Revolutionary

If this pans out...wow:

Dr. Dosch had concluded in a 1999 paper that there were surprising similarities between diabetes and multiple sclerosis, a central nervous system disease. His interest was also piqued by the presence around the insulin-producing islets of an "enormous" number of nerves, pain neurons primarily used to signal the brain that tissue has been damaged.

Suspecting a link between the nerves and diabetes, he and Dr. Salter used an old experimental trick -- injecting capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, to kill the pancreatic sensory nerves in mice that had an equivalent of Type 1 diabetes.

"Then we had the biggest shock of our lives," Dr. Dosch said. Almost immediately, the islets began producing insulin normally "It was a shock ? really out of left field, because nothing in the literature was saying anything about this."

It turns out the nerves secrete neuropeptides that are instrumental in the proper functioning of the islets.

Life > Blogging

Sad but true. Especially since I'm sitting on a couple of decent ideas.

Puttin on the Ritz!

Peter Boyle died Tuesday night at age 71. He will, and probably rightly so, be forever remembered as the irascible Dad to Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond. For every good actor their is a role of a lifetime and for Boyle, that was it.

But he was a journeyman, working for years in the sweat shop known as Hollywood where character actors earn a living in blissful obscurity. Boyle had a fine range and I can think of two other memorable roles right off the top of my head--the political consultant from 1972's The Candidate and of course, this shown here (HT to the Corner).

In fact, it is this one here that I personally will always recall. Perhaps I was just too impressionable at the time I first saw it or maybe it's that good. I don't really know.

I do know it was still good for a laugh 32 years later as we discussed it around the water-cooler yesterday...

Line of the day

The Line of the Day comes again from Dean Barnett at HughHewitt.com in response to the musings of Glenn Greenwald. Glenn's thesis in a nutshell is that newspapers exist to check the power of government. You can read the entire piece linked by Dean in his post but here is the line of the day:

I have always thought that the “core function that newspapers are intended to perform” was to report the freakin’ news!

Yes, a concept so simple that you'd think it never need stating. Alas, however it seemed to elude Greenwald. The point however was not lost on commenters though, sadly, an Attack of the Contrarians (read: trolls) turned the comment thread into an exhibition on how to skewer strawmen. This comment from aurorawatcher, a once and future news reporter, pretty much sums Dean's point up nicely with the weight of experience behind it:


Journalistic ethics

I used to be a reporter and Barnett has a point. The purpose of journalism is to report the news -- all sides of it where available. Anytime a reporter injects their own personal opinion into an article, they are writing an editorial, not the news. Journalism's job is not to be adversarial, but to be thorough. That may sometime be perceived as adversarial by some parties, but that's their problem.An example -- in college, I covered the story of a rape on campus. The student newspaper and the local community press were not notified of this. A friend tipped me off because he had found the victim weeping in a dormitory stairwell. Campus Security told me that the rapist, who was unidentified, was "not a student based upon the victim's description." I could have stopped there since I didn't have access to the victim, but I knew what dorm the rape had taken place in, so I interviewed the residents. I found out that there had been a series of rapes and that at least one student had been stalked. I followed the leads. I reported the facts. Much as I wanted to, I made no judgments in my article about whether Campus Security was doing an adequate job of protecting the students and informing the public. Campus Security's chief contacted my editor grumbling that I had "overstepped" my authority and was told that I had acted as a reporter should, and a couple of days later, the Alaska State Troopers (alerted by my fair and balanced article) launched their own investigation that found that the rapist/stalker was a University student living in the same dorm complex as his victims. I was later told by a Trooper captain I took a class with that my non-antagonistic approach had been what caught his attention and made him assign officers to the case. Had I seemed partisan and challenging, I would have seemed to have an agenda against Campus Security and the State Troopers might have opted to remain out of the investigation altogether.A free and fair press is the best weapon against tyranny, but only if the press remains as fair as it is free. Partisan politics has no place in a newspaper or broadcast report. Journalists have made themselves ineffective with their agenda-driven opinion and the only solution is for them to return to fair and balanced reporting.It's not about which side a reporter agrees with. It's only about what the facts are and the facts will speak for themselves.

Working at a paper now, though it be a small market entity, and having observed the editorial staff in action for over a year, I would agree with both aurora and Dean. Greenwald's use of the term "adversarial" is too open to interpretation to be clear in the context used.

