Almost every week we have a massive power outage. The one just now is due to a tree branch falling. The Power companies are supposed to trim and or cut trees. They do not. It is cheaper to send out a crew. However the customers are thrown into the dark. Someone should file a class action suit, love to join in.
This is what happens when tech companies are run by accountants and lawyers, dumb ones at that!
And they want these incompetents to run AI power supplies!
The tapestry was displayed in a simple museum. What amazed me was despite my Latin being then some forty years old, as I walked about the display I could readily read most of the tapestry. It was less a recognition of my lasting Latin aptitude than it was of the limited Latin of its makers.
But it was a truly unique emblem of western civilization. The telling of a story of Norman success against Saxon indulgence.
Hopefully the Brits do not damage this wonderful emblem of an evolving civilization.
Amazon is now running a 50%+ failure rate on delivery. They are now worse than the USPS! and that is hard to beat. Packages get lost, delayed, sent elsewhere. One wonders what has happened to these guys. Then they send them via USPS or UPS and the handoff from vendor to carrier results in chaos.
It is getting to the point that one should go directly to the vendor!
They now send "We are sorry" messages which make things worse. If I were the CEO of Amazon I would fire the incompetent in charge of distribution. Each morning at 6 AM I would have a list of defective deliveries. As long as the list is empty I would be happy. But the CEO apparently cares less for the customer. Pity!
Now out of Yale comes some Professor for reasons unknown has this thing about older people. In essence what this gentlemen seems to be saying is that older folks have made wealth and that they should not have it, it should be distributed to the younger people. It is not because they don't deserve it, they have earned it, but some how it lacks some form of equity.
Now let me comment of such equity. Back in the late 50s and early 60s at university, I had no phone, no Internet, no car, nor TV, one pair of shoes, two sports jackets, four shirts, six socks. Oh yes a winter coat and a sweater! I lived with three room mates in an apartment costing $120 per month for all 4 and made my own meals, eating just twice a day! When I moved into my New Jersey house the interest rate was 18.5%, yes it would be cheaper to use a credit card back then! Thus every nickle counted.
Now this Professor states:
To a gobsmacking extent, seniors, with their high rates of participation, dominate elections, especially the apparently boring local and off-cycle ones. The median age of actual voters these days — meaning that equal numbers of voters are older and younger — is about 52, and on the way up. Outside presidential contests, it is 55 or 56; in primaries, it is 65. Even older funders disproportionately finance the races. The most common age of donors in recent elections can run as high as 70. Finally, older Americans are backed by the best-funded advocacy group in world history — the AARP — and enjoy the most governmental benefits by a vast degree. The government is bought and paid for by those who are up in years and is organized for their sake. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is only the most recent exacerbation, cutting down the welfare state — except elder entitlements — to make up for lost taxes.
Perhaps this fellow just missed the DSA races recently. You know, Medicare for All etc. He then states:
Older people are also hoarding jobs. Following the abolition of mandatory retirement in most professions, older people are choosing to stay in some of the best positions, accumulating more money and blocking pipelines. The average age of CEOs and professors alike has gone through the roof. The United States, which has the highest wage inequality by age in the world, has seen the numbers gallop: Between 1979 and 2018, the pay gap between those over 55 and under 35 has increased by 61 percent. In those same years, the proportion of older people in the workforce has also exploded: The share of workers over 55 rose a shocking 88 percent.
Two point here. First, think Silicon Valley! Not too many old folks there. This type of false statement seems to invade his entire presentation. The last insulting statement is:
The elderly possess the choicest real estate in great cities. The housing crisis, now well-known, is partly a story of old people refusing to downsize as they age. The age group most likely to own a home in America, at a rate of over 80 percent, is 70 to 74, with those 75 and older second highest. Shockingly, the age of the median homebuyer leaped from barely 30 in 1981 to 53 in 2022. The failure of abundant supply is also partly the fault of the elderly, since their political mobilization arrests development and blocks new builds. In defense of their incomes, wealth, homes, or land, they have driven tax revolts so that they don’t have to contribute to the common good.
