On The Origin of the Genes of Viruses - 14

Viruses outnumber stars

Prelude

An informed public is the purpose of the Dredd Blog grey/gray literature which has appeared here now for over a decade.

Concerning viruses in general, I alluded to the uninformed public recently (if Cosmology is ...).

What would you think of a detective and/or prosecutorial team that had accused a person of being a mass murderer (without really knowing much of the background of the accused)?

For example, if they did not know the parents, the country of origin, the employer, the habits, the maker of the wheelchair the accused uses, or the whereabouts of the accused?

Would that perk up your interest and/or raise your eyebrows?

What if they used, relating to every shred of evidence alleged, the words "it seems", "it could be", "it suggests", "probably", and "we think" to describe their case (a case requiring PROOF beyond a reasonable doubt)?

Shouldn't a mass murdering event which is killing tens and tens of thousands of citizens from every walk of life require proof beyond a reasonable doubt?

Let's consider some questions a serious and competent detective would ask in order to detect the nature of  a suspect.

As to a suspect virus, can it reproduce/replicate itself:

"As viruses are obligate intracellular pathogens they cannot replicate without the machinery and metabolism of a host cell. Although the replicative life cycle of viruses differs greatly between species and category of virus, there are six basic stages that are essential for [pathogenic] viral replication."

(British Socienty for Immunology, emphasis added). Non-pathogenic mutualistic viruses are already inside cells, and do not need to invade because they help the host microbe stay alive and are therefore welcome.

So, would you want to know what the host cell is (its genome etc.)?

A host is like a "family" that brings a biological or viral entity into existence and keeps it from ceasing to exist  (in the sense that if a virus can't replicate/reproduce, then it will die out and become extinct without a host).

The reality about that aspect of viruses is that the relevant prevention science is lame or infantile in several ways, like incompetent detectives in the movie (The Usual Suspects) who had Kaiser in their office without ever knowing anything relevant about him.

So, with that in mind let me ask you when and where have you heard about THE HOST to the corona-virus / Covid-19 in the current media viral 24/7 storm?

I will just say that I have not heard the host even mentioned, and I have heard that viruses can't replicate themselves mentioned only once.

I have, however, heard in the media that viruses can replicate themselves (wrong).

Since most viruses inhabit microbes in a mutualistic relationship, which is beneficial, and since the host is much, much larger than its symbiont virus, why not look for the easier to find host?

I focus on the host, because the last thing a sane society wants to do is change the nature of a mutualitic virus into a pathogen by using antibodies that kill the host (BTW, a host that is helping the human species stay alive - see video below).

If you want to know a lot more about the issue, there are several Dredd Blog series that get deeply into the relevant science involved.

I. Before

When I wrote the previous post in this series about five years ago, I did not exactly envision that the news media would be talking about viruses 24/7 five years later.

Nor did I exactly envision one virus type killing more Americans than had died in the long Vietnam war.

But, I can say that I have covered the issues concerning the origin of viruses by contemplating their genetic characteristics and those of their hosts (On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; The Uncertain Gene, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; etc. see the series tabs at the top of the page).

II. During

During the contemplation of the genes of viruses, uncertainty arose as a scientific principle or reality as the case may be.

Something caught my attention:

I kept thinking about the implications until it dawned on me that one aspect of the uncertain gene concept, elucidated upon in this series, is that proton tunnelling is also technically "epigenetic."

I mean that in the sense that any gene itself, in all genetic circumstances, does not "control" itself or anything else.

Thus Epigenetics, a discipline in and of itself, is a realm that studies what utilizes the genetic molecules, where those genetic molecules are utilized, when those molecules are utilized, how they are utilized, and why those molecules are utilized.