The press exists, first and foremost, to gather, aggregate appropriately and publish information. Papers can and do take an "adversarial" stance often--it's called the editorial page. That is where the injection of pure opinion is allowed and frankly, welcome. Interjections of reporting assumptions about motivations and actions is wholly inappropriate in straight news reporting.

Sadly, much of the national press has forgotten or chosen to ignore such a basic tenet of journalism.

Tech Support

Turned on the computer first thing this morning and noticed something strange; the AOL messenger windows that routinely annoy me upon booting up this beast were not staring at me as they normally do every other morning. Without thinking anything of it, I opened up IE and prepared to post my blog entries for the morning.

Only thing was, I couldn't connect...to anything. I managed to post later from an undisclosed location but upon arriving home found that the situation had not improved here at home. This simply wouldn't do.

Upon finally scrounging up the Verizon customer service number, my tech support call was handled courteously and fairly quickly given the several steps needed to solve the problem. Frankly, given the day I'd had and my usual experience on such "customer service" calls I was very surprised. Pleasantly so.

So kudos to Verizon. My gal knew exactly what to do, how to walk me through the process and do it quickly and painlessly. A minor thing, I know but in a world of automated menus and unfriendly service, a welcome occurrence!

How many times?

How many more times will Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad call for, forecast, portend or otherwise promise the destruction of Israel before anybody bothers to actually do something about it?

Hugh hinted at the same question yesterday: Article 51 of the United Nations charter expressly contemplayes self-defense after an attack, but when the threat is an existential one, that right must exist prior to the delivery of the destroying blow. The Security Council has not acted. Doesn't this empower Israel to do so?

Much like wondering how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie-Roll Pop (3, by the way), just how long will the Iranians be allowed to make direct and thinly-veiled threats at Israel?

The Sweet Spot

Nap Time...I'm turning 41 in about a week and as I grow older I've gained a new appreciation for the art of napping. Dogs make it look effortless.

It's as simple as hopping up on the favorite piece of furniture, plopping down and wriggling around a bit 'til you find the sweet spot. It's all downhill from there.

As for people-napping, all I have to say is that nap time is wasted on the young; what interest does a pre-schooler have in taking a nap in a room with 20 other 4-year olds? None.

Meanwhile, all of us who rise at six a.m. and settle in for the night at eleven and who are most in need of added sleep have no opportunity. Or at the very least, only what we can steal for 10 minutes during the long day.

It's simply not fair.

In his fond tribute to the world's worst dog, John Grogan insists there are many things we can learn from our dogs:

I have this theory, and writing the book sharpened it, that people can learn a lot from their dogs. Lessons on how to lead happier, more fulfilling lives. Lessons for successful relationships. Think about it. Many of the qualities that come so effortlessly to dogs-- loyalty, devotion, selflessness, unflagging optimism, unqualified love--can be elusive to humans.

It is the little things that shape our lives, every day. There are large, important moments scattered throughout life--weddings, births, successes and failures at work but much of every day is mundane and routine and frankly, not very exciting at all.

When I watch my dogs for any extended length of time, I notice that they understand how life inside of 4 walls and behind a fence is enough. I realize that simple bits of fun scattered throughout a day are enough to satisfy; how rewarding it is just being.

It's as simple as hopping up on the favorite piece of furniture, plopping down and wriggling around a bit 'til you find the sweet spot.

Moral Distinctions

On the issue of which dictator is worse, the WaPo has made clear their thoughts today with this. Meanwhile, over at the Corner, Jonah wonders exactly what it is he's been missing:

Do people really think that liberals have been sober-eyed moral realists about Castro from, say, Herbert Matthews' fawning coverage through, say, Oliver Stone's recent love-letter to Castro? I mean what am I missing? I don't have time to run through the soundbites of various scholar-statesmen from the Democratic leadership like Pat Leahy or various members of the Congressional Black Caucus. But come on! Hasn't some blogger compiled a good list of pro-Castroisms from the left? If not, someone should get on the stick.