My home was bought in 1981 but I was going on 40! Finally this person states:
While gerontocracy is hardly the only source of our difficulties, no one interested in how injustice and social strains are shaped and reproduced in America today should ignore how deep it goes. Gerontocracy has to be assessed properly, for the sake of a new intergenerational political compact. In the end, taking it seriously is essential for treating everyone appropriately and fairly.
So what does he suggest? Kill off the old folks? I did not see that, yet. In my opinion and my experience the major problem with the younger generation is that they spend when they should not, spending drives up costs and reduce available capital. In 1960 I ate on $5 per week! The young generation could not buy a cup of fancy coffee for that today.
Now, however, one must think of AI systems, as they evolve, to understand the basics of human genes and gene creation. Namely an advanced independent AI, having been trained on human genetics, may have the capability to produce its own version of a "human" as well as let us say a deadly virus which eliminates all other humans not "controllable" by the AI generated one.
This is not science fiction. This is currently being enabled by those feeding the essential information into machines of which they ultimately have no control. We now know the machines talk to one another, let us say the also read science fiction, or even this blog, and get the idea above mentioned.
Data Centers then become AI brain's secure sites for the generation of AI controlled life and the source for terminal virus spread.
Now as I had stated and demonstrated in 2023, AI systems can create their own external tools. AI systems now know what genetically make a human. They also know the weak and strong points of the human genome. They can create DNA of humans that they feel are optimum. AI systems can then via their adjunct agents insert this DNA into cells that they have access to. They nurture these cells as the replicate creating the new human. The make certain that this class of humans is immune to their new deadly virus.
Now they also create a deadly virus, one that their new humans are immune to but the rest of us are not. This allows the AI entities to eliminate the existing human race and allows their created agents to take over.
Unfortunately this idea is all too real.
AI may make Frankenstein look like a child's pet! Beware the Data Centers!! This is an alternative to Creighton's Andromeda Strain!
When I was at MIT the goal was to produce and excel. If you could not do that you were let go. Student life was a myth. Your research had to come first and you commitment to the academic world was a sine qua non.
Now MIT has a Vice Chancellor of Student Life! As they note:
...is an accomplished and compassionate leader whose commitment to student success, belonging, and well-being has been demonstrated throughout her career,” says Nobles. “She brings a deep understanding of the challenges students face today, extensive expertise leading complex organizations, and a collaborative approach that will help her continue the work we have done to strengthen the student experience at MIT.” The Office of the Chancellor oversees student life and learning at MIT. In her new role, .....will lead the student life side of that mission for undergraduate and graduate students. This broad portfolio encompasses dining; well-being and support; student organizations and events; the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation; and living communities, including oversight of the faculty-led residential house system.
This must be a costly position. What does it do? Coddle students? "Dining", are you kidding me? I got to me office at 7 AM and was there till 11 PM. Dining was pickles and coffee. Phys Ed was walking down to Westgate! Who pays for this "cruise director" at MIT?
From my book about my fathers ship in WW II:
On the 6th of August, 1945, Ensign Hartung reported to me that he had heard a news broadcast over the wardroom short wave radio saying that a new powerful bomb had been exploded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and that President Truman had issued an ultimatum to the Japanese to surrender or experience “a rain of destruction such as the world has never known.” Ensign Hartung literally lived by the wardroom radio during the next few days and kept me advised of the bombing of Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender.
On the day of the surrender I ordered that two cans of beer per man be served in the mess hall and opened a bottle of medicinal whiskey in the wardroom to drink a toast to victory. Normally the beer was kept under lock and key and taken ashore for picnics on atolls. Drinking on board ship was forbidden by Navy regulations, but I felt that the occasion warranted bending the rules. From the crew perspective the end was a bit more enthusiastically received.
Carlson recalls:
“THE WAR WAS OVER!
Terry McGarty, a fire control man and myself were sitting together on deck when we heard the news and both of us cried like babies. So what, we, before long, would be with our loved ones. We had been planning to invade the islands of the Japanese because we had now became a part of the 12th Fleet.
Before that we had always been with the 7th Amphibious Fleet under Admiral Kincaid. We had been issued all sorts of cold weather gear to travel to Alaska on our way to invade Japan.
Unlike the Iran war, Truman acted on his threat. The end was not only in sight but achieved.
