Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

T R E 4 5 O N

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let there be snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Infrastructure week. at last.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The revolution will be supervised.

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Open Thread

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chase

How things have gone in my burg this week.

Feel free to discuss the weather, politics, sports or whether the recent demonstration of a protein acting as an ‘evolutionary capacitor’ in cave fish really challenges any leading models of evolution as the headlines say, or if the HSP90 story just provides an explanation for why change under existing models happens a little faster in some places than others.

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    Got to play with a new toy this morning; finally got trained and was allowed to use our department’s laser cutter. Make all sorts of things pretty much by drawing them in CorelDraw and hitting ‘print’. Wheeee! As a training exercise, I made a couple of acrylic butterflies for my niece and nephew (butterflies are currently their favorite animal).

  8. 8.

    CaseyL

    whether the recent demonstration of a protein acting as an ‘evolutionary capacitor’ in cave fish really challenges any leading models of evolution as the headlines say, or if the HSP90 story just provides an explanation for why change under existing models happens a little faster in some places than others.

    I need to read the whole article, but from what the abstract says, this seems to hypothesize a Lysenkoist evolutionary change: heritability of acquired traits. That’s pretty explosive.

    Also: Guys – just give up pushing the cars and chase each other on foot.

  10. 10.

    Tim F.

    @CaseyL: They are NOT proposing Lysenkoism. They suggest that the very low ionic strength of the cave water reduces misfolding and frees up a lot of HSP90 from its usual job as a folding chaperone. The idea is that this somehow causes existing phenotypes to be expressed in a more exaggerated manner, increasing the fitness differential between what would otherwise be small differences in physiology. A greater fitness differential causes favorable variants to get ‘fixed’ in the population more rapidly. This is just classical Darwinism with one of the variables (offspring diversity) nudged a bit. The changes are still random, genetic and inheritable.

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @scav: We try.

    The serious use of the cutter was to make a shutter for one of our lasers. I built a nice computer-controlled shutter for about $30 in parts (Arduino board + cheap servo motor + laser-cut Delrin sheet for the actual shutter).

  15. 15.

    raven

    I’m out working rebuilding the deck stairs, fence and yard. It was 27 when I started but it’s nice now at about 40.

  16. 16.

    ArchTeryx

    Honestly, the thing on my mind is my imminent loss of unemployment. Having been on the wrong end of one too many soft-money positions, I was stuck in the UI system, and now the federal system’s been taken away a matter of days after my state UI expires.

    Starving Scientist is about to be a real, actual thing in my life. I never thought it really possible, but now it’s the reality, and frankly I suck at surviving on zero money.

  17. 17.

    geg6

    I said this in the last thread, but it bears repeating I think:

    …expect the media to swing from OMG, Obamacare is dead! headlines to gushing stories about how great it is. I base this entire expectation on the fact that health insurance commercials are running about 3:1 compared to Christmas commercials here in the Pittsburgh market. Money talks and bullshit walks.

  18. 18.

    WaterGIrl

    Tim, love you and your posts, but it drives me nuts when gif files are on auto play and just play and play and play. Hard on my eyes. It’s so bad that I literally have to close the window.

  20. 20.

    WaterGIrl

    @raven: I first read that as “I was 27 when I started” – I thought you were making a joke about the sad saga of your addition and getting to rebuild stuff you had just taken out.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    This seems more like an LA sort of thing…sudden snowstorm, and both those pursued and those pursuing don’t realize that it’s possible to go from place to place without an automobile…

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    It plunged into the upper 50s last night and is only expected to reach a high of 75 F here today. But Rick Scott is still governor, George Zimmerman got his guns back, and a giant python could emerge from the Everglades and swallow us all whole at any moment, so it’s not ALL good…

  24. 24.

    geg6

    Big campus holiday luncheon for administration, faculty, staff and retirees today. Here’s the menu and prepare to be jellus:

    Turkey and ham carving stations
    Cream of roasted red pepper soup
    Italian wedding soup
    Greek salad
    Artisan bread and rolls
    Berry trifle
    Red velvet whoopie pies
    Caramel apple cheesecake

    I’m going to need a nap to get through the afternoon. Feh, today is my last day until January 2. I don’t care.

  30. 30.

