Cape Canaveral, FL – Today, SpaceX became the first commercial company in history to re-enter a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit. ... This marks the first time a commercial company has successfully recovered a spacecraft reentering from low-Earth orbit. It is a feat performed by only six nations or government agencies: the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, and the European Space Agency.
While the June launch was to demonstrate the ability of the Falcon 9 launcher, today's flight was to validate the design of the Dragon itself. The mission goals were to show its ability to maneuver in space; deploy a cluster of small satellites, called "cubesats"; orient itself for atmospheric entry; perform the deorbit burn; survive entry into the atmosphere at the designated g-levels (it has to eventually be capable of returning passengers from orbit); deploy parachutes; and hit the ocean at the specified speed to allow intact recovery.
All objectives were achieved...
This success clears the way for the next demonstration flight in the next few months, which will demonstrate the ability to perform a mission of longer duration, with the addition of solar panels (today's flight had batteries only), and to perform a rendezvous and match orbits with the ISS. Then there will be a follow-on demonstration to actually dock to the ISS, which will essentially certify the vehicle for cargo delivery and return, reducing the need to purchase such services from the Russians, with the retirement of the space shuttle next year.
The Falcon 9 cost $600 million to develop. To continue development of the Dragon spacecraft so it's man-rated, perhaps another $400 million.
There is another cost though. While NASA as a government agency is slave to the pork-barrel, private companies have to pay the devil his due.
Between January 2009 and Nov. 22, the date of SpaceX PAC's most recent federal report, the group has raised more than $60,000.
And more than 20 federal-level political candidates have received campaign contributions from SpaceX PAC this election cycle through the second quarter of 2010.
Democrats dominate the list of the PAC's beneficiaries, with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Chet Edwards (D-Texas) receiving the most cash through the middle of this year. The SpaceX PAC also this cycle made four-figure contributions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Nevada State Democratic Party.
Small beer. US Politicians are cheap. But it's still an additional tax on doing business.
I'm gathering together the various references I've mentioned on this blog (and occasionally elsewhere) to put together what I've referred to as "the puzzle".
It's a continuing work in progress, as new data is coming in all the time. I should also systematise it, perhaps by date, so I can just append or prepend new articles as they come in. There's a lot, and I've missed out quite a bit, so it will be continuously updated just to correct the omissions.
Along with the academic reference, there's the URL, and selected quotes from the papers in question, usually from the abstracts.
From the Australia Museum website - an article on Drop Bears
Distribution
Drop Bears can be found in the densely forested regions of the Great Dividing Range in South-eastern Australia. However there are also some reports of them from South-east South Australia, Mount Lofty Ranges and Kangaroo Island. ...
Drop Bears hunt by ambushing ground dwelling animals from above, waiting up to as much as four hours to make a surprise kill. Once prey is within view, the Drop Bear will drop as much as eight metres to pounce on top of the unsuspecting victim. The initial impact often stuns the prey, allowing it to be bitten on the neck and quickly subdued.
If the prey is small enough Drop Bears will haul it back up the tree to feed without harassment from other predators.
So be a little careful if you see a shape up in the trees. It may just be a Koala of course. But if it's a little bigger, and orange-brown rather than grey... best keep your distance. The larger ones are 120kg, 130cm long, and 90 cm at the shoulder. Call it 250Lbs, the size of a leopard. They can take down a 2 metre Red Kangaroo larger than a human quite easily, the powerful teeth severing the spinal cord just below the head.
Interestingly, there are no records of Koalas being eaten by Drop Bears. It may be that the Koala's diet, consisting of nothing but eucalyptus leaves, may taint the meat so it is unpalatable to its larger carnivorous relative, Thylarctos plummetus
They are also entirely fictional which may also account for it.
One argument often put to delegitimise trans people is that nothing changes their chromosomes.
Now one can argue that chromosomes aren't definitive; that both XX males and XY females exist. But the thing is... the argument that chromosomes can't be changed is just plain wrong. Chromosomes can be changed, and are changed, as the result of various medical therapies.
Multiple studies have reported that adult cells of bone marrow origin can differentiate into muscle, skin, liver, lung, epithelial cells, and neurons. To determine whether such cells might produce neurons and other cells in the human brain, we examined paraffin sections from female patients who had received bone marrow transplants from male donors. Y-chromosomes were labeled using autoradiography and fluorescent in situ hybridization. Neurons and astrocytes were identified histologically and immunohistochemically in neocortex, hippocampus, striatum, and cerebellum. However, most labeled cells in both gray and white matter appeared to be glia. Others have suggested that such Y-labeling represents fusion between host and donor cells, rather than true transdifferentiation. The possibilities of fusion and microchimerism were therefore examined using buccal epithelial cells as a model system. The female patients in this study had received either bone marrow or stem cell (CD34+ enriched) transplants from their brothers. Double labeling for X- and Y-chromosomes showed that Y-labeled buccal cells could not be explained by fusion. Genotyping studies of one patient, her brother, and her son ruled out the possibility of microchimerism. Whether, and under what circumstances, some form of bone marrow transplantation might provide adequate number of cells capable of replacing lost brain cells or enhancing their function will require additional studies.
RESULTS: All recipients had donor-derived Y chromosome-positive endometrial cells, accounting for 0.6-8.4% of glandular epithelial cells and 8.2-9.8% of stromal cells. Most of the endometrial glands were chimeric, consisting of both donor-derived and recipient cells.
CONCLUSION: Donor-derived cells are capable of composing endometrium in recipients, even those of the opposite sex.
M.Italiano even gives several methods where something like this can be accomplished deliberately, rather than observed as a surprising side-effect.
Our lives are like theatres, our bodies like long-running plays. Every day, each performance is just slightly different. The cast will change over time. Cells are replaced. We're each of us, just slightly different people when we wake up in the morning than the person who went to bed. If not, growth would be impossible, learning and memory likewise.
Many people, I think, would consider this idea threatening to their identity. They see themselves as static portraits, rather than performance art.
This article reviews research on biological and psychosocial factors relevant to the etiology of gender-variant identities. There is evidence for a genetic component of gender-variant identities through studies of twins and other within-family concordance and through studies of specific genes. Evidence that prenatal androgens play a role comes from studies that have examined finger length ratios (2D:4D), prevalence of polycystic ovary syndrome among female-to-male transsexuals, and individuals with intersex and related conditions who are more likely to have reassigned genders. There is also evidence that transsexuals have parts of their brain structure that is typical of the opposite birth-assigned gender. A greater likelihood of non-right-handedness suggests developmental instability may also contribute as a biological factor. There is a greater tendency for persons with gender-variant identities to report childhood abuse and a poor or absent relationship with parents. It is unclear if this is a cause or effect of a gender-variant identity. Parental encouragement of gender-variance is more common among individuals who later develop a gender-variant identity. We conclude that biological factors, especially prenatal androgen levels, play a role in the development of a gender-variant identity and it is likely that psychosocial variables play a role in interaction with these factors.
A very useful meta-study indeed, summarising what we knew as of 2009, and in particular, the limits of our knowledge.
I don't agree with some parts - the finger-length ratio evidence is thin (to say the least), I don't see the very real differences in gross lateralisation as being evidence of "instability" in neurological development, and there was nothing on the body map, comparing experiences of "phantom limb syndrome" and "missing limb syndrome".
The quality of the papers studied varies enormously. They have all been given equal weight, leading to some conclusions that are dubious. Nonetheless, I'd far rather have no filtering at all than too much, even if the results are squiffy.
Veale et al. (2008b) analyzed these outcomes using a logistic regression and found that prenatal androgen exposure and sex of assignment at birth equally predicted adult gender identity among this population. They also found that sex chromosomes and time delayed before sex assignment were not significant predictors of adult gender identity, although these variables had a restricted range with the population tested.
In other words, while 1/3 are male, 1/3 female, the remaining third can be assigned an arbitrary gender with little harm.
