Biological Arms Races, Biocontainment Labs, Hazards and Assessments

Excerpt: Before we expose huge populations to catastrophic risks with BSL 3 & 4 labs, we need to ask why. If someone does attack the U.S. with biologicals, what is the likelihood that we’ll have the right vaccine, in enough quantities, available when it is needed? Wouldn’t we have to vaccinate people before the threat reaches them? Perhaps an antidote, not a vaccine, will be needed. And how much vaccine, and when, would be considered a good solution? And who would be vaccinated? Only the government? The military? The medical community? Who might our solution actually save?
And finally, has anyone examined the probability that these risky efforts can even be successful? We’re considering exposing huge populations to catastrophic risks. For what? If someone does attack the U.S. with biologicals, what is the likelihood that we’ll have the right vaccine, in enough quantities, available when it’s needed?
Excerpt: I was almost raped as a young mother. A very caring policeman later sternly warned me, “Don’t be so stupid as to leave your window-shade up! You’re attracting every pervert in the county. Eventually, they’ll all make a beeline to your window!”
These labs leave the window-shades in Frederick up. Their very existence in Frederick asks, perhaps begs, for trouble, and that trouble will make its dangerous beeline straight to our area. Excerpt: Scientists in these labs will be genetically-engineering (from diseases with no cures), completely new, highly lethal and contagious life forms, life, life so new that no one yet understands how it works. What if a newly-mutated strain somehow finds a way to attach itself to a lab worker in some unpredictable way, some way that defeats the protections put on it, so that the lab workers carry it outside unknowingly? I plead for humility in the face of nature’s chaotic, awesome genetic power. Excerpt: The record shows that research lab workers, even those with the highest security clearances and the best available training, are still fallible human beings who can and do become victims of blackmail, fall in love unwisely, get into desperate financial situations, hide growing prescription and other drug problems, and develop volatile feelings about co-workers. Lab workers sometimes become blind to their own religious and political biases and bigotry, and are thus susceptible to involvement in illicit covert operations, conspiracies and cover-ups.
Sometimes they get in a hurry and make professionally embarrassing mistakes and bad decisions. Sometimes they hide evidence, fudge records and fake procedures in order to save their jobs and livelihoods, and then rationalize the risks they’re taking—escalating and exponentially complicating situations already perilous.
Also sadly, no one yet has been able to explain to me why it wouldn’t be easy, temptingly easy, to kamikaze an airplane flown from the Frederick Airport into a targeted Ft. Detrick building, or lob a well-placed rocket over the Ft. Detrick fence. Either of these unpreventable actions would very legitimately throw chaos and panic into the post, city and metropolitan area, creating unforeseen, complicated, dangerous situations. Continue reading

Dumb Play

Regarding the op-ed Obama’s China Card of 4/8/09: John Wohlstetter’s sinful offer to China of a poisoned diplomatic apple would serve only to heighten geostrategic tensions. Why aggravate our banker China, our most influential ally in negotiating with North Korea, when China could well be the very country most-motivated to partner with Obama’s smart-power, win-win efforts to find peaceful and mutually-advantageous solutions to the global problems shared-in-common by China and her trading partners, neighbors and debtors? Immense U.S. profits already accrued from China’s WTO membership will only grow during China’s historic rise—if unresolved energy shortages, climate change, nuclear proliferation, war, terrorism, trade wars, worldwide crime and disease and other such global conundrums don’t make future international trade moot. Increased enmity with China could even lead to war, which never prevents catastrophe, being itself a catastrophe. Our closest allies have with impunity violated far more UN Security Council resolutions than has North Korea. Let’s retire our lingering sentimental attachments to obsolescent strategies like sword-rattling and stick-shaking, along with defunct foreign policies that bully, threaten, and subsidize massive war-profiteering, approaches which have only moved our tiny blue planet steadily closer to nuclear nightmare. Continue reading

Wake Up, Rush Limbaugh, and Do Something For America With All Those Smarts

I originally titled this piece, “Rush Limbaugh is a Dangerous Destructive Simplistic Fear-Based Hateful Ignorant Terrifying Lying Demagogic Blowhard.” But I like Rush Limbaugh, if not what he says, so I changed the title.
Some of the things I like best about Rush Limbaugh are: his work ethic, his perseverence, his vulnerability, his gentleness, his good mind and his facility with words and ideas, his patriotism, and his loving spirit. Despite overwhelming evidence that his narrow worldview is way too confining for his large heart and fine intelligence, he seems fiercely determined so far to force unruly facts into his too-small mental paradigms, in order that he may continue to be safely “right” about whatever he's said up until now.
Rush Limbaugh is afraid (as are we all) of being “wrong,” and also of not-knowing, when the truth is, the more one knows, the more one knows one doesn't know. What I do know about Rush is that he means well, and that he wants very much to believe that what he's doing will work for him and for America and Americans. Certainly his past approaches have made him rich. They've also left him feeling very much alone in an angry, frightened, adoring, clueless crowd. Continue reading

