Testes 'most distinct human tissue'

So says an article on the BBC's web site. What they mean by 'most distinct' is the number of specialist genes expressed during the normal functioning of the testicular tissue. So: testes, 999; cerebral cortex 318; the liver, 172 and so on.

At the end of the article it's suggested that the testes have 'more distinctive proteins because of their focus on producing large numbers of sperm without any errors in their genetic code'. I'm not sure I can detect an argument there, but doubtless a read of the original paper would be more informative.

One thing not present in the BBC article, but suggested by a moment's thought, is that this may have something to do with the modern drop off in sperm quality. The more genes expressed, the more pathways that are doing something, and the greater the possibility that exposure to some random chemical — be it industrial or pharmaceutical — will make something go wrong.

What is happening to America?

When I grew up in 1950s / 1960s Britain, feelings of goodwill and gratitude towards the U.S. for the role it played in the second World War were strong, and I retained them into my 40s and even my early 50s — though there was no denying that Dubya's foreign policy, especially in Iraq (or should I say, especially towards Saddam, since it was clearly a personal thing) was deeply flawed.

Looking back, Bush senior seems to have been the last president that I could have much respect for, and the progression Clinton, Dubya, Obama has marked a clear decline not only in competency but also in morality, and not only abroad but also at home. The country is well on the way to being a police state, and its foreign policy is now the Gold Standard for wilful stupidity and wretched incoherence globally.

Not content to have created ISIS by its policy of arming the Syrian rebels, thereby causing the utmost misery in both Syria and Iraq (and soon, Europe and the U.S. itself, as the chickens come home to roost), America now seems to be embarking on a plan that I can only call evil. It will bomb ISIS inside Syria, to deny it any place of safe refuge, but it will also bomb and destroy targets and installations of the Assad regime, to maintain balance. That is, it won't allow Assad to profit from America's destruction of ISIS assets. Seemingly lost amongst all this is that the U.S. will be violently terminating human lives, in their dozens and hundreds if not thousands, belonging to members of the Syrian armed forces (I don't care about the ISIS abominations) for symmetry. This is inhuman. The U.S. has become a plague among nations, a rabid dog. I never thought I would see the day.

bbcwatch.org

Just found this site and read a few articles, got to say that so far it looks superb. The articles I read not only skewer the BBC's biased reporting, but they provide a very clear intellectual framework and vocabulary to allow you to do the same yourself!

Moreover, there's a helpful guide to complaining to the BBC here.

Dump the fish oils

From the Canadian Journal of Cardiology:

During the 1970s, two Danish investigators, Bang and Dyerberg, upon being informed that the Greenland Eskimos had a low prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD) set out to study the diet of this population. ... This was the beginning of a proliferation of studies that focused on the cardioprotective effects of the “Eskimo diet”. ... we conducted a review of published literature to examine whether mortality and morbidity due to CAD are indeed lower in Eskimo/Inuit populations compared to their Caucasian counterparts. Most studies found that the Greenland Eskimos as well as the Canadian and Alaskan Inuit have CAD as often as the non-Eskimo populations. ... Our conclusion is that this hypothesis lacked a solid foundation.

Another diet fad bites the dust. You won't be hearing about this result down at the health food shop!

The ongoing collapse of Japan

Required reading: How Japan Blew Its Savings Surplus: What A Keynesian Dystopia Looks Like. Especially frightening: "even at today’s absurdly low and BOJ rigged bond rate of 0.6%, nearly 25% of government revenue is absorbed by interest payments".

The comments on this article are also interesting, there being one or two enlightening observations along with the usual ZH circle-jerk. Notably: as the balance of payments declines, asset sales abroad and consequent repatriation will put upwards pressure on the yen; if there is private selling too, though that will presumably mostly be JGBs so no exchange rate effect, there will be inflation; inflation plus a high exchange rate equals stagflation! And more, faster selling.

Look also at an article from yesterday: Japanese Bond Futures Volume Collapses To Zero Even As Service Sector Implodes. The Bank of Japan is now the only buyer for Japanese Government Bonds, and as Japan goes today, so America will go tomorrow.

The BBC's stunning hypocrisy

In a truly shameless example of the pot calling the kettle black, my Feedly stream from the BBC today contains an arresting link: "Russia's 'Stalinist' propaganda machine". I'm drawn to click on it because I've been constantly reading about the developing crisis in the Ukraine, since the days of Nuland's taped phone call, where she was discussing how the U.S. was fomenting the rebellion that finally boiled over into an armed coup. Also, for those who appreciate the tragicomedy of life, the irony of the epically Stalinist BBC accusing others of being propagandists is ... well ... just, well...

Tellingly the writer, one Bridget Kendall, spent some time doing postgraduate work in the U.S., and seems to be also a Guardian contributor. 'Nuff said!