So you only kill 1/3 of patients if you do that (rather than half). Or at least, cause severe psychological problems, so that some will suicide, and the rest just pray for an early death. And that "one third" figure will vary with the exact condition - assign a child with cloacal dysgenesis as female, and you'll be wrong far more often if they have 46XY chromosomes than merely 1 in 3. Assign a 46XX child with CAH a female form, and you'll be right 80% of the time.
Oh and chromosomes don't matter - except inasmuch as foetal androgen exposure strongly tends to be caused by chromosomal type. But when this tendency doesn't tend, it's only the foetal hormone mix that matters.
Clearly, further independent research using larger samples is needed to assess the BSTc as a proposed neurobiological basis as an explanation of transsexualism
AGH! It can't be causal, it's symptomatic, a result, not a cause! But as a symptom, it's pretty reliable. Yes, we need more research of course, more data is always better, but they've made an unwarranted assumption about causality. Never mind.
Because of its breadth, dealing with handedness ratios, memory tests, 2D visualisation tests etc from a variety of sources, it's very useful as a reference. The methodology of agglutinating all gender-variant behaviour, from transvestitic fetishism to transsexuality, obscures rather than reveals though. For example:
One study has shown that gender clinic patients were more likely than psychiatric patients to report parent death – especially fathers and during adolescence and early adulthood (Bernstein, Steiner, Glaister, & Muir, 1981). Among a population sample, Långstrom and Zucker (2005) found an increased likelihood of separation from parents during childhood among males reporting transvestic fetishism. However, studies of NGV populations have not found any evidence for an absent father having an effect on gender development (Stevens, Golombok, Beveridge, & ALSPAC Study Team, 2002; Stevenson & Black, 1988) and two further studies have found that MF transsexuals transvestites, and NGV males did not differ in their reported parent relations to each other or likelihood of living with both parents during their childhood (Hogan-Finlay, 1995; Veale et al., 2008a).
All over the shop, not enough variables shackled.
Nonetheless, one I'll refer to in future. Some parts because of their pristine science, other parts as Horrible Examples to learn from.
There is evidence that biological factors, especially prenatal androgen exposure, play a significant role in the etiology of gender-variant identities. While there is also evidence for other biological correlates, this does not necessarily imply more than one biological factor plays a role – it is likely that they are related and share a common precursor. For instance, it is entirely plausible that there is a causal pathway from genes causing atypical prenatal hormones levels causing neuroanatomical differences and an adult gender-variant identity.
Despite the sex assignment, genital organ correction soon after birth, psychological counseling of parents and intensive psychotherapy of the children, general psychopathology developed equally in all 4 groups (39% of total group). Although 87% of the girls with a physical intersex condition developed in line with the assigned sex, 13% developed a gender identity disorder though only 1 girl (2%) failed to accept the assigned sex. Gender identity disorder and deviant gender role were in evidence only in girls with CAH and girls of the ambiguous group. Biological and social factors seem responsible for the development of gender identity disorder, such as pre- and postnatal hormonal influences on the brain enabling deviant gender role behavior to develop, and an inability on the part of parents to accept the sex assignment.
Chop up their genitalia into the most convenient shape, and nearly 40% have psychological problems. And should they dare to object to the assignment of their sex by others, why then they have a "Gender identity disorder" and are "deviant".
Biological and social factors seem responsible for the development of gender identity disorder, such as pre- and postnatal hormonal influences on the brain enabling deviant gender role behavior to develop, and an inability on the part of parents to accept the sex assignment. Yes, if the parents notice that despite the surgeon's best efforts, their child is in fact a boy... thinks like a boy, plays like a boy, acts like a boy...then they're to blame. For not accepting that Surgeons' Reality. Oh yes, and the fact that their son had male neuro-anatomy even before birth, I guess that plays a part too. Just a bit.
That was in 1998. Twelve years ago. The evidence is there, right in front of theor noses - but they're still doing it.
Because if they admit to themselves they've been wrong, and remember, the vast majority have dedicated their lives to helping children, to relieving suffering... then they'd have to face the fact that they've been mutilating them, in body and in mind.
I hope they have the courage to admit that they're merely human, they make mistakes, and not persist in their terrible actions just so they can avoid a crushing sense of guilt. Because making mistakes due to insufficient data happens in medicine. They're not infallible. To persist though, that's not a mistake. That's evil.
This blog is about science, and politics, and software, and brains, and space... but there's a lot of advocacy too. I haven't updated the header to reflect that, as a reminder to myself that that's not what I originally wanted to blog about.
Many readers - for the majority of them are neither Trans nor Intersexed - might not "get it". How could they? They don't know what it's like, not from personal experience.
I submit this video as explanation. Not my story - I had a loving home, and while primary school left me with scars and broken bones, at high school I was safe. (Coming home was another matter...)
I'm neither Black, nor American.
But to a great extent, this is the story of all Trans and Intersexed people whose condition is made known. This is what happens. This is why I had a 20 month legal fight to get a travel document that would get me back in the country if I travelled overseas.
Intersexuality And Scripture : What the Torah (Old Testameent) and traditional Talmudaic commentary actually say about Intersex conditions.
On the subject of Rabbinical traditions about intersexuality, Tractate Yevamot in the Babylonian Talmud (leaf 64a) contains a tradition to the effect that Abraham and Sarah were intersexed. It states: 'Abraham and Sarah were [each of them a] tumtum, as it is said: ``Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were digged'' (Isaiah 51:1) and it is written: ``Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you'' (Isaiah 51:2). Rabbi Nahman said in the name of Rabbah bar Abuha: Sarah our mother was an 'aylonith, as it is said: ``Now Sarai was barren; she had no child'' (Genesis 11:30) -- she did not even have a womb.' The terms ``tumtum'' and ``'aylonith'' are intersex categories. A ``tumtum'' is one physical sex is indeterminable because there are apparently no genitalia, although determinate natal sex can sometimes (but only sometimes) be revealed by means of the surgical removal of an occlusion. An ``'aylonith'' is a woman without a womb -- clearly someone who might suffer from complete androgen insensitivity syndrome.
I wish for once that Theologians would Theologe more thoroughly, and actually read the scriptures they use to oppress others... not just the Child's Condensed Version, but the one with all the footnotes and commentaries. Including the Hebrew, Aramaic and Koin(Greek) versions, not just the translations.
The Australian communications regulator has issued a stark warning that websites who link out to 'banned' hyperlinks are liable to fines of up to Aus $11,000 a day.
The news comes after web forum Whirlpool was threatened with the fine for posting a hyperlink to a blacklisted anti-abortion website.
One of the newest additions to Australia's 'blacklisted hyperlinks' list is Wikileaks; the website that publishes anonymous submissions of sensitive info on everything from corporations, religion and governments.
So while I can say that the address of wikileaks is http://wikileaks.org/, I can't link to it on an Australian server.
I can link to an anonymous proxy, such as KPROXY, and tell you to cut and paste "http://wikileaks.org/" in.
I can even give an embedded proxy:
I can even use the link http://tinyurl.com/3x32wwr which curiously enough takes you to... the Wikileaks Cable data. But that's OK, because that URL isn't on the banned list.
Since the Blogger server is in the USA, I would be OK... except that my site is being mirrored by the Australian National Library. Maybe they'd have responsibility, maybe not.
Senator Conroy is a deeply ignorant man, and his possession of the IT portfolio in the Australian cabinet is a joke. As I think I've just demonstrated.
As a follow-up to previous posts on the subject... it looks like the Indonesian courts did not give the Indonesian Catholic Bishops' eccentric views of biology much credence. From The Jakarta Post
The South Jakarta District Court has acquitted Alterina Hofan, a man who reportedly suffers from a chromosome condition, of all charges. Alterina was accused of disguising his gender in order to marry a woman.
Alterina reportedly has Klinefelter’s syndrome, a disorder in which males have an extra X chromosome, which causes the male genitalia to develop at a later age.
“[We] state that it can be proved that defendant Alterina Hofan committed the first and second alleged deeds, but they are not a crime,” presiding judge Sudarwin said on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Sudarwin said there was no question of Alterina’s status, and although Alterina did change some information on his birth and family certificates, it was not – as he was accused of – intended to pave the way for his marriage to Jane Deviyanti Hadipoespito in 2008.