And as for the second point, as someone who believes Communism really was as bad and dangerous as we conservatives said it was, I don't think I was being hypocritical at all. I think Pinochet was an S.O.B. as I said. I do think he is accountable for real crimes. But if we're going to compare the two, I think the case for Pinochet over Castro is a no-brainer, both as an instrument of foreign policy and as a moral choice between the two (and, if you take a look, you'll see the editors of the Washington Post agree with me). Both are bad choices, but one — on myriad levels, pragmatic and moral — is far worse than the other. Making meaningful distinctions is not hypocrisy, it's called "thinking."

Thoughts? Well, first off I didn't think the Post had it in 'em:

Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.

By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

I for one will make no apologies for Pinochet. I don't particularly like dictators, even "ours." Yet, Jonah is correct and right: Both are bad choices, but one — on myriad levels, pragmatic and moral — is far worse than the other. Making meaningful distinctions is not hypocrisy, it's called "thinking."

He and everyone else who points to the meaningful difference isn't being hypocritical. They're just being honest.

Terror TV

Jihadi propaganda, 24/7. Nice...

The soldiers and terps described the meaning of the images, music and voice overs. There were songs about the Iraqi “victims” of the “U.S. occupiers.” The violence in Iraq is squarely placed on the shoulders of the Americans. The images include destroyed mosques, dead women and children, women weeping of the death of their family, bloodstained floors, the destruction of U.S. humvees and armored vehicles, and insurgents firing mortars, RPGs, rockets and AK-47s. Juba, the mythical Iraqi sniper, was featured prominently (the Iraqi soldiers believe he is a composite of multiple snipers.)

The “mujahideen” are portrayed as “freedom fighters,” and are seen going through “ boot camp training.” Attacks from across the country were shown, including in Abu Ghraib, Ramadi, Fallujah, Baiji, Baghdad and elsewhere. The soldiers are seasoned veterans from the 1st Iraqi Army Division, and have served throughout Iraq. Most of the footage was popular, rehashed videos widely distributed on the Internet and in jihadi forums. I recognized many of the videos.

Electing Smart People

It seems all you who couldn't stand Republican leadership in Congress went out of your way to elect some not-so-smarties:

Now the five-term Texas Democrat, 62, is facing similar unpleasant surprises about the enemy, this time as the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

That’s because, like a number of his colleagues and top counterterrorism officials that I’ve interviewed over the past several months, Reyes can’t answer some fundamental questions about the powerful forces arrayed against us in the Middle East.

It begs the question, of course: How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don’t know basics about the battlefield?

Sleep well America, knowing that the incoming Chair of the House Intelligence Committee knows less about al-Qaeda than the average blog reader.

Still lost in translation

Jules Crittenden should be lauded for the painstaking effort that went into this post here:

(Please put on your headphones if you wish to hear this speech translated from the original Bullshit)

From there he goes on to translate Annan's inanities. And it is still a most pathetic collection of thoughts you'll ever want to come across. Good riddance, Kofi.

In other, other News

Kofi Annan's farewell address today was not much more than a veiled one-finger salute to the United States. Believe it or not, we were lectured today in these remarks and in a guest op-ed at the Washington Post by Kofi Annan on, yes boys and girls...accountability.

And in other news, I couldn't give a rat's a** what Mr. Oil-for-Food has to say on that or any other subject.

Unreal...

Seeing the Wisdom

The Editorial board at the Record gets behind the Santa Rita Hills Wine Center project in today's editorial:

Why is this important to the Central Coast in general? Because the center's blueprint offers a unique project that could add significantly to the Central Coast's mushrooming reputation as a place to visit for discerning wine lovers.

The deal for the land is not yet complete, but when it is, possibly as early as next month, local vineyard owner Rosario Perry plans to attract 10 to 15 separate wineries, put them up in a compound of buildings ranging in size up to 25,000 square feet, add a restaurant, bed and breakfast, and tasting room and call it the Santa Rita Hills Wine Center. Perry hopes to have the whole thing up and running by grape-crush time next October.

It's a good location for such a venture. The Lompoc Valley offers a different view of central Santa Barbara County. It's location so near the ocean ensures an almost continual, cool breeze, even when parts of the valley further east are sweltering in summer months. During parts of the year, the Lompoc Valley is ablaze with fields of colorful flowers.

The wine center is a proposal that should be embraced by the Central Coast's other wine operations.

