Insomnia.

I suffer from insomnia. I won’t bore you with the clinical details, but it sucks. I like sleeping. Just wish I did it more. I’d probably try medication, but I fear dependence.

Six is the only hour upon a clock face I don’t usually see the small hand pass twice a day.

I Can’t Believe It, I Actually Like a Politician.

I didn’t get excited about Barack Obama at first. As a matter of fact, I figured he was a just another politician—ready to pander to the interests of Illinois agribusiness giants, all flash, and no substance. Yet every time I’ve heard the man speak, (I can barely bring myself to admit it) I’ve been inspired. To inspire someone as cynical and iconoclastic as I am is no small task. And it’s no small matter that Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq from the very beginning. I don’t agree with every word that comes out of the man’s mouth, but for someone with real potential to become the next President of the United States of America, he’s pretty fantastic. This isn’t just a post-Bush “anyone but Dubya” head rush. Nor is it a fairy tale. Obama has shown us twice now that he can win. He won in an overwhelmingly white state (Iowa) and a majority black state (South Carolina). And the Clintons have been behaving terribly (lying a lot!) in this campaign. It’s no wonder that Caroline Kennedy (JFK’s daughter) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (JFK’s brother) have decided to endorse Obama. And now I’m jumping on the bandwagon, at least publicly. I’ve been liking Barack Obama a little more each time I’ve heard him speak.

Even in New Hampshire, a state where most residents haven’t seen a black man since Family Matters went off the air, Hillary Clinton only beat Obama by two measly percentage points. In Nevada, Clinton’s popular vote win still netted her one less delegate than Obama—and delegates are what matter. On top of all that, on Saturday, Obama completely pwn3d Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary. Yes, that sealed the deal, and inspired me to write this post. Let’s get ready for Super Tuesday.

So I just made my second contribution to his campaign. It was only $25, but hey. Every little bit helps. And if a politician (even a black man with a funny name) can convince a guy like me to donate to his campaign, he may just have a shot at winning this thing. I set up a personal fundraising goal on his website, so if you’re considering donating, I urge you to donate here.

Frankenstein’s Mycoplasma

There’s incredible news this week in biotechnology. Dan Gibson, a geneticist at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland (strong deeds, gentle words!), has announced that his team of researchers have succeeded in constructing the largest man-made DNA structure—at 582,970 base pairs in length, it’s over 20 times longer than the previous record! The artificial sequence was pieced together from four smaller (but still massive!) strands of DNA by utilizing the transcription power of yeast, and is precisely modeled on the genome of a bacterium known as Mycoplasma genitalium. With characteristic optimism, they’re now confident that they will be able to produce the very first man-made organism within the year. If they do that, the goal of biofuel production from cellulosic biomass will be within arm’s reach.¹

What does this mean? Imagine the end of fossil fuels: a cessation of ecologically devastating drilling operations, deflation of the political and economic power of neoconservative oil barons, and affordable, low-emission transportation, heating, and electricity. The impact of this technology is profound, and it doesn’t stop there. By discovering the details of biochemical and metabolic pathways, we can more closely mimic their elegance and efficiency to solve problems that plague industrial civilization. Maybe we’ll engineer a primitive, self-sustaining bio-robot that feeds on CO2 and excretes O2. Perhaps we could remove mercury from our water supplies. The limitations are not known, but the possibilities are awe-inspiring.

There has been some criticism of this work, notably by the Canadian-based ETC Group, a biotechnology watchdog organization. I agree with most of ETC Group’s principles (conserving agricultural biodiversity, fighting against patents for bioengineered plants). It is therefore fair to accuse me of wanting to have it both ways on this issue. I do see both sides, and I think that governments should regulate this kind of biotechnology. I am not worried about the J. Craig Venter Institute, which has demonstrated a responsible concern with ethics in this and previous projects. Venter himself shared the human genome’s raw code with the public for free after decoding it; his business aimed to make money by selling analytical services and bioinformatics software used for studying the genome. Others, however, are not nearly as scrupulous. I can’t say I endorse a moratorium at this point, but I do think that the USDA and Centers for Disease Control should be closely monitoring this type of research.

Still, this is exciting. You can expect me to post more on this topic in the future.

¹ Science Volume 315, No. 5813, 9 February 2007, pp. 801-804. Challenges in Engineering Microbes for Biofuels Production, by Gregory Stephanopoulos.

Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down This Wall!

Ok, so Hosni Mubarak ain’t exactly Mikhail Gorbechev. But he sure is powerless to stop the deluge of Palestinians into Egypt! Run, Gazans, Run! I hesitate to make any predictions of what will come of this, but it’s got the potential at least to be a big deal. News reports are very inconsistent about how many Gazans have crossed the border (doubtless confused by people going both directions), but some estimates are as high as 350,000. Minutemen, eat your hearts out. Anyway, this is news worth paying attention to. I’m sure the Israelis are.

In other news, I signed up for an astronomy class—just for fun. I’ll buy the telescope after I learn a thing or two!