The article starts off with an attempt to evoke a suprisingly elegiac existence ("the heady scent of lilac on the long warm evenings") — that of young Muscovites — and segues into how it may be on the brink of disaster because of the adventurism of the Russian President ("It's as though everyone is a spectator at a sporting event, or watching a game show on TV - a detached enjoyment, as though this orgy of Russian patriotism carries no consequences, so there is no point in thinking where it might lead."). It's a bit like watching a poor B-movie, where the bad things that are going to happen are heralded by a sudden fearfulness in the music. Interesting also that the word she uses to describe a display of patriotism is "orgy", with its many negative connotations. Indeed, since the word "orgy" must not now have anything except a positive connotation at the BBC when used to describe yer actual group sex, the negative usage seems to be restricted to what our ancestors thought were the old virtues.

After quoting a few more dissidents — academics who bemoan the country's slide into materialism and its inexplicable lack of appetite for the goals of the liberal intelligentsia — she finishes with a little dig at one of Putin's academic supporters, who apparently "smiles slyly" — ooh girl, the shivers are fairly coursin' down me spine!

All in all, an excellent example of why the BBC should be shut down immediately.

First Americans were Whites from Europe

Do tools belonging to Stone Age hunters found on U.S. east coast prove the first Americans came from Europe NOT Asia?

This is well-known outside the mainstream media, which is slowly being forced to confront its own prejudices on this issue. Inconveniently for them, it looks as though these First Americans may have survived up until relatively recently, and may actually be the (white) "moon-eyed people" who were exterminated by today's "Native" Americans as they penetrated the continent from Asia.

Speechless!

Russia Today is reporting ... well, this:

Kiev snipers hired by Maidan leaders - leaked EU's Ashton phone tape

A leaked phone conversation between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet. Apparently the call took place shortly after 25th February, so "the West" has known about this for some time, making its current stance all the more incomprehensible.

Also, Estonian Foreign Ministry confirms authenticity of leaked call.

And commentary on ZeroHedge: Behind The Kiev Snipers It Was Somebody From The New Coalition" - A Stunning New Leak Released.

Some notes on the current situation in the Ukraine

This is just somewhere to put odd bits — arguments — that I find, that appear to be relevant. It will get updates.

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The West's hands are clearly not clean in this matter.

I thought at the time, when watching the news, when the protests against Yanukovitch were spreading, that the protesters appeared unusually organised. Compare them with the Iranians two (was it?) years ago, or the Turkish protesters last year. In both those cases, the crowds were mostly unable to defend themselves against the government forces, and the protests were only kept going by truly desperate sacrifices on the part of the people. In contrast, the Ukrainian protesters, though shot at by the government's special forces, were more than able to hold their own, and rapidly beat back the armed police. I remember thinking that something odd was going on, that there was more to this than met the eye. They were armed, organised, and very, very disciplined. More like a pre-planned coup than a protest, in fact.

Then there was the line-up of mothers who had lost their sons to the special forces. Moving, touching, but I noticed that each one carried a photograph in exactly the same kind of frame, of exactly the same size, and exactly the same shot angle and distance. Odd that.

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The Budapest memorandum was not ratified by Congress, therefore is not binding on the US. That probably means that Obama does not have authority to uyse military force to defend Ukraine against Russia (not nthat he would, anyway, but it gives him a legal "out").

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(From a comment on ZeroHedge.)
NATO bombed Serbia unilaterally, without permission from the Security Council, and "recognized" the "independence" of Kosovo (essentially a bandit regime). Serbia is a UN member, whose borders were guaranteed by the UN Charter...

So, NATO established the precedent.

Ukraine (EuroMaidan mob) and EU ministers signed an agreement too, and then made a Coup the next day. What about that agreement? (This point was made by Yanukovitch in his first speech on arriving in Russia.)

Future cabinet members were picked by foreign diplomats (not elected even in their own country) over unsecured phone conversation? A reference to the Victoria Nuland / Geoffrey Pyatt phone call.

Crimean Tatars

The mainstream media in the West are currently wringing their hands over the fate of the Crimean Tatars, whom they describe as the original inhabitants of that region, and whose rights they fear may be infringed by a re-establishment of lawful authority in an "inalienable" part of the Ukraine that has only been a part of the Ukraine for sixty-odd years.

That of course is nothing but a complete mischaracterisation of the truth. Less politely, a lie. The Crimean Tatars were Islamic invaders into Europe, who established a state that over several centuries depopulated huge areas of the surrounding, ethnically European and Christian countries, sending the captives off to the slave markets -- those whom they didn't simply kill for sport.

From the 14th to the 17th centuries they took about 3 million Europeans and sold them in the slave markets of the Ottoman Turks. In the words of the French Duke Antoine de Gramont, who witnessed these events for himself, "the Tatars slit the throats of all men over 60 years old who were thought to be incapable of work, forty-year-olds were saved for the galleys, young boys for their pleasure and girls and women to continue their kind and then later to be sold. The prisoners were divided equally and lots were cast according to age so that no one could complain that he had gotten more old ones than young."

Read more on Wikipedia.

What goes around

What goes around surely comes around.

I haven't seen it recorded on British news programmes, although I don't watch much TV nowadays, but one has to laugh when an Obama State Department spokeswoman complains about another country (Russia) recording the conversations of high-level American diplomatic personnel.

Fuck the EU! Oh yeah.