Searching for right-handed amino acids:

So how can we be sure that the world about us isn't seething with alien bugs? I began researching this with Charles Lineweaver at the Australian National University. We identified several ways in which multiple genesis episodes might have left traces in Earth's geological or biological record. The real prize would be the identification of a truly alien microbe right under our noses. But how would we spot such a thing amid the welter of familiar life?

A possible answer was provided by my wife, a science journalist. To make proteins, organisms use amino acids, whose molecules resemble left-handed gloves. Look at them in a mirror and they would be right-handed. The right-handed forms are not hard to make, but life does not use them. The best explanation for this preponderance of left-handed amino acids is that it represents a frozen accident: early on in the genesis process, a random choice was made and life got stuck with it. But if there were a second genesis, then the odds are 50-50 that the opposite choice would be made. This "mirror life" might resemble "our" life in most important respects, but not in its handedness. And because left and right-handed life couldn't mix, mirror life would peacefully co-exist with our form of life...

Handedness, or "chirality," refers to the orientation of atoms around a central carbon atom. The carbon atom has four points of joining with other atoms, and two different carbon atoms can join with the same four other atoms and yet be chemically distinct. That's because of how they're oriented around the central carbon atom-- if you use four of your fingers of your left hand to represent the chemical bonds to other atoms, taking your palm to be the central carbon atom, you can see that you can stick on four different atoms (just call them red, blue, green, yellow) such that the this hand-atom won't superimpose itself over, or be identical to, a "Carbon molecule" represented by the same atoms connect to the same fingers your right hand.

That's what makes Splenda/sucralose, which is different from real sugar only in the chirality or arrangement of atoms around a central carbon atom, chemically distinct from real sugar or sucrose. The body can process one but can't do anything with the other except excrete it as metabolically useless.

The study of "wrong-handed" amino acids is technically known as "Bizarro biology." Scientists postulate that a being constructed entirely of right-handed amino acids would say things like "Me so happy, me want to cry" and would say "Hello" when he leaves and "Goodbye" when he first shows up.

He would also derive power from kryptonite, rather than being all pussified by it.

No thank you to cutaway. Cutaway a good tipper, me hate him so much.

Science Weenie Update: Dave Eaton, making trouble for me as usual, says that sucralose isn't different from sucrose only in its handedness. It also has a few oxygen atoms replaced by chlorine.

Me love corrections. When me get corrections, me so thankful me want to pound stupid-pointy-head into a soupy pulp.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (29)
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His j-school training gave him the objectivity and news-judgment to host the failed reality TV show The Mole. Not for nothing is he called "The Thinking Man's Julie (Big Brother) Chen."

So great a journalist was he that, when he departed that fabled show, he was replaced by none other than Ahmad Rashad, also known as "The Latter-Day Edwin Neumann" and "The Real Mr. Huxtable."

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (6)
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Must read Jack Kelly piece:

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

The only government response that was anywhere near competent was the federal one.

Kelly's Typo Corrected: A brain fart, he says.

He's agreed to be on Hoist the Black Flag next Tuesday.

Oh, and for tomorrow: Annie Jacobsen, author of Terror in the Skies. You will remember her for her expose about the suspected terrorist "dry run" aboard a Northwestern flight about a year back.

Geek Bonus Points! Kelly's article contains a quote from a Guardsman that, as of yet, the military doesn't possess Star Trek "replicators or transporters" allowing them to instantly beam down into the disaster area and start replicatin' up some good Cajun cookin' for the starving victims.

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (6)
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...but I was just following orders!

My surprise meter is busted. It doesn't seem to be moving.

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 08:25 AM | Comments (2)
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Jonathan Klein, he of the "pajamas" remark (one year and one day ago), says that CNN's future lies not with news reporting but "storytelling," some sort of hybrid of news and strong dramatic narrative. You know-- kind of made-up fictitious shit with a pleasing emotional resonance.

Well, here's some storytelling in action:

The TV news networks, which only a few months ago were piously suppressing emotional fireworks by their pundits, are now piously encouraging their news anchors to break out of the emotional straitjackets and express outrage. A Los Angeles Times colleague of mine, appearing on CNN last week to talk about Katrina, was told by a producer to "get angry."

That's from liberal hatchet man Michael Kinsley, writing in the LA Times, so I kinda doubt he's lying to serve his master Karl Rove (Our Satanic Father, Who Art Commuting Between Hell and the White House).

Now, of course, the point of "storytelling" is to exclude the extraneous. Stories need a point, and they need a tight and clean plot -- "narrative arc," as they say -- to be potent. They cannot ramble, contradict themselves, or be full of nonessential side-thoughts that distract too much from the central narrative arc. Heroes may be flawed and villains may have some redeeming qualities, but it's always hazardous to not be clear who is who when trying one's hand at "storytelling."