Throwing Good Taxpayer $$$ After Bad

(Excerpt): It’s too late to stabilize markets using taxpayer money. The world has legitimately rejected as unreliable our current corrupt economic system and currency (read Paul Craig Roberts, among others.) No amount of taxpayer money spent by crooked politicians picking ultimate winners and losers in this crash can restore international confidence. (Excerpt): Prices won’t fall indefinitely; in today’s small world, international buyers quickly snap up values. Self-serving government bailouts complicate and postpone the day markets correct and we begin our arduous climb back to national recovery. (Excerpt): We’ll need all the FDIC and charitable money government must print to pay its bills, insure citizen trust in local banks, and prevent daily suffering—unemployment, starvation, freezing, homelessness—when the inevitably ensuing inflation has shrunk to pennies the hard-won dollars of middle and lower-class wage-earners and savers. (Excerpt): When this crash finally hits its natural bottom, we will begin again, sadder and wiser, to build a better, more stable, caring market system. Hopefully, Barack Obama, with his characteristic thoughtfulness, pragmatism and vision, will lead us capably through this terrible time, and back to greatness. Continue reading

Sarah Palin for Vice-President?

(excerpt): The McCain campaign would love for the American public to think this campaign is “about” being “for” or “against” Palin. It's not. It's about choosing between Obama and McCain on the issues that affect the American people. But the McCain campaign very much hopes we will forget about the issues, in the midst of all the Palin drama they'll keep stirring…. (excerpt): The U.S. already twice elected a Palin lookalike–George W. Bush–a “pretty,” likeable, electable young face with an earnest, authentic voice, ideological convictions and good intentions, someone “real,” “like us,” who doesn't know much but you could have a beer with. And the American public trusted and hoped that those wiser would guide him as necessary. Consider where that got us. (excerpt): Palin will do a LOT to open feminism up to conservatives, so there is some good in that. She is in many ways a good, remarkable woman, just misguided and ill-informed. I admire her grit and her many abilities and accomplishments. However, I certainly do not agree with her politics, and she is in no way qualified to be either President or VP of the U.S. No major party would dream nowadays of nominating a man with such weak credentials, so they nominated her in part in hopes of stealing the women's vote, and in part because she is a very talented, smooth political operative. (Excerpt): She knows almost nothing about national and international politics, and on several issues, she is a right-wing extremist clearly out of step with most Americans. Shame on McCain. His gambit may turn out to be all-too-clever, but it's cynical and self-serving.
(Excerpt): Should Palin need to step up to the top job, her office will immediately be taken over by a committee of small, incompetent, warmongering political insiders who will once again run the country amok.
Although admittedly, Palin is a big step up from Cheney…. (Excerpt): I welcome the national dialogue on this issue, of just how much responsibility a parent of either sex can reasonably take on both at home and at the office, and perform equitably. (Excerpt): McCain is all about scaring people into voting for him, and about making people think this election is about Palin and not Obama or McCain. (Excerpt): By insisting that the media is to blame for anything like critically vetting Palin, the Republicans are setting themselves up to excuse Palin from future unscripted media dialogue, interaction, and risky exposure. Palin's a maverick, it's true, but a maverick we know little about, who should not be protected from the press, nor left to cut her pretty teeth on the Presidency. (Excerpt): I also think we need someone who will be a 24/7 President, as Obama has promised. He has pre-arranged the excellent care of his children with his wife, in-laws and friends, and they are counting on him to show up and be Daddy on occasion, but not to have any family responsibilities other than being a loving father, husband, friend. Continue reading

An End to Holocausts, Hiroshimas and 9/11s?

(Excerpt): We are all conditioned to believe that being “right” about ourselves, our politics, traditions and religions, is more important than living and letting others live in peace. We have to be “right” about so many things—about who the bad guys are, who started it, who was at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government or religion is superior….
(Excerpt): The truth is, in this confusing world, it’s difficult to find agreement even amongst our best friends and those most “like” us, about what life is all about—what we’re doing here, and how best to look upon the world, ourselves, and one another. Even the greatest scholars realize that the more they know, the more they know they don’t know. This is why, in every conflict, humility, acceptance, mutual respect, support, and yes, forgiveness, are the wisest guides to being “right.”
(Excerpt): Wars cannot prevent catastrophes; war itself is a catastrophe, as attested by all those whose lives are touched by war. Soldiers and soldiers’ families are always catastrophically exploited by war. Ninety percent of the victims of war are civilians. We who so proudly march into war have no idea what future injustices those wars will inevitably loose upon innocents on all sides. Continue reading

Why Jason Furman, Walmart Defender, Is A Great New Economic Policy Director for Barack Obama