Translating it into one simple and easy-to-understand phrase, I'd characterize my discussion this morning--and the paper's agreement--thus:

"It's the reputation, stupid!"

Laugh of the Day

Now, for the real laugh of the day...

It comes courtesy of Dean Barnett, c/o Ted Kennedy:

I have a different interpretation for Kennedy's move, "the first public fissure between the two Massachusetts Democrats on the issue of Kerry's presidential aspirations," as the Globe puts it. Let's face it - Kennedy knows a sinking Oldsmobile when he sees one.

Take another swing

Not quite the Laugh of the Day, but close. Dennis Kucinich is taking another stab at the Democratic Presidential nomination:

Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2004, said Monday he is planning another bid because his party isn't pushing hard enough to end the Iraq war.
In a statement, Kucinich said he plans to formally announce his candidacy on Tuesday at Cleveland's City Hall, where he served as mayor of his hometown in the 1970s.

The liberal, anti-war Ohio congressman said he was inspired to run because he disagrees with the way some of his fellow Democrats are handling the war, including approval of a proposal to spend $160 billion more on the conflict.

"Democrats were swept into power on Nov. 7 because of widespread voter discontent with the war in Iraq," said Kucinich, 60. "Instead of heeding those concerns and responding with a strong and immediate change in policies and direction, the Democratic congressional leadership seems inclined to continue funding the perpetuation of the war."

I'll lay odds at 3 to 1 that we see at least one more set of charts at a radio debate sometime between now and March '08.

Up and Coming

California's up-and-coming wine area has some big plans on the drawing board:

Plans are fermenting for a new 30,000-square-foot winery in the northeast part of town.

The Loring and Pali wine labels plan to build a winemaking facility in an industrial zone north of the intersection of Barton and West Central avenues. The wine producers, who submitted their application to the city in July, hope to have the new building running by late next year, if grading permits are approved by the city soon.

Perr said Lompoc is a good place for winemakers because it’s less expensive to operate here.

“Lompoc is an up-and-coming wine-making area and it is generally favorable to the development of wineries,” Perr said. “(City leaders) want the wineries in the area and that makes it more easier for us to get licenses and permits than other areas.”

Perr said one key reason for making wine in Lompoc is wastewater infrastructure.

“The infrastructure required to build a winery in Buellton, for example, is much more costly,” Perr said. “They require wineries to put in expensive waste treatment equipment before putting waste into the city sewer system. Lompoc’s waste treatment is more advanced.”

Other winemakers in town have said Lompoc’s cool temperatures have saved them money because air conditioning units, used elsewhere to keep wine temperate, are unnecessary.With Lompoc becoming a wine center, Lompoc Councilman DeWayne Holmdahl, who also hosts a radio wine show on, says the increase in Lompoc wineries with tasting rooms translates to economic benefit and good word-of-mouth publicity for the city.

People come from as far away as Italy to taste wine made in Lompoc, he said.“The biggest thing is retail dollars,” he said. “People come to town, spend money, more restaurants will open, hotels will be fuller. It generates itself.”

The pedestrian descriptions aside, Lompoc is actively searching out certain industries and types of business in an effort to revitalize it's image. The wine ghetto near the junction of Hwy's 1 & 246 is an example of the inroads that winemakers are making into the community, and this project on the other side of H street and east of residential neighborhoods in the north-central part of town would be but another.

Near simultaneously, you've got Los Angeles attorney Rosario Perry looking to build a wine center adjacent to and behind the existing Wal-Mart and FoodsCo center along Central Avenue:

A 12-acre parcel behind the Wal-Mart and FoodsCo complex on West Central Avenue appears headed for development as a state-of-the-art wine center — contributing to the city’s burgeoning potential as a destination for the production and libation of vino.

A large sign on the lot facing North L Street indicates preliminary plans for a project called the Santa Rita Hills Wine Center. A line on the sign above the project name reads “Coming in 2007.”

Escrow on the land closes next month, said Los Angeles attorney Rosario Perry, who owns a home east of Lompoc.

Perry, who hopes to apply for building permits with the city later this month, envisions bringing in 10 to 15 wineries with each housing production facilities. Each freestanding building would range from 2,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet and be scaled to the needs of tenants, he said. The buildings would also be as tall as 35 feet and may accommodate more than one tenant per building.