    PaulW

    Half the people coming into the library the last couple days are having issues logging into Yahoo! Mail.

    There’s not much we can do at our end other than to point the patrons to the help website… and these aren’t people tech savvy enough to navigate around that type of site already.

    Sigh.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Mary

    I’ll see your Canadian police chase and raise you a real life Canadian arrest of a woman by some very patient and loquacious officers who were happy to be filmed by onlookers.

    (I live in the city where the cops have not always been so patient or non-lethal, but I am glad to praise these two Hamilton cops for showing the level of professionalism all cops should meet.)

  32. 32.

    PaulW

    @ArchTeryx:

    Honestly, the thing on my mind is my imminent loss of unemployment. Having been on the wrong end of one too many soft-money positions, I was stuck in the UI system, and now the federal system’s been taken away a matter of days after my state UI expires.

    Starving Scientist is about to be a real, actual thing in my life. I never thought it really possible, but now it’s the reality, and frankly I suck at surviving on zero money.

    You know what? Go to your state Democratic office, tell them you’re willing to run for state office. They need candidates, you need a job, and you have a winning platform: “Hire Me!”

  34. 34.

    CaseyL

    @ArchTeryx: I’ve stared down that gun barrel myself. It sucks.

    I hesitate to suggest this, as you’ve probably tried it already, but would you be able to try for a research support position? Not as a PI, in other words, but as a Coordinator or Assistant; or even as a Compliance Specialist?

  35. 35.

    piratedan

    just a not so brief note to say thank you and I love you to the folks here. I don’t mean to use the words casually in this instance but in a very real way to show how so many of us are connected to each other by our passions, dreams and desires for one another and for making this a better place. I love this blog and its inhabitants because of those shared beliefs and the fact that so many of us care about each other and the fates of total strangers because the world, simply put, is tough enough already. So thank you all for your passion, for your struggles and your empathy and even our conflicts with one another, forcing us to defend our ideals and question our assumptions. To all of you, a joyous holiday season, for all of you in the struggle, please know that its a struggle worth having in that it allows us all to share in the knowledge of you and making us all better people for it.

  38. 38.

    ArchTeryx

    @CaseyL: As a research Ph.D. most employers won’t even look at me for support positions. They figure (and quite correctly) that the moment my ship comes in, I’m jumping. I haven’t seen much in the way of “compliance specialist” positions, but those few I’ve seen require extensive FDA backgrounds. Same old same old: nobody ever wants to train, everybody wants 100% of the skills and background for a given position, or you’re rejected instantly.

    The one success I had was interviewing for a core lab admin position at Wadsworth, but the job was given to someone else. My one real shot at avoiding total destitution.

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    whether the recent demonstration of a protein acting as an ‘evolutionary capacitor’ in cave fish really challenges any leading models of evolution as the headlines say, or if the HSP90 story just provides an explanation for why change under existing models happens a little faster in some places than others.

    Breathless press release is breathless. I don’t see how selection operating on previously unimportant variation is substantially different from selection operating on new mutations. It’s kind of interesting that chaperonins can mask some degree of genetic variation that is then unmasked when the chaperonin is inactivated, but it doesn’t really change the big picture. It’s still selective pressure operating on natural variation.

  43. 43.

    ArchTeryx

    @lurker dean: It’ll come too late for me. My state UI ends Dec. 24th (20 weeks, thanks to Republicans running Michigan) and once I am out of the system, I’m out for good. There’s no “retroactive enrollment” to federal EUC. Once you’re out, you’re out until you get another job.

    Thank you for the well wishes, though.

  45. 45.

    ArchTeryx

    @piratedan: Absolutely. Unfortunately, I have disabilities that’d prevent me maintaining the sort of absolutely fixed schedule a classroom requires, especially full time.

    Teacher’s unions also, almost to a one, hate Ph.Ds (they don’t want credential creep and Ph.D.s mean fewer Master’s level teachers are hired) and put up a ton of barriers to teaching at the elementary-high school level. They’re protecting their membership, but in this case it comes at a very steep cost to folks like me.

    College teaching is a possibility but almost all of that is adjunct; no benefits, sub minimum wage pay, and long commutes are the norm. It often costs more to drive to them where I live then they pay in salary, and once you start down that path, nobody will hire you as anything else – I’ve heard innumerable horror stories of adjuncts trapped there until their medical conditions render them unable to teach. Or kill them.

