DESIGNER CHILDREN

A Chinese scientist was just sent to jail for having modified the DNA of a human embryo of twin girls, producing an immunity to HIV.     

This case raises the ire of many Christians and other religious denominations who have referred to the scientist as Frankenstein.

  

This is again where science runs up against dark age religious thinking – where science must drag religion out of the age of mysticism.

 

There are medical ethical concerns to do with the possible unknown side effects of editing the targeted gene, and these are fair complaints; but the religious moral police should be disregarded. 

 

There will come a time when designer children are the norm; and future generations look back on this era and marvel how religious thinking still dominated the 20^th and 21^st century, delaying genetic research that could have resulted in cures for birth deformities and many of our most debilitating and deadly diseases. 

 Of course, there is always thoughts and prayers.

the Ol'Buzzard

A PROBABILITY PUZZLE FOR THE NEW YEAR

A friend lays out three envelopes on a table: a red one, a blue one and a green one.   He tells you that two of the envelopes have a nude picture of Donald Trump and the third has one-hundred-dollar in cash.  

The friend knows which envelope contains the one-hundred-dollars.

He tells you to pick an envelope and if you pick the one with the $100, you can keep it.

You pick the red.

Your friend tells you he will narrow the odds and opens the blue envelope and shows you Donald Trump’s ass. 

You still have the red envelope and the green remains on the table.

He asks you if you want to swap the red envelope for the green.

Should you swap?

The answer is below

Yes, you should swap.   When you picked the red envelope there was a thirty-three percent chance (33%) that you picked the envelope with cash, and a sixty-six (66%) percent chance that the envelope with the cash still remains on the table.  

Once your friend opens the blue envelope and shows Donald Trump’s ass, the probability has not changed: there is still a thirty-three percent chance that you have the cash envelope and a sixty-six percent chance that the cash envelope remains on the table – in the green envelope.  

You can test this probability results with three playing cards: two black and one red.     If you run the test forty times you will find that swapping the card is best option. 

TRUMP'S BEST WORDS FOR 2019

Bugger
the Ol'Buzzard

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

PROOF THAT MIRACLES STILL DO HAPPEN









the Ol'Buzzard

HAPPY WEDNESDAY TO ME, HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU, AND HAPPY HANUKKAH IF YOU ARE A JEW

I do like the holidays, regardless of whose custom.  It is nice seeing people being nice to each other

the Ol'Buzzard

CATCH-22

I first read Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, in the early sixties when I was on my first enlistment in the military.    The story perfectly chronicled my experience at that time, SNAFU, Situation Normal All Fucked Up.

I am glad I decided to reread it over this holiday season.   Now, being older and life experienced I am able to see depth in this story that speak to the dysfunctional construction of human society and human interaction in general.

The overviews of Catch-22 is the story of Capitan Yossarian, a Second World War bombardier navigator on a B-25 bomber, tasked to fly low altitude bombing missions over heavily protected targets.   The result of every mission is a loss of aircraft and flight crew.  The missions are so dangerous that the Army Air Corps has set a maximum number of missions that air crew members are required to fly, after which crew members will be grounded and rotated back to the States.   The problem with Yossarian’s squadron is that their colonel keeps raising the mission numbers, resulting in flight crew members never rotating out.   Yossarian is certain that if he continues to fly he will be killed.  He appeals to the Squadron doctor to medically ground him.

Here is the catch.   The only condition the squadron doctor is allowed to ground flight crew members, is if a crewman is insane and submits a written request to be grounded.  But in that case the doctor is not allowed to ground the crew member because of Catch-22, which states that if a crew member request to be grounded he is obviously sane and therefore required to fly His scheduled missions. 

This book will not make the reading list of the liberal, woke community because of racist and misogynistic text; it can not fit into their utopian bubble. Though, the attitudes toward women and race were the accepted attitudes, especially in the military, at that time and place. 

  

But for the rest of us that live, and have lived in the gritty world of reality, Catch-22, like George Orwell’s 1984, is an insight into social, political and bureaucratic governance at its most dysfunctional.   

the Ol’Buzzard

THE OLD YEARS EVE WINTER SOLSTICE

December 21, 2019

Today the old year ends with the shortest day of the year.   

Tomorrow is the beginning of the new year as days get longer moving toward summer.  

happy new year
the Ol'Buzzard