(The Uncertain Gene - 11). I went on to write:

... the nomenclature of Epigenetics covers all activity that acts upon gene molecules, including those that decide whether, for example, to turn the gene on or off:

Geneticists study the gene; however, for epigeneticists, there is no obvious 'epigene'. Nevertheless, during the past year, more than 2,500 articles, numerous scientific meetings and a new journal were devoted to the subject of epigenetics. It encompasses some of the most exciting contemporary biology and is portrayed by the popular press as a revolutionary new science — an antidote to the idea that we are hard-wired by our genes. So what is epigenetics? - (Perceptions of Epigenetics)

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Much work has been published on the cis-regulatory elements that affect gene function locally, as well as on the biochemistry of the transcription factors and chromatin- and histone-modifying complexes that influence gene expression. However, surprisingly little information is available about how these components are organized within the three-dimensional space of the nucleus. Technological advances are now helping to identify the spatial relationships and interactions of genes and regulatory elements in the nucleus and are revealing an unexpectedly extensive network of communication within and between chromosomes [cf. this]. A crucial unresolved issue is the extent to which this organization affects gene function, rather than just reflecting it. - (Nuclear organization of the genome and the potential for gene regulation)

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(see following link for more ...)

(Nature Insight: Epigenetics, Vol. 447, No. 7143 pp 396-440). The point is that epigenetic dynamics involve multiple levels of analysis and subsequent operations ...

(ibid). The issue of Epigenetics (epi means above) informs us that in order to understand viruses we must have a handle on, an understanding of, their hosts.

Why?

Contrary to some media programs on TV, viruses do not replicate or reproduce, instead they are replicated or reproduced by machinery inside their host.

I am talking about a vast array machinery ("Ribosome: a sophisticated molecular machine") that is not part of any virus ... machinery that is part of the host microbe.

Even more interesting perhaps is that most viruses are mutualists, meaning that they do something helpful ("If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born") to their host (only a minority of viruses, the pathogenic viruses are harmful).

Why do they go crazy when their host is killed by chemicals and other antibiotics produced in the civilized world that is "at war" with the microbial world?

That is the same as asking "what causes viral diseases?"

III. After

Can you say "situation ethics" ...

"Small studies that build on basic science and preclinical research in early phases of drug development routinely generate signals of promise that are not confirmed in subsequent trials. Even when new drugs are established to be safe and effective, rarely are their benefits so massive that they can be detected in small, open-label, nonrandomized trials. The proliferation of small studies that are not part of an orchestrated trajectory of development is a recipe for generating false leads that threaten to divert already scarce resources toward ineffective practices, slow the uptake of effective interventions because of an inability to reliably detect smaller but clinically meaningful benefits, and engender treatment preferences that make patients and clinicians reluctant to participate in randomized trials. These problems are amplified by published reports of compassionate use, which was designed as an alternative pathway to access interventions outside of research, not to support systematic evaluation."

(Against pandemic research exceptionalism). Can you say "knee jerk reaction"?

Can you say "the traditional yellow peril" from Wuhan is quite erroneously the usual suspect?

Even as (what should be suspects) U.S. meat packing plants and other animal torture sites rack up the highest per capita covid-19 cases (places where the greatest overuse of antibiotics is centered)?

The possibility that virus pandemics can spring and spread from many origins is only as secret as Big Meat and Big Pharma want it to be:

"In addition, the meat and food industry are vulnerable to a variety of other infectious diseases that can manifest in food processing areas due mainly to poor personal hygiene and processing sanitation practices, which in turn can develop the growth of bacteria, viruses, moulds, and yeasts. These can then set the stage for:

Foodborne infection, such as salmonella or trichinosis, caused by ingesting food that is contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and viruses

Foodborne intoxication, either bacterial, such as E. coli, or chemical, where food has been contaminated with toxic chemicals, such as cleaning compounds or pesticides"

(Meat Cutting and Processing for Food Service, emphasis added; cf. Trump Policy Maximizes Deaths in Food Factories). Don't forget that helpful bacteria are hosts to helpful viruses.

Scientists speak of both a pathogenic and a non-pathogenic corona virus (COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin) without discussing the microbial host (bats and camels are not microbes) or the circumstances that would change a non-pathogenic to a pathogenic virus.

Viruses can become pathogenic when a catastrophe (e.g. antibiotic killing) happens to their host (What Did The Mass Extinctions Do To Viruses and Microbes?).

IV. Closing Comments

Because we may be entering a new age of viral epidemics and pandemics, I am reopening this series that has been dormant for several years.

I am doing so in order to see if we can find the microbe that is being mass-murdered and thereby rendering the covid-19 virus host-less (homeless) like the boll weevil ... looking for a host (High Technology Boll Weevil).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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The genetic material of a human is >90% microbial ... (lots of host homes for lots of viruses) ...

