See Update: IO9 says most of Science Daily's story is completely wrong.

Among the Settled Sciences, I would have thought Human Anatomy was among the most settled.

We've been cutting into living bodies and carving up dead ones for a long time now, haven't we?

How did we miss a a ligament? And not just a ligament in an unexpected place, like some kind of floating ligament in the stomach or something. But a ligament on a place where a lot of surgeons perform surgery to repair ligaments-- the knee.

They just never noticed it before. In 40,000 knee operations (Caveat: I'm just making this number up), no one ever noticed, "Say, there's an extra ligament in here that isn't in my book."

Now you say, "Oh, well this ligament must be very, very small."

Not so much. Not so much.

That's like the size of a finger. This is like scientists discovering "Hey, you know what? We've actually got eleven fingers. Sorry about the miscount earlier. Please buy new gloves."

Thanks to Flatbush Joe.

Update: Thanks to @theh2 and Dave in Garfield Ridge, IO9 says this story is crap. Dave adds that it's just another example of the absolute crap level of "science reporting" we've gotten used to.

IO9 says the ligament was discovered in 1879... but Science Daily mentioned that as well, or at least they characterized the 1879 mention as "postulating" the ligament. IO9 says the ligament was known, but its function was not, and the new paper is about the function of the ligament, not its mere existence.

I don't know. I kind of don't trust any science reporting. But the claim that a ligament had been newly discovered did strike me as... unbelievable, though I did believe it.

More: The abstract of the new paper begins:

In 1879, the French surgeon Segond described the existence of a ‘pearly, resistant, fibrous band’ at the anterolateral aspect of the human knee, attached to the eponymous Segond fracture. To date, the enigma surrounding this anatomical structure is reflected in confusing names such as ‘(mid-third) lateral capsular ligament’, ‘capsulo-osseous layer of the iliotibial band’ or ‘anterolateral ligament’, and no clear anatomical description has yet been provided. In this study, the presence and characteristics of Segond's ‘pearly band’, hereafter termed anterolateral ligament (ALL), was investigated in 41 unpaired, human cadaveric knees.

My ruling: It seems that the initial headlines somewhat oversold this discovery-- but only somewhat. And that IO9 is now overselling the debunking.

The ligament has been alluded to not just in the original French paper but in subsequent ones, as evidenced by the multiplicity of names for it. But it also seems that the ligament is all but unknown -- also evidenced by the fact that scientists haven't yet decided on what to call the thing.

Note the abstract states the very presence of the ALL is being investigated. If this were a well-known piece of anatomy, they would not be scrutinizing knees for the ligament's mere presence.

I tried to read the original French paper but it's well, well beyond my vocabulary.

I don't know the exact level of knowledge of this ligament, obviously, but it does seem to me the original claims somewhat overstated the "discovery," but again, only somewhat-- in history, we do recognize cases of the same lake being "discovered" multiple times. At some point it becomes important to ask, "Well, what exactly do we mean by discovered?" As with a lake, does merely seeing the lake count? Sure. But someone who does a survey later might also be credited with "discovering" it.

The IO9 article seems to speak with false authority in suggesting (while not explicitly claiming) that the ALL was well-known to medicine. Apparently it was not well-known at all.

Posted by: Ace at 06:54 AM | Comments (378)
Post contains 654 words, total size 4 kb.

This assumes we will in fact get those numbers next week, which I personally doubt. This Administration is All In on Just Lying About Everything and Concealing Anything That's Left.

But if we do get some numbers....

The administration’s goal is to enroll about 7 million people in the first year, and about 40 percent of those enrollees need to be young, healthy consumers. Bringing young people into the system is critical to keeping premiums low and avoiding an insurance “death spiral.”

Hitting that mix across 7 million Americans isnÂ’t good enough, though. Each state has to get the right ratio in its own insurance market.

“All of this is very state-specific on how it plays out,” said Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Interesting point (sent along by Monty): It's not just about having a total number of young and healthy enrollees to balance out the aged and sick; but each state must have its own proper balance, because each pool of risk is limited to that state.

So having, say, lots of young healthy enrollees in... I have no idea which state will have lots of young healthy enrollees clamoring to pay too much for insurance they don't need, but if Madeupiana has an excess of such enrollees, that doesn't help Missouri.

