What Would Beethoven Think?

It is well known that Yours Truly has great affection for nerdiness &/or geekiness in their various incarnations, is terribly proud of her "nerd's dream girl" title, and herself aspires to be a supreme nerd of zebrafish development and transposon biology--and possibly of IP law as well, but that remains to be seen. She, however, was previously unaware that scanners could play music. No, really.

Does this explain my long-dead printer that insisted on printing a page with a solitary happy face when it was turned on?

{quasi-h/t Sandmonkey}

Travel Bleg

Hi y'all...a travel bleg on behalf of a friend...this is the sort of thing I should know, but as I've been shamefully bad at keeping in touch...which '03s are in or around London?? (I can only think of one at the moment; to all the rest, I apologize.)

Please email me if you think of some names!! Grazie!

[cross-posted]

Ghosts of Congresses Past

Since the theme of late is the Paper of Doom...The Legislative Branch: Resistance is futile?

"The 3 percent federal telephone excise tax was a temporary funding tool for the Spanish-American War. The U.S. defeated Spain on December 10, 1898, yet this "temporary" tax creeps into its third century. Enough." The entire article is here.

I'll acknowlege that the Court's position, which in my reading more or less leaves the door open for Congress to act under the guise of "necessity" due to a war's "rise and progress" even after said war is "over," is not specious (not entirely). However, it is precisely this sort of power creep, this metastasis, to which I strenuously object. Sigh. Maybe I should just capitulate; maybe the dream of legislative responsibility is an impossible dream...

Happy Easter!

What better way to celebrate Easter than by listening to Symphony of Psalms? And, of course, the Hallelujah Chorus!

Happy Easter!

Not-so-trivia(l)

I know, I said I wouldn't be blogging, but given the sheer enormity of the task before me, this won't kill me.

Behold, the excerpt whose import is of some concern:

"...the war power includes the power 'to remedy the evils which have arisen from its rise and progress' and continues for the duration of that emergency. Whatever may be the consequences when war is officially terminated, the war power does not necessarily end with the cessation of hostilities. ...it is adequate to support the proservation of rights created by wartime legislation."

Your task, should you choose to play, is to guess at the author. I did leave out some identifying bits, but the substance is pretty much there.

The above excerpt encapsulates my problem, which I don't yet know how to tackle. Is that really constitutional? If yes, how the heck do you transition out of a wartime legal regime?

The Usual Suspect

Es yo.* Mea culpa, as per usual. Although I've always lived more or less "on the back of the beat," there was a time in my life when I was fairly good about getting things done and not leaving them until the very lastest of minutes. I'm a little foggy as to when exactly that was but I do know it existed. Such capabilities also seem utterly to have vanished.

Case in point: it's been a long week filled with frantic studying and the two exams are now complete, the final take-home portion having been turned in today. But will it be an enjoyable weekend filled with delightful activities like a lecture, a friend's little gathering, and otherwise savoring the sunshine, chirpy birds, and warm(ing) air marking the beginning (more or less) of Spring? Oh no, no it will not. It will be spent indoors on the clock, reading, noting, highlighting, and frantically typing away--with no TV or movies or cybergoofing.** This evening marks the beginning of the effort to gather more material and sit down and produce the paper draft due Monday. All I have to say is thank God it's a draft. It's a difficult and complex subject that I should have started on a long time ago. It will be a rather drafty sort of draft, at that. I know the error can be remedied and a respectable, upstanding paper produced by making it the primary focus of my existence until the end of April, but it won't be anywhere near that by Monday. However, at the end of Monday, something will exist at least. Pretty, no; something, yes.

Therefore, the Nomad commences an "Imitation of Reading Period" in...5...4...3...2...1...Now!

*Soy yo? I've never been entirely clear on the grammatically perfect way to say "It is I" in Spanish.
** Even more poor timing on my part, for I very much want to see Take the Lead.

Isn't It Nice to Know...

...that some things never change?



(How could I resist? :P)

Shameless Plug

Special Seminar

Stephen Ekker, PhD

University of Minnesota

Candidate for Director of the Stem Cell Institute

"Engineering the Zebrafish for the 21st Century Biologist"

Wednesday, March 22

_______________________

I'm assuming this means I don't have to keep it under wraps any longer.

It's always nice to see good things happen for your PI!

Neo-origamism?

You know how dearly I love DNA. Is it not a serious contender for Most Fabulous Molecule? (For the record, RNA is pretty hot, too.) You may also know that despite my typically vehement disapproval of yellow, I love smiley faces. Ergo, you can only imagine how happy this makes me.

A map of the Americas measuring just a few hundred nanometres across has been created out of meticulously folded strands of DNA, using a new technique for manipulating molecules dubbed "DNA origami".