Excerpt: Barack Obama just nominated economist Jason Furman, 37, a visiting scholar at New York University and former Walmart defender, as his economic policy director. Let's look more closely at this brilliant and independent thinker before we dismiss him out-of-hand for supporting Walmart. (Excerpt): The question is not how to get rid of Walmart (though its size and profitability make it a convenient scapegoat for liberal anger.) Rather, it's how to make human life more equitable, more socially just, more humane, more environmentally sustainable. And how to empower everyday people, instead of consolidating wealth and power in the hands of CEOs and stockholders. (Excerpt):
A walk through a Walmart isn't a walk in a parklike J. Crew or Pottery Barn. Walmart employees and shoppers are the hundred million Americans who work fulltime jobs at hourly wages in order to bring home incomes of less than $20,000 a year. You'll see the disabled, poor, uneducated, homeless, and jobless–everyday Americans–daily facing economic slavery, enduring far more struggles in a month than I meet in a year.
Let's do away with their favorite store! I don't think so. (Excerpt): Their desperate situation isn't the fault of Walmart. If we must assign blame, it's every American's fault. It's just too easy and too convenient to pick on Walmart. And besides, it lets the real culprits–all of us–off the hook. Walmart pays as well or better than its community competitors–why else would people work there? Walmart offers comparable health insurance and promotes from within, which not everyone does. Walmart even lets its employees unionize when that's the law (as in Germany.) It isn't Walmart's fault that America doesn't support unions. But it is our fault. It's also our fault that we haven't demanded universal health care, public transportation, less global adventurism, a responsive government…. (Excerpt): Boycotting Walmart won't bring back the bucolic utopias of yesteryear (which never existed anyway.) It really won't. On the other hand, the first time someone offers me a shopping experience that gives me a comparable value, and even more equity, justice, and sustainability, I will absolutely jump at the chance to disloyally move my money. I just haven't been offered that opportunity yet. So come on America, get with the program. (Excerpt):
Until then, you will find me shopping the friendly aisles of Walmart and Sam's Club, in solidarity with a motley bunch that looks a lot like America, getting the biggest bang for our shopping buck–you know, the good old American way. Continue reading

I’ve Finally Decided That Barack Obama Will Pick Bob Casey for His Vice Presidential Running Mate. Or Maybe Mark Warner.… Or Maybe Kathleen Sebelius… Or Bill Richardson? Jim Webb? Or maybe Gore. Or Biden. Or…#@%*!!??

I’m enjoying watching the Obama veepstakes unfold….
If Hillary doesn't want the job, which she isn't right for (although I love her) maybe Barack will pick either Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey or Jim Webb. Continue reading

Are Hiroshima and 9/11 Morally Equivalent? Obama and Wright Disagree.

(Excerpt): Although I support Obama’s candidacy wholeheartedly, I disagree with him here, preferring Reverend Wright’s logic. With Wright, I see no moral difference between a weak, fallible organization (or individual) setting off a suicide bomb in a marketplace, and a big, powerful, fallible nation dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population—except, of course, that powerful nations have more options. (Excerpt): War doesn’t prevent injustices. War itself is always a grievous injustice to all involved in it. Most soldiers and their families are catastrophically exploited by war. 90% of the victims of war are civilians. Unfortunately, when citizens manipulated into vindictive indignation over present and past injustices march into wars, they rarely consider all the many future injustices which that war will inevitably inflict on both sides.
Whether or not we act violently, injustices occur. Whether we fight wars or rise up together in peaceful protest, some people will suffer unjustly, some will die. The Jews died in the Holocaust despite the war effort and perhaps also because of it. Europe is now united; tyrants come and go. No matter whether we choose peace, terrorism, or war, we cannot prevent all injustices. But we can avoid adding to their sum by accepting compromises, listening to all sides, and steadfastly rejecting the gravest injustice of all—war itself. (Excerpt): Too often, we prefer being “right” to living and letting others live in peace. We think we have to be right about so many things—about who’s the bad guy, who started it, who’s at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government is superior, whose religion is true, who is weird and strange and cultish and backward and disgusting, who gets to be in control, who gets to be the one with the gold who makes all the rules…. (Excerpt): When we insist on being ‘right’ rather than making the compromises necessary to live together in peace, we are making the choice of terrorism/war over freedom. What is freedom, if not the freedom to live one’s life and pursue one’s dreams in peace? Continue reading

A Pre-Olympics Comparison of Human Rights Violations in China and the U.S.

When my book club recently discussed a wonderful novel about China, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, I noticed that, like many Americans, most of us tend to think of China as a much greater violator of human rights than the U.S.A. The hosting of the Olympic Games in Beijing has certainly raised our level of questioning, along with, too often, our cultural biases. Because the truth is, both countries have serious problems with human rights violations, and in some areas, our U.S. record is far weaker than China's…. Continue reading