Now, Hot Air has this story that half of all of Illinois' enrollees signed for Medicaid may not even be eligible for Medicaid, which means they should have been put into the exchanges, but right now are being kept out of them. Correction: Article refers to prior enrollees; see below.

That kind of Obungle incompetence could have a bad effect on the already doomed system. Suppose young and healthy people, crucial to the exchanges, are being erroneously signed up for Medicaid -- thus Obungle is further reducing the number of young, healthy insurance buyers he so desperately needs.

Thanks to Monty, again, who is @AOSHQDOOM on Twitter, and apparently is signed up for Google's Bad Vibes News Alerts.

Update: I completely forgot about this exact thing, being wrongly signed up for Medicaid, happening to our own Niedermeyer's Dead Horse.

Correction: Theresa in Fort Worth did something I didn't -- she read that Medicaid article I linked.

Actually, I read that article a couple of days ago - they aren't referring to ANY new Medicaid enrollees; they are referring to years and years of fraud and waste.

In other words, people who have been on the Medicaid rolls for years who shouldn't be.

The Obamacare enrollees haven't even made it to the trough yet.

Apologies.

Posted by: Ace at 11:04 AM | Comments (345)
Post contains 459 words, total size 3 kb.

Shocking?

I suppose.

Underneath it all, though, the biggest resurrection was perhaps of Boston itself. The Marathon bombing was a blunt trauma, sure, for which even the fact of crowds gathering without incident was a much-needed salve. But it was a trauma, too, that had renewed a special doubt. For Boston has, after all, always been as a city upon a hill, except. Except that the Sox were the last baseball team in the league to integrate. Except that Celtics legend Bill Russell had his house broken into and his bed defecated on. Except that we had all that trouble around busing. And what about our redlining of Jews? ItÂ’s hard not to recall these things and wonder: Did we fail the Tsarnaevs somehow? ItÂ’s not clear that we did. And yet for people who knew Dzhokhar especially, who had seen him at school, who had studied and partied and played sports with him, the lurking fear has been that we failed to truly open our hearts, that we accepted him, but only up to a point.

If we'd accepted them more, the Daily Caller translates, they wouldn't have murdered us and torn the limbs from our children.

As usual, a leftist's use of the construction "We failed" sounds an awful lot like "You failed." They employ this device a lot. Speaking of one's own flaws is a sign of elevation and openness to self-criticism, of course.

So they show this sign. But they don't actually speak of their own flaws. Using the dishonest Socialist We, they go on to confess, on behalf of other people, those other people's alleged flaws, and how those flaws -- xenophobia, racism, bullying, hatred of people named Djokhar -- were actually responsible for a bombing that killed three and severed the limbs from more than dozen people.

I should note that this champagne socialist almost certainly lives in a wealthy neighborhood where she doesn't have to rub elbows with the Dirty Immigrants, so I guess her conscience is clear as far as "failing" the Tsarnaevs.

After all, she had the good taste and breeding to stay well away from the Swarthies.
Not her fault. But those working-class white ethnics who had the bad taste to live next door to them? It's on them.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4.

[Update: Andy] Shut up, wingnuts. She was totally taken out of context in that op-ed she wrote.

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (352)
Post contains 459 words, total size 3 kb.

Oh yes.

It's too bad. I had hoped Christie could paper over his differences with the base, because he does have political talent. However, he seems pretty firm on his "Make Sure I Get Crushed in the Primaries" strategy.

Actually I'm not sure if he said he'd like to help Graham in the primary or in the general; go read it. I think it's ambiguous. But it's signalling either way. There is hardly a more despised RINO than Lindsay Graham, apart from John McCain.

To balance that shit-show out, he says something something Tea Party good.

Asked whether he considers himself a member of the tea party element of the Republican Party, Christie sounded conciliatory, telling Tapper, "There are elements of the tea party that are Republicans at their best."

Tea partiers, he noted, favor limited government and individual liberty and freedom. They are tough on government spending and question the need for raising taxes.

"The core of the tea party movement, as I understand it, I think is consistent with good Republican conservatism," Christie said.

But Christie added that when some people try to use the tea party movement to try to enhance themselves politically, it can get "perverted."

More at the link, including video.

I'm not sure I'd disagree with the "can get perverted" idea. I do think that, at least online, people have a tendency to stake out positions which are not really political in nature.