The nanoscale map, which sketches out both North and South America at a staggering 200-trillionths of their actual size, aims to demonstrate the precision and complexity with which DNA can be manipulated using the approach.

...It is not the first time DNA has been used to make structures - the idea was originally developed by Nadrian Seeman at New York University, US - Rothemund's approach takes things to a new level of complexity.

Although Rothemund has only made 2D shapes there is nothing to prevent the technique being applied to make complex 3D structures, he says. These could serve as disposable scaffolds to help molecules and carbon nanotubes self assemble.

Other examples "DNA artwork", creating using the same technique, include "smiley-faces", complex geometric shapes and a picture of a double helix with the letters "DNA" running above it.

Seriously--just look at the little guy


Now, if you will excuse me, I have sequencing data to look at, which may someday prove plenty thrilling in their own right. Alas, however, I am currently unable to make happy faces with transposons. That may have to go onto the to-do list.

Into the Fireswamp

Your humble Nomad here admits that she has a small problem, one she's known about for years (as have you): she has a tendency to bite off more than she can chew. Occasionally quite a lot more.

She realized this evening, as she sat down to begin--all right, all right, first she watched NCIS and The Unit--the putative proposal/tentative outline for her Lincoln seminar paper, that this would probably qualify as one of those "quite a lot more" occasions. I'm not going to release the topic just yet, but the current working title is Exit Strategy (not quite as good as Out-Lincolned?, I admit), and is actually intended as a full-length treatment of a short paper topic I wrote on previously. (In fact, said short paper turned out heinously badly; but it's such an intriguing and relevant topic I just can't shake it and have determined instead to wade back into the morass.)

The difficulty? Ah, yes. I've realized, whilst starting on a rough layout of matters that must be addressed, that 1) my answer remains "I don't know", which won't fill 25 - 50 pages; and 2) there's very likely a wealth of detail I ought to treat. At the very least, everyone else's papers promise to make for awesome work, especially given that several folks are writing on opposing angles of similar issues. Should our prof manage to get them published as a special issue or some such thing, a compilation should make for great reading.

Where is the Dread Pirate Roberts when a girl needs him?

A Rose by Any Other Name

Why certainly--you can call it C. elegans; but at the end of the day, it's still a worm.

All right, all right; yes, the lowly nematode will tell you all sorts of things about genes, cells, and development--which is cool. But...the whole wormy thing... Guess I reveal myself as pro-vertebrate ;)

Necessity and the Constitution

Good morning!

And it's another day that has thus far and will continue to be spent catching up on things due today, rather in lab being mildly useful. Of course, with such a paucity of actual experience, "useful" is a relative term. For example, I realized this morning that I completely screwed up an entire injection batch by calibrating the dosage wrong. When I go in to clean up and evaluate the embryos today, they will all be dead, just you wait and see. Note to self--if when you're injecting and you think "gee, that seems like an awful lot of solution being injected," for goodness' sake, STOP, woman, STOP!! Stop and think very carefully for a minute. Ah well, asi es la vida.

So, I thought I'd try something different today: just to prove that as much as I like pretty shoes and being silly, I do sometimes have a quasi-substantive thought. Occasionally. I just don't always write them down. Ergo, below are some of them. It is, in fact, this week's 2-page paper for my Lincoln seminar. It's not great, but I thought it maybe wasn't completely horrible. Although I could be wrong, you never know.

Yes, there are a number of incomplete and underdeveloped positions in it. One, it's a rough product; Two, we're only allowed two pages, dagnabbit--you're not exactly looking at the next Sowell, you know. And yes, I am completely incapable of writing decent conclusions. Always have been, probably always will be. Deal :)

Does the Constitution Allow Interpreters to Entertain the Idea of Necessity?
Lincoln’s Argument in the Letter to Erastus Corning and Others, the Letter to James Conkling, and the Letter to Albert Hodges

While the argument Lincoln advances in the Corning letter is an argument about the constitution, once it passes from the realm of suspension of the writ of habeas corpus it is ultimately an argument from necessity. Despite Lincoln’s remarkable ability to express himself and his constitutional positions as President both clearly and persuasively, his argument in the letter to
Erastus Corning and others simply is not constitutionally sound. He is unfortunately quite wrong—not necessarily inherently so by including necessity in his argument, but in the substance of his argument as compared to the very text of the constitution.