Michelle Malkin catches CNN's "storytellers" practicing their craft:

Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

That's a very good Act One. Lots of good conflict between the heroes (Democrats, the media, Roy "the CIA wants to kill me" Nagin, etc.) and the Black-Hatted profiteers of death.

But writing is rewriting and cutting out parts that don't fit the story. Like this, which Michelle tells you, but CNN, Reuters, and the usual gang of idiots don't:

The Shaw Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, is headed by Jim Bernhard, the current chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Bernhard worked tirelessly for Democrat Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's runoff campaign and served as co-chair of her transition team. Another Shaw executive was Blanco's campaign manager. Bernhard is back-scratching chums with Blanco, whom he has lent/offered the Shaw Group's corporate jets to on numerous occasions.

Yes, I see the power of storytelling now.

It's just another name for the faith-based journalism the media has been pushing on us for 50 years. But turned up to 11.

More on Storytelling: First of all, Kausfiles has been on this "storytelling" model since day one. Check his archives; he mentions it two or three times a month.

Here's a description of "storytelling" from that piece first linked at the top of this post:

Attention spans will continue to shorten. But that kind of rapid-fire information is becoming a commodity on the web. It's easy to produce. Raw text stories and video clips are everywhere. But telling a story well requires time and talent. There's more value in good storytelling.

In fact, I would argue the bar is higher for on-demand storytelling. When people click on a story -- when they expend the energy to actually "demand" it -- they expect the story to deliver. "Anticipointment" is a real enemy. On live TV, producers can "punch up" weaker stories with urgent writing and dynamic live shots. That same energy is difficult to translate into a pure on-demand environment.

The story must deliver even if the facts don't quite do that, it seems. You can't subject an audience to "anticipointment" (anticipation followed by disappointment, I guess).

And if you have to tell your on-air interviewees to "get angry," or omit very germane facts to make a neat, clear, dramatic narrative -- well, that's what storytelling requires.

But remember: You can trust the mainstream media. They've got degrees in journalism, after all, which insures they... well, I guess that they'll tell you stories.

Posted by: Ace at 05:21 PM | Comments (38)
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According to the Qibla finder, which goes according to the shortest route (in this case, over the North Pole), the midpoint of the "Cresent of Embrace" points directly towards Mecca, if you imagine an arrow nocked in the "bow" of the crescent.

Thanks to Aaron of Lifelike Pundits for that graphic.

More Credit: I'm sorry, but I don't know who should properly be credited with the pic. Aaron of Lifelike Pundits sent it to me, but Politicalities credits it to "Etaoin Shrdlu," by way of "Zombie."

Incidentally, Politicalities calculates the angle of the crescent mathematically and finds that the line bisecting its midpoint interesects with Mecca with an error smaller than 1/580th of the arc of a circle. A fair amount less than one degree.

SarahW at Blue Merle first caught that the "Crescent of Embrace" actually points directly to Mecca... Go there for the complete explanation. And for a link to the Qibla finder, so you can prove this to yourself.

Is the Marxist designer of this "memorial" going to tell us that's yet another inadvertant coincidence, based only on the fact that he finds this particular Mecca-pointing tilt of the crescent "aesthetically pleasing"?

Edits: This post has been edited to remove my initial confusion and stupidity and caveats about this being unconfirmed and speculative. It is now quite confirmed.

And I apologize to the reader who suggested the "great circle" route to Mecca, which I scoffed at.

The Crescent Points to China, Not Mecca?: Nope, not according to that picture. The FAT PART of the crescent is not quite centered on the crescent; indeed, if you take the midpoint of the *fat part* of the crescent, that doesn't point to Mecca. Conceded.

But the midpoint of the whole crescent, starting at one slender tip, ending at the other, does seem to point straight to Mecca.

Coincidence? Or design?

Okay, yes, it's quite possible this is a coincidence. But this guy's whole bio and his statements about his "art" suggest a lefty, and I'm just having trouble believing an architect dealing primarily in symbolism (the whole dealio is intended to be symbolic -- forty trees for forty victims, windchimes to symbolize the rings of their last phone calls, etc.) missed the symbolism of the crescent, and then just happened to accidentally point it towards Mecca to boot.

What If A Known Right-Wing Architecht Had Done This?: I would suggest in that case the left, currently scoffing at this, would be having a fit, because they would read the monument and pointing the finger of blame at Mecca.

And, just in case you're curious, I'd be against that too. It's inappropriate in a memorial to the dead to have any stealth political messaging going on.

