Evolution In Our Time

Any individual human being is immensely complex – but won’t evolve in one lifetime. Nature explains why:

Evolution is usually thought of as something that happens to whole organisms. But there’s no fundamental reason why, for multicelled organisms, it shouldn’t happen within a single organism too. In a colony of single-celled bacteria, researchers can watch evolution in action. As the cells divide, mutants appear; and under stress, there is a selective pressure that favours some mutants over others, spreading advantageous genetic changes through the population. In principle, precisely the same thing could occur throughout our bodies. Our cells are constantly being replaced in vast numbers: the human body typically contains about a hundred trillion cells, and many billions are shed and replaced every day. If this happened simply by replication of the various specialized cells in each tissue, our tissues would evolve: mutations would arise, and some would spread. In particular, mutant cells that don’t do their specialized job so well tend to replicate more quickly than non-mutants, and so gain a competitive advantage, freeloading off the others. In such a case, our wonderfully wrought bodies could grind to a halt.

(Hat tip: 3QD.)

Ron Paul’s Haul

$300,000 in 36 hours in the latest online fundraising. His third quarter is on course to beat his second quarter. There’s an odd discrepancy between tangible enthusiasm and fundraising … and poll numbers. Obama has been kicking butt in the money game, but is stalled and even falling back slightly in national (and New Hampshire) polls. The energy behind Paul is tangible, especially online, but he’s still at 4 percent. My guess is that Clinton and Giuliani are candidates with a lot of provisional, passive support right now. Clinton has the rank and file who are parking their votes with her until they focus some more. But it also must be said: she has been campaigning extremely well. Alas, I’ll miss the NH debate tonight (I’m going to the theater), but I’ll check the Youtubes later.

Freedom’s Front Line

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Here’s a gripping first-person report from Burma today:

When we reached the Shwedagon pagoda just as the latest demonstration was gathering, we knew something was up. We saw plain-clothes government thugs threatening the monks. And we knew then that something had changed. One of them was standing above a group of monks, hanging off a railing and screaming at them. He shouted: "Do you want death? If you want death, trying walking down this street."

Read it all. The Times of London has several blog reports from inside the country. From one eyewitness:

A respectful old monk is in the vanguard of the column singing national anthem and holding flags of fighting peacock.

Despite [being] peaceful, demonstrators have been beaten to break up the crowd, and they are still together reciting "metta sutta" (A discourse on loving-kindness, about disseminating love to those who are aggressive).

Check out uploaded pics at Saffron Revolution. BurmaDigest is also a good resource for breaking news. Time has more:

"They are not Buddhists," cried one student, who clutched half a brick in his hand, running from the smoke. "They are not humans. We were praying peacefully and they beat us. They beat the monks, even the old ones." An 80-year old monk stood with the student, bleeding from a baton gash on his shaven head.

However, after this confrontation, the monks regrouped and surged forward again. Shops along the road were shuttered, but people threw down water bottles from their balconies to aide the protesters. Minutes later, the arc of a tear-gas canister looped through the air toward the pagoda’s east entrance. The air was full of dense black clouds from a burning car and motorbike. Running monks retreated through the smoke, many armed with clubs of scavenged wood, one armed with a riot shield snatched from the police. They were shaking and incandescent with rage. "The United Nations must know about this!" cried one. "They beat the nuns too," cried another.

And it’s not just Rangoon:

In Mandalay: There are also news coming from Mandalay that the crack down has also started there. Soldiers use tear gas, and also shoot above the heads of demonstrators. Many demonstrators were injured.

In Sittwe: Clashes between protestors and soldiers have been reported to be going on in Sittwe, largest city in western Burma, since yesterday.

Here’s a helpful round-up of scholarly response and background to the revolution. Here’s a summary of what’s in the Thai media. And here’s a photoblog from the streets of Rangoon. More blogging to come.

In Iraq For Ever? Ctd.

Readers respond:

Hmmm. What part of ‘fourth largest proven oil reserves on the planet’ do you find confusing?

We’re not going anywhere till that oil has been harvested. The GOP knows it. The Democratic Party knows it. And as soon as someone started rationing your air conditioning, you’d go along with it. Like everyone else.

Another adds:

I’m afraid to admit to myself that your analysis of our situation – that Hillary will keep our troops in Iraq indefinitely if she is elected – is correct. This, as you rightly point out, would be a disaster of epic proportions – the equivalent of a sucking chest wound on the body politic much like Vietnam was. It is pure folly.

But, more to the point, what is equally frightening is the picture it paints of how dysfunctional our political system, from top to bottom, is right now. A clear majority want our troops to start coming home. Basically, this policy of indefinite occupation means that, for our ‘leaders’, it is more politically expedient to burden our children with immense debt and place the crushing spiritual and physical burdens of wartime service on an incredibly small portion of our population than coming to terms with the reality that our mission there has failed.

This thing would end tomorrow if taxes went up to pay for it or if more Americans were required to serve. But that won’t happen – because to do so would begin this process of change that people like you and me are crying out for.