His error is in claiming that the language of the writ suspension clause can be extrapolated to cover any action regarding any wartime situation in which “disloyalty to the Union” is suspected. That argument from necessity is constitutionally unsound and incorrect. While I might agree or be persuaded to agree that powers may be a little broader in wartime, his argument oversteps
constitutional limits outright in employing the writ suspension language to defend other actions not obviously connected to writ suspension itself, such as the heavy-handed treatment of or silencing of newspapers. Rather than so blatantly stretching that clause, he must seek support from elsewhere in the document, if it can be found. However, in the Conklin and Hodges letters, his argument from necessity for the Emancipation Proclamation is much more constitutionally sound.

Therefore, we see that an argument from necessity can be a constitutional argument. Put perhaps more completely, such an argument is not necessarily anti-constitutional in and of itself, nor is it one the mere consideration of which automatically risks grievous injury to the constitution. There is nothing in the constitution itself to indicate that necessity cannot be a consideration under at least some circumstances. In fact, the document itself entertains the concept of necessity, albeit on a far more mundane scale, in the Necessary and Proper clause; more importantly, the constitution considers necessity as a valid factor in what are all essentially situations of dire emergency.

Harboring great concern, even innate suspicion of an argument from necessity is valid, defensible, and highly compatible with our need to be jealous guardians of liberty. It is not, however, valid as a final pronouncement. As the constitution itself hints, the question is one of limits. Again, the
constitution does not rule out necessity entirely. The words of the writ suspension clause clearly indicate that the Founders understood that there will indeed be instances of severe national emergency, and that in such situations, certain actions taken out of necessity are entirely valid and justified. (Or that there could be such instances: ideas, attitudes, and reactions of our own
times as to whether or not nation-threatening situations actually exist or can truly exist line up remarkably well with those expressed in Lincoln’s.)

Whether an argument from necessity is a constitutional argument depends on what action or position is being argued, as well as the constitutional provision(s) at issue; there is no one-size-fits-all answer to that question, as demonstrated by the letters to Corning, Conklin, and Hodges. Lincoln instinctively understood this, and the concept of constitutional constraints, as evidenced by his
statement in the letter to Hodges:

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. …And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. …I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery.

But in the argument espoused in the Corning letter, he ignored this principle. Therefore, an argument from necessity is not inherently an unconstitutional one; there are times when necessity may be a valid constitutional argument.

Finis.

******
Update 3.7.06: Marked "V. good!" With an exclamation point, no less!

Energy all around

Not infrequently do I scratch my head at any given San Franciscoism, but this time someone over there might actually be on to something...

The Corporate Game

It's that time of year again: time to help out folks with their thesis projects. In that spirit, I give you the Corporate Game, a short game/quiz forming part of the thesis of a friend of Little Brother. I'm told the underlying purpose of the thesis is to examine how closely (or not) people align with Machiavellian principles in regards to business. (Correct me if I've stated it wrong, Lil' Bro.)


I scored as:
"More Gandhi than Gordon Gecko, you place business ethics and stakeholder interest over an absolute lust for revenue. This is not to say that you will not try to maximize your firm’s profits or your personal success, but you won’t step on any hands to get to the top. As a result of your amiability you are well-liked by subordinates and business partners. Just be careful to not get taken advantage of by all the sharks in the corporate ocean."

Yet again entirely too Nice? Probably!

Happy Feet...Thank Your Double Helix?

Do humans have alleles for dancing ability?

This headline is of particular interest, given that I'm supposed to be cramming for the Genetics midterm on Friday followed by the Development midterm on Tuesday (all while The Chauffeur is in Miami with nothing to do and I'm stuck here), but am in fact trying to write a paper for tomorrow's Lincoln seminar that I nearly forgot about.¹ The usual disclaimers apply, of course. Obviously I haven't read the paper yet, but nudge me--repeatedly--when I'm free (next Thursday, minimum) and I'll scrounge it up to have a look.<sup>2


1</sup> On the plus side, it may have given me a new, somewhat provocative, paper topic.
² God bless PubMed.

Lab Chic

The Manolo, he loves the scientists this morning! (A beautiful morning, to be sure, but six below if you're in Minneapolis...it will be the Super Boots this morning, for this baby scientist!)

Inspirational Procrastination

Never let it be said that procrastination is entirely without value. Thanks to contemplations on whether an Administration can out-Lincoln Lincoln [*coughnotethedatecough*]^1,2 plus a random recollection of a conversation earlier this year,³ I have been struck with a new book idea. The working title for the as yet nonexistent manuscript is The Synthesis of Law. 'S not a stellar title, but it's the best I've got so far.

Of course, I'm not supposed to be thinking about synthesis of law, I'm supposed to be thinking about embryonic left-right patterning.