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FERC Plan To Limit Overpopulation?

Indian Point on the Hudson River

"A very large gas pipeline will soon skirt the Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC), an aging nuclear power plant that stands in the town of Cortlandt in Westchester County, New York, 30 miles north of Manhattan. The federal agencies that have permitted the project have bowed to two corporations -- the pipeline's owner, Spectra Energy, and Entergy, which bought the Indian Point complex in 2001 from its former owner." (HuffPo, emphasis added).

This situation ignores sea level rise (SLR) and flooding dangers, not to mention the Safety 101 notion of not stacking risk upon risk ("don't put all of your eggs in one basket"):

Paul Blanch is a professional engineer with nearly five decades of experience in nuclear safety, engineering operations and federal regulatory requirements. He has security clearance for his work, and is a nuclear industry proponent. He has worked with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since its inception and for utility corporations across the United States, including Entergy. He also works pro bono for nuclear safety and has been doing this for the town of Cortlandt and local organizations including the grassroots group, Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Extension (SAPE), which has been fighting AIM for the past year and a half.

"I've had over 45 years of nuclear experience and [experience in] safety issues," Blanch told Truthout. "I have never seen [a situation] that essentially puts 20 million residents at risk, plus the entire economics of the United States by making a large area surrounding Indian Point uninhabitable for generations. I'm not an alarmist and haven't been known as an alarmist, but the possibility of a gas line interacting with a plant could easily cause a Fukushima type of release."

The potential hazards of the AIM construction near IPEC are no longer hypothetical. On March 3, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the AIM project in its entirety, from New York to the Canadian border.

(Truthout, emphasis added). The cities that have considered the SLR issue (Sea Level Rise: Impact on Energy Infrastructure) have evidently been alarmist, in the eyes of FERC, which seems to embrace "What, me worry?" policy (like FEMA at New Orleans a la Katrina).

Perhaps they want to be patted on the butt and told they are "doin' a heckuva job" by the High Priest in Chief.

I mention SLR in this context because the Hudson River is impacted by tides:

"The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary ... Tidal waters influence the Hudson's flow from as far north as Troy [north of Albany, >100 mi inland] ... it is an estuary throughout most of its length below Troy and thus only a small fraction of fresh water ... is present ... The Hudson River estuary system is part of The National Estuarine Research Reserve System as the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve."

(Wikipedia, emphasis added; cf Hudson River Estuary). Can it be said of FERC that they are unaware of any dangers or risks which are being ignored?

It is said of such estuaries:

"Severe storms, climate change, pollution, habitat alteration and rapid population growth threaten the ecological functions that have supported coastal communities throughout history."

(National Estuarine Research Reserve, emphasis added). The plant operator did not properly consider the environment when it contemplated using water from the Hudson:

During the summer, the sprawling nuclear power plant here draws up to 2.5 billion gallons of water each day from the Hudson River to operate.

Over the course of a year, the plant, known as Indian Point Energy Center, sucks in about 1 billion tiny fish, including river herring, bay anchovy and striped bass, and their eggs. The water is discharged back into the river.

The plant's reliance on the Hudson River and its impact on aquatic life are at the center of a dispute between state regulators and Indian Point's operator, Entergy Corp.

(WSJ, emphasis added). Safety, environment, and pollution seem to be little more than afterthoughts to the plant operator and the federal agencies that are "regulating" the nuclear plant, and endangering 20 million Americans.

High water threatened nuclear power plants during Hurricane Sandy ("water levels from the Hudson River ... reached 9 feet 8 inches") then went back down.

With SLR, there is no going back down, there is only incessant SLR, with no intermittent, temporary impact to fall back on.

Evidently, the powers that be do not have the capacity to believe the inevitable (FERC it!).

Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass - 3

"Flip flop" on a national scale

In this series we are highlighting various events which are taking place in the media that have to do with a missing ship of state.

Public polls have shown that the people believe that the ship of state is off course because the America we have known seems to have vanished like the Titanic, Air France flight 447, as well as Malaysian Airlines Flight 370:

Let's also remember that empires, just like a smaller ship of state, can disappear from history.

