November 5, 2019

What happened to the Neanderthal?

What happened to the Neanderthal?

Here is a hypothesis based upon three observations.

1) Our Neanderthal genes all come to us from through the male line (suggesting Neanderthal women plus modern human men did not equal healthy babies)

2) Neanderthal were much more likely than stone age modern humans to practice incest. Incest, as we all know, is something modern humans are hardwired to avoid. If two children who are not blood relatives are raised together, chances are they will not have a sexual relationship later in life. If you consider genetic disease prevention strategies common in Africa such as sickle trait and thallesemia trait (both of which protect against the great scourge malaria) i.e autosomal recessive traits which are great if you have just one copy of the gene but lethal if you have two, then obviously modern humans benefit from genetic diversity and die out if they become inbred. However Neanderthal DNA hardly changed at all ( compared to modern human DNA) over a hundred thousand years. And the race thrived for hundreds of thousands of years without genetic diversity. And incest did not doom them to extinction. Humans did.

3) What parts of Neanderthal DNA survived and were incorporated into modern humans? I.e what was the best part of Neanderthal, the part that made modern humans better, too? Their immune systems. Neanderthal were just naturally resistant to a wide variety of diseases. The same genes gave them autoimmune diseases, too. But in the days before antibiotics, infectious disease resistance was the key to survival.

Now, put these three observations together 1) Neanderthal women could not successfully breed with modern human men but modern human women had no problem breeding with Neanderthal men 2) Incest and lack of genetic diversity was actually better for the Neanderthal than genetic diversity and 3) Neanderthal had an extremely strong immune system, and what do you get?

Neanderthal women had such strong immune responses to foreign proteins ( derived from foreign DNA) that their best chance of having successful pregnancies was if they mated with someone who had a close matched genome (i.e their brothers). If they attempted to mate with someone whose proteins/DNA were extremely foreign, their bodies would react to the fetus as if it was a deadly infection, spontaneously aborting it. Or creating antibodies that would doom any subsequent pregnancies by the same father. So Neanderthal women who mated with modern human men in the new more open more diverse societies would have had serious infertility issues. But if Neanderthal women decided to stick to their brothers and somehow a gene like sickle cell trait slipped into the family from the newly arrived Africans, that would also impair the Neanderthal women's ability to successfully procreate, too.

I think that this might be the math that eventually led Neanderthal to disappear except as a few genes in our modern human DNA.

PS. There is another, worst case scenario. Modern human women are more likely than men to develop certain autoimmune disorders and they do it after being pregnant. What if exposure to all the foreign DNA caused Neanderthal women to develop autoimmune diseases like Lupus? In that case, Neanderthal women would die at higher rates than modern human women, speeding up the extinction of their species.

November 2, 2019

Saint Beto

To tell the truth, I am relieved. Beto is too pure, too idealistic to be a candidate. He can do more good for this country as a civil rights leader. He has a very promising future ahead of him. Carry the dream, Beto! I have faith in you!



Oh, and you will note that I am now an Elizabeth Warren supporter. Let's hear it for the next POTUS, Warren!

October 26, 2019

It must be said---AG Barr is the mob "enforcer" and is witness tampering.

The AG of the USA has many ways to make life miserable for witnesses to Trump's high crimes. He can comb through your taxes looking for mistakes that he can charge as criminal. He can check out your internet browsing history and demand to know why you look at porn online (I would add a lol here but this is too damn serious). He can launch investigations of your spouse, children, friends if he can not dig up dirt on you.

And once he finds anything that can be construed as a federal, he can jail you and threaten to send you to prison for years---unless you accept a plea deal that includes recanting your testimony against Trump.

If the dirt that the DOJ digs up is not criminal (such as your porn preferences) it can still be leaked to Fox to discredit your testimony. Better gird your loins, truth tellers. It is going to become mighty dangerous to try to be good a American citizen in the weeks to come.

Which brings me to my point--there are already grounds to impeach Barr. Alberto Gonzales was sent packing for doing less. Why is not the House taking care of Trump's Enforcer?

PS, while lawyers all know what Barr is guilty of, for non lawyers, he is currently engaged in obstruction of justice. By announcing a "criminal" investigation of a perfectly legal federal investigation and perfectly legal impeachment, he and Trump are telling the world "If you engage in this legal process, we will place you in legal jeopardy." The federal employees who are being called to testify have to hire their own lawyers. Now their legal bills are going to skyrocket.