Jane’s parents accused Alterina of actually being a woman and faking his gender in order to marry Jane.
Prosecutors had earlier asked for a five-year prison sentence for Alterina.
Sometimes Justice - not to say Biological Reality - prevails.
As an aside... I wrote about Dr Franklin on 20th July, 2005. Right in the middle of Hormone Hell, still not entirely convinced I wasn't going crackers, losing 0.5Kg (over a pound) a day in body mass, body feminising rapidly from "causes unknown", still trying to Grok that my days of doing the Boy Act were likely to be over in 12 months (actually more like 30 days...). And very insecure about my own gender - could a geek like me really be a woman?
Dr Franklin was an inspiration there. Still is.
For little did I know that in five years time, I'd be doing a PhD in computational chemistry, and relying on X-ray crystalography to tell me how reliable my methodology of determining molecular shapes was. A change of sex was foreseeable - but not something as off-the-wall unlikely as that.
A transgendered New Brunswick student says (s)he was struck in the face at St. Thomas University in Fredericton because (s)he entered a women's washroom. ... (S)he said a female student in the washroom asked her(him) to leave, and Rayner attempted to explain that (s)he's biologically female.
"She got irate and took a swing at me, called me several names that were very derogatory, and she just caught me in the lip," Rayner said. "So, I staggered out, I apologized for the incident, and I left.
Tyjanae Moore is the transgendered woman who was cited and thrown behind bars by a Houston police officer because she was caught using the ladies restroom. "I felt so belittled going to a jail over something so simple and stupid," says Moore.
A 26-year-old native of Minnesota, Moore moved to Houston to be closer to family, but after a year in Texas, she is ready to move back.
Moore was arrested Nov. 17 at the Houston Public Library in downtown. The offense? Police say despite being a transgendered female, she is still officially a man -- a man who was caught using the ladies' restroom.
"When I came out, the female told me I wasn't supposed to be and I asked if there was any particular reason why not. She said I'm a transgendered female and I was really shocked that they even stopped me for this," says Moore.
Even though she is seen as a protected class by the City of Houston, Moore entered a guilty plea.
Regardless of the direction of transition, and regardless of any legal protections... we face assault, arrest, or both, no matter what restroom we use. And all the time, religious groups mount blatant scare campaigns, projecting us as the transgressors against all that is Good and Holy, and labelling us as freaks, perverts, degenerates and sexual predators.
Of course, if we "pass" sufficiently well - or sufficiently poorly, when using the restroom of our assigned sex, we're relatively safe from these Xenophobes. It's not about any actual danger - for there is none. It's all about appearances.
It's about how our appearance, or even our existence, makes others uncomfortable - and thus granting them them the God-given right to persecute us.
I've never had a problem, though I have no illusions about my un-beautiful appearance. I have "passing privilege", the ability to appear unremarkable, no matter how outrageously freakish my biology is, far more unusual than either the trans man or the trans woman in those two stories.
I make no apology for this. But I do think it gives me a certain responsibility, whether you call it Karmic Balance or just sheer outrage at injustice, to do whatever I can for others not so privileged while living my own life, bringing up my boy, doing my PhD, going to International conferences...
And knowing that I could be next. The next to be arrested (for after all, my UK birth certificate still says "boy" so in Texas I may indeed be "legally male"). Or assaulted, by someone who recognises me from TV appearances. Or murdered, though the only person who I've been advised by medical professionals is a definite threat is on another continent. Privilege has its limits though, and if Ms Moore, who looks heaps better than I ever could, can be arrested, then I'm not safe either.
C.L.Minou puts it better than I ever could, over at Feministe.
The fact of the matter is that at any moment, I could be at risk simply for being trans. Simply for being me. This is something all marginalized people face–certainly, it’s something every woman in the world understands. But just as it’s possible for the shielded women of the world to sniff at the poor and unprotected and blame them for their own misfortunes, so its possible for the lucky trans people of the world–the professors with tenure, the software engineers with rare abilities, the fortunate few who have managed to avoid most of the ways society turns people into others, to disclaim connection with the rest of the trans world. Rape happens only to people who live in slums, and transphobic murder only to prostitutes turning tricks for street ‘mones.
Except when it doesn’t.
So I will Remember today. I will remember because that body lying somewhere unmourned could be me. Because it is me. I mourn because remembering makes me angry, energizes me to fight again. I mourn because we don’t have all that much to celebrate today, not really, not when even the most elemental of basic protections elude the vast majority of trans people the world round. I won’t shrug or carp about how there’s so much death brought up today. Because there is a lot of death. And that needs to be remembered, to be brought up, to be shoved in the face of those who are indifferent to it until something changes, really changes, and trans people are allowed to join the human race.
Being one of the "fortunate few", the risk is less. But I treat "less risk" as "no risk" at my peril.
I think all women have insecurities about their appearance. Mine though has real reasons for it; if I look too odd, too different... it could kill me. So while I mustn't over-dramatise, yes, the threat is real for me too. Only the degree differs, and possibly by less than I'd like to believe.
What an Insane situation. And somehow, I think that explaining "well, I'm actually not Trans, I have a rare Intersex condition you see..." might not do a lot of good. Just a hunch, mind you.
In Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 20, 2010, during the Transgender Day of Remembrance of those who have been killed due to anti-transgender hatred, unknown persons attacked “A Response to Violence against Transgender People,” a peaceful gathering organized by the NGO Insight and the Visual Culture Research Center. ... The attackers had apparently planned to break into the screening room, which contained over thirty spectators, and attack them with tear gas. However, due to the prompt reaction of organizers and activists, the attackers were stopped at the entrance and forced out of the room. One of the organizers, Timur Lysenko (coordinator of Insight’s transgender program), who first confronted the bandits and blocked their access to the room, was beaten up. He and his colleague Anastasia Medco (from the NGO Fulcrum), who also resisted the bandits, were heavily poisoned by tear gas.
It's not enough that we be killed; we must be erased.
ADÉLAÏDE HERCULINE BARBIN was born November 8, 1838 in Saint-Jean-d’Angély (Charente-Maritime) and officially registered as female. She spent her childhood in an orphanage and later at the Ursilines convent of Chavagne.
Between 1856-1858 Herculine Barbin studied at Oléron’s Normal School and received her degree. At 21 she became a school teacher and met Sara, the youngest daughter of Mrs Avril, the headmistress of the school. Gradually, the friendship between the two girls turned to love. But, when acting on their feelings for each other, Sara realized that Herculine was not made like most girls. Herculine was forced to resign from her job and after a medical examination required by the authorities who became involved in the matter, she was then forced to live as a man. Herculine became Abel but when he returned to the village, Mrs Avril refused to let him see Sara. On a cold February day in 1868, Abel Barbin’s dead body was discovered, the victim of an apparent suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning from the small stove in his apartment.
142 Years ago... but it could have happened yesterday.
She was born in 2009 by parthenogenesis, otherwise known as "virgin birth". This makes her one of the first parthenogenetic vertebrate animals who have made it to adulthood.
The mother snake responsible had two litters, one in 2009 and another in 2010, producing a total of 22 offspring. All were female, and all had the same rare "caramel" body colour. Genetic analysis has confirmed that they are not related to any of the males the female had mated with.
In another first, the young snakes have two W chromosomes. Snakes determine their sex differently to humans: males have two Z chromosomes and females have a Z and a W. So in theory, the mother snake's parthenogenetic offspring should have been either ZZ or WW. But WW animals have never been found, and have only been produced in the lab with great difficulty. ... Long thought to be vanishingly rare, parthenogenesis is becoming more common the more scientists look for it. For instance, in 2003 a Burmese python in an Amsterdam zoo produced embryos parthenogenetically, but they were not allowed to develop so we do not know if they were truly viable.
It's not just snakes, either. Earlier this year it was shown that female white-spotted bamboo sharks can produce viable offspring without help from males, and hammerheads can do it too.
