General Science

Why The Asymmetry?

I’d never really given this much thought, but how come plants can contain proteins, but animals are a hundred percent noncarbohydrates?

[Update a while later]

A commenter points out I’m mistaken. OK, but that still seems like trace amounts, relative to how much protein that you can get from, say, soy. And when I look at any package of dead animal in the supermarket, it always has zero grams of carbs. So even if it’s not a hundred percent, there still seems to be a big disparity. Also, the example given, blood sugar, really part of the animal? I mean, yes, it can’t function without it, but it’s produced by absorbing food and has to be continually replenished. I was thinking about the animal itself. It seem like, for the most part, structurally, we’re meat, fat and bone, not sugar and spice and everything nice. (And does that mean that little girls contain more carbs than little boys, what with the snips and snails and puppy dog tails?)

Science And Society

A Scientist Who Became A Priest

Colby Cosh remembers Carl Sagan.:

He continued to expound the gospel even as improved modelling showed that the likely effect would be closer to “nuclear autumn.” But his fancies came to an end in 1991 when he warned Western governments that ignition of the Kuwaiti oil fields by Saddam Hussein would be certain to induce the equivalent of nuclear winter. When Saddam lit the match, it was only Sagan’s prestige that fell to below zero. In his 1996 book The Demon- Haunted World, he all but acknowledged that his own “baloney detector” had suffered interference from his personal politics. Yet contemporary iconographers now claim that Sagan’s hypothesis, though wrong, frightened Mikhail Gorbachev so badly that Sagan can be credited with playing a “role” in ending the Cold War. (If you believe what the Soviet generals have to say on the subject, Ronald Reagan’s investments in missile-defence research — which Sagan fought to the point of civil disobedience– were more persuasive.)

War Commentary

Isn’t It Obvious?

You shouldn’t need a think tank to figure this out, even though many foolish diplomats, at Foggy Bottom and in Europe, don’t get it.

“There is no longer a possibility for effective sanctions to stop Iran,” retired Brig.-Gen. Zvi Shtauber, of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Jerusalem Post.

“Our conclusion is that without military action you won’t be able to stop Iran,” Shtauber said.

We have a very grim choice before us, and the administration doesn’t seem to be doing anything to prepare the American people for it. We will have a war with Iran, or we will have a nuclear-armed Iran (with a nuclear arms race in the rest of the Middle East). That’s it.

War Commentary

Isn’t It Obvious?

You shouldn’t need a think tank to figure this out, even though many foolish diplomats, at Foggy Bottom and in Europe, don’t get it.

“There is no longer a possibility for effective sanctions to stop Iran,” retired Brig.-Gen. Zvi Shtauber, of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Jerusalem Post.

“Our conclusion is that without military action you won’t be able to stop Iran,” Shtauber said.

We have a very grim choice before us, and the administration doesn’t seem to be doing anything to prepare the American people for it. We will have a war with Iran, or we will have a nuclear-armed Iran (with a nuclear arms race in the rest of the Middle East). That’s it.

War Commentary

Isn’t It Obvious?

You shouldn’t need a think tank to figure this out, even though many foolish diplomats, at Foggy Bottom and in Europe, don’t get it.

“There is no longer a possibility for effective sanctions to stop Iran,” retired Brig.-Gen. Zvi Shtauber, of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Jerusalem Post.

“Our conclusion is that without military action you won’t be able to stop Iran,” Shtauber said.

We have a very grim choice before us, and the administration doesn’t seem to be doing anything to prepare the American people for it. We will have a war with Iran, or we will have a nuclear-armed Iran (with a nuclear arms race in the rest of the Middle East). That’s it.

Weird

Evolution In Action

Fortunately, she didn’t take anyone with her. Behold, a woman who killed herself putting on makeup behind the wheel:

“There was makeup all over the air bag,” said a police source.

Open containers of cosmetics also were found in the front seat, the source said.

Perez was driving a 2005 black Mitsubishi northbound on the parkway about 7 a.m. when she veered off the road by a bend where the Henry Hudson turns into the Saw Mill River Parkway, police said.

Alone in the car and not wearing a seatbelt, Perez careened over 200 feet of grass before hitting a tree, authorities said.

I suspect that she raised the average IQ of New York City, and the rest of the world, too. Not sure whether it rates a Darwin, though, it doesn’t say whether or not she’d bred.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!