October 18, 2019

Easiest Way for Trump to Make Money in the Final days of His Term of Office

is to sell nukes. We know Saudi Arabia would pay top dollar for them. Are the 50 nukes that got "left behind" intended to go to Saudi Arabia? It would be very easy to do. Now that the US military is not in charge of them, Turkey could have an "Uh oh!" moment. The nukes could be spirited away to Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia could repay Trump with a huge sum of cash in a secret bank account.

October 14, 2019

Ultimate Poll Tax: OHIO Tries to Purge 20,000 Dems for Not Voting in the Future

Here is the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/politics/ohio-voter-purge.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

And here is the quote:

In one case, a data mistake from an outside firm meant a large number of people’s names were set to be knocked off. Ohio’s 88 counties each used a different process of removing people from the rolls, an immediate source of headaches for officials trying to compile a statewide list.

And voting rights groups found an unexplained tranche — around 20,000 people — who had been marked to be purged because of inactivity in future election cycles, but were actually active voters in previous Ohio elections. These voters were in Franklin County, a Democratic stronghold in the state.

OMG! Now Democrats have to vote in the future in order to vote in the present??? But what if we do not have time travel technology? Is this supposed to be some kind of poll tax on steroids?

October 12, 2019

This Has to Be Asked: Is ISIS a Branch of the Russian Mob?

It is clear that ISIS is an organized crime family that only pretends to be concerned with religious matters. What does ISIS do to promote Allah and Islam? Nothing. Instead they kidnap, blackmail, rape, sex traffic, steal and sell antiquities.

Putin and the current Russian leaders are in bed with the Russian mob. So, what if turning Turkey loose on the Kurds is a backhand way of liberating Russian mob associates in Syria aka ISIS ?Maybe the money made by ISIS is all being funneled into Putin's gazillion dollar secret bank account.

October 10, 2019

Trump Shits in His Own Kitchen--Violates the "Bandit" Code over Kurds/Turkey

If you read my journals, you know that I think the reason why Trump keeps a devoted base is because he is perceived to be the "Bandit King" (think Robin Hood) an outlaw who breaks unfair laws in defense of down trodden mostly rural people. (Read Eric Hobsbawn's "Bandits" for more on the politics of banditry). This is, of course, bull shit. But that does not stop some folks from believing it. And that is why his base gives him a free pass whenever he breaks the law.

Well, don't look now, but he just broke the Bandit Law--big time. Loyalty is the most important "virtue" of a Bandit King. If you cannot trust the bandit King to be loyal, then his lawbreaking ways become a threat--to you.

Trump just betrayed a key political ally in the Middle East--the Kurds. Remember how Saddam was reviled for killing the Kurds? And they were not even Saddam's allies. Trumps has just proven what we in the opposition always knew--he is only loyal to his own financial best interest.

Expect massive defections from the up-until-now Trump alliance.

October 8, 2019

Genocide for Sale: Trump's Business Ties to Turkey

Why is Trump selling out the Kurds--over the objections of everyone including the Pentagon and members of his own party?

“I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul,” Trump told Bannon during a Breitbart radio show. “It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers—two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two.”

From a 2015 interview during his campaign for president.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/reminder-trump-has-a-massive-conflict-of-interest-in-turkey/

Impeachment is too good for this serial killer. He should be tried in the World Court for war crimes.

September 25, 2019

Coincidence? Ukraine/Trump Whistle Blower Happened BEFORE Saudi Oil Fields Attacked

Chronologically, it seems as if Saudi oil fields were attacked by anonymous drones first and then the Trump Bribes Ukraine whistle blower scandal broke second. However if you look at the timeline, the impeachable scandal was already emerging behind the scenes when someone blew up Saudi oil fields.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/politics/whistleblower-timeline-ukraine-team-trump/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refineries-drone-attack.html

I have to ask--did Putin launch drones in an effort to jump start a showy war between Iran and the US that would shield his puppet?

September 14, 2019

Talking Points for Medicare 4 All from a Public Health Physician

Hi. You may or may not remember that in addition to being a primary care physician working in a not for profit publicly funded health care system (not saying which one), I also have a Master's Public Health. So, here are some talking points to help sell Medicare 4 All.