I'm not sure the concept of "sin" applies to snakes, so I won't call the mother's conception "Immaculate".
But yes, a virgin birth. A number of them. The more we look, the more we find, and the more complex and exception-prone the whole business of sex appears to be in the animal kingdom.
Trans and Intersexed people are persecuted by many "christians" (scare quotes most definitely intended, as these people aren't real Christians' bootlaces), on the basis of Genesis 1:27:
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:27, King James Version)
Of course in the same section, there's also the part about a Firmament, a beaten metal dome, which keeps the "waters above" out over the Flat Earth. With lights set in it - lots of little ones, and two big ones, one that comes out in the day, the other at night.
That bit, most "christians" miss out. They pick and choose which bits of Biblical "Science" to believe.
But it's vital that there be a factual, natural, immutable and universal division between the sexes. Because if there wasn't such a division... then how could they justify the persecution of homosexuality with such venom and vigour, compared to say, fornication? It's not enough to appeal to Scripture: they must appeal to Natural Law.
Trans and Intersexed people - and hermaphroditic animals, and virgin births not sanctioned by the Church - they're all embarrassments. "christians" must pretend they don't exist, and do their best in many small ways to see they don't.
No wonder they have such a downer on serpents in Genesis 3. Ignorant Superstition, and the persecution it so often engenders, is poisoned by the fruits of knowledge.
Oh yes, maculate? It means "Marked with spots" - as is the Boa Constrictor pictured above.
YESTERDAY, a news.com.au article incorrectly stated that the Star Trek starship USS Enterprise-E, otherwise known as model NNC-1701-E, was the successor to Captain Kirk's original USS Enterprise.
It has since been brought to our attention that the NNC-1701-E in fact came two models after Captain Kirk retired and was under the command of Captain Jean Luc Picard.
User "Your Mum's Lunch" led the charge of those who correctly pointed out that after losing the original Enterprise to the Klingons, Captain Kirk was given the Excelsior Class Enterprise-B as a stop-gap measure until the refit of the Enterprise-A was completed.
Kirk's last ship was the Ambassador Class Enterprise-C.
Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E were in fact, the first of the Galaxy Class models and were under the command of Captain Picard..... ... News.com.au apologises unreservedly for the error.
There was no intention whatsoever to suggest Captain Kirk may have commanded the Galaxy Class Starships Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E.
Any damage to the Star Trek brand incurred by the use of the term "hyperspace" is regretful.
No malice was intended and a correction to the original article will be made.
Now if only news organisations would apply the same diligence about corrections in less serious stuff...
Seriously stressed out with my PhD, my marking, having to get this poster ready for AC10 (supercomputer conference in New Orleans)... so blogging has been light, and will probably remain so for a while.
The universe may be teeming with simple cells like bacteria, but more complex life – including intelligent life – is probably very rare. That is the conclusion of a radical rethink of what it took for complex life to evolve here on Earth.
It suggests that complex alien life-forms could only evolve if an event that happened just once in Earth's history was repeated somewhere else.
All animals, plants and fungi evolved from one ancestor, the first ever complex, or "eukaryotic", cell. This common ancestor had itself evolved from simple bacteria, but it has long been a mystery why this seems to have happened only once: bacteria, after all, have been around for billions of years.
The answer, say Nick Lane of University College London and Bill Martin of the University of Dusseldorf in Germany, is that whenever simple cells start to become more complex, they run into problems generating enough energy. ... So if Lane and Martin are right, the textbook idea that complex cells evolved first and only later gained mitochondria is completely wrong: cells could not become complex until they acquired mitochondria.
Simple cells hardly ever engulf other cells, however – and therein lies the catch. Acquiring mitochondria, it seems, was a one-off event.
And from Transterrestrial Musings, a stream-of-consciousness report about Craig Vetnor's presentation at
Has synthesized a megabyte chromosome. Everything in the cell was derived from the chromosome and the natural traces were all deleted. They are digitizing biology. Converting analog genetic code to digital. Now they can go the other way, from ones and zeros to living organisms. Huge progress over past two decades. Big breakthrough new algorithm in 1995. New approach to sequencing pieces by breaking them down and putting into the computer....
Yes, and compilers for manufacturing prokaryotes (organisms with no cell nucleus), and later assembling eukaryotes (organisms with a nucleus). Arranging for the organism to make its own membranes has been surprisingly difficult - though programming it has been surprisingly easy.
In terms of cell numbers - your body has ten times as many cells without your DNA in, than with. But the cells with your DNA in are larger and more complex than the swarms of bacteria to which you play host, so most of your mass is you.
A bucketful of seawater has more genetic diversity inside its bacteria than all the complex organisms on the planet put together - and they're constantly swapping DNA in a promiscuous fashion, so new "species" are being created all the time - though the concept of "species" tends to lose its meaning under those circumstances. From Scientific American:
In fact, the bacteria in the wild—the researchers tested microbes in coastal, estuary, reef and open ocean environments—were quite promiscuous with their DNA, busily transferring genes to not only their own species but also other closely related bacteria and even other genera. They were also doing it thousands to hundreds of millions of times more frequently than previously estimated for other methods of gene transfer, such as via phages or bacterial viruses (the method also employed by human gene transfer agents, also known as synthetic biologists). ... Nevertheless, such horizontal gene transfer is a potent weapon in the bacterial evolutionary arsenal. "Truly novel genes can be taken on instantly. This is why we have antibiotic-resistant superbugs," Doolittle says. In fact, sequencing bacterial genomes has revealed that such gene transfer is responsible for many of the genes present in today's microbes. "Many already accept that HGT is very important to marine microbial adaptation."
And not just for bacteria. Given the apparently vast numbers of such genetic packets—and viruses, plasmids and other bits of genetic material—the ocean can be seen as a bit of a microbial DNA soup.
That's the (Christine O'Donnell) Reality. People falling victims to human sacrifice.... like Christine McKinney's 5,000 bodies of black prisoners dumped in the swamps after Hurricane Katrina...
Nearly two years ago, my father was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition - what it is exactly, doctors are not sure of, possibly a mutation of Klinefelter syndrome - in which his endocrine system started producing more estrogen than testosterone. This resulted in a massive reversal of his gender - he now has softer and smoother skin, actual breasts, curvy hips, the whole nine yards. This was not something he willing underwent - it entirely occurred naturally and without warning....
I've always suspected my unusual syndrome is under-reported.
Software - Open Source - not just the Electoral Commission has access to it, it's published on the web for anyone to verify. Operating system and compiler are also open-source.
Spot-Checking - Conducted by the Electoral Commission, who may invite 3rd parties such as Universities to check.
Background Checking - all those involved held security clearances at various levels.
Equipment Certification - Commercial Off-The-Shelf Hardware is used - and certified by the Electoral Commission
Dispute Resolution - handled by using alternate paper ballots, with Electoral Commission quarantining hardware for 3rd party inspection. In theory. as far as I know, there's been no disputes.
An electronic voting system that is not as secure as a poker machine is almost as easy to subvert as a paper ballot box.
A snapshot of a Facebook page - since ineffectively covered up - courtesy of the HRC.
The author is Clint McCance of the Midland School District Board in Arkansas.
We know of at least 9 gay or apparently gay (but actually straight) or otherwise gender-nonconforming kids who have killed themselves due to mistreatment as schools in the US in the last few months. And 5 in the last few weeks.
Those are the ones we know about. And those who bully them, including teachers, principals and school board members make no distinction between "gay", "trans" or "intersexed". If anything, the latter two get more persecution, not less.
While many secretly rejoice at these deaths, very few say so openly, being content to shed some crocodile tears, before laying the blame on "Gay Activists" for, well, encouraging these kids not to lie. To have integrity.
These Holy Haters only say what they really feel when they're amongst those of like mind. The 6 who "liked" the post, for example, because this was supposed to be a private page, shared amongst friends.
UPDATE: It appears Mr McCance is up for re-election... and is running unopposed. Mr McCance ran unopposed and his term doesn't expire until 2015.