  46. 46.

    lurker dean

    @ArchTeryx: That really stinks. And 20 weeks is ridiculous, but you already know that.

    I don’t know what your field of expertise is, but have you considered working as a patent agent or even a patent examiner? Those careers seem to love Ph.Ds. Just a thought if there aren’t other positions available. I read that Detroit recently opened a patent office, but I believe it’s very car-technology centric, perhaps more geared to engineering than science.

    In any event, having been unemployed several times myself, really sorry to hear about your situation, hoping a position comes your way.

  47. 47.

    piratedan

    @ArchTeryx: I also assume that you’ve done the Linked In thing and got yourself available as a contractor? After I was let go, I started to write but after a bit, I got so many cold calls looking for someone with my skill set, it was impossible to turn down the money and I’ve been contracting/consulting since then. It’s a strange economy, no one wants to invest in a salaried position with benefits for a position between 50-100K a year, but are willing to pay someone to supplement their workforce at 50-75.00 an hour when the put upon workstaff can’t deliver projects and upgrades on time.

    My current gig (7mo and counting) allows me to work from home and remotely access the client.

  48. 48.

    ArchTeryx

    @lurker dean: Molecular virology. I looked into it while I was postdocing at the NIH – the center of the universe for scientific patent law is NoVA – but they weren’t training Ph.D.s any more. They required you to go to law school.

    I’ve already got $45K in student debt. Going to law school for a job that may or may not be there when I got out was simply not an option.

  49. 49.

    ArchTeryx

    @piratedan: I’ve got a LinkedIn profile, but never considered being a contractor – because of my disabilities, I’d never be able to get health insurance as an independent, and without health coverage I’d quickly die.

    Obamacare changed that equation, though. How did you put out a contracting shingle, and what was it for? Research contracting, scientific writing, or what?

  50. 50.

    gogol's wife

    @piratedan:

    That’s beautiful — and it expresses my feelings too.

    I have the greatest general practitioner in the universe, and the other day during my visit he was going on about how he doesn’t understand why people don’t realize that providing health care to everyone is a moral issue, and I kept saying, “You have to read Balloon Juice!” I could tell that he was just frustrated by what he was hearing on the news — and from his own patients — about the ACA.

  51. 51.

    piratedan

    @ArchTeryx: my shingle is as a laboratory software consultant, I have no degree and my expertise is narrowly tied to a laboratory software product. If you’re in Linked In, check out what groups you’re associated with and join up one that will inevitably be tied to job seekers. Use your contact list to put the word out that you’re looking for hire. Headhunters comb sites like Linkin In and Monster and The Ladders looking for technical/professional staff. Many of these outfits will offer you insurance for you to sign up for. With the other ACA provisions, no worries about pre-existing conditions. Naturally, there are no guarantees, you work when there’s work to be had, but it keeps you in the mix.

    I would also encourage you to expand your contact list and make sure that you’ve updated and uploaded your resume to any/all of those sites. Because you never know who may end up linking you to a job, can be a former co-worker to a friend who’s not even in the same field that you work in.

    Also a great reminder for another jobs thread too.

  52. 52.

    lurker dean

    @ArchTeryx: Totally understandable not to accumulate more debt. I guess times have changed, in the old days (15 or so years ago) I knew a couple of people with advanced degrees who were able to get patent agent positions without going to law school. But I imagine now with unemployment so high and including lots of engineers and scientists, the firms can require law school. Hopefully contracting can provide some opportunity now that Obamacare will allow you to get insurance.

  53. 53.

    handsmile

    @lurker dean:

    The key sentence from that Gawker link is its last: “Martin Feldstein teaches at Harvard.”

    And Feldstein is no mere teacher and no mere “conservative economist.” Educated at Harvard (summa) and Oxford (D.Phil.), Feldstein holds a named professorship in economics and is a recipient of the Clark Medal (the Nobel for youngish economists and an award later won by Krgthulu). He was the long-serving President of the National Bureau of Economic Research and served Ronaldus Maximus as chief economic advisor and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. This man is a member of the highest echelon of Washington’s economic policymakers.

