Catastrophe and survival


By George F. Will
Thursday, December 31, 2009

Already 99.9 (and about 58 more 9s) percent of the universe -- it is expanding lickety-split -- is beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Into what is it expanding? Hard to say. We can say there is lots of stuff in space: Hold up a penny at arm's length and you block three galaxies from your field of vision -- billions of stars and other things -- 350 million light-years away, which is right next door in our wee corner of the universe.

But there is much more space than there is stuff in space: If there were only three bees in America, the air would be more crowded with bees than space is with stars. But there is much stuff besides stars whizzing around, and 65 million years ago -- the day before yesterday on the calendar of the 14-billion-year-old universe -- big bits of stuff entered Earth's atmosphere traveling faster than a high-caliber-rifle bullet.

One result was a 16,000-foot mountain, Bombay High, that has never been climbed because it is underwater off India's west coast. Another result was the "worldwide collapse of the climate and ecosystems" leading to the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs and two-thirds of marine animals, and the destruction of much of the planet's flora. So surmises Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University.

"Catastrophism," the study of calamitous episodes in Earth's geological history, has long postulated a cosmic collision that resulted in sudden extinctions. There are "iridium anomalies" -- concentrations of that material that suggest extraterrestrial origins. There also is 10,000 times more carbon than normal in the geologic time zone 65 million years ago, a worldwide layer of soot from fires kindled by the impact of a gigantic asteroid.

A consensus developed that it created Mexico's 110-mile-wide Chicxulub crater. But Chatterjee says there is a crater, Shiva, more than 300 miles wide, off western India, probably formed by an asteroid or a part of one, 25 miles in diameter.

He thinks it possible that Shiva and Chicxulub were created by portions of different asteroids that fragmented when they hit the atmosphere. The energy from the fragment that produced Chicxulub is estimated to have been equivalent to the explosion of 100 trillion tons of TNT -- 10,000 times the explosive potential of the world's arsenal of nuclear weapons. The much bigger fragment that created Shiva may have shoved India north. India was then an island moving three to five centimeters a year. Then came what has been a mystery to students of plate tectonics -- the surge of the Indian plate to the astonishing rate of 15 to 20 centimeters a year.

Dinosaurs, which were thriving in India, had lived a thousand times longer than humans have yet lived. Then they and more than 75 percent of Earth's plant and animal species died. Perhaps the two collisions, combined with a lot of volcanic activity in that era (some of it perhaps caused by the collisions), tossed up enough dust to block sunlight, creating perpetual night and acid rain, impeding photosynthesis and causing the starvation of many creatures. Or perhaps by screening sunlight, the dust caused a glacial episode.

Or perhaps dust and water vapor had a "greenhouse effect," holding in heat and cooking much life out of Earth. The discovery, two decades ago, of a bed of dinosaur fossils on Alaska's North Slope suggests that temperatures may have been warmer long ago, before there were human beings to blame for that.

Before Darwin, many people believed that no species could become extinct because this would mean there had been an imperfection in God's original handiwork. Yet 104 years before publication of "On the Origin of Species," the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 had caused some people to doubt that God has ordained a benevolently ordered universe. Nevertheless, in 1787 other people -- Americans call them the Founding Fathers -- who were influenced by Newtonian physics and the deist idea of God as cosmic clockmaker, devised a constitutional system of separated powers, checking and balancing one another, mimicking what they considered our solar system's clocklike mechanics.

Today, we know there is a lot of play in the joints of the Constitution and that every 40 million years or so asteroids more than half a mile in diameter strike Earth. Yet the Constitution still constitutes, and the fact that flora and fauna have survived Earth's episodes of extreme violence testifies to the extraordinary imperative of life.

I don't need a war to fight my cancer. I need empowering as a patient
Using the martial metaphor for something as complex as cancer makes the disease ripe for political and financial exploitation