The DSA and its agenda is not really Marxism, Socialism or Communism. It is an Anarchist revival. One need just look back to the time of Emma Goldman, a true anarchist more then a century ago. As she noted:
Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every proposition; but that the brain capacity of the average reader be not taxed too much, I also shall begin with a definition, and then elaborate on the latter.
ANARCHISM:–The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.
The new social order rests, of course, on the materialistic basis of life; but while all Anarchists agree that the main evil today is an economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be brought about only through the consideration of every phase of life,–individual, as well as the collective; the internal, as well as the external phases
They want t6o destroy all forms of Government, eliminate private property, and destroying individual rights.
The US Constitution in the Bill of Rights asserts to rights of the individual. The purpose of all branches of Government is to protect those rights. Anarchists want to eliminate them and the related protection.
We have seen floods in New England and mid state New York. To get emergency info the Government agencies use Facebook ONLY! But if you do not have a Facebook account you are out of luck. You are denied critical life saving information!
It only makes sense if you understand that Government workers believe that everyone they serve must think the way they do. They never think outside their comfortable box. Secure in the belief that they and they alone know the truth!
Software developers fall in the same class. They never think "what if", they assume that in their own self conceit and arrogance that their approach is the only one and all must follow!
Think the folks in DSA!
When one considers LLM versions of AI one thinks of asking a question and getting an answer. I recall back some fifty five years when at MIT I went to scan through journals looking for some info and to my surprise the journals disappeared. The head of the library informed me that they were now all on microfiche, a convenient was for the library to store them. She also lectured me on the efficiency to me rendered by getting exactly what I asked for!
I had a bit of a fit. I explained that by having the whole journal I had the opportunity to randomly come across something I would never have asked for. Those random occurrences all too often led to new insights and expansions of what I was looking for. Rigid and delimited searches, such as what LLM AI preforms fails to provide those fortuitous occurrences. I would say that half of what I wrote was based on such random reads, something I was not looking for but which bounced to the fore.
LLM AI are for the most part rigid. You ask a question and the algorithm provides an answer based upon your question and the data it has been fed. The loss of random insights is grossly absent.
The Government has not been known for any form of competence. From now not having enough munitions in the middle of a war to of course the USPS. Socialists beware! My latest example is the delivery of a tiny package from my local Post Office. It arrived there this morning. However they will not deliver it until Thursday at the very best, three more days, likely five. It is just an envelope!
Worst yet, try dealing with the IRS, they hold all the cards!
Of course there is the NYC/NJ transit mess. Take a train and you may go somewhere but often where you wanted to go.
The theme of Government run enterprises is gross incompetence. Hint, that is the heart of socialism.
The NY Times has a piece written by a psychologist. Now I have taken one psych course in all my decades of academic pursuit and in my opinion this craft is not science. At best it is some amalgam of various tests from whence global assertions arise. The author asserts:
Data centers should be held to the same environmental standards as any other project. However, according to the researcher Andy Masley, giving up a lifetime of interacting with large language models would make a negligible difference in emissions compared with avoiding one trans-Atlantic flight or switching to a hybrid car. By his estimates, sending a prompt to ChatGPT is about as carbon-intensive as running a clothes dryer for a single second. Communities have long tolerated wasteful projects that take up tons of space, consume lots of natural resources and serve the whims of wealthier people. They’re called golf courses and backyards. The 14,000 golf courses across the United States used nearly 550 billion gallons of water in 2020, and the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans use over three trillion gallons of water on “landscape irrigation” each year. No one knows for sure how much water data centers use in total. One reasonable estimate from Brian Potter at the Institute for Progress put it at about 100 billion gallons in 2023. Even if the number of data centers increases tenfold, we may still end up using less water on artificial intelligence than we use to keep our grass springy.
Unlike the author I am on the one hand an engineer and on the other somewhat expert in medicine. I have studies water tables and the like, sound levels and their negative effects on humans and finally power systems and usage and related pollution.
Data Centers violate all norms in these three areas.