    All of which is to say that his WSJ op-ed is about to be loaded with a bullet into the Wurlitzer. His proposals will need to be translated into simple syllables for the Village media to recite, but expect to hear a lot more about “integrating the existing minimum wage into welfare payments.” It’s a bold, truth-telling, interest-group discomfiting, Very Serious Idea!

    Yes, compensation for labor (working-class labor, that is) is now welfare. How much longer until slavery is reconsidered as a viable economic model for sustainable job growth?

  54. 54.

    gogol's wife

    NewsMax headline: “Rev. Billy Graham’s Grandson: He’s Ready for the Lord.” But is the Lord ready for him?

  58. 58.

    Comrade Mary

    @superfly: Yes, that was awesome! I loved their whole continuing set of police bits.

    WAIT WAIT WAIT — ketchup on the french fries? THOSE AREN’T REAL COPS!

  60. 60.

    handsmile

    @piratedan:

    And to you, much joy, laughter and comfort during the holidays and in the New Year. All best wishes as well on your upcoming health procedures (and the challenges that will follow).

  64. 64.

    lurker dean

    @handsmile: well, since the wingnut position is that slavery was great because it provided free room and board, you might be right.

    i could be imagining this but i’m sensing that some of the rubes are starting to realize that they’re being had, and in particular realize the benefits of a higher minimum wage. at least that’s what i’m seeing with some right wing family members. not that i doubt that feldstein will be loaded into the wurlitzer, i’m just hopeful that folks will see through it. relying on wingers to see the truth is certainly never a safe proposition though.

  65. 65.

    ArchTeryx

    @kdaug: I’m catching up on Breaking Bad episodes instead. Might be a viable career option at this point, as biochemistry and chemistry are two of my specialites.

  66. 66.

    jl

    @The Red Pen: Thanks, That was funny. Need to save that one. Non egregiously offensive, and even clever conservative humor is a genre so rare now, might be worth a lot money some day.

  68. 68.

    Yatsuno

    So today is my last day of work until the 10th of March. I SHOULD have all the pay stuff set up and good to go but I’m paranoid about it. Big Cut is Tuesday morning. I am insisting on having my computer this time.

  69. 69.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    It’s rather depressing to find as many people defending Megyn Kelly’s “SANTA AND JESUS WERE WHITE!” BS as I’ve been finding lately, especially on the basis that Jesus couldn’t have possibly been as dark as those dangerous barbarian Arab folk.

    It…shouldn’t be surprising really, but it’s disarmingly depressing still.

  70. 70.

    geg6

    @Yatsuno:

    I’ve been keeping you in my thoughts. Wasn’t sure when the surgery was, but now I know and I’ll be sending super duper positive thoughts that day.

  71. 71.

    Gene108

    @Amir Khalid:

    My friend a good many conservatives would like to abolish the min wage completely. They know the idea is highly unpopular, so they do not bring it up much outside of their closed door meetings, but the notion is out there.

  72. 72.

    Warren Terra

    I like the Hsp90 story, it’s great biology, but I’m not remotely surprised – because I remember the papers from Sue Lindquist’s lab 15 years ago demonstrating exactly this phenomenon in fission yeast (can’t find the link quickly), in in fruit flies, and in the laboratory plant Arabidopsis. As I recall, the story got significant news coverage each time.

  73. 73.

    Anoniminous

    Ref: the Cave Fish “challenge”

    There is no challenge. There’s two known mechanisms for this to happen:

    1. epigenetics – heritable changes not passed through DNA mechanism(s)

    2. gene expression – if the external stimuli required for a gene to ‘do its thing’ don’t exist, the gene won’t express

    I don’t know which or if both are The Answer and since I care not about cave fish and I’ve got a pile of papers I absolutely have to read I’m not going to waste time doing the research.

    Rule of Generally Speaking: if a finding of a science paper is reported in the popular press it is 98% likely it’s horseshit.

  76. 76.

    Anoniminous

    @ArchTeryx:

    I’ll note reducing research funding in molecular virology is bloody fucking stupid.

    Guess we need another round of lots and lots of Special Little Snowflakes dropping dead (See: Spanish flu.)

  77. 77.

    dr. luba

    @handsmile: I got 8/10, mostly by guessing. I didn’t want to, but the Guardian made me guess. But I was wrong on Icelandic horses. So much for my liberal arts education.