UPDATE: He has resigned, with an obviously sincere apology. A genuine one, not the faux "I'm sorry you were offended" variety that's fashionable these days.
It's been nearly two years since I posted about former US Marine Jennifer Gale's death from exposure on the steps of a Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas.
Two years have passed since transgender woman and former mayoral candidate Jennifer Gale died on the steps of a Austin Church. Jennifer's serenades often preceded council appearances and her notoriety spurred a outcry and a memorial was held. It was so very, very cold at her memorial on that grey Austin day but sadly her death has yielded no concrete results. The publicly funded homeless city shelter the ARCH, still offers no overnight accommodations to transgender woman. ... In a email response Charles Kemp, Office of the Director, Austin/Travis County HHSD stated that the city funded homeless shelter ARCH does not allow transgender people to overnight, have a transgender written transgender policy or separate facilities to insure safety of transgender people should they take advantage of the 'day sleepers' program.
The Eulogies and tears shed at her death were most moving. From the Austin Statesman:
All seven members of the Austin City Council gave personal tributes to Jennifer Gale today is what was a touching and sometimes funny goodbye to the transgendered homeless woman who was a regular speaker — and singer — at council meetings. She also ran and lost numerous races for the council and other elective offices.
Gale had made her last three-minute appearance at a council subcommittee meeting Tuesday evening, spooling out her typically crowded list of concerns — health care, Iraq, abortion — and singing an on-tune and lilting version of “Silent Night.” A tape of her performance was played at council chambers today, with most of the audience and several council members joining in the singing.
“She’s always been an incredibly sweet person,” said Council Member Brewster McCracken, who recalled sitting with Gale for about 30 minutes not that long ago and asking about her life story. She told him about living in the Carolinas, about serving in the Marines, about working at a Stuckey’s.
The outpouring for such an unusual person, McCracken said, ” is a reminder of the better angels of all of us as Austinites. But the idea that she died alone on a park bench on a cold night is a reminder that we have not lived up to our better angels as a community.”
Council Member Mike Martinez pointed out that Gale had a particular problem finding proper shelter. She couldn’t go to a male shelter because she lived her life as a woman, but couldn’t go to a woman’s shelter because she was “anatomically” a man, Martinez said. He pointed out that the homeless residential facility that the council briefly considered months ago might have provided a place for someone like Gale.
Council Member Laura Morrison recalled that Gale was among the six who ran for the seat Morrison won. Gale came in fourth, Morrison said. Her favorite memory, Morrison said, was a Real Estate Council of Austin election forum when Gale “led about 500 suits and their guests at the Four Season’s ballroom in a rendition of “You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling.”
Mayor Will Wynn said he had the “distinct honor of running twice for mayor with Jennifer. You didn’t run against Jennifer, you ran with her.”
“Jennifer will be sorely missed,” Wynn said. “Semper fi.”
And in 2010, 2 years later...
According to Natasha Ponczek, Homeless Program Coordinator at City of Austin to the best of her knowledge there are no plans to make facility changes at the ARCH to accommodate transgender people.
No action. No plans for action, now or in the future.
Spare us the crocodile tears. It's easier to fight against honest malice than unctuous mouthings and deliberate neglect.
I don't often post personal content on this blog. But today, I thought I might just give readers an idea what my life is like. I've already posted one article that's actually of interest, so feel free to skip this one. Thought for the Day:
(Facebook Status) Zoe Ellen Brain hopes she never gets so angry that she loses her compassion. Hopes she never gets so sad that she loses all sense of hope. Hopes she remembers that she may never know if her words and actions have helped others.
"Well, thank you, Zoe for the kind words ... I have had my eyes opened and my mind broadened because of the information you have provided, but moreover by the way you have done so ... "
"I'm happy you are so forthcoming, because, I, for one, would never have had the opportunity to have my eyes opened in such a gentile[sic] manner as you have done ... I thank you for that and am indebted to you !!!"
Lawless and her attorney apparently insist that her birth certificate says she was born a woman. Well, I suggest somebody was paid to create a false identity. Maybe there are penalties for that kind of misrepresentation.
Grrrrrrr..... Ignorance. Arrogance. I rather lost my cool unfortunately, and was rather sarky.
There are certainly penalties for libel. And even the most superficial research of the law would show that in 47 of the 50 states, trans women are entitled, once they provide evidence (the details vary between the states) to have their inaccurate birth certificates corrected. In some states, they issue a new one. In others, they just amend them. This has been the case in some states since 1955 - it's not something new. So to suggest that "someone was paid to create a false identity" may not be deliberately malicious, but it certainly shows a reckless disregard for the facts.
Yes, Zoe, you could have phrased that with a rather less confrontational tone. Still, I am human. I apologised for the tone though in a later comment. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
I appreciate your point about ability - Ms Lawless' drive of 335 yds is astoundingly good, though not as good as some womens'. The record in 362 yds is it not? Or are you saying that the record-holder must actually be male?
Maybe if you compared the average drives of a group of trans women, with those of other women, you might find the difference is less than you think, and possibly not in the direction you think, either. I can understand your alarm at viewing someone who's exceptional, and naturally assuming they're average, as you have no experience with that group.
The thing to do then is to look at such studies though. Those comparing the two groups. They show that after two years on hormones, the abilities are similar comparing those of similar builds.
Kathy, I know that with your passionate commitment to the game, you don't want any outsider spoiling it, under the cover of "Politically Correct" laws. I can't possibly blame you for that. From what I've read about you and your work, you've done so much to help other women, and encourage young girls, to take up the sport, that no-one has the right to criticise, least of all me.
Looking over my posts, my words are far too confrontational - that bit about "fraudulent birth certificates" really got to me, I'm afraid. I apologise for the tone I used, it was inappropriate and unfair.
What I'm saying though is that the laws aren't just PC touchy-feely stuff that ignores biological realities.
I too have a passionate commitment. To Human Rights, even though my politics are conservative. I've seen too much - Intersexed women denied the right to marry, or fired simply because they had genital reconstruction at 6 months old (Wilma Woods vs C.G Studios) so were not "real" women. I've seen superstition and ignorance substitute for science and objective reality. I've seen too many women discriminated against because they weren't "pretty" enough, weren't "feminine" enough, and I'm even old enough to remember when they had to be "white" enough too. Some were Intersexed or Trans, but most were not. And should anyone like that dare to excel, their whole identity gets called into question, not to mention the malicious accusations of fraud, bribery and so on.
That is the reason for my inappropriate tone in my comments. It doesn't excuse them though, and I apologise.
An apology is worthless if not sincere. I meant what I said. I'm still livid about the birth certificate comment, but no excuse. The facts should speak for themselves, not be garnished with bile.
For my son Andrew. Added this video of hints to my YouTube favourites. The game is rated MA (Mature Adults), not even PG (Parental Guidance Recommended) but in reality, 9 year old kids are not immune to the effects of war. Better to expose him to them now, and discuss the ethics of killing people, executing prisoners, war crimes, and why shooting people is allowed, but flamethrowers are not any more. And what makes us and not those we fight, the Good Guys. It's the way we fight, not just the cause.
They're people too, Zeddie! he said, wondering at the discovery that the Enemy were human like him. Yes, my darling boy, my only child, my whole world, they are. And if you're forced to kill them, as you may be, recognise that those who massacred the villagers aren't Demons, they have mothers too. "Do unto others" and all that. We say "Tango down" to depersonalise them, to see them as targets, because that's necessary in warfare. But never forget that they're just like you. It could be you who explodes in a shower of blood when hit by a burst of fire, not them. I pray it never will be. But I pray even harder that you do not dishonour yourself by becoming who you fight against.
PhD work. I'm preparing a poster for the Supercomputer Conference I'll be attending in New Orleans shortly. It's based on this one, but with more data. Work continues... we have enough data now to predict the average number of calculations for each length of molecule - and have done a length 20 one. That's 3 orders of magnitude harder a problem than anyone else has ever attempted. And a length 17 one had an energy lower than the crystal form (determined by X-ray crystallography). So we know something no-one else on the planet knows.