¹ On a less partisan note, all recent history and recent debates on such matters are properly understood as continuing aftershocks of the 1860s and, indeed, of the beginnings of our Republic itself: that is, as rehashings of previous controversies, with some variation in the surrounding factual context. I continue to think that this is an important--and sorely neglected--starting point for evaluating present "controversies"; or at the very least, an important component of the lens through which one views and analyzes those controversies. Moreover, that neglect concerns me in that it may render thoughtful persons unaware of historical background or indifferent to the pertinence of that which predates what is narrowly presented as "current" and "relevant." Not that I don't claim the same fault, mind you :)

Why does it matter? Because this history is very much alive (!) and these issues making news at the moment--separation of powers, &c &c--represent unresolved tensions present in the Constitution and therefore present in its interpretation and execution since the beginning. Those tensions, which have been understood and dealt with in a variety of ways by judges, lawyers, legislators, and Presidents since the ink first dried on the Constitution, tend to bubble up from time to time. Particular situations, such as the one we've been in for a few years now or, say, the Civil War (!!!), tend to exacerbate things.

Essentially, we're just looking at Constitutional Interpretation: Variations on a Theme here, guys. But I digress. If you don't like the music, fine; but consider on whom you wish to lay the blame for the offense to your ears, and why. Do you not like bars of the last variation? Do a whole swath of them rub you wrong? Is the music OK, but being played badly? How would you play it? Do you just hate the theme and thus the whole enterprise is screwed? What would you have written? No snark intended; my point is this: there is a certain amount of molding over time of our interpretations, rooted in things like a best understanding of what the words meant when they were written and precedent . So, over time, similar scenarios have arisen, and similar arguments have been advanced, and jurisprudence has marched on. The beginnings of our powerful central government trace at least back to the Civil War, and arguably farther. As such, a powerful central government entails powerful branches and desires by each to have interpretive authority. Although, again, debates over who has what interpretive authority and when raged at least as far back as the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798! (OK, that was big on interpretive authority of States, but the point is basically the same.)

In conclusion, I do not at present argue for or against anything; I only admonish all of us who would be critics to contemplate before we point our fingers, as we are foolish to point only to today's actors or vituperatively accuse only one Administration if we ought truly to be critical of a succession of actors and Administrations (who, we ought not forget, might be advancing defensible arguments). What we have is an instance of a messy, complicated, and historically linked problem. Nothing new under the sun...Let's not be foolish! And again, of course, I'm quite sure I've got precisely the faults I'm trying to inveigh against :)

I could do a very similar riff on "privacy" stuff in general...but I won't for the time being. Basically, my position is this: if you think the Fourth Amendment means what it says, no more and no less (which I think would be an example of so-called "strict construction" resulting in something tremendously broad--good, bad, or indifferent, I'm just commenting)...then you have another thing coming. If you'd like to rant, rave, and rail, there are more judges, lawyers, law professors, and legislators involved than you have breath to expend. Welcome to the legal system. Not all faults are courtesy of W, John Ashcroft, or whoever else I'm forgetting.

²Huh. Guess the quasi-substantive thoughts were in the footnotes. Perhaps I can be a lawyer after all; there may yet be hope. Wait...do I want that?

³ Fascinating how a brief or offhand remark somtimes reveals so much.

Why is it that...

...kitchens are never truly and permanently clean? Never. Ever.

Moi: barefoot, check (prefer it to socks); kitchen, check (dude, it's where the food is!); pregnant, not so much. Now, I'm a big fan of the first two (the third I can't really weigh in on), BUT if some feminist really wanted to help out homosapien-kind, especially the girl trying to take care of herself and clean occasionally, significant progress would have been made on the 100% self-cleaning kitchen. But noooo...

Yes, I know, that was totally irrelevant and I'm cranky today. But I stand by it.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Green Fish

Tidings of great joy: I have successfully made lovely mosaic fish! [Meaning: if you view them under the appropriate wavelength, there are glowing red patches. This is a good--nay, fabulous--thing :)]

Next step, world domination. Gotta start somewhere!

Kidding! I have absolutely no desire to rule the world. It would be much more interesting to be the power behind the throne, don't you think?

Fast Times at MCB (now with fish)

Salutations from Minneapolis, where it is unseasonably warm, the semester is now nearly two weeks old and I'm already behind, and in a few minutes I'll be putting some baby fishies under the microscope to see if I've had any success at all in my preliminary experiments. (I doubt it, but looking at stuff under a scope is always cool.)

Since The Little Brother chastized me yesterday for not updating this soap box in quite some time, I shall hereby endeavor to appease him for the moment!

At any rate, this one is also for The Chauffeur--who I don't think actually reads this, but might find the following quizzie amusing nonetheless:

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite, and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

(h/t Chris Karr )

Quasi-substantive thoughts to come later...maybe...