Month: November 2013

The Beginning of the End for Pharmaceutical Monopolies

My love of 3D printer technology expands far beyond the firearms field. Being able to build complex things in the comfort of our own homes stands to upset the balance of power in many markets. One of the most valuable aspects of 3D printers is their ability to put an end to many monopolistic practices. If you’re able to download designs for an item and print it in your own home then patents become irrelevant, which is why this story about 3D printers capable of making drugs interests me:

He shows me the printer, a nondescript version of the £1,200 3D printer used in the Fab@Home project, which aims to bring self-fabrication to the masses. After a bit of trial and error, Cronin’s team discovered that it could use a bathroom sealant as a material to print reaction chambers of precisely specified dimensions, connected with tubes of different lengths and diameters. After the bespoke miniature lab had set hard, the printer could then inject the system reactants, or “chemical inks”, to create sequenced reactions.

The “inks” would be simple reagents, from which more complex molecules are formed. “If I was being facetious I would say that to find your inks you would go to the periodic table: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on,” Cronin says, “but obviously you can’t handle all those substances very well, so it would have to be a bit more complex than that. If you were looking to make a sugar, for example, you would start with your set of base sugars and mix them together. When we make complex molecules in the traditional way with test tubes and flasks, we start with a smaller number of simpler molecules.” As he points out, nearly all drugs are made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as readily available agents such as vegetable oils and paraffin. “With a printer it should be possible that with a relatively small number of inks you can make any organic molecule,” he says.

The real beauty of Cronin’s prototype system, however, is that it allows the printer not only to control the sequences and exact calibration of inks, but also to shape, from a tested blueprint, the environment in which those reactions take place. The scale and architecture of the miniature printed “lab” could be pre-programmed into software and downloaded for use with a standard set of inks. In this way, not only the combinations of reactants but also the ratios and speed at which they combine could be ingrained into the system, simply by changing the size of reaction chambers and their relation with one another; Cronin calls this “reactionware” or, because it depends on a conceptualised sequence of flow and reorientation in a 3D space, “Rubik’s Cube chemistry”.

Large pharmaceutical companies enjoy an advantage in the medical field. They can patent chemical compounds and effectively enjoy a monopoly on producing that compound for two decades. During that two decade period the consequences of monopolies afflict everybody who wants or needs that drug. Namely the pharmaceutical company enjoys the ability to jack the price up to whatever it desires since no competition is allowed to enter the market until the patent expires. 3D printers capable of producing drugs could overcome this issue. Suddenly people capable of reverse engineering the drug (say, by looking up the patent and going from there) could post blueprints online for all to download.

Another potential for these printers is the ability to drastically lower the cost of developing new drugs. Individuals with the proper background could develop new drugs on their person computers and perform tests by printing the new drugs. The overall costs would likely drop considerably, which would almost certainly cause a major leap in innovation.

Everybody was a Communist

We’re used the government labeling everybody terrorists. But the game isn’t new. Before the label of terrorist was applied to everybody the term communist was used. As a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) files on Isaac Asimov we now know that the agency accused Mr. Asimov of being a communist because of his science fiction:

By September 14, 1960, Isaac Asimov had been a professor of biochemistry Boston University for 11 years, and his acclaimed “I, Robot” collection of short stories was on its seventh reprint. This was also the day someone not-so-subtly accused him of communist sympathies in a letter to J. Edgar Hoover.

The FBI’s file on the author, who died in 1992, indicates that the FBI had its own suspicions about Asimov, based primarily on his extensive science fiction corpus and academic ties.

Hoover’s tipster questioned Asimov’s position “with respect to whether the Soviets had the first nuclear power plant.” He enclosed for the Director a letter he had written Asimov on the subject, and two postcards Asimov had sent in reply.

Today we play the same game by a slightly different name. I’m sure the FBI readily accuses anybody who questions America’s glory of being a terrorist. In all likelihood the agency has a file on me and many of my friends. Trying to label an individual as a dissident is the state’s way of isolating potential threats to the status quo from the remainder of society. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the state, these labels being to lose their meaning when they being to be applied to anybody and everybody with a dissenting opinion. Willingness to apply the label communist or terrorist to a wide number of people makes the general population realize that the labels are nonthreatening. Once that happens the isolation tactic fails and people often begin listening to the so-called communists and terrorists.

It’s Time to Play Jump to Conclusions

Here we go again. A story broke a few days back about a 19 year-old woman being shot in the head by a homeowner:

It was shortly before 1 a.m. Nov. 2 and Renisha McBride was involved in an accident with a parked vehicle in Detroit.

