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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (184071)	3/24/2006 3:19:17 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 281500

Another Washington Post Disaster ..................................................... Ben Domenech Resigns by Jim Brady Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com blog.washingtonpost.com 03/24/2006 In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday. An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately. When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity. Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times. We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism. We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area. Jim Brady Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com blog.washingtonpost.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (184071)	3/24/2006 4:32:16 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Though it isn't the evolution everyone talks about. True. But it is a system which is predicated on mutation and natural selection. It has been somewhat of an article of faith in biology that change in biological systems, hence evolution itself, is just the result of defects in the copying mechanisms. The cellular machinery does indeed have sophisticated mechanism to guard against errors. The adaptive immune system shows that at least one biological system has explicit machinery for producing such change. It will be very interesting to see if any vaguely similar, although much less obvious methods, might exist in germline reproduction in any species. If so, we would have the fingerprints of something which might account for the Cambrian explosion. Kind of the biological equivalent of the 3K cosmic background radiation. All it would take is some such mechanism as seen in the T-cell replication, but functioning on the body plan HOX genes, and suddenly you would have very strange offspring. If this happened during the pre-Cambrian soft-bodied stage of evolution, for which we have almost no fossil evidence, then it would fit very well with the observed record. It is possible that such a mechaism might be detected in defunct DNA sequences of modern life. Just a WAG. I am referring to evolution as the opinion that nothing but "chance and necessity" have produced us. I even have no problem with considering humans as the "third chimpanzee" as one anthropologist called us. You have no problem with evolution then. You don't like atheists. Thats the only problem AFAIK. And other chimps have figured out how to split the atom and found out the universe had a beginning. Did you know that nature did that on its own in Niger a few million years ago. A self assemblying water moderated reactor no less. Why are chimps doing science at all? There's no evolutionary answer to these kind of questions imo. I think we are pretty close to that answer, now that both human and chimp genomes have been sequence. We'ed be a lot closer if the question was between mice and rats, but we are a bit more limited in the research we can do on humans. I assume the approach will be to add or delete genes in chimp embryos and see what happens. Most likely will not occur in the USA for obvious reasons, but I doubt the Asian researchers will be as hindered. I've read some speculation that perhaps 50 genes might account for most of the difference. So that is not that big of a research project. I'm pretty sure it will be done, despite the handwringing it will cause.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (184071)	3/24/2006 10:31:57 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 281500

Democratic Staffer pleads guilty in Steele credit report case Former Democratic staffer avoids jail time for computer fraud THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MARCH 24, 2006 baltimoresun.com WASHINGTON // A former Democratic staffer pleaded guilty today to computer fraud for snooping on Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele. Under the plea agreement in U.S. District Court, Lauren B. Weiner, 25, avoids jail time, but she has a year to do 150 hours of community service. Steele -- a Republican running for U.S. Senate -- was notified by Democrats in Washington that a staffer used Steele's Social Security number to obtain his credit report last year. Weiner was fired from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee after the breach was discovered. Democrats say Steele's credit information was promptly destroyed, but Steele's lawyer, E. Mark Braden, says he wants to know more about why Democrats tapped into Steele's personal financial records.