This is why this whole unending Stabbed in the Back/RINO-TrueCon war annoys me so much. While there is a political dimension to it, I see so much of it as simple primate dominance crap. "We're the Top Dogs!" "No, we are!" "Hoot hoot!" "Growl!"

I think we've moved largely away from political stuff to a general intraparty cultural war, and no one actually wins a cultural war, not really. Culture is too specific a thing to win converts on. And also too personal and fundamental a thing.

No one's changing his born-and-raised culture for politics. You can shift someone's position on politics, but not on their culture. No one is ever going to be persuaded that his own born-and-raised culture is inferior and that he deserves to be in a second-class sort of position due to that inherent inferiority.

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (464)
Post contains 410 words, total size 3 kb.

With all precincts reported, he is enjoying a 49.91 to 49.88 leadover Democrat Mark Herring. Provisional ballots are not all in, and there will certainly be a recount. But it's looking a lot better than when Gabe posted the last update.
I recall the undulations in Wisconsin in 2011 which eventually yielded a victorious Prosser.
I also recall them for a very disappointed Coleman in Minnesota.
#AOSHQDD will stay on it.

Posted by: CAC at 07:55 AM | Comments (145)
Post contains 93 words, total size 1 kb.

I think this is one of those things that is sort of true, but not in the way people think it's true.

A lot of people are blaming the RGA, the RNC, and wealthy Republican donors who typically donate to Republican candidates for not donating much to Cuccinelli this cycle. Which in turn made him prey to McAuliffe's huge fundraising; Cuccinelli was outspent, I believe, 25-1. (But I've also seen 10-1; I'm not sure.)

I think Cuccinelli's people are right that these donors "blew it." Had they known the election was not unwinnable, but would turn out to be pretty much winnable, they would have and certainly should have donated more.

So I do think they "blew it:" They did not foresee how animating and potent Obamacare would turn out to be in the closing weeks of the campaign, and how that would cut McAuliffe's lead from 7-9 points to, what is it now?, three points.

Had they known these things -- had they been smart enough to predict the future on this point -- they would have invested more heavily in a three-point race. A big spend can probably put a dent in a three-point race, and maybe even turn it into a win.

But here's where I don't buy the rote, kneejerk Stabbed Us In The Back conspiracy theories: While I can fault the RGA and RNC and big-pocket donors for not seeing that Obamacare would tighten up a once-unwinnable race into a winnable one, I can't fault them that much, because Predicting the future is hard.

It was only in the week before the election that pollsters began to detect movement towards Cuccinelli. This came as a surprise to many people. One can fault alleged Experts On Politics for being surprised by events, which actually maybe could have been predicted (or guessed at), but you can't fault them all that much for failing to do what is very, very difficult to do.

Cuccinelli was undoubtedly hurt by the shutdown, which of course was widely blamed on Republicans. Personally, at no point during my own support of the shutdown, did I have the foresight to realize, "This may hurt Cuccinelli in Virginia." My sole focus was on its effect on the 2014 midterms. My belief is/was that the public would forget the shutdown by 2014. But it didn't occur to me they wouldn't have forgotten it by the time of the Virginia gubernatorial election.

And as far as Obamacare: While many of us predicted Obamacare would be bad, I don't think many of us predicted it would be this bad this quickly. I know Mary Katharine Ham and, I think, John Ekdahl doubted this website could be put together in short order; but as for myself, I just assumed the damn website would be up and working. I did not expect a Spectacular Failure on the easiest part of Obamacare.

On Day One! Not on Day Fifty. But on Day One!

I think it's ultimately true that if the RGA, RNC, and the Republican donor class had invested more heavily in Cuccinelli's bid, he may have won.

But this is only the case due to an unexpected game-changer right near the end of the race. And I can't fault people for having failed to predict an unexpected game-changer, especially given that I personally failed to predict it.

Cuccinelli was way behind for most of the race -- on the doorstep of being actually out of the running. When you're flirting with a ten point deficit -- and that 6-9 point deficit is not some brief one-week-of-bad-polling thing, but a persistent characteristic of the race -- it will naturally cause people to think twice about wasting (they would think) their money on a contest likely to result in loss.

So yes, I think they "blew it," but I don't think they sabotaged Cuccinelli or deliberately tanked the election or any of the other Strong Form They're Out To Get Us type stuff.

Things to ponder...