Talking Points for the General Public:

1. Number one--it will save money in the long run. How? Because once Americans have cradle to grave coverage with the same insurer, that insurer (Medicare) will have a tremendous financial incentive to invest in disease prevention. Current Medicare, which only covers you once you are old and sick, gains nothing by investing in disease prevention. Medicare is too busy scrambling like crazy to pay for the consequences of decades of health neglect to take time to invest in disease prevention. And your private insurance, which only covers you until you are old/sick (and get on Medicare), also gains nothing from disease prevention.

2. All this investment in disease prevention to save money down the road (and we are not talking next century here, we are talking in the next two to three decades) will also make Americans healthier. And healthier means less pain, more happiness, longer lives, better quality of life.

Right now the only "cradle to grave" single payer in this country is the VHA--the Veterans Health Administration. And it is not really cradle to grave. It is honorable discharge to grave. But that is close enough for the purposes of this essay. Because the VA promises to take care of veterans health forever, it invests in disease prevention. The VA studied aspirin's effects in preventing heart attack. No Big Pharm would have done that--aspirin is a cheap generic. The VA developed the shingles vaccine. It developed the new injectable alternative to statins for those who can not take statins. It supplies diabetic socks because it would rather prevent the diabetic foot ulcer than amputate your foot. It pays for vitamins and nutritional supplements, because it would rather keep you well nourished than try to put you back together once malnutrition wrecks your health. When the VA comes up with a cheap and easy way to prevent disease( and suffering), the VA reaps a direct economic benefit which allows it to stay solvent.

Ever wonder why West Europeans/Canadians pay half per year of what we do in this country for health care and yet are so much healthier? It is because their cradle to grave single payer health plans have an economic incentive to invest pennies in disease prevention now to avoid paying gazillions of dollars down the line to treat horrible disease like heart failure and cancer.

Ever wonder why the VA is under attack? Because the VA model, even more than Medicare is the winning health care model. The one that gives the greatest benefits for the least cost. But Big Pharm all over the world makes a killing in the US. The manufacturers of durable medical goods including artificial joints all over the world make a killing in the US. Hospitals make a killing in the US. Literally. They are killing us with preventable disease so they can make money.

This is the same reason that the UK's National Health is under attack. These are the world's two biggest single payer __to grave plans. Don't be fooled by Twitter trolls. People in the UK love their guaranteed health care. Veterans love their guaranteed health care. Why? If a veteran is told that he has heart disease and needs surgery or cancer and needs chemotherapy, the first words out of his mouth are not "Will I have to put a second mortgage on my house to pay for this?" For the veteran, sickness does not equal bankruptcy and poverty.

So, when talking M4A, remember these two key points 1) It will keep you healthier and 2) After an initial start up investment, it will save this country about 1-2 trillion dollars a year once it is up and running. (Based upon current annual US health care spending) And this is not even factoring in increase worker productivity.

Talking Points for Targeted Audiences:

For 20 somethings who think that they are immortal and invincible, selling disease prevention is not easy. However, there is actually an easy way to get their attention. Point out how overweight and unhealthy their parents and grandparents are. Ask them "Do you want to end up like them? Wouldn't you rather be better than your parents and grandparents?" (Young people always want to believe that they can change the world for the better) Sell the 20 somethings on better health.

For seniors who love their Medicare to death and who are afraid that if they have to share it with younger folks there will not be enough Medicare left over for them remind them that this will keep Medicare solvent. Everyone will pay (small compared to traditional insurance) premiums. People coming into the system will be healthier and stay healthier. More people in the system means that the system will be self sustaining. Old folks ought to be worried as hell that if something is not done now to increase Medicare enrollment, eventually Medicare will be so crowded with high utilizers that it will collapse. Sell the seniors on Medicare solvency.

For middle aged people who have fairly decent private insurance through their jobs or that they purchase for themselves, remind them that their out of pocket on Medicare will be lower than even the most platinum plated private insurance. Including the monthly premiums, the average Medicare patients pays around $7000 a year out of pocket (not counting medications that is a whole other issue). (For comparison, I have platinum plated federal health insurance and for two folks it averages to around $8000 per year per person out of pocket.) M4A means every American will have out of pocket that is actually less than Congressional Insurance! Yippee!

For middle aged people who do not have insurance, M4A sells itself. They are putting off their hysterectomy or mammogram or heart surgery because they cannot afford these things. They lost their jobs because they were too sick to work and now they run a cash register at 7-11 and are praying they live long enough to get Medicare.