More than two hours later and six blocks away, she was shot in the face by a man who told police he thought someone was breaking into his Dearborn Heights home. The 54-year-old homeowner, according to police, said his 12-gauge shotgun discharged accidentally.

What happened during the hours between the accident and McBride’s death on the front porch of a home in the 16800 block of West Outer Drive remains a mystery. New details surfaced in the controversial case Monday, raising more questions about the 19-year-old’s death.

Typically whenever there’s a shooting like this people immediately jump to one side or the other. This incident is no exception. Individuals typically aligned with the social justice movement, including Al Sharpton (who I’m told is a reverend but as an ordained minister I am unable to comprehend his status as a religious leader due to what he’s said and done historically), are calling for the shooter’s head and claiming this incident is a clear case of racism. I’ve already heard several individuals who are typically aligned with the gun rights movement jumping to the conclusion that the homeowner was in the right and that this case has nothing to do with racism.

Let me remind everybody that we have no idea what happened. We don’t have access to any of the information collected by police except for the little tidbits fed to us by the press. The press tend to get more details wrong than right during the early days of a story so we have to take anything we’re being told with a grain of salt. In other words we know nothing. Until we know something it’s a bit premature to jump to conclusions about who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

Instead of exploiting this incident politically let’s step aside and wait until all of the evidence has been brought to the table.

What Vigilantism Can Look Like

What do you think of when you hear the word vigilante? For many people the image of a violent revenge seeker comes to mind. But vigilantism is little more than the result o f individual taking the law into their own hands. Oftentimes the result is merely the solving of a crime that wasn’t solved by police:

The family of a kidnapped Louisiana mother tracked down and killed the father of her child in the abandoned house where he was allegedly holding her prisoner, authorities said.

Bethany Arceneaux, 29, of Duson, La., was abducted in the parking lot of a daycare where she was picking up her 2-year-old at approximately 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Department Captain Kip Judice told ABCNews.com.

[…]

Authorities searched the sugarcane field Wednesday night and all day Thursday, but to no avail, Judice said. The cane towers as high as eight feet tall and was “a brutal search area” for officials, he said.

It wasn’t until Friday morning, when Arceneaux’s family members conducted their own search in the same area that they came upon a secluded, abandoned house behind a cluster of trees.

The house was directly across the street from the field where Thomas abandoned his car, but only the home’s roof was visible from the road, Judice said.

“[The family] converged on a piece of property about a mile from where the car was found,” Judice said. “One of the family members heard what he thought was a scream.”

Arceneaux’s cousin approached the home, kicked in the door in and entered, Judice said. Inside, he found Thomas with the woman. Thomas then began stabbing Arceneaux, and a confrontation ensued.

“The cousin, who was armed, began firing several shots at Thomas,” Judice said. “After a couple of shots, [Arceneaux] was able to get free of him and they escorted her out of the house.”

People often think that vigilantism is wrong and law enforcement should be left to professionals. But professional law enforcement are often unable or unwilling to solve crimes. Sometimes you need the tenacity of an individual directly invested in the well being of a victim to achieve a happy conclusion.

Just as there are bad agents in law enforcement there are bad vigilantes. On the other hand, just as there are good agents in law enforcement there are good vigilantes. In fact I would argue that a vigilante is less likely to cause unneeded harm than police officers because vigilantes are more accountable to community members. Far too often police are put on administrative leave until their own department rules them innocent of wrongdoing after its investigation of the matter. The actions of a vigilante are most likely to be judged by community members and it’s unlikely that a community will be satisfied with a vigilante investigating his or her own actions.

Iraqis are Human Too

Even though this is an Onion article I swear many people would be floored to discover this fact:

CHAPEL HILL, NC—A field study released Monday by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health suggests that Iraqi citizens experience sadness and a sense of loss when relatives, spouses, and even friends perish, emotions that have until recently been identified almost exclusively with Westerners.

“We were struck by how an Iraqi reacts to the sight of the bloody or decapitated corpse of a family member in a not unlike an American, or at the very least a Canadian, would,” said Dr. Jonathan Pryztal, chief author of the study. “In addition to the rage, bloodlust, and hatred we already know to dominate the Iraqi emotional spectrum, it appears that they may have some capacity, however limited, for sadness.”