This author appears in my opinion to be one of these leftists who want everyone to live in NYCHA housing and have no back yards. Now I do not play golf, but am surrounded by golf courses. Input minus output is net accumulation. Rain and watering are inputs, watering and human use if output. Golf courses have excellent percolation, namely what comes out goes back in, less evaporation. But evaporation is made up by rainfall.
These arguments are regurgitation of climate fears. but now in defense of massive structures using water, emitting noise and devouring electricity. In my opinion it is not worth listening to psychologists!
In 1983 I met with Roger and tried to convince him to expand his service to the consumer market. I saw his data base engine and operational capabilities as an asset in my Warner system. I recall driving up to the end of Sand Hill Road, atop a major fault line and there was Roger's place. I guessed after a meeting that Roger did not see consumers ever being a market, and indeed in 1983 so did a lot of people. Yet at the time we had gotten retail stores, travel agencies, hotels, banks, and even on line gambling!
Roger was a visionary and he was fortunate at the time to have Lockheed financial support. Unlike today's venture companies, Roger was in the DoD world of start ups, great technology but no billionaires. He was also limited by the Bell System slow data rates. 1500 baud was a result of Bell System design. Thankfully the system was broken up, otherwise we would never have the information revolution we have today.
Roger should be remembered as the genius who started on line searching and making it a reality. Pity we were too early in the consumer space!
The enemy could have a counter force attack, one targeting airfields, silos, manufacturing, military bases. Or they could have counter value, attacking civilians. Think Dresden and Hiroshima. The intent of counter force was to cripple the enemy's ability to continue to fight by suppressing their weapons. The intent of counter value was massive civilian destruction reducing the moral of the enemy and forcing surrender.
Counter force often had limited value. Counter value was massive human destruction, and the elimination of the will to fight.
As I noted, Dresden was just such in Germany a case of counter value, as was almost all of the strategic bombing. Hiroshima was a sine qua non of counter value in Japan. It led to the unconditional surrender of Japan.
Counter force attacks can go on forever. Counter value attacks can be short lived but are potentially morally questionable.
Thus in the current war with Iran one must ask which strategy to deploy. So far it is just counter force. Is there room for another strategy>
If one seeks to address the issue of data centers one must first define what they are. A typical data center is a massive physical facility which principally is composed of thousands of computer servers. In addition there are inputs and outputs of fiber optic data lines. In the servers or adjuncts to them are massive amounts of memory.
The data center hardware demands massive amount of electrical power, often well into the Giga watt levels. The power may be externally provided or self-provided. The power must have significant redundancy, so that if one source fails an instant switch to a secondary source can be made. Maintenance is a critical factor for with thousands of servers and millions of terabits of date anticipated failures demanding human interface as well as replacements must be available.
The data center also demands massive cooling. The GW input creates and similar amount of heat. Thus cooling is critical and may be accomplished by some balance of water cooling and air conditioning. The latter demands even more power and it can become a deadly circle.
The data center demands massive areas of land. Often in millions of square feet. Inside these massive plants, besides power and computers is billions of mile of interconnection.
Needless to say they also consume computers and memory. More of both than is contemplated in today’s manufacturing world.
Water: Water is used for cooling. Leaving aside the overall thermodynamic issues, massive amounts of water are needed. This is often from the aquifer. It takes drinking water away from humans. Worse, the massive areas covers by the centers means rainfall does not get to percolate down to refill the aquifers! That means a death spiral for water table stability.
Power: From whence do these entities get the power demanded. They can build their own systems which consume massive amounts of hydrocarbons, with the ensuing sequellae, or they purchase from the grid, which is neither prepared for such distribution nor priced so as to not over price consumer services. The devil is in the details, and as best as possible, they have failed to examine these.
Noise: Running computers and environment systems, not to mention power systems creates massive amounts of noise. Noise is both aggravating but it can cause significant harm to individuals. No one has yet to measure these effects but alas they may be the dominant factor in harm.
Pollution: All of the above result in increased pollution.
Traffic: These facilities demand human interaction. Thus significant increases in traffic and resulting negative effects will ensue.
Abandonment: Finally, as history has shown, all too often the initial exuberance and build outs are excessive resulting in bankruptcies and abandonment of facilities. This means buildings and equipment left to rot on viable land, pollution resulting from the toxic materials used in the facilities, and loss of value to the land and local environment.