VA is not the same place it was 20 years ago.

People have been pouring IN to VA from CA(10k), CT(10k), NY(53k), PA(29k), NJ(29k), MD(20k)...

...while fleeing OUT of VA to FL(23k), GA(11K), NC(39k), TN(10k).

Posted by: Ace at 06:39 AM | Comments (629)
Post contains 725 words, total size 4 kb.

No news dump. Election nights are too stressful for me. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:26 AM | Comments (344)
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

Whalp, that didn't come out right.

As I write, Mark Obenshain is behind by about 500 votes. This is the Virginia Attorney General race, and it's the only thing standing between us and a complete Democratic sweep. Obenshain is one of the reasons I went to the polls yesterday (although I voted for Cuccinelli too, as anyone should have expected given my posts for the last six years), and it looks like we're going to a recount to find out if he made it.

Ben Domenech had "10 lessons for the GOP from Cuccinelli's campaign" in yesterday's Transom and he made it available at the Federalist. I beg you, read it before you try and guess at what happened here in Virginia. His 2, 3, and 8 are what really killed it.

Oh, and despite the fantasies of people who, er, can't read, it wasn't that the party abandoned Cuccinelli. That would be comforting fantasy for Cuccinelli's folks, but it just doesn't work when you look at the actual numbers.

Updated to add: Geraghty's post-mortem this morning should definitely be read.

[ RSS]

[iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:08 AM | Comments (500)
Post contains 195 words, total size 2 kb.

Guns & Ammo Editor Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment

In the December issue G&A technical editor Dick Metcalf supports regulating guns using this argument:

"I bring this up," Metcalf writes, "because way too many gun owners still believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement. The fact is that all Constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be."

"Many argue that any regulation at all is, by definition, an infringement. If that were true, then the authors of the Second Amendment themselves, should not have specified "well-regulated."

Meanwhile Bob Owens (now of Bearingarms.com) who I have a lot of respect for also doesn't seem to quite fully get the Second Amendment either:

As a shooting community, we seem to be huge on the latter half of the Second Amendment, and not so much on the first half. Find a Second Amendment rally anywhere, and you'll hear cries of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed!" You won't hear many cries (if any) for "a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state!" Do you ever wonder why that is? While I don't purport to speak for everyone, I have a hunch.

I think it has to do with the uncomfortable fact that the first half of the Second Amendment suggests an obligation and a duty.

A "well regulated militia" would require people to sacrifice, to get in shape, learn small unit tactics, hike with heavy packs in deplorable weather conditions, give up modern conveniences, and generally suffer to become something that might pass as the sort of militia that would have a hope of surviving in today's fourth and fifth generation warfare.

Look I'm no constitutional professor but it should be pretty well understood these days that the term "well regulated" in the 18th century had the connotation of being well run and functioning rather than the modern meaning of being controlled and restricted by say the government.

Plus the first clause of the Second Amendment, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state", should be seen as a motivational phrase providing a justification for the second clause without necessarily limiting it to that single purpose. So you could just as well re-phrase the 2A as "A well armed neighborhood watch being necessary to repel an invasion of zombies, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," without changing existing gun rights or limiting gun ownership to only fighting the undead in an organized group.

And that's not just my interpretation - that's what the Supreme Court said in District of Columbia v. Heller on the very first page of the decision syllabus (italics mine):

(1) The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2-53.

(a) The Amendment's prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause's text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2-22.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court's interpretation of the operative clause. The "militia" comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens' militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens' militia would be preserved. Pp. 22-28.

(c) The Court's interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment. Pp. 28-30.

(d) The Second Amendment's drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30-32.

(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court's conclusion. Pp. 32-47.

(f) None of the Court's precedents forecloses the Court's interpretation.

So basically your individual right to own gun has nothing to do with a "well regulated militia" - even if that was the original motivation for it. And anyone who claims they're currently connected is wrong. Period. Full stop.

It's rather dismaying to find that even professional writers in the gun community are still confused after Heller on what exactly the second amendment means.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:50 PM | Comments (776)
Post contains 1673 words, total size 16 kb.

I don't think CAC is doing election coverage tonight. Neither am I, actually. But here's a thread to watch the returns.

It does seem to me that the polls are likely to be right, unfortunately.

Posted by: Ace at 02:50 PM | Comments (153)
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.