  79. 79.

    gogol's wife

    @handsmile:

    That was fun. I only got 4 out of 10. The censored seemed so ridiculously easy (hasn’t everyone read that book 10 times, like me?), and the others were so ridiculously hard. I should have guessed censored since he was the only one I’d heard of, but that seemed like the wrong move.

  82. 82.

    WaterGIrl

    @Lee: @catclub: I couldn’t find a setting in Safari to only play a gif once, but hitting the escape key turned the gif into a box with a question mark, so that works for me. :-)

    Thanks for the suggestions!

  84. 84.

    WaterGIrl

    @piratedan: Thanks so much for this. How great of you to take the time to put such kind thoughts together.

    When my closest friend made some comment about his church group the other day and said “it’s kind of like your favorite blog, only with real people”, I realized he had no idea what it was like on “my favorite blog”.

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    Wednesday, Dec 11, 2013 07:04 AM CST
    Corporate Democrats freak out over Elizabeth Warren threat

    There’s a smear campaign against progressive ideas that might undermine Hillary Clinton in 2016
    Thom Hartmann, Alternet

    The Washington establishment’s war on Senator Elizabeth Warren has officially begun.

    On Friday, Jim Kessler, vice president of the centrist Democrat think-tank Third Way, took to the airwaves to defend his organization’s recent attack piece on the Senator. That editorial, which was published in the Wall Street Journal last week, blasted Warren for supporting an expansion of Social Security.

    Kessler doubled down on Third Way’s anti-Warren messaging during his appearance on Sirius XM radio, telling host Ari Rabin-Havt that she is “starting to get out of hand.”

    Ignore the not-so-hidden sexism in that comment, and consider for a second what’s really going on here.

    Jim Kessler and the corporate Democrat “moderate” types who support Third Way are absolutely terrified. They’re terrified that Elizabeth Warren and her supporters will upend the stranglehold they’ve had on Democratic politics since the Clinton era.

    So now they’ve joined Republicans in declaring an all-out war on her and everything she stands for.

    Warren has said that she won’t run for President in 2016, but that doesn’t really matter. Because even if she makes good on her promise to fill out her Senate term, Warren’s message and her supporters will continue to threaten what the Democratic establishment sees as an easy road to a second Clinton presidency.

    So make no mistake about it—that Wall Street Journal editorial was just the start of a big multi-year smear campaign against progressives who might represent a threat to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    http://www.salon.com/2013/12/11/corporate_democrats_freak_out_over_elizabeth_warren_threat/

  86. 86.

    handsmile

    @dr. luba: , @gogol’s wife:

    Pleased to read you took the bait. Or perhaps like me, you just got damned sick and tired of how ichthyology posts have taken over this blog!

    Eight of ten, with one literary guess, for me. Proving once more that what I know about horses can be saddled onto a miniature dwarf Shetland pony.

  87. 87.

    WaterGIrl

    @Yatsuno: I was away for so much of the past 6 months, can you point me to a thread where you might have explained everything? Last I heard (months and months ago) you we considering a couple of options. I surely don’t want to ask you to go through it all again, but I would like to know.

    Hopefully this can fix things for you once and for all. Hopefully the long recovery period is just when you can’t be at work; crossing my fingers that you will feel much better long before march.

  88. 88.

    rk

    Can somebody explain (or provide a link) which explains in a simple way what on earth is a holographic universe? Is this a joke? Can it possibly be true, because I simply can’t wrap my head around it.

  90. 90.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lurker dean:

    well, since the wingnut position is that slavery was great because it provided free room and board, you might be right.

    This is why I keep pestering Obama to get his thin black ass in gear an open up those FEMA forced labor camps, so these maggots can experience, up close and personal, the system they so love when they’re in the catbird seat.

    Most of them, being empathy voids, will not learn a fucking thing from it, but some can be salvaged. We owe it to our ideals to at least give them a shot at it.

  92. 92.

    ArchTeryx

    @Anoniminous: The very dark truth is that a plague is about the ONLY thing that would guarantee the resurrection of my career. If I survived the bug myself, I’d be guaranteed a job for life.

    And don’t think right now I haven’t thought of wishing for just such a plague, in an Old Testament Moses sort of way.

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