The Blinne Blog

Free Speech at Berkeley

Who would have thunk? Real free speech at Berkeley.

An unlikely rally at liberal bastion of universities

Associated Press
Apr. 28, 2003 08:30 AM

BERKELEY, Calif. - Campus demonstrations are commonplace at UC Berkeley. But the one over the weekend was enough to give aging campus radicals heartburn.

About 200 flag-waving young Republicans rallied on the steps of Sproul Hall, where the famed Free Speech movement of the 1960s began.

The University of California students praised President Bush and lauded the war effort in Iraq. Some carried signs like "Give War a Chance" and "Bomb France."

Witsius on Controversy

As Christians it altogether too easy to get engaged in controversy, claiming we are contending for the Gospel. Reformed theologian Herman Witsius gives the following salutary antidote to this poison:

"He who loves the peace of Jerusalem, had rather see controversies lessened than increased; and will with pleasure hear that several things are innocent, or even useful, which had sometimes been made the matter of controversy...

O! how much better would it be to use our utmost endeavours, to lessen, make up, and, if it could be, put an end to all controversy! Make this reverend and learned Sirs, your great concern. ...

But if me must write on those controversies, let us lay aside all evil dispositions, which are hindrances to us in our enquiries, and mislead our readers. Let us fight with arguments,not railings...

Let him who thinks he has found out something preferable to the received opinion, offer it to the public with modesty, without vilifying the brethren; not asserting or determining rashly, but submitting his thoughts to the censure of the learned, and the judgment of the church; not forcing them on the common people to the distraction of their minds; nor hastily offering them to incautious youth, who are improper judges of such weighty matters. Nor let any reject, on account of its novelty, what is agreeable to the meaning of the words, to Scripture phrases, to the analogy of faith, or to the relation the text bears to others...Let no one who has in general expressed the truth in eloquent language, be heinously censured on account of an improper word or harsh expression which has slipped from his pen: 'Poison does not lie hid in syllables; nor does truth consist in sound, but in the intention: nor godliness in the tinkling of brass, but in the meaning of the things signified'. Yet, let us all endeavour to express ourselves as accurately as possible...

Solid learning, manners conformable to Christian sanctity, a peaceable disposition, and a faithful discharge of our duty without noise and confusion, will procure favour much more than inconsiderate warm zeal, and the violent efforts of a passionate mind; which are designed for the most part, to heighten our own glory and seeming importance, though the cause of God be made the pretence for him."

Quote of the Day

The following story quoted noted primate activist, Jane Goodall, speaking to the State Department on Earth Day:

"Whoo whoo whoo oogh oogh oogh oogh oogh oogh oogh oogh ooh ooh oooh oooh," Goodall bellowed in the State Department's Dean Acheson Auditorium, drawing laughter and applause from the diplomats and environmentalists gathered to mark Earth Day and to discuss the issue of deforestation.

UN Screwing Up SARS Research As Well As Iraq

Today's Nature is reporting[Subscription to Nature required] that the WHO is injecting politics into SARS.

Researchers in Taiwan say they are being shut out of the global investigation into the pneumonia-like disease that is sweeping the world because their country isn't recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is coordinating the study.

Mei-Shang Ho, an epidemiologist at Taiwan's Academia Sinica, is one of several researchers who say they have been denied access to samples and information. Ho wanted more data on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) after it affected two Taiwanese patients in early March. But WHO officials told Ho and other investigators that they should instead approach the People's Republic of China in Beijing, which the organization does recognize.

"Knowing the information is there but not being able to get it is truly frustrating," says Ho, who decided to travel to Beijing last week to get first-hand data on the disease's spread. "We can't get any information from the WHO," says Yuan-Tsong Chen, director of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the Academia Sinica in Taipei.

China has never recognized the government of Taiwan, where Chinese nationalists retreated when the communists won control of the mainland in 1949. It considers Taiwan to be its province, and since 1972, when the United Nations admitted the communist government in Beijing, the WHO and other bodies have denied Taiwan membership.