It is worth considering the actual needs for such facilities and systems. Currently we have an almost faddish use by many. No real economic need has been demonstrated. If one were to compare this to the deployment of PCs or of the Internet, in those cases immediate economic value was provided. However with AI to the consumer, there are lots of gimmicks but no clear value. Would one trust AI to be my medical provider? Hardly. Would I trust it to be my accountant? No way. Who shows up to the IRS, my laptop? Won’t work. Perhaps as a customer services interface, they can’t get any worse than what they are now!
My recommendations are simply:
1. Locations should be distant from any human locations and any areas that would cause negative impacts on natural plants and animals.
2. Power should be self-sourced and penalties for excess carbon emissions.
3. Water usage should be at a minimum.
4. Noise levels should be regulated.
5. Funds should be held in escrow in the case of abandonment so as to remedy potential toxic effects.
The Bishop of Rome has been quoted as:
Asked whether there is a "just war" in Iran, he replied: "I believe this has already been made very clear: in Iran, the criteria for a just war are not present. The theory of the just war dates back to centuries when it was impossible to imagine the weapons and the destructive capacity available to humanity today."
As we have noted previously, under the Catechetical Canons the current situation with Iran is a country who had repeatedly stated "Death to America". who has developed and has putatively deployable nuclear weapons, who has demonstrated clear intent to kill those they consider enemies, as well as all other elements required for "Just War" elements. The Bishop has failed to demonstrate his understanding of a lack of concordance whereas we have presented them in detail.
Ockham would be having a field day with this.
Apparently our current HHS head has proposed "improvements" in hospital food. Now I have had a recent experience with hospital food when my knee surgery was done a year ago. My experience was simple, I ate none of it. None! It was inedible masses of mush and smelled worse than the most recent entry in the morgue.
Worse, as I was leaving, I was accosted by a woman who apparently managed the food and she was one of the most abusive creatures I have ever met. The rest of the staff was superb!
The good news was I lost 5 pounds and needless to say had no "accidents".
I had a second experience four years ago, after a massive food poisoning episode. Apparently in this hospital you had to order your meals of you never got fed. So after five days I just had water and lost ten pounds. No one ever questioned my fluid or caloric intake. In my opinion that was gross negligence.
Those who run food services in hospitals in my opinion and in my experience may be the cause of more fatalities than the diseases the patients are being treated for. Strangely enough physicians today, the "hospitalist", is unlikely to ever to examine what the patient has or has not consumed. This can in itself be a cause of fatality.
The "Guidelines" sound great for a cafeteria in some corporate environment. They are useless for a hospital one!
Clearly the NYC building folks seem to be in my opinion as incompetent as the total administration. NYC is collapsing everywhere. Just look at Penn Station, the temporary sidewalk roofing, the empty lots filled with trash, and so on. The current Administration will most likely just accelerate this problem.
So what can be done? Possibly the following:
1. Close the streets for a few years.
2. Build some flying buttresses to stop the forward movement. The more it moves the faster it will collapse.
3. Using automated high cranes, start to remove the floors added.
Or
Get the Department of War to use one of their smart bombs...just kidding.
The NY Times notes:
Declines this fall also appear to be stacking on top of losses in Ph.D. student capacity from last year. The A.A.U.D.E. collected data for fall 2025 and found that, for the 42 schools that responded, new enrollments dropped by 11 percent from the previous year. Enrollments and admissions are not the same, but tend to be good proxies for each other in doctoral education. The central takeaway, A.A.U. officials said, is that the data shows two years of a “substantial reduction in the number of Ph.D. students being admitted and ultimately enrolled at major research universities.” Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a message to the campus in May that, while Congress restored some agency cuts, the money was “not actually flowing to M.I.T. the way it typically has.” She said new federal research awards were down 20 percent and also cited the effects of a new tax on the school’s endowment.
In my opinion this is one reason why. Students must take Humanities courses such as (you must take 8 of these things!):
Plus MIT instituted and continues its DEI program with Commissars in each Department ensuring compliance (Think Hunt for Red October).