But Let's Assume... that this all is inadvertant and coincidental. The left wouldn't allow that a memorial was accidentally designed to suggest the shape of a cross; whether inadvertant or not, the symbolism is there.

A lot of lefty po-mo deconstructionists deny the author's primacy in interpretation, and say that any reader can read any symbolism into a text he likes, pretty much.

So even if the "author" of this memorial is telling the truth-- hey, that symbolism is still there.

One reader points out, sagely, that a memorial should spark discussion about those being memorialized. Well, that being the case, this designer has failed miserably, because no one -- no one -- is talking about the courageous dead of Flight 93. Everyone's talking about that crescent.

Coincidence or design, inadvertant or stealth politcal messaging -- either way, it's simply inappropriate to have this symbol at the deathsite of those killed by Islamofascist radicals.

Make it a full circle with three breaks in the trees to allow entry. (I say three, not four, because four entrances would sketch out the points of a cross, and then the left would be screaming holy hell, wouldn't they? Suddenly symbolism would be quite important to those currently denying it.)

I still think it's a sorta crappy abstract tree-huggy design, but trees are nice enough, and it's certainly better than the other crap designs offered.

And, By The Way... For those who say "the families chose this design," well, again, only a few representatives of the familes of the dead were on the panel to choose a design, and further, as can be seen from this article, the other designs were just plain ugly. Typical abstract post-modern avant-garde-ism, with a bit of Soviet Futurist design tossed in for good measure.

If the families want trees and windchimes, fine by me. But I'm having trouble with the left's resistance to a circle over a crescent. Is there some particular reason they're determined to have their crescent?

It's a little odd that they can say the crescent means absolutely nothing at all and yet get so angry over the suggestion that it be replaced by an uncontroversial (and, frankly, more apprpriately symbolic) circle.

If the crescent means nothing, then why not swap it with another shape that also means nothing?

Posted by: Ace at 04:54 PM | Comments (107)
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But it won't be widely reported by the MSM, as it contradicts the narrative of their faith-based journalism:

In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a "dead-head" train that evening to move equipment out of the city. It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. "We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm's way," said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. "The city declined."

So the ghost train left New Orleans at 8:30 p.m., with no passengers on board.

Oh wait-- Amtrak is a federally subsized corporation. It had the duty to order Nagin to put his citizens on the train.

Posted by: Ace at 04:30 PM | Comments (20)
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Shockingly enough, the reliably liberal partisan editor of the reliably partisan LA Times slams the media for assigning blame to Bush, and blames all of the previous Presidents except Bush.

Here's a little secret: There are disasters waiting to happen all over, and yes, when they come, we'll find there were people warning us about them for decades.

But people often choose the very inexpensive option of hoping for the best than the much pricier option of preparing for the worst.

We do this every day.

I don't know about you, but my fire alarm is too sensitive and often goes off when the oven's cooking something, and I tend to disable it, and then forget about promptly turning it back on.

If I fire strikes, I'll be kicking myself. Assuming I'm still alive.

But we make calculated decisions to risk catastrophe every day, as individuals and collectively as a nation.

Thanks for the tip to Steven.

Newsweek: Oh Yes It Is Bush's Fault! Ohhh, Snap! Jeff Goldstein has a tour-de-force takedown of Newsweek's faith-based style of "journalism."

Take your blood pressure medication before you read it. Or, if you're not on blood pressure medication, go mug someone old and agitated on the street and loot "take" theirs.

You'll be happy you did.

Posted by: Ace at 01:16 PM | Comments (13)
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Okay, no they didn't. But they didn't have to. They're a private corporation and they can air what they like.

What they like is bodies they can lay at Bush's feet. What they don't like is bodies they can lay at Osama bin Ladin's feet, which would "inflame" the American people to fight rather than negotiate.

A horrible but moving tribute in pictures and song.

Shirtless. Why? Because his shirt caught flame? Because he put it over his head in a futile effort to filter out smoke and flying cinders? Because he tried to pat out the flames burning the body of a coworker?

We don't know.

Imagine the holocaust of flame and smoke and molten metal which compels a human being to choose jumping from a 110 story building as his most likely chance of survival.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin, who has a lot of links and pictures too.

Another Good Tribute (Plus Myriad Links): From Stop the ACLU.

He has the Quote of the Day, too:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didnÂ’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our childrenÂ’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

-- Ronald Reagan

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (22)
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You all know that NO authorities are confiscating firearms (apparently illegally) from citizens, so that they can't shoot at cops when cops attempt to forceably evacuate them, right?

Eclipse Web wants to know what Special Celebrity Junior G-Man card Sean Penn was issued giving him the right to walk the streets toting a shotgun with impunity.

Celebrities

Different rules for better people.

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 AM | Comments (21)
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