Unable to participate in meetings between the WHO's collaborating centres, Taiwan's researchers must rely on the WHO's website. "By the time the information is in the public domain, it's probably out of date," says Chen. WHO officials are keen to visit mainland China, but have not asked to visit Taiwan.

Taiwanese researchers say they have also struggled to obtain materials such as diagnostic reagents. To test Taiwan's 23 probable SARS cases for the coronavirus thought to be responsible, researchers wanted to use antibody tests distributed by the WHO. "We were told to go to Beijing," says Chien-Jen Chen, an epidemiologist at National Taiwan University and chair of the island's SARS advisory committee.

The WHO says its hands are tied because Taiwan is not a member. Iain Simpson, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, says that the organization arranged for Taiwan to receive a visitor from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, one of its collaborating centres. "There's little more that we can do," he adds.

Government officials are highlighting the situation to promote Taiwan's case for full representation at the United Nations and the WHO. "We share our public-health officials' anger that for political reasons we are denied access to the world health system," said Parris Chang, a legislator with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, on a visit to Washington DC last week. He added that Taiwan is demanding observer status at the World Health Assembly, the WHO's governing body.

Congressman Sherrod Brown (Democrat, Ohio) backed Chang and called for the United States to support the recognition of Taiwan more vigorously. Taiwan's current plight is an "unjustified violation of the basic human right to healthcare", says Brown.

Despite its isolation, Taiwan seems to be dealing successfully with the epidemic. Since mid-March, when the first cases were recognized, it has reported one new case a day, compared with five each day in Singapore and 40 in Hong Kong. There have been no deaths.

Taiwanese researchers have also enjoyed some collaborative success. A Taiwanese group was involved in a study that isolated the coronavirus from patients in Taiwan and elsewhere (T. G. Ksiazek et al. N. Engl. J. Med. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa030781; 2003).

Human Cloning: It's Against the Law (of Nature)

In the 11 April Issue of Science [AAAS membership required to view link] a clue of why primate cloning doesn't work was found. Note: NT stands for nuclear transfer which is the technical term for reproductive cloning. There are two kinds of nuclear transfer, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) which is done before initial cell division and embryonic cell nuclear transfer (ECNT) which is done after initial division. Neither approach works in primates.

NuMA (Nuclear-Mitotic Apparatus), a matrix protein responsible for spindle pole assembly, concentrates at centrosomes in unfertilized meiotic (Fig. 1B) and fertilized mitotic cells (Fig. 1C). After NT, NuMA is not detected on the abnormal mitotic spindles (Fig. 1D) or in enucleated oocytes. HSET and Eg5 are mitotic kinesin motors. HSET, found during meiosis and mitosis, is not detected in NT spindles (Fig. 1E). Eg5 detects centromere pairs at meiosis and mitosis, including misaligned ones on NT spindles (Fig. 1F). Thus, meiotic spindle removal depletes the ooplasm of NuMA and HSET, both vital for mitotic spindle pole formation.

Normal spindles found in tetraploids suggest meiotic spindle removal as the source of NT anomalies. In tetraploids, chromosomes aligned properly on bipolar spindles with centrosomal NuMA (Fig. 1G). NT mitotic spindles could be distinguished from the fertilized spindle by the sperm tail. Similarly, fertilization of reconstituted oocytes resulted in apparently normal divisions. Thus, manipulation of the embryos alone was not the cause of the problem, and proper mitotic spindles can be organized around somatic chromosomes if the meiotic spindle is left intact.

Primate NT appears to be challenged by stricter molecular requirements for mitotic spindle assembly than in other mammals. In cattle, the somatic centrosome is transferred during NT, whereas mice rely on the oocyte's maternal centrosome. Also, NuMA and HSET are not exclusively concentrated on the meiotic spindle in mammals other than primates. With current approaches, NT to produce embryonic stem cells in nonhuman primates may prove difficult--and reproductive cloning unachievable. [emphasis mine]

Click on Image for Larger Picture.