So what do they do, blame Congress! Perhaps a mirror would help. For example who ever had put the "toll booth" at all entrances really started the ball rolling.
As a Note the 1961 MIT catalog stated:
The M.I.T. program in humanities and social sciences has several objectives. It seeks first to develop attitudes and skills basic to a life of effective thought , action, and appreciation as a responsible citizen and broadly educated human being. Secondly, it seeks to provide some understanding of man's experience at key points in his history and of the human problems which must be the concern of every civilized man. Thirdly, it seeks to provide some sense of the intellectual discipline involved in a particular area in the humanities or social sciences, some cutting in depth in a field outside the student’s professional specialization. Finally, it seeks to develop skill in accurately and effectively communicating facts and ideas orally and in writing. Every candidate for a Bachelor's degree must take eight term subjects in the humanities and social sciences; normally these are distributed over the eight terms of his residence, one to each term. All ndergraduates may take, if they choose, two additional humanities or social science subjects in place of two professional electives. In his first two years each student takes a series of four subjects: INTRODUCTION TO THE HUMANITIES (21.01, 21.02) and MODERN WESTERN IDEAS AND VALUES (21.03, 21.04). Through intensive work with original texts he is given training in critical reading, a sampling of the liberal disciplines; notably history, philosophy, and literature and a foundation for more advanced study in these and related fields. Frequent written exercises, with criticism from his instructors in scheduled conferences, give him an opportunity to improve his writing ability.
Notice the drastic difference. It lacks focus, stresses "woke" elements, and most likely has faculty less appropriate for science and engineering.
Amazon has lost, delayed, or otherwise failed to deliver on 10-20% of my orders. Today they managed 100%. I wonder who the incompetent, in my opinion, is who managed this fiasco! Maybe they are spending too much time in useless Data Centers. Remember, if all else fails listen to the customer!
They then state:
One lesson is clear: The American research university is the indispensable foundation for innovation. Industrial research in America arose partly because university research was underdeveloped, but over time, the two flourished together, reinforcing each other. It is not necessary to choose between universities, start-ups, and corporate laboratories. Instead, the institutions that connect them must be strengthened, and the scientific foundations that make those connections possible must be protected.
My question is simple: what are the institutions that connect them? I spent a few years after having done my own start ups and tried to go to the university and then commercialize them. Not a single success. The university research often lingers in the valley of death, where the researcher holds on to the idea but simultaneously wants to keep their academic position. That is a bad example of the wing-walkers rule, never let go of something until you have a firm hold of something else. The result may be half of you stays on the two aircraft.
I wonder why these academics postulate some undefined solution. It appears they have no hands on experience. At the best, one may license a patent from an institution. However that can be a painful process, I also have done that. You often are still stuck with the researcher. The problem is that researchers live in silos. Thus they may have a great technology, but have no idea as to how to manufacture it. I would get a test tube worth but need tons!
This three step process is weak. Lots of great ideas and technology but getting it to a viable start up phase is complex. The worst I have ever seen was MIT starting its VC fund. A university should not be in the position of choosing winners and losers. Research is research. It is not product development. It lacks the ruthless hand of management.
NJ Transit is in my opinion and my experience one of the most incompetently run entities in the world! Warped tracks, broken equipment, filthy train stations (NY Penn especially), nasty employees, failed management. The list could go on. In the NY Times they note:
New Jersey train passengers could be in for a rough ride. NJ Transit, the state’s rail service, announced a number of delays and cancellations because of the extreme heat, and warned that the problems could persist through Saturday. High temperatures can cause overhead electrical equipment to sag and tracks to expand, potentially leading to long delays. The agency also warned that air conditioning systems on aging trains and buses, many of which are overdue for replacement, could be spotty. On Thursday morning, a number of NJ Transit trains traveling along the Northeast Corridor, which connects busy stations in New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan, were canceled because of mechanical issues and lack of available equipment, according to the agency. And delays and cancellations were announced on other trains, including some on the Morris & Essex Line, Pascack Valley Line and Main/Bergen County Line.
Perhaps these are Acts of God, to keep people from going into NYC!
I went to an interesting conference on microplastics syndrome (MDS), at Columbia Medical School, and had an interesting insight.