Admin - Travel. Booking confirmed, but not going via LA after all.
Thursday 11-Nov-10 United Airlines. Flight: UA840. Confirmed Depart: Sydney Kingsford Smith Apt at 15:25. Terminal: TERMINAL 1 INTERNATIONAL. Arrive: Chicago O`hare Intl Apt 11-Nov-10 at 18:04. Terminal: TERMINAL 1.
Thursday 11-Nov-10 United Airlines. Flight: UA655. Confirmed Depart: Chicago O`hare Intl Apt at 21:06. Terminal: TERMINAL 1. Arrive: New Orleans International Apt 11-Nov-10 at 23:31.
Saturday 20-Nov-10 United Airlines. Flight: UA239. Confirmed Depart: New Orleans International Apt at 07:19. Arrive: San Francisco Intl Apt 20-Nov-10 at 12:06. Terminal: TERMINAL 3.
Saturday 20-Nov-10 Air United Airlines. Flight: UA863. Confirmed Depart: San Francisco Intl Apt at 22:37. Terminal: INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL. Arrive: Sydney Kingsford Smith Apt 22-Nov-10 at 08:10. Terminal: TERMINAL 1 INTERNATIONAL.
Arriving just before midnight, and checkin at the hotel is 2pm the next day. Oh great. I won't be leaving the airport, at least, not before daylight. Then a shuttle to the hotel, and see if I can check in early - or at least leave my luggage there. Never mind, cross that bridge when we come to it. Oh yes, and a 10 hour wait in San Francisco. Maybe enough time to see something of the place.
Teaching - a student who was really struggling managed to get 10/11 in his first assignment. He's probably the hardest working of any of them, it doesn't come naturally to him. But yes, the lecturer and I go the extra mile for him, because he's going the extra light year just to pass. I think he may just get a credit, through sheer determination.
Dinner - Rare Roast Beef sandwich, mustard, Cos Lettuce from the garden. Food of the Gods. And a cup of tea from my partner of nearly 30 years. She also brought me a few squares of dark chocolate... We do things like that for each other. Today's Embuggerances : My primary anti-virus program AVG's latest version (2011) is incompatible with Zone Alarm (my Firewall). So after diagnosis, wasted time uninstalling, rolling back to previous version, updating that to the latest pre-2011 release... restarting every half hour or so. Then the Registry was corrupt, so I had to use my Registry Repair tools. Tuned up, checked for spyware (just a few tracking cookies), and handed it over to my partner for her to use while I was at Uni. Oh yes, and one of my earrings broke. Drat.
Meh. While that's the worst thing that happens in a typical day, I'd say I was pretty darned fortunate, wouldn't you? Blogging - You're reading it.
Now to have a bath, maybe read a book while soaking. So much to do, so little time. Answer some e-mails, then sleep.
Scientists have captured the first direct images of magnetic monopoles which were theoretically conceived by the British-Swiss physicist Dirac in the early 1930s who showed that their existence is consistent with the ultimate theory of matter – quantum theory.
The image at the right represents a 12 micrometer x 12 micrometer chunk of artificial magnetic metamaterial where monopoles can be seen at each end of the Dirac strings, visible as dark lines. The dark regions correspond to magnetic islands where the magnetization is reversed. (Image courtesy of Paul Scherrer Institute)
Quasi-Monopoles were first observed in 2009. They weren't true monopoles, just arrangements of molecules under certain conditions that behaved, um, monopolistically.
Jonathan Morris, Alan Tennant and colleagues (HZB) undertook a neutron scattering experiment at the Berlin research reactor. The material under investigation was a single crystal of Dysprosium Titanate. This material crystallises in a quite remarkable geometry, the so called pyrochlore-lattice. With the help of neutron scattering Morris and Tennant show that the magnetic moments inside the material had reorganised into so-called 'spin-spaghetti'. This name comes from the ordering of the dipoles themselves, such that a network of contorted tubes (strings) develops, through which magnetic flux is transported. These can be made visible by their interaction with the neutrons which themselves carry a magnetic moment. Thus the neutrons scatter as a reciprocal representation of the Strings.
Image of Dirac String "Spin Spaghetti" (Credit: HZB / D.J.P. Morris & A. Tennant)
So.. what's the Big Deal, if independent monopoles can be formed?
Monopole technology - Magnetic monopoles are predicted by some quantum field theories of atomic forces. Although they have not been found yet, there is good reason for that since they would be very heavy and therefore hard to make. If they could be made in quantity, there would be a complete revolution in our technology. Efficient electric motors, high density energy storage, high temperature superconductors, ultra-strong fibers and armor plate, and high density matter, are just a few of the many possibilities. ... Combined with increased attraction due to the magnetic quantum being (68.5)^2 as strong as electric, the tensile strength of monopolium is (2,000,000)^4x(68.5)^2 = 10^29 as high as normal.
The strength to weight ratio is thus about 10 million times as high.
This reflects the fact that monopole chemistry is a energetic per unit mass as nuclear fusion and fission of conventional matter.
The first quantum jump in a monopole electron orbital involves a hard gamma ray. Thus at mild temperatures (anything less than a million degrees, say), monopolium should be a potential superfluid, superconductor, etc.
It should be possible to overlay structures of conventional matter with a thin (very very thin) veneer of monopolium to protect them against virtually everything except a projectile of monopolium moving at very nearly the speed of light. (general products hulls!).
Superconducting monopole mirrors probably reflect everything up to the the energy of proton-antiproton anihilation gamma rays.
The extreme density permits very small and very fast (about 10 million times as fast as conventional) monopole integrated circuits and computers. The RF frequencies involved would be in the gamma ray range.
Of course there's a little matter of getting them into large-scale production, making monopolium etc. That problem might take some time to solve - maybe tens of thousands of years. The thing is - if we can separate them from the lattice (something that may be as difficult as extracting the electron holes from transistors ie impossible by definition), those applications are possibilities now. Inevitabilities, unless we get zapped by an errant dirty snowball in the meantime.
Tuesday Case presentation and Live Operations on Hypospadias ( OR 10 and OR 11) (Cocktail Dinner : 7 pm onwards),
Wendesday Live Operations on Female Genitoplasty- Citoroplasty, vaginoplasty, UGS
It's unlikely that any of the children they're going to operate on are at the age to consent to it. Note however that I authorised such surgery for my son before age two, as he was in increasing pain, and urinary function was starting to be compromised. I'm not fanatically against such surgery - only against the purely cosmetic kind that compromises fertility and sensation, and results in scarring that may limit future reconstruction.
Senior managers at the BBC and Channel 4 recently admitted that transgender storylines can be inaccurate and are frequently lacking in breadth and substance. ... Sarah Lake of TMW (said)...“We do not believe most of the constant casual abuse and ridicule of trans people in broadcasting is deliberately intended to be malicious. In our meetings so far we've not come across a single broadcaster who had ever consciously had a meaningful conversation with a trans man or woman."
I'm not real thrilled about Intersex conditions being described as Disorders of Sexual Development. I prefer Milton Diamond's Difference of Sexual Development, as many Intersexed people don't see their natural state as being disordered, just a natural variation, like red hair.
But I'm not fanatical about it. Words matter, but some matter more than others.
Here's an interesting tidbit from history. After the success of a number of Black women in athletics events in 1948, according to “Coming on strong: gender and sexuality in twentieth-century women’s sport” by Susan K. Cahn p 111
…Olympic governing bodies of the 1950s once again considered eliminating several women’s track-and-field events because the competitors were “not truly feminine”. In the discussions that followed, Olympic Official Norman Cox sarcastically proposed that rather than ban women’s events, the IOC should create a special category for the unfairly-advantaged “hermaphrodites”, who regularly defeated “normal” women, those less-skilled “child-bearing” types with “largish breasts, wide hips [and] knocked-knees.”
This wasn't based on chromosomes, or hormone levels, it was based on Race. He was talking about Black women. It was based on them not appearing feminine enough by the white standards of the time. Competitors were complaining.