Survival Machine Resolutions for 2008

This post is fashionably late, but who cares?  Your favorite blog’s author just had cable internet installed at the Survival Machine world publishing headquarters (aka my apartment), and is ready to tackle some serious informed and educational commentary.  A lot is happening – NASA’s planning another space shuttle launch in February, and scientists just found a volcano in Antarctica! And, incredibly, the state of Florida is facing a number of local school board-level movements to discredit the teaching of evolution in public schools (since they’ve been failing miserably at getting I.D. into the curricula).  I guess Mike Huckabee can expect to do well there in the upcoming Republican primary.

So here we go: Survival Machine New Year 2008 Resolutions

• Do not allow 7 days to pass without an update.
• Write at least one well-researched on the state of alternative energy science.
• Do several science experiments and post pictures, video, and a how-to guide for readers.
• Purchase a telescope and document my adventures in amateur astronomy.
• Score at least one interview with a notable scientist or politician.
• Consider partnership with another author to make blog more prolific.
• Document this year’s trip to Burning Man with a passion!
• Cover the presidential election as it regards science issues.
• Get noticed (and linked to) by some of the better science bloggers out there.
• To be continued…

The Grim Reaper v. The United States of America

Tomorrow, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in two lawsuits involving the use of lethal injection to execute condemned prisoners. The last time the court considered a method of execution, in 1878, they ruled to allow executions by firing squad to continue. The court is not directly considering the constitutionality of the death penalty itself, although if lethal execution is ruled to be “cruel and unusual punishment,” it might effectively be a death knell (yuk, yuk) for capital punishment in the United States. Of the nearly forty states that still have the death penalty, only Nebraska uses electrocution as its sole method of execution. There has been a de facto moratorium on executions in the United States since September, when the court first agreed to hear arguments in these lawsuits.

The death penalty is an abomination, an obtuse expression of state power, hypocritical, institutionally racist, anachronistic, and utterly wrong. We live in an age where DNA evidence has exonerated prisoners who were mistakenly convicted and sentenced to die at the hands of the state. Even that, however, I feel is tangential to the more salient point: murdering people to punish them for the crime of murder makes no sense at all, and sends no reasonable message to society. The sanctimoniousness with which judges impose the death penalty and executioners carry it out belies its real nature. It is a monument to state authority and power, a relic of times when monarchs and emperors ruled by fear and intimidation.

The crime committed by the prisoner should not be a part of the ethical calculus here. Further, this debate over a method of execution is just a technical squabble. The fundamental question: is it ever acceptable to kill a human being against their will? I say no, with the only exception being an immediate act of self-defense (or defense of others under direct threat of serious harm). Because this exception could never apply to the state, and because the death penalty is carried out with malice aforethought, there seems to me little room for argument over whether it is “cruel or unusual punishment.” At least most murder victims are fortunate enough not to anticipate their untimely end for very long. State murder victims suffer the added torture of anticipating their death.

I hope that this Supreme Court case raises an outcry against capital punishment in the United States. As a society, we need to break the grasp that our prison-industrial complex has developed on our justice system. We also need to get off our fucking high horses, stop imprisoning drug users, and start concentrating on fixing our crumbling public education system. That’s a policy that would pay off in the long run. Instead of jailing and murdering the dregs of society, let’s stop raising so damn many of them.

As an aside, it also gets my goat that so many Christians support the death penalty. These wackos worship a mythological person who was allegedly crucified by the powers that be, and they can sleep at night knowing that their beloved republic carries on that barbaric tradition dozens of times a year. Suffer unto me…

We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

Imagine that an exhaustive, comprehensive study of world governments were to reveal that you were living in the most intrusive Big Brother society in the democratic world.

Are you, like myself, an American? If so, you can stop imagining, because that’s exactly what’s happened. A London-based watchdog group, Privacy International, just published their whopping 1100-page report on the state of individual privacy and freedom in 47 countries. The United States ranks along with Russia, China, Singapore, and Malaysia as “Endemic Surveillance Societies.” If you’ve been paying attention to things like the REAL ID act, you won’t be too surprised. Interestingly, the UK ranked the worst among European countries for (among other things) its extensive use of video surveillance camera networks around the country.

One thing in the P.I. report I found especially troubling:

The privacy trends have been fueled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes.

Oh, boy! Free-market capitalism has brought us such bountiful rewards. The fact that these bits of news aren’t very surprising doesn’t make them any less terrible. It seems at times that the powers that be have taken Orwell’s 1984 as a playbook rather than a cautionary tale. I’d like to encourage everyone to be outspoken and actively demand transparency from their governments. If they can spy on us, we certainly need to be able to spy back.

And if there was ever a time to start using strong, open-source encryption, it’s now. The more encrypted messages are flying around out there, the better. If the FBI (or NSA, or whoever) wants to read our e-mail, let’s at least make it a bloody challenge. I’ll be glad to teach you how to use it; it’s not very difficult at all.

Please, let’s do our best to keep Eric Blair’s pseudonym from achieving the status of prophet.

 Here’s the map from the P.I. report.  The black countries are “Endemic Surveillance Societies.”