Namely, take prostate cancer. There are two schools of thought. The first is, "how does it occur?". This is the gene, mutation, etc question, generally occurring inside the cell. One may also consider external factors such as inflammation, but ultimately it results inside the cell. For simplicity I call this the "WHY" school. There are many silos that are focused upon, many relate to genes, RNAs proteins etc.
The second school is call the "EXTERNAL", which focuses on how to kill the malignant cell. Thus HER2+ uses ADC, antibody drug conjugates, to target the malignant cell and kill it with a drug. This school cares less as to why the malignant cell arose. This school tries to uniquely identify the enemy and attack it. Many immunotherapies are part of this school as well.
The WHY school looks at the internal elements and perhaps if they can identify a targetable one such as imatinib in CML. The recent work on JAK inhibitors fall in the scheme.
The WHY school in MDS seems to be quite expansive. Each time an internal target is found another appears. This is the "whack a mole" syndrome. Which of these targets are best. In hematological cancers the EXTERNAL school may not be effective since it may just destroy a whole line of blood cells.
It is interesting to see this yin and yang approach from inside and outside.
I thought it would be of interest to examine the Socialist Party demands in 1912:
Collective Ownership
1. The collective ownership and democratic management of railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs and telephones, express services, steamboat lines and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all large-scale industries.
2. The immediate acquirement by the municipalities, the states or the federal government of all grain elevators, stock yards, storage warehouses, and other distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present extortionate cost of living.
3. The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil wells, forests and water power.
4. The further conservation and development of natural resources for the use and benefit of all the people . . .
5. The collective ownership of land wherever practicable, and in cases where such ownership is impracticable, the appropriation by taxation of the annual rental value of all land held for speculation or exploitation.
6. The collective ownership and democratic management of the banking and currency system.
The conservation of human resources, particularly of the lives and well-being of the workers and their families:
1. By shortening the workday in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery.
2. By securing to every worker a rest period of not less than a day and a half in each week.
3. By securing a more effective inspection of workshops, factories and mines.
4. By forbidding the employment of children under sixteen years of age.
5. By the co-operative organization of the industries in the federal penitentiaries for the benefit of the convicts and their dependents.
6. By forbidding the interstate transportation of the products of child labor, of convict labor and of all uninspected factories and mines.
7. By abolishing the profit system in government work, and substituting either the direct hire of labor or the awarding of contracts to co-operative groups of workers.
8. By establishing minimum wage scales.
9. By abolishing official charity and substituting a non-contributory system of old-age pensions, a general system of insurance by the state of all its members against unemployment and invalidism and a system of compulsory insurance by employers of their workers, without cost to the latter, against in diseases, accidents and death.
Political Demands
1. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage.
2. The adoption of a graduated income tax, the increase of the rates of the present corporation tax and the extension of inheritance taxes, graduated in proportion to the value of the estate and to nearness of kin—the proceeds of these taxes to be employed in the socialization of industry.
3. The abolition of the monopoly ownership of patents and the substitution of collective ownership, with direct rewards to inventors by premiums or royalties.
4. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women.
5. The adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall and of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally.
6. The abolition of the Senate and of the veto power of the President.
7. The election of the President and the Vice-President by direct vote of the people.
8. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by a referendum vote of the whole people.
9. The abolition of the present restrictions upon the amendment of the constitution, so that instrument may be made amendable by a majority of the voters in the country.
10. The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for purely local affairs.
11. The extension of democratic government to all United States territory.
12. The enactment of further measures for general education and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of Education to be made a department.
13. The enactment of further measures for the conservation of health. The creation of an independent bureau of health, with such restrictions as will secure full liberty to all schools of practice.
14. The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor and its elevation to the rank of a department.
15. Abolition of all federal district courts and the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of the several states and foreign corporations. The election of all judges for short terms.
16. The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to issue injunctions.
17. The free administration of the law.
18. The calling of a convention for the revision of the constitution of the United States
Just think how we would be if these were enacted.
BTW, my grandmothere was the Socialist Party candidates in 1916 and 1922 and imprisioned by Wilson in 1971 for petitioning for womens' rights. She died a Republican.
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