Obituaries routinely inform us that so-and-so has died "after a brave battle against cancer". Of course, we will never read that so-and-so has died "after a pathetically feeble battle against cancer". But one thing that I have come to appreciate since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma (a cancer of the blood) two years ago is how unreal both notions are. It's just not like that.
The stress on cancer patients' "bravery" and "courage" implies that if you can't "conquer" your cancer, there's something wrong with you, some weakness or flaw. If your cancer progresses rapidly, is it your fault? Does it reflect some failure of willpower?
In blaming the victim, the ideology attached to cancer mirrors the bootstrap individualism of the neoliberal order, in which the poor are poor because of their own weaknesses – and "failure" and "success" become the ultimate duality, dished out according to individual merit.
It also reinforces the demand on patients for uncomplaining stoicism, which in many cases is why they are in bad shape in the first place. Late diagnosis leads to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths in the UK each year. For those who have been diagnosed it remains a barrier to effective treatment. The free flow of information between patient and doctor is a scientific necessity, and a reluctance to complain inhibits it.
Earlier this year Barack Obama vowed to "launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American". In so doing, he was intensifying and expanding a "war on cancer" first declared by Richard Nixon in 1971. But this "war" is as mislabelled and misconceived as the "war on terror" or the "war on drugs".
For a start, why must every concerted effort be likened to warfare? Is this the only way we are able to describe human co-operation in pursuit of a common goal? And who are the enemies in this war? Cancer cells may be "malignant" but they are not malevolent. Like the wars on "drugs" and "terror", the war on cancer misapplies the martial metaphor to dangerous effect. It simplifies a complex and daunting phenomenon – making it ripe for political and financial exploitation.
In the war on cancer, the search for the ultimate weapon, the magic bullet that will "cure" cancer, overshadows other tactics. Nixon promised "a cure for cancer" in 10 years; Obama promises one "in our times". But there is unlikely to be a single cure for cancer. There are more than 200 recognised types, and their causes are myriad. As a strategic objective, the search for the ultimate weapon distorts research and investment, drawing resources away from prevention and treatment, areas where progress has been and can be made.
Like other wars, real and imagined, the "war on cancer" is a gift to opportunists of all stripes. Among the circling vultures are travel insurers who charge people with cancer 10 times the rate charged to others; the publishers of self-help books; and the promoters of miracle cures, vitamin supplements and various "alternative therapies" of no efficacy whatsoever.
But most of all, there's the pharmaceutical industry, which manipulates research, prices and availability of drugs in pursuit of profit. And with considerable success. The industry enjoys a steady return on sales of some 17%, three times the median return for other industries. Prices do not reflect the actual costs of developing or making the drug but are pushed up to whatever the market can bear.
Exorbitant drug prices are at the root of recent controversies over the approval by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) of "expensive" cancer drugs – notably Revlimid, a therapy used in the later stages of a number of cancers, including mine – and top-up or "co-payments" (allowing those who can afford it to buy medicines deemed too expensive by the NHS). "We are told we are being mean all the time, but what nobody mentions is why the drugs are so expensive," said the Nice chairman, Professor Michael Rawlins. "Pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed double-digit growth year on year, and they are out to sustain that, not least because their senior management's earnings are related to the share price."
Many cancer therapies are blunt instruments. They attack not only cancer cells but everything else in sight. This is one reason people fear cancer: the treatment can be brutal. Making it less brutal would be a huge stride forwards for people with cancer. And that requires not a top-down military strategy, with its win or lose approach, but greater access to information, wider participation in decision-making (across hierarchies and disciplines) and empowerment of the patient.
Because I live in the catchment area for Barts hospital in central London, I find myself a winner in the NHS post code lottery. The treatment is cutting-edge and the staff are efficient, caring and respectful. What's more, I live close enough so that I can undergo most of my treatment as an outpatient – a huge boon.
Cancer treatment involves extensive interaction with institutions (hospitals, clinics, social services, the NHS itself). Even in the best hospitals, the loss of freedom and dependence on anonymous forces can be oppressive. Many cancer patients find themselves involved in a long and taxing struggle for autonomy – a rarely acknowledged reality of the war on cancer, in which the generals call the shots from afar.
As Susan Sontag noted, in the course of the 20th century cancer came to play the role that tuberculosis played in the 19th century – as a totem of suffering and mortality, the dark shadow that can blight the sunniest day. But the ubiquitousness of cancer in our culture is of dubious value to those living with the disease. The media love cancer scares and cancer cures; they dwell on heroic survivors (Lance Armstrong) and celebrity martyrs (Jade Goody). But as Ben Goldacre has shown in his Bad Science column, they routinely misrepresent research findings, conjuring breakthroughs from nothing and leaving the public panicked, confused or complacent.
What we need is not a war on cancer but a recognition that cancer is a social and environmental issue, requiring profound social and environmental changes.
---Mike Marqusee, The Guardian (UK), 12/30/09

The Fatal Conceit
Humans are overconfident creatures. Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they are above average teachers, and 90 percent of drivers believe they are above average behind the wheel. Researchers Paul J.H. Schoemaker and J. Edward Russo gave computer executives quizzes on their industry. Afterward, the executives estimated that they had gotten 5 percent of the answers wrong. In fact, they had gotten 80 percent of the answers wrong.
Fortunately, for those who study the human comedy, the epicenter of overconfidence moves from year to year.

