William Fallon, the commander responsible for the Middle East region, announced his resignation. He had recently been profiled by Esquire as an independent voice in the military and notably told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that the US would not attack Iran, presumably upsetting Cheney et al. back home.

On the lighter side of things, the Boston Red Sox have apparently come to an agreement  with Daisuke Matsuzaka, arguably the #1 pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball.  This was apparently of such importance that it came up during the State Dept briefing on Six-Party talks regarding North Korea, at which Asst. SecState Christopher Hill started asking reporters what they knew once one of them gave him a tidbit of info (excerpt below the fold).

H/T SOSH Red Sox discussion board (registration required during high traffic periods).

A post of Josh Marshall's crystallized an idea in my head today--the media, or large segments thereof, really has gotten pretty conservative.  Marshall wrote about Mort Kondrake's column in Roll Call that included this bit of Bushery:

President Bush bet his presidency -- and America's world leadership -- on the war in Iraq. Tragically, it looks as though he bit off more than the American people were willing to chew.

He assumes that it's the people's fault that Bush's "bet" is going to fail.  Incompetence?  No, couldn't be that.  But I digress.

There's a lot of this crap floating around--how about how conservative the dems are and how much that had to do with congressional gains?  I suspect I am somewhat late to the party in this realization, but what I want to do here is make the point that the Republicans have been successful in sowing the idea that the media has a liberal bias, and the media themselves bought into this enough to move rightward.  

One way to combat this in a grass/netroots way is to challenge this assertion and make the contrary one--the media has become conservative, to the ruin of all.  They need to be skeptical, objective, and not allow themselves the sort of spoonfeeding by the administration that is all too common.

It will not be easy or quick to reverse the unfortunate rightward list of the media, but with time, I hope that at the very least our side can generate enough tension to cancel out that of the rightwing crybabies.  If we can pull them back to true objectivity, I'd count that as a victory, inasmuch as the facts have a liberal bias.

Time reports that unnamed Senators are considering a constitutional amendment to limit presidential powers:

Bush's claims of wartime license are so great--the White House and Justice Department have argued that the Commander in Chief's pursuit of national security cannot be constrained by any laws passed by Congress, even when he is acting against U.S. citizens--that some Senators are considering a constitutional amendment to limit his powers.
....
A source familiar with the nascent constitutional amendment says one version would make clear that any actions by the President as Commander in Chief that affect domestic policies or U.S. citizens are subject to the exclusive control of Congress.

The vagueness of this report makes it clear that, if there's anything to this at all, it's in the very early stages, and I think there must be a long way to go before 2/3 of each house of congress and 3/4 of the states would agree.  Even so, based on my understanding of the Constitution, I find it hard to believe that something like this amendment would even be necessary, but these are strange times.  However, as long as we still have some semblance of a constitutional government, an amendment is effectively Congress' ultimate weapon against the other branches, as long as the states are with them.

Crossposted from dKos

Today's White House Briefing is a doozy--don't miss it.  Dan Froomkin goes in depth on the parallels between what is sure to be one of the biggest movies of the summer--Star Wars III, Revenge of the Sith--and our favorite chimp.  

The basic idea is that a major element of the movie's plot, the transformation of the Galactic Republic into the evil Empire, parallels the loss of freedom that has occurred during Bush's presidency.  One of the most glaring similarities is when the character soon to become Darth Vader tells Obi-Wan that he is either with him or against him.

Froomkin notes that Lucas claims believably that the story was written well before current events, and much of it was originally based on Vietnam, the rise of Napoleon, and the rise of the Roman Empire out of its predecessor republic.  Lucas does say that the degree of repetition in history, particularly between Vietnam and Iraq is "unbelievable."

Could this movie be the one to get through to the masses?  Let's hope for the power of parables...

I know, it's supposed to be a Friday thing to post stuff about science, but I'm disorganized and busy enough that you'll just have to bear with me.  Today's topic: Why don't red blood cells have nuclei?  

As an extra bonus, there's a tangential philosophical digression...  see you on the flip.

Natural selection is often described as "survival of the fittest."  But fittest is an adjective--what are the fittest things that are doing the surviving?  The knee-jerk answer most of the time will be individual organisms, and this is true, but perhaps not the complete truth.  More on the flip.

Hi folks...  I answer questions for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Ask a Scientist program, and it occurred to me that perhaps people here, who tend to be pretty well educated, would be interested in reading and discussing some of the questions.  So, in a pilot sort of way, I thought I'd try an experimental post along these lines.  (Quick disclaimer: This is not for the purpose of giving medical advice.)  Today's topic is about the aging of cloned animals.

Some cloned animals seem to age faster than normal.  If the clone cells "remember" the age of the mother, the process of DNA replication through mitosis is less and less efficient (my limited understanding.)  She wanted to know why single-celled organisms do not eventually produce less perfect copies, as differentiated body cells would, because they are also reproducing by mitosis.

"Answer" on the flip...