He said he hopes to the production part of the facility running for the 2007 grape crush next October, with completion of the project in about three to four years.

Perry has the vision. Perry's center, assuming it were built, would be yet another anchor in the major retail area off Central Avenue between H and O streets--one that might also see a Wal-Mart Supercenter in coming years, something that would make it even more of a destination.

Perry's project would also sit but a few minutes from the airport just to the north between the Wye and Central Avenue, a key to marketing the project: The location of the wine center is also key, Perry said. Being next to the Lompoc Airport would be good for business, he said.

“We believe being near the airport is very advantageous because it will allow easy access to the facilities and provide resources to those people using our facilities,” said Perry, who may build a hangar from his facility connecting to the airport. “People who want to come to the valley for wine tasting and touring, may want to use their airplane to get here.”

He and the city--at first glance anyway--seem to see eye to eye on the matter. The city would be wise to make such a development deal.

Thirty years ago Lompoc was known as the Flower seed capitol of the world, home then to 3 of the top 6 Flower-seed companies. That business has changed greatly in the years since and Lompoc's importance in the scheme of that industry is not what it was though remaining considerable.

The city is wisely open to fostering it's new reputation as an "up and coming wine production center,” and such projects are at the heart of building that new industry base and reputation. To my mind, there is no such thing as too much encouragement to be offered here.

Kingmaker?

If you read this part of the LA Times feature about the GOP's '08 crowd, you'd almost get the sense that they think Jeb Bush is playing a little bit of Kingmaker:

But the presentation was most notable for what it lacked: There was no photo of Jeb Bush with McCain. The absence of a McCain photo seemed to carry meaning. The presentation, with its implied signal of Jeb Bush's preferences among the GOP presidential field, was played last week for the governor's staffers and state lawmakers, many of whom are being courted by the 2008 contenders.

The presentation was produced by one of the governor's longtime advisors, Sally Bradshaw, who is now a Romney strategist. Bradshaw is so close to Jeb Bush that it is unlikely she would work for any of the 2008 candidates without his blessing. In an interview, Bradshaw said that Jeb Bush only "encouraged me" to meet with Romney, insisting that the Florida governor is not trying to indicate a favorite in the race.

I suppose then it's never too early for Big Media to start pounding on that McCain '08 drum...

And in other news...

The Sun rose in the East this morning and will likely set in the West tonight...

If you're going to try to pawn something off as news, it needs to be, well, news. In otherwords, something we didn't already know:

The head of the House Democrats' campaign committee, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, had heard of former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a former male page a year before they became public, a campaign committee aide told CNN.

Foley, a Republican, resigned after the scandal broke. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans have suggested repeatedly that some Democrats knew about the e-mails earlier than they have acknowledged, but waited till midterm elections approached to bring up the issue.

Emanuel's campaign committee aide said Friday that the Illinois Democrat was informed in 2005, but never saw the correspondence and did not have enough information to raise concerns. The aide said Emanuel took "no action" because his knowledge was "cursory" and little more than "rumor."

The aide's acknowledgement differs from the flat "no" Emanuel gave in October when asked -- during an interview on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" -- if he or anyone on his staff knew of the e-mails before the scandal broke.

Whether the effort was authored and executed at the level of the DCCC leadership or not is effectively a moot point. But please, let's not be coy--Dem political operatives and politicians knew of this behavior just as the Republican House leadership did. Only their responsibility was to find a way to use it to political advantage rather than acting in the interests of the young pages in the program.

How convenient. See, this is what always angered me most about the Foley situation. Lots of people knew...and no one deemed it worthy of exceptional action, inside or outside of Congress. So then exactly where was the "scandal"...?

And if saying that such a position is an abdication of the responsibility for oversight of the page program by Republican leadership, was not then also every other member who knew, every journalist who'd seen and read the emails also a worthy target of the anger and disdain that fell upon the heads of Denny Hastert and his fellow Republicans?

You'd think, but apparently not.

Culture of Corruption

It's alive and well as the Refrigerator is returned to Congress for yet another term. The cavalier use of rhetoric kills me. Truly, it does.

With a smile

On Thursday, Jed Babbin speculated on Donald Rumsfeld's departure from the Pentagon. On Friday the farewell came.

Was it a smile, or maybe more of a smirk?