The Olympics committee decided not to pander to prejudice, in 1948 mind you. In 2010, are we to retreat from that?
Scientists led by Eduardo Iáñez of Miguel Hernandez University have for the first time combined a number of desirable features into a single brain-computer interface that is noninvasive, spontaneous and asynchronous.
About that asynchronicity: it turns out that, because of the bandwidth limitations of recording brain activity through EEGs -- external electrodes placed on the outside of the head -- previous attempts at noninvasive brain computer interfaces required that users only direct the computer during certain time slots. ... Iáñez and colleagues' approach gets around this limitation by using four different models, each with assumptions that are sometimes the opposite others. This way, however a subject's brain happens to be wired up, all the computer has to figure out is whether they mean "left" or "right" in order to direct a robot arm in two dimensions.
From Iáñez, E., Furió, M. C., Azorín, J. M., Huizzi, J. A., and Fernández, E. 2009. Brain-Robot Interface for Controlling a Remote Robot Arm. In Proceedings of the 3rd international Work-Conference on the interplay between Natural and Artificial Computation: Part Ii: Bioinspired Applications in Artificial and Natural Computation (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, June 22 - 26, 2009). J. Mira, J. M. Ferrández, J. R. Álvarez, F. Paz, and F. J. Toledo, Eds. Lecture Notes In Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 353-361.
This paper describes a technique based on electroencephalography (EEG) to control a robot arm. This technology could eventually allow people with severe disabilities to control robots that can help them in daily living activities. The EEG-based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) developed consists in register the brain rhythmic activity through a electrodes situated on the scalp in order to differentiate one cognitive process from rest state and use it to control one degree of freedom of the robot arm. In the paper the processing and classifier algorithm are described and an analysis of their parameters has been made with the objective of find the optimum configuration that allow obtaining the best results.
And from José L. Sirvent, José M. Azorín, Eduardo Iáñez, Andrés Úbeda and Eduardo Fernández P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface for Internet Browsing, Trends in Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems, Advances in Soft Computing, 2010, Volume 71/2010, 615-622L:
This paper describes the implementation of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) for controlling Internet browsing. The system uses electroencephalographic (EEG) signals to control the computer by evoked potentials through the P300 paradigm. This way, using visual stimulus, the user is able to control the Internet navigation via a virtual mouse and keyboard. The system has been developed under the BCI2000 platform. This paper also shows the experimental results obtained by different users.
The fact that the Judge prejudged the case, so much so that she entered conformed copies of a Final Judgment before the hearing even began, requires disqualification.
Actually, I think life in jail would be more appropriate.
It's one thing to have sausage-machine "justice", verdict first, trial afterwards - but one should at least obey the forms.
These new foreclosure-only courts are special creations of the Florida legislature, funded separately from the usual court system. They are manned by retired judges, which means in many cases they are not familiar with real estate law.
But perhaps most important, the explicit objective of these courts is to clear up the backlog. And that is coming to pass not by the Legislature having thrown enough resources at the problem (that is, having greatly enlarged court capacity to process more cases in parallel) but by pushing for faster resolution. The problem is that an accelerated process runs roughshod over due process and allows banks to foreclose when they may not be the right party, or worse, when the foreclosure is the result of servicing error.
Let’s look at one example of banana republic faux justice in the US, via a speech by foreclosure court Judge Roger Colton to his court on how the day was going to go. It’s simply breathtaking. He says that if the bank is foreclosing, he’s not going to consider any evidence that the foreclosure is in error (servicing errors, plaintiff can’t provide proof it owns the note, which means it might not be the right party and procedurally, means it lacks standing to take action). He says he has already heard everything, there is a lot of unemployment in the area; he is going to schedule a court date, but that is merely a deadline for negotiation. In other words, he makes it abundantly clear he has no interest in hearing evidence. When he gets to seeing a defendant after his speech to the court (p. 13), he rubber stamps what the bank wants without even considering the evidence. And apparently his entire day went like that. The summary from an attorney who was representing a client before him that day:
On 8/30, I had a Summary Judgment Foreclosure hearing on Palm Beach County’s “Rocket Docket”. The judge spoke for 14 minutes to the crowd, of mostly pro se defendants, about how they should just agree to the summary judgment and the plaintiffs, (whose attorneys (Shapiro & Fishman had a dedicated courtroom and to whom he referred to as “my attorneys”) would be gracious (Ha!) enough to allow them to stay in their homes for 120 days if needed (even though the statute says he only has to give them 30). When it came to hearing arguments which were fully briefed and provided to the court (pursuant to the instructions of the Divisions head judge) he only allowed 30-60 seconds for argument, failed to read any of the papers, failed to review the plaintiff’s foreclosure package,flatly ignored the Affidavit filed in Opposition, ignored my plea for a trial, signed the judgment and dismissed me. I never was permitted to even read the proposed judgment or to examine the “newly discovered” allonge which Shapiro’s counsel said I had no right to see.
Newly discovered allonges (separate documents with endorsements on them) are fakes; this is the new preferred method of document fabrication. Per the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code), an allonge is to be used ONLY when all the space that could be used for endorsement of a note has been used up. That means margins and the reverse side. And when an allonge is employed, it has to be so firmly attached to the original as to constitute a single document. Hence, no way can it travel separately and suddenly be discovered if it were legitimate.
The Laws, it appears, are for the little people. Documents are being blatantly fabricated, and the courts staffed by "retired Judges" who aren't actually superannuated. The usual reason for "retirement" in such cases is such blatant corruption or sheer incompetence that it can't be ignored, and the offender quietly eased out before too much more scandal is caused.
The whole mess that's caused the need for such sausage-factory systems is explained at Rortybomb in Foreclosure Fraud For Dummies.
In summary, Property Law in the US relies on title, proof of ownership, to be proved by physical pieces of paper, notes, with annotations and changes all witnessed. These legal requirements have been ignored. Mortgages have been bundled, securitised, commoditised, into more marketable packages suitable for large scale investments. Have a $200,000 mortgage, it's not particularly saleable. Have a package of 200 or more mortgages, worth in aggregate $50 million, and large-scale investors become interested. While default may happen on one or two, requiring expensive foreclosure and recovery costs, in aggregate the risk is lower. Unless the market collapses, and then they're up the creek.
But carrying around notes and pieces of paper, notarising all the changes of ownership as packages are aggregated, split, sold, re-sold etc was just too hard. It would require thousands of such notarisations per day, and to do it properly, checking title and making sure there was no mistake, that might take a good legal person several hours on each one. Far too expensive. So they didn't bother actually doing any of that, they just employed junior "robo-signers" to systematically perjure themselves and state under penalty of law that it had been done.
That's if they had the notes in the first place. Often they didn't. The firm they bought the mortgage from never received them from the previous owners - who are now out of business.
See Laws, little people, relation to.
Now the whole system would collapse if the courts didn't just cut corners, but make the circles rounder. This has been attempted... but there have been people evicted from their homes who never had a loan, and others who have paid it off but suddenly find half a dozen financial institutions each claiming sole ownership. Sometimes the banks have sold property they didn't own, and sometimes they've sold the same property multiple times to different buyers. This judicial attempt to take short-cuts and ignore mere laws to regularise an irregular situation has resulted in disaster, and some states now have moratoriums on all foreclosures until things are set to rights, and the mess sorted out.
Tomorrow, a bank—not your bank, but any bank—could evict you from your home. Even if you didn’t know the bank was foreclosing. Even if your mortgage is paid off. Even if you never had a mortgage to begin with. Even if the bank doesn’t hold a single piece of paper that you signed. And major banks not only know this fact, but have spent millions of dollars to defend it in court. Why? The answer starts with a Jacksonville homeowner named Patrick Jeffs.
In 2007, Deutsche Bank sued Jeffs for his home, which is a necessary step in the process of foreclosing on a homeowner in the state of Florida. Curiously, despite the fact that he immediately hired a law firm to defend his property when he found out about the foreclosure, neither Jeffs nor his attorneys were at the trial. That’s because it had already happened. Deutsche won by default because Jeffs wasn’t able to travel backwards in time to attend, even though the trial featured a signed affidavit indicating that he had been served his court summons.
