Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Nikole Flax

70 Comments

…who also has missing emails, sure visited the White House a lot.

[Update a while later]

The missing emails point to abuse of power and a cover up:

Two different House committees wanted to know more about what instructions Lerner issued in conducting the targeting, and more to the point, who may have instructed Lerner to target conservative groups in the first place. Lerner refused to testify when subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, but the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee both demanded all of her communications from the IRS. Those records could help establish whether this was a “phony scandal,” as the White House has insisted last year, or whether the abuse of power was a coordinated political strategy.

The House Ways and Means Committee pressed the matter for months, while the IRS dragged its feet. In March, new IRS Commissioner John Koskinen reassured chair Dave Camp that the IRS kept solid records of their communications and that collation of the material would only be a matter of time. However, time apparently ran out last Friday afternoon, when Koskinen told Camp that the IRS had lost two years of Lerner’s email data due to a hard-drive failure – and that the IRS only keeps six months’ server data on backup while requiring businesses to store far more.

A few days later, the IRS announced that they had similar two-year gaps for six more IRS officials connected to the targeting effort. While the IRS has been able to piece together the internal-only emails from Lerner and the other six officials, they claim that any emails between these seven IRS officials and outside agencies has been forever lost. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what the House panel wants to see.

Isn’t that rather … convenient? It certainly moves this from “phony scandal” to potential minefield for Barack Obama – or at least it should, if anyone pays attention. The hypocrisy alone is breathtaking: the government’s biggest stickler for accurate records and lengthy archival requirements claiming to have little regard itself for such measures.

Record keeping, like laws, is for the little people.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Science And Society

Triglycerides

So I heard about this story on the news this morning, and it sounded a little junk sciency:

“What’s exciting about this is it takes that to another place,” said Toni Pollin, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who led the 2008 work. “Just as you’d expect from something that prevents coronary artery buildup, there is strong evidence that having [a gene mutation] reduces the risk of having a heart attack.”

Kathiresan and colleagues benefited from the revolution in genome technology, sequencing 18,666 genes in each of 3,734 people in their search for genes that appeared to be linked to triglycerides. Rare mutations in the APOC3 gene stood out.

Once they understood where to look, they searched for four mutations in that gene in more than 110,000 people. They found that people with any one of the mutations — about 1 in 150 people — were 40 percent less likely to have heart disease and had lower levels of triglycerides.

There is no doubt in my mind that that there is a genetic basis for heart-disease risk, but I am not seeing anything in this study that would indicate that trying to reduce triglycerides per se (as statins attempt to lower cholesterol) are doing anything but treating a symptom, and possibly a harmless one. The mutation reduces both triglycerides and heart risk, but doesn’t mean that high triglycerides increase heart risk per se, or that lowering them artificially will reduce it.

But for what it’s worth, since I went partially paleo, my triglycerides have become almost immeasurable.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Bill Nelson

22 Comments

He’s pushing back against Shelby’s attempt to sabotage commercial crew.

I don’t think this is right, though:

NASA insists that waiving certain parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which the agency may legally do in certain situations, is vital to getting a commercially designed system safely up and running.

NASA isn’t “waiving certain parts of the FAR.” It is following the FAR, which doesn’t require cost-plus-like accounting for fixed-price contracts. In fact it is Shelby who is trying to change the FAR by demanding that it be used anyway.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!