Something that is often forgotten in war is that both sides are human. Separated by the Iraqi invasion we only get to see one side of the story. It’s easy to boast about the greatness of the United States when we’re not witnessing the torn families left in its wake. The next time you’re championing the United States invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan stop and consider the fact that the United States isn’t the only side losing people. Then consider what the families of the Iraqis and Afghans think when one of their sons is killed by the invading American army. Does it really make sense to put American lives in the Middle East if it only breeds hatred by giving families a reason to hate the United States?

Mr. Anarchist Keeps the Politicos Honest

I think it’s time for me to start a new series on this blog. Welcome to the first post in the Mr. Anarchist Keeps the Politicos Honest series. In this series I will take political maneuvering, speech, and other oddities and explain them in such a way that normal people can understand what’s actually going on.

On this maiden voyage I will be discussing the Minneapolis mayoral elections. A lot of butthurt is going around the politico circles as of late because the $20.00 filing fee has allowed almost anybody wanting to run for mayor to run for mayor. Now there is a proposal to raise the filing fee to $500.00.

Where the political deception enters is the justifications given by those advocating to increase in the filing fee. Some of these justifications are doozies. My favorite justification is that anybody unable to raise $500.00 will be unable to win an election so allowing them to run is a moot point. That justification implies that everybody who runs for mayor is doing so to win the race. Many people who run for office do so in an attempt to raise awareness of an issue. For example, a member of the Pirate Party may run to raise awareness of Hennepin County’s Sheriffs Departments widespread use of surveillance devices. Even though the Pirate Party candidate knows he can’t win he feels that this issue would otherwise remain entirely ignored during the mayoral debate.

But that doesn’t matter because the people arguing in favor of the filing fee are really using their justifications to coverup their true intent. You see, for many people, the only thing worse than a dictatorship is having too many options for rulers. They want democracy but not too much democracy. What these people really want is their person to be the ruler but also to maintain the illusion of democracy. Every additional name on the ballot, at least in their eyes, stands the potential to harm their desired ruler’s chances of obtaining power. They believe other candidate could take away votes from their desired ruler or another potential ruler could win against their desired ruler. Of course the ideal solution would be to have a ballot composed only of candidates from their preferred political party. That way the illusion of choice is maintained and no result will go against their political desires too much.

In layman’s terms they want to eliminate their desired ruler’s potential competitors. Raising the filing fee would get rid of some of the, shall we say, riffraff. After all, if a candidate isn’t on the ballot they can’t win the election. The first step to ensuring their desired ruler wins is to eliminate as many challengers as possible.

I’m not asking everybody to oppose raising the filing fee. The only thing I’m asking is to dump the political deception and express intentions honestly.

A Good Use for Prisons

Prisons have few uses beyond being a source of slave labor for the state and its cronies. At least that is until you give a prison to some creative people who are interested in providing their computer a product. After that you can turn that worthless old facility of cages into a wonderful distillery:

WARTBURG, Tenn. — Voters in Morgan County have approved a referendum that allows an old prison to be turned into a distillery.

WATE-TV reports voters approved the measure Tuesday night by a margin of 1,224 ballots.

The station reports the vote clears the way for a developer to turn the old Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary into a distillery with a campground and other attractions.

I would love to see more prisons receive this kind of treatment.

A Gun Rights Story of Intrigue, Deception, and Corruption

As a radical my interest in politics is probably far lower than most people involved in the gun rights community. But I’m a sucker for stories of political corruption. Like a fine mystery novel, stories of political corruption can keep me turning pages into the wee hours of the night. Although I’m not as integrated in the local gun rights movement as others I still keep my ear to the ground and have friends who are. That’s why I was surprised that I hadn’t heard about a new gun rights organization here in Minnesota calling itself Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR).

The organization came to my attention only recently. A few people, after expressing displeasure with the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA), have been pointed towards MGR. MGR describes itself as a no compromise gun rights organization. While I have had my disagreements with the tactics of GOCRA in the past, the organization has a long track record of getting things done in regards to gun rights and consists of some damned good people. Unlike GOCRA, MGR has no track record to speak of but their site is pretty boastful (without providing specifics).

Thankfully we have the Internet so it’s easier than ever to research a new organization. My search for information on MGR lead me to a series of posts on Shot in the Dark, a website operated by local gun rights activist Mitch Berg. The series starts with this post, which covers the organization know as Iowa Gun Owners (IGO). Post two is where the story became interesting. It seems that IGO was responsible for sinking an Iowa billion that would have allowed veterans who suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome (a medical condition that can prohibit you from legally owning a firearm) to get their gun rights restored. In its zeal IGO reintroduced some additional pro-gun legislation as an amendment to the above mentioned bill. This additional legislation effectively killed the bill. It also appears that the people in charge of IGO are also in charge of MGR, which is important to note because the third post indicates one of them was involved in some political shenanigans of a corrupt nature. The series is a great read if you’re into political corruption or curious about MGR.