"America's Undesirables"
Ginsburg’s Comments On Abortion
The New York Times Magazine printed a candid interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, including this portion:

New York Times Question: "Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid abortions for poor women?"

Justice Ginsburg: "Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae -- in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion."

A statement like this should not be taken out of context. The context surrounding this passage is a simplistic, pro-choice rant. Abortion, in Ginsburg's view, is an essential part of sexual equality, thus ending all ethical debate. "There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to be so obvious," she explains. "So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often." Of pro-lifers, she declares, "They're fighting a losing battle" -- which must come as discouraging news to litigants in future abortion cases that come before the high court and is contrary to the often used tactic of Supreme Court nominees and justices to avoid discussing topics on related to potential cases.
Given this context, can it be argued that Ginsburg -- referring to "populations that we don't want to have too many of" -- was merely summarizing the views of others and describing the attitudes of the country when Roe v. Wade was decided? It can be argued -- but it is not bloody likely. Who, in Ginsburg's statement, is the "we"? And who, in 1973, was arguing for the eugenic purposes of abortion?
It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who wrote the 1927 decision approving forced sterilization for Carrie Buck -- a 17-year-old single mother judged to be feebleminded and morally delinquent. "It is better for all the world," ruled Holmes, "if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." Such elitism, Holmes was known as the “progressive” justice of the day, has since been discredited; but unfortunately it is not extinct.
 It is estimated that the Hyde Amendment limiting Medicaid abortions has saved 1 million lives since its passage in 1976 -- some, no doubt, became criminals and some, perhaps, lawyers and judges

What do you think?

Well let's go back to Ginsburg before she joined the Supreme Court to hear what she thought of Roe v. Wade:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had, before joining the Court, criticized the decision for terminating a nascent democratic movement to liberalize abortion law(1).


(1) Ginsburg, Ruth. "Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade", 63 North Carolina Law Review 375 (1985): "The political process was moving in the early 1970s, not swiftly enough for advocates of quick, complete change, but majoritarian institutions were listening and acting. Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict."

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

How is the Obama administration (or anyone else for that matter) going to save the US taxpayer money by creating so-called "Universal Healthcare"? Considering the following facts:

The Myth of the 46 Million
First off, Did You Know?
That of the number of “uninsured” that is constantly discussed in the media of 46mln that
14mln of them are already covered under a government program but may have not signed up
----10mln of them make over $75k and thus can afford a private plan but chose not too
----22% of all uninsured are NOT Americans citizens at all; even higher in major cities;
----60% of the uninsured in San Francisco aren’t even Americans
----18.3mln or 40% of the uninsured are under 34 so they may have simply made their own cost/benefit analysis and determined the best course for them is to not buy health insurance.
To be clear, the statistic is not pulled out of thin air. It comes from an annual report by the Census Bureau, which most recently pegged the number of uninsured at 45.7 million for 2007. But the problem lies in the way the statistic is commonly cited and understood.
Just a quick look inside the Census Bureau data shows that 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens of the United States.

How many people actually spend the whole year without health insurance? It's difficult to say, and recent data is hard to come by. But in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office took a stab at answering the question, and looked at two studies from 1998 that conducted interviews multiple times over the course of the survey period. One study pegged the number of people who were uninsured for the entire year at 31 million, while another put it even lower, at 21 million. In either case, the number was significantly lower than it was in 1998's Current Population Survey, which found 43.9 million uninsured.
Another problem with citing the 46-million figure is that many of those who are identified as uninsured are actually eligible for existing government program but simply never bothered to enroll. In 2003, a BlueCross BlueShield Association study estimated that about 14 million of the uninsured were eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP. These people would be signed up for government insurance if they ever made it to the emergency room.
In addition, some of the 46 million could theoretically afford health coverage, but chose not to purchase any. In 2007, 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000 and 9.1 million earned more than $75,000.
The Census figures also show that 18.3 million of the uninsured were under 34. Some in this age group may have simply determined that they are young and healthy and thus can do without coverage.
When all of these factors are put together, the 2003 BlueCross BlueShield study determined that 8.2 million (18% of the often used 46mln) Americans are actually without coverage for the long haul, because they are too poor to purchase health care but earn too much to qualify for government assistance. Even being without insurance still doesn't mean they won't have access to care, because federal law forbids hospitals from denying treatment to patients who show up at the emergency room.
Did You Know?
Despite ever-increasing healthcare costs and widespread dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system, a majority of Americans remain satisfied with what they pay for their own healthcare, the quality of the healthcare they receive, and their healthcare coverage. Gallup's annual Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 11-14, finds 57% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for their healthcare, while 39% are dissatisfied. These percentages have been quite stable in recent years, after a slight dip in reported satisfaction between 2001 (64%) and 2002 (58%).

