York Times, including comments from Michael Pollan:

A few lessons may be drawn from this story:

1. A product like Roundup Ready soy is not, as Monsanto likes to claim, “sustainable.” Like any such industrial approach to an agronomic problem — like any pesticide or herbicide — this one is only temporary, and destroys the conditions on which it depends. Lucky for Monsanto, the effectiveness of Roundup lasted almost exactly as long as its patent protection.

2. Genetically modified crops are not, as Monsanto suggests, a shiny new paradigm. This is the same-old pesticide treadmill, in which the farmer gets hooked on a chemical fix that needs to be upgraded every few years as it loses its effectiveness.

3. Monocultures are inherently precarious. The very success of Roundup Ready crops have been their undoing, since so many acres were planted with the same seed, and doused with the same chemical, resistance came quickly. Resilience, and long-term sustainability, comes from diversifying fields, not planting them all to the same kind of seed.

Read on.

It's not just seabirds

From free-floating microscopic crab larvae poisoned by the oil slick to whales and dolphins that drown after being intoxicated by its fumes, the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is affecting the whole food chain.

Quote for the day

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

-- Bette Howland

This just makes me want to get cable

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Don't bet against the birds and the bees

Or, for that matter, against the mosquitoes and the weeds.

New research has determined that a single, easily inherited gene can make mosquitoes indifferent to the insect repellent DEET.

And on a growing number of farms around the world, including many here in America, genetic engineering has turned out to not be such a miracle after all. Heavy use of Roundup since Monstanto introduced genetically modified crops that were impervious to the herbicide has demonstrated, once again, how quickly evolution can work:

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

The first resistant species to pose a serious threat to agriculture was spotted in a Delaware soybean field in 2000. Since then, the problem has spread, with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn.

One of the qualities that made Roundup unique is that it degrades quickly in the environment. Farmers are now having to turn to older herbicides that are much more toxic.

And what's Monsanto doing now? In it's apparently infinite lack of wisdom, it's working on new crops that are resistant to other herbicides. You gotta wonder how long it'll take them to produce a generation of weeds that nothing will kill.

Oh, and by the way, thirty-eight years after DDT was banned, it's still present in our food supply:

Recent studies sketch a complex profile of legacy contaminants in U.S. food - a profusion of chemicals in trace amounts, pervasive but uneven across the food supply, occurring sometimes by themselves, but more often in combination with others. Included are DDT and several lesser-known organochlorine pesticides as well as industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which were used until the late 1970s in electrical equipment.

This picture raises a host of equally complicated questions: Are small amounts of these chemicals dangerous, by themselves or in mixtures? Why are they still around and how are they getting into our food?

And how about: Will we ever learn?

Strangers in a strange land

I found this op-ed from a Portland rabbi to be a good food for thought:

As a rabbi, I look to Jewish history and to the Hebrew Bible for insight into the ethical questions about immigrants, labor and justice. In the Jewish community, we know from our experience that when people are desperate and seeking a better life, and when they are in precarious circumstances, sometimes they lie or break the law in order to get by. It's humiliating. It's not what people would prefer to do. We can judge them for it, or we can try to empathize and factor in their circumstances and difficult choices as we try to find better national policy.

Immigration laws are important, and our country is based on the rule of law. Jewish tradition also sees law as sacred and essential to a just society. But alongside law, Judaism also places sacred emphasis on story. The law must listen to the specifics of the stories being brought before it. From a Jewish perspective, good law is not robotic. It responds to people and it recognizes human vulnerability. It resists humiliating people who are swept along by massive forces that put them in the position of needing to take unappealing and dangerous risks to try to help themselves and their families survive.

Gotta hand it to Obama on one count...

He's a funny guy:

(Video link)

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE, at the 13:45 mark, President Obama also reiterated part of the message from his commencement address earlier in the day at the University of Michigan:

Now, the second way to keep our democracy healthy is to maintain a basic level of civility in our public debate. (Applause.) These arguments we’re having over government and health care and war and taxes — these are serious arguments. They should arouse people’s passions, and it’s important for everybody to join in the debate, with all the vigor that the maintenance of a free people requires.

But we can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. (Applause.) You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism. (Applause.) Throwing around phrases like “socialists” and “Soviet-style takeover” and “fascist” and “right-wing nut” — (laughter) — that may grab headlines, but it also has the effect of comparing our government, our political opponents, to authoritarian, even murderous regimes.

Now, we’ve seen this kind of politics in the past. It’s been practiced by both fringes of the ideological spectrum, by the left and the right, since our nation’s birth. But it’s starting to creep into the center of our discourse. And the problem with it is not the hurt feelings or the bruised egos of the public officials who are criticized. Remember, they signed up for it. Michelle always reminds me of that. (Laughter.) The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning –- since, after all, why should we listen to a “fascist,” or a “socialist,” or a “right-wing nut,” or a left-wing nut”? (Laughter.)

It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate, the one we need to have about the very real and very big challenges facing this nation. It coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response.

So what do we do? As I found out after a year in the White House, changing this type of politics is not easy. And part of what civility requires is that we recall the simple lesson most of us learned from our parents: Treat others as you would like to be treated, with courtesy and respect. (Applause.) But civility in this age also requires something more than just asking if we can’t just all get along.

Today’s 24/7 echo-chamber amplifies the most inflammatory soundbites louder and faster than ever before. And it’s also, however, given us unprecedented choice. Whereas most Americans used to get their news from the same three networks over dinner, or a few influential papers on Sunday morning, we now have the option to get our information from any number of blogs or websites or cable news shows. And this can have both a good and bad development for democracy. For if we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line with our own, studies suggest that we become more polarized, more set in our ways. That will only reinforce and even deepen the political divides in this country.

But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and our beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.

Now, this requires us to agree on a certain set of facts to debate from. That’s why we need a vibrant and thriving news business that is separate from opinion makers and talking heads. (Applause.) That’s why we need an educated citizenry that values hard evidence and not just assertion. (Applause.) As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously once said, “Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” (Laughter.)

Still, if you’re somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while. If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website. It may make your blood boil; your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship. (Applause.) It is essential for our democracy. (Applause.)