The only problem with the summons Jeffs supposedly received was that it had been conjured out of thin air.
In June of this year, a Florida court ruled that the document was fraudulent, as the person who was supposed to make sure Jeffs was served had mysteriously received a copy of the summons before the lawsuit had even been filed, and Jeffs never even saw the copy. The text of that ruling was posted on various financial news websites in September. The lawyers that Jeffs hired to defend his case say that fraud such as this is not uncommon. It’s a widespread problem, and it has cost countless families their homes.
“I think it’s safe to say that 95% of the foreclosure cases in Florida involve some form of fraud on the part of the bank,” David Goldman of Apple Law Firm, PLLC told The Daily Caller in a phone interview. “It’s probably closer to 99%. And the court system is helping them get away with it.”
A 95% rate of fraud sounds preposterous, but the number was repeated by a paralegal familiar with the case, Lisa Beasley, as well as Michael Redman, who was prompted to create a website called 4closurefraud.org after enduring personal experiences with the matter. ... Earlier this year, Goldman worked with Jane Doe, an elderly woman whose real name couldn’t be disclosed for legal reasons. She had just spent several weeks outside of her home state of Florida visiting relatives, and she was current on her mortgage payments, which she had been paying for the past 15 years. She even called up her bank during her trip to ask about the best way to send in her latest payment. The bank told her that it wasn’t allowed to discuss the mortgage with her because her husband was the property owner, not her. But the bank couldn’t discuss the mortgage with her husband, either. Why? Because he was dead. And he had been for five years. Confirming this fact would have taken mere minutes.
Instead, when Jane returned home, the locks to her house had been changed and all of the property inside the house was gone. She still hasn’t recovered that property, and the bank hasn’t even told her where it is. According to Goldman, the wrongful repossession was first admitted, and then, inexplicably, the bank actually changed its mind and tried to make the outrageous claim that the homeowners’ association was actually the entity which had ultimately decided to change the locks and empty the house. ... Earlier in the year, Bank of America “foreclosed” on Charlie and Maria Cardoso, removing all of their property and changing the locks even as a realtor employed by the bank itself told it that there was no mortgage on which the Cardosos could skip payments. Eventually, the papers used by Bank of America were shown to have the wrong address. Someone, somewhere guessed. ... On September 23, the bank “foreclosed” on a Ft. Lauderdale house owned by Jason Grodensky. Phone calls and emails elicited no answers, and the problem was only resolved after Grodensky took the story to the media and received national attention. There should have been no way for Bank of America to take control of the property. Instead, Grodensky discovered that the title to that property had already been sold. The bank recovered the title at its own cost. ... This week, Florida television station WFTV reported Nancy Jacobini’s story. JP Morgan’s lawyers had sent a contractor to change the locks on Jacobini’s house. She actually happened to be sitting on a couch inside that house at the time, which means that she could have simply opened the door for the contractor in response to a simple knock—and it also means, according to Jacobini’s lawyer, that changing the locks was illegal, because the house was still occupied. Instead of a knock, Jacobini heard someone breaking through her front door, grabbed her phone and hid in her bathroom, where she called 911. The breaking and entering was just an extra helping of crime. And here’s the kicker—not only was Jacobini occupying the house, but JP Morgan hadn’t even foreclosed. At every step along the way, the rule of law simply didn’t exist. ... A man named Jeffrey Stephans testified on September 14th that he had signed off on affidavits which he didn’t actually examine. Those affidavits were used in thousands of Ally foreclosures, and the properties involved were subsequently bought and sold. The previous homeowners can now sue the banks that foreclosed, and the “they were underwater anyway” argument isn’t holding up in many states, where both civil and criminal penalties are being discussed. By admitting his actions , Stephans instantly invalidated all of the repossessions and sales that were based on those actions. And Stephans said his practices are common in the industry. They’re so common, in fact, that a term was developed to describe them: “robo-signing.” This is being performed at law firms that process thousands of documents a day, which have become known as “foreclosure mills.”
Tammie Lou Kapusta, a former paralegal for one of those mills, testified on September 22nd that she was instructed by the attorneys at the firm to officially notarize hundreds of documents a day with a notary stamp that she wasn’t legally allowed to use. When complaints started rolling in about stamp dates that didn’t match other dates within the documents, she and all of the other paralegals doing the same thing at the firm were instructed to make the date of the stamp match the other dates, no matter what day it actually was. The documents would then be signed with the name “Cheryl Samons” by three different people, only one of whom was actually named Cheryl Samons. Kapusta said she drew the line when she was instructed to use random Social Security numbers assigned to people who might not even exist in order to falsify documents regarding each hypothetical person’s military status.
At least she drew it somewhere. She told the court that others didn’t.
The fact that there has been fraud and theft on a massive scale, sometimes by organisations long gone, that's been ... ignored. The Dishonesty has been so universal that we can't do anything else without rocking the boat till it capsizes.
Again, see Laws, and Little People.
What this means is that few titles that have changed hands in the last decade are unimpeachable. Even those who bought for cash may not be able to prove ownership, so cannot sell, not for any price. Unemployment is now close to 10%, and the traditional remedy for that, moving to where the jobs are, that's not always, or even usually, available now. People can't sell their homes, or if they can, may not be able to buy any of the millions of foreclosed homes now standing empty, because no-one can be sure who legally owns them.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the Australian dollar is now worth more than the US dollar. Why those in the US real estate market are selling for any price they can get, and why gold is going up and up and up. Because it's not just the Real Estate market. It's the attitude that if a corporation is large enough, it is effectively beyond the law. Judges can be bought, and Congresscritters rented, quite cheaply. The system worked while the illusion was kept up, but now the rubes are starting to get wise.
The US economy has so much inherent strength that it will survive even this. But we may see the days of million dollar bills being insufficient to buy a cup of coffee first.
Consider this - not so long ago, an improvised explosive was found near a place the Evzones were guarding. Everyone else was evacuated, but they remained on guard until it went off.
Because remaining at their post, ready to die in the explosion required less courage than wearing that gear in public. When they guard a place - it's guarded.
Onto the India/Pakistan border.
I don't think they like each other very much
Finally, some drill straight from 18th century Prussia, preserved by Peter the Great, and still practiced in Russia today.
Actually, I am a Rocket Scientist.
Also hormonally odd (my blood has 46xy chromosomes anyway) and for most of my life, I looked male, and lived as one, trying to be the best Man a Gal could be. Anyway, in May 2005 that started changing naturally for reasons still unclear, and I'm now Zoe, not Alan : happier and more relaxed not to have to pretend any more.
UPDATE - reason now identified as the 3BHSD form of CAH.
This blog, written by a rocket scientist, is a fascinating collection of information, both personal and scientific, regarding intersex, transsexualism and related psychosocial and psychosexual issues. ... It is erudite and heartfelt. Just read the posts about the passport issue. You won't know whether to laugh, weep or crawl into a ball and rock gently in a corner - an amazing person. - David --- The reason I so appreciate bright, perceptive people - as opposed to ideologues whose intelligence does little to illuminate - is that they manage to both instruct and learn with a certain grace. Among such rarities in the transblogosphere is Zoe, whose direct speech and clear humanity always make her worth reading, even if one doesn’t always agree with her every conclusion. - Val --- The following is a request for permission to archive your A.E.Brain blog site which we have wanted to do for several years... The Library has traditionally collected items in print, but it is also committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural value.... Since (1996) we have been identifying online publications and archiving those that we consider have national significance.... We would like to include A.E.Brain blog site in the PANDORA Archive... -Australian National Library
Between January 2009 and Nov. 22, the date of SpaceX PAC's most recent federal report, the group has raised more than $60,000.
Scientists have captured the first direct images of magnetic monopoles which were theoretically conceived by the British-Swiss physicist Dirac in the early 1930s who showed that their existence is consistent with the ultimate theory of matter – quantum theory.