Fig. 1. Faulty mitotic spindles produce aneuploid embryos after primate nuclear transfer. (A) Defective NT mitotic spindle with misaligned chromosomes. Centrosomal NuMA at meiosis (B) and mitosis (C), but not in mitotic spindles after NT (D). The centrosomal kinesin HSET is also missing after NT (E), but not centromeric Eg5. (F). Bipolar mitotic spindles with aligned chromosomes and centrosomal NuMA after NT into fertilized eggs (G). DNA, microtubule, NuMA, and kinesin imaging as in (7, 8). Blue, DNA; red, -tubulin; green, NuMA in (B), (C), (D), and (G); HSET in (E); and Eg5 in (F). Scale bar, 10 µm.

April 1865

The History Channel last night ran the special April 1865 showing how that month was crucial for the survival of a united American republic. We can learn a number of lesssons concerning the current conflict with Iraq:

• Lincoln was magnamous in victory. So, were his generals. Both Grant and Sherman (!) gave very generous terms of surrender. The political establishment really wanted to stick it to the south. When some of the establishment wanted to try Lee for treason, Grant threatened to resign. It seems that great men of war can also be great men of peace.
• Robert E. Lee may have single-handedly saved the union because he was a man of principle and honor. When he determined that he should surrender he fought as hard or harder for the peace than he did for war. He wrote a letter to other southerners telling them not to transform the war into a guerilla war like Jefferson Davis wanted. He told them that slavery was over. Then something remarkable happened. In a Richmond Episcopal church a black man went forward to the communion rail. There was tension in the sanctuary. Then an old man kneeled beside the black man. The old man was Robert E. Lee.

If we can be magnamous in victory and if we can be men of principle and honor where actions follows words, then there may be hope in the Middle East.

Regime Change Is the Policy of the U.S.

There has been a lot of talk about the necesiity to find WMD in order to legitimate the attack on Iraq. Regime change has been the policy of the U.S. since the Clinton Administration.

Public Law 105-338 Section 3 (Passed 360-38 in the House, and unanimously by the Senate, Signed October 31, 1998 by President Clinton) says:

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Guess Who Said This

Who said this and when? Answer in the continue reading portion of this post.

This bill, when passed and signed into law, is a clear commitment to a U.S. policy replacing the Saddam Hussein regime and replacing it with a transition to democracy. This bill is a statement that America refuses to coexist with a regime which has used chemical weapons on its own citizens and on neighboring countries, which has invaded its neighbors twice without provocation, which has still not accounted for its atrocities committed in Kuwait, which has fired ballistic missiles into the cities of three of its neighbors, which is attempting to develop nuclear and biological weapons, and which has brutalized and terrorized its own citizens for thirty years. I don't see how any democratic country could accept the existence of such a regime, but this bill says America will not. I will be an even prouder American when the refusal, and commitment to materially help the Iraqi resistance, are U.S. policy.

Ambush Journalism

I just witnessed a reprehensible press conference. They were interviewing PFC Lynch's father and mother. They asked him whether going to visit their daughter was a happy or sad occasion. He said that it was happy. Then they informed him that the rest of the 509th was reclassified as KIA. He didn't know. The change in mood on his face was very difficult for me to watch.

Black Hawk Down

There has been a number of comments in the press about Saddam Hussein using the movie Black Hawk Down for his tactics. This was confirmed by Greg Kelly's report for Fox News this morning of the unsucessful use of so-called "technicals" against troops in Bagdhad.

I remember from the movie, however, what made the Rangers vulnerable was the equivocation at the UN troop headquarters to save them. This is the difference here. Thank you, France, for making certain that the UN was not in charge of this. It is also a warning about UN running the peace-keeping.