This brings me to a subtopic I wish to discuss: being unwilling to compromise. As my long-time readers know, I have a no-compromise position on many issues. For example, I want to eliminate the state in its entirety. When it comes to masters I have a zero tolerance policy. So I have respect for individuals and organizations that are unwilling to compromise on issues (even when I disagree with those issues). With that said, I must also point out that not compromising requires a different set of tactics. I learned some time ago that politics is not the realm for radicals. Radicals, by definition, wants something radically different. For example, I find the very concept that people with guns taking guns from nonviolent people will somehow reduce gun violence. Because of this I oppose gun control. Instead I focus on the reduction of violence in society as a whole. Even though I acknowledge that completely eliminating violence from a society is impossible I believe there are methods that can greatly reduce the amount of violence present in a society. But these methods are not achievable politically because they rely on the destruction of the state, which politics cannot do.

My point is this: if you’re not willing to compromise then you are a radical and you need to seek nonpolitical strategies. Any organization that labels itself as a no compromise group and a political group should be treated with a great deal of caution. In my experience such groups are perfectly aware of the incompatibility of their position and methodology. They don’t care because their actual goal is different from their stated goal. These organizations tend to exploit groups of political activists in order to extract cash from them. Gun rights activists are a great target for such a strategy because they’re passionate and willing to give their time and money in the pursuit of winning their fight. Proof of this fact can be found by looking at the number of members the National Rifle Association (NRA) has. If an organization is able to position itself as fighter for gun rights it stands to make a good amount of money.

Based on what I’ve found it seems MGR is an organization created to extract money from gun rights activists without sincerely investing itself in the fight for gun rights. Any new political organization should be taken with a grain of salt until it demonstrates its trustworthiness. Even though I have disagreements with the NRA, Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and GOCRA they have demonstrated trustworthiness. If you’re going to support gun rights organizations those are good candidates. MGR has, so far, failed to demonstrated trustworthiness in my opinion and their list of accomplishments is nonexistent.

I won’t tell you to support or not support MGR. You’re all adults (I think) and can make your own decisions. But I urge you to research the organization, and all other political organizations, to determine whether or not you want to support it. What I can tell you is that MGR’s stated position and methodology are incompatible, which raises red flags for me. Finally I will close by offering to hear counterarguments to the claims made on Mitch Berg’s blog. Any members or supporters of MGR may post whatever counterarguments they wish in the comments section. Due to spambots I must manually approve all posts by first time posters, so if your comment doesn’t appear immediately please know that I will get around to approving it. You can also feel free to e-mail me at blog[at]christopherburg[dot]com.

Planning to Call the Police? Stop. Think. Reconsider.

It’s safe to say that this country no longer has peacekeeping forces. Modern police departments in this country are are paramilitary forces. Instead of trying to find nonviolent solutions to community problems the paramilitary forces that call themselves police jump to violence in a frighteningly short amount of time. A man in Iowa called the police on his son, who had taken his truck. What happened next was, sadly, predictable:

James Comstock refused to buy a pack of cigarettes for his 19-year-old son, Tyler, and now he’s planning his son’s funeral.

“He took off with my truck. I call the police, and they kill him,” James Comstock told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday. “It was over a damn pack of cigarettes. I wouldn’t buy him none.

[…]

Police began pursuing Tyler Comstock of Boone after his father reported the truck stolen. The truck belonged to a lawn care company.

Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson pursued Comstock into the heart of ISU’s campus. During the chase, Comstock rammed McPherson’s car. The truck eventually stopped, but Comstock revved the engine and refused orders to turn it off.

McPherson fired six shots into the truck. Comstock died from two gunshot wounds, according to the Iowa state medical examiner’s office.

This kind of shit pisses me off. I’m sure somebody will claim that Comstock’s act of ramming the police cruiser authorized the cops to use deadly force. That doesn’t sit well with me. With the vast toy box police officers have at their disposal, barring violent action on behalf of a suspect, there is little need for officers to enter a high-speech case. Deploying spike strips along the speeding vehicle’s path can immobilize it, which puts the ton and a half threat out of commission.

But the real lesson is simple. If you’re thinking about calling the police stop, think, and reconsider. Do you really want costume-clad thugs with a history of brutality and puppycide intervening? Is there are better, more peaceful way to solve your problem? These are questions you should give serious consideration to before picking up the phone and dialing 911.