America's first Muslim president?
Obama aligns with the policies of Shariah-adherents
During his White House years, William Jefferson Clinton -- someone Judge Sonia Sotomayor might call a "white male" -- was dubbed "America's first black president" by a black admirer. Applying the standard of identity politics and pandering to a special interest that earned Mr. Clinton that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America's first Muslim president.

This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been made" -- in this case by him and his campaign handlers -- of the fact that he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright.

With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself. Consider the following indicators:

• Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to "the Holy Koran." Non-Muslims -- even pandering ones -- generally don't use that Islamic formulation.

• Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing in the faith) with the statement, "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." Again, "revealed" is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad.

• Then the president made a statement no believing Christian -- certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam -- would ever make. In the context of what he euphemistically called the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs," Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day ". . . when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

Now, the term "peace be upon them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men. According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God.

In the final analysis, it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim. In the Speech and elsewhere, he has aligned himself with adherents to what authoritative Islam calls Shariah -- notably, the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood -- to a degree that makes Mr. Clinton's fabled affinity for blacks pale by comparison.

For example, Mr. Obama has -- from literally his inaugural address onward -- inflated the numbers and, in that way and others, exaggerated the contemporary and historical importance of Muslim-Americans in the United States. In the Speech, he used the Brotherhood's estimates of "nearly 7 million Muslims" in this country, at least twice the estimates from other, more reputable sources. (Who knows? By the time Mr. Obama's friends in the radical Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) perpetrate their trademark books-cooking as deputy 2010 census takers, the official count may well claim considerably morethan 7 million Muslims are living here.)

Even more troubling were the commitments the president made in Cairo to promote Islam in America. For instance, he declared: "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." He vowed to ensure that women can cover their heads, including, presumably, when having their photographs taken for passports, driver's licenses or other identification purposes. He also pledged to enable Muslims to engage in zakat, their faith's requirement for tithing, even though four of the eight types of charity called for by Shariah can be associated with terrorism. Not surprisingly, a number of Islamic "charities" in this country have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.

Particularly worrying is the realignment Mr. Obama has announced in U.S. policy toward Israel. While he pays lip service to the "unbreakable" bond between America and the Jewish state, the president has unmistakably signaled that he intends to compel the Israelis to make territorial and other strategic concessions to Palestinians to achieve the hallowed two-state solution. In doing so, he ignores the inconvenient fact that both the Brotherhood's Hamas and Abu Mazen's Fatah remain determined to achieve a one-state solution, whereby the Jews will be driven "into the sea."

Whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim or simply plays one in the presidency may, in the end, be irrelevant. What is alarming is that in aligning himself and his policies with those of Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the president will greatly intensify the already enormous pressure on peaceful, tolerant American Muslims to submit to such forces - and heighten expectations, here and abroad, that the rest of us will do so as well.

"the intelligence derived from CIA detainees has resulted in more than 6,000 intelligence reports and, in 2004, accounted for approximately half of CTC's [the CIA's Counterterrorist Center] reporting on al Qaeda."

In a saner world (or at least one that accurately reported on original documents), all of this would be a point of pride for the CIA. It would serve as evidence of the Bush Administration's scrupulousness regarding the life and health of the detainees, and demonstrate how wrong are the claims that harsh interrogations yielded no useful intelligence.

Instead, the release of the memos has unleashed the liberal mob, with renewed calls in Congress for a "truth commission" and even, perhaps, Judge Bybee's impeachment and prosecutions of the other authors. Mr. Obama has hinted that while his Administration won't prosecute CIA officials, it may try to sate the mob by going after Bush officials who wrote the memos.

One major concern here is what Mr. Obama's decision to release these memos says about his own political leadership. He claims that one of his goals as President is to restore more comity to our politics, especially concerning national security. He also knows he needs a CIA willing to take risks to keep the country safe. Yet Mr. Obama seems more than willing to indulge the revenge fantasies of the left, as long as its potential victims served a different President. And while he is willing to release classified documents about interrogation techniques, Mr. Obama refuses to release documents that more fully discuss their results.