The reason for the demise of the Roman Empire and the Mayan Empire are examples of cases where there are differing opinions about how and why they "went down."

This extends to cases of ocean travel where ships can completely disappear and to air travel like Emelia Earhart becoming lost, or military aircraft squads that disappeared in the fabled "Bermuda Triangle" during WWII (cf. Time).

There are even myths and legends about entire civilizations going down, as depicted by the current movie "Noah" or the fabled continent of Atlantis.

There are differences and similarities with all of these cases, and one of the interesting similarities is The Global Climate System which produces our weather.

(Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass - 2). How many times have people sung the words "they've all gone to look for America" or muttered "this is not the America I remember?"

“Despite the frequency of misguided practices and policies” within particular agencies, like the CIA, in the “national security” area of government, there are often very few whistleblowers. Abuses remain “well-concealed” even though they relate to “gravely wrongful or dangerous policies.”

This is what Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has previously written. He’s also described how there is an “apparatus of secrecy” in government, which works to conceal from Americans, the Congress, the courts, “policy errors, recklessness, violation of domestic and international law, deception, crimes, corruption in various forms, questionable or disastrous judgment, responsibility for catastrophes,” etc.

The conduct of the CIA over the past four to five years, which has been a response to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s efforts to produce a study on the agency’s post-9/11 rendition, detention and interrogation program, is indicative of an agency working to prevent the public from understanding the full scope of abuses and misconduct committed when it came to a program that involved the torture of terrorism suspects.

(Dissenter, "Secret Government"). Like the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 situation (everyone is wondering where on Earth the plane with 239 people on board is), many of us also wonder where on Earth the pre-surveillance state, the pre-warmongering state, the peaceful America we all remember, want, and like is.

Have you noticed that most media reports have been as helter skelter concerning the question of where America is now, as they have been while covering the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 situation?

The previous post in this series is here.

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America, by Simon & Garfunkel:

And we walked off to look for America
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I've gone to look for America
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They've all gone to look for America
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All gone to look for America
...
All gone to look for America

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Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass - 2

Boeing 777-200ER of Malaysian Airlines

Sometimes the word "ship" is used to represent "the state" which is another way of saying the government.

Since aircraft are sometimes called flagships, why can't a flagship and its piloting also be used as a metaphor, epitome, or analogy in place of an ocean going vessel to represent "the ship of state?"

We have used the infamous ocean vessel, the Titanic, as a metaphor that illustrates a ship of state (Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass).

Instead of using only the Titanic, today let's use a combination of the Titanic, Air France flight 447 which crashed in 2009, as well as Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

Let's also remember that empires, just like a smaller ship of state, can disappear from history.

The reason for the demise of the Roman Empire and the Mayan Empire are examples of cases where there are differing opinions about how and why they "went down."

This extends to cases of ocean travel where ships can completely disappear and to air travel like Emelia Earhart becoming lost, or military aircraft squads that disappeared in the fabled "Bermuda Triangle" during WWII (cf. Time).

There are even myths and legends about entire civilizations going down, as depicted by the current movie "Noah" or the fabled continent of Atlantis.

There are differences and similarities with all of these cases, and one of the interesting similarities is The Global Climate System which produces our weather.

Another interesting factor of the Titanic and Air France flight 447 disasters involve both having two navigation / control systems, which led to conflict and confusion:

[RE: Titanic]

Two different [steering] systems were in operation at the time, Rudder Orders (used for steam ships) and Tiller Orders (used for sailing ships).

Crucially, Mrs Patten said, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another, so a command to turn 'hard a-starboard' meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other."

She said when the helmsman, who had been trained in sail, received the direction, he turned the vessel [to the right] towards the iceberg with tragic results. (Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass)

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[RE: Air France flight 447]

Unlike the control yokes of a Boeing jetliner, the side sticks on an Airbus are "asynchronous"—that is, they move independently. "If the person in the right seat is pulling back on the joystick, the person in the left seat doesn't feel it," says Dr. David Esser, a professor of aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "Their stick doesn't move just because the other one does, unlike the old-fashioned mechanical systems like you find in small planes, where if you turn one, the [other] one turns the same way." Robert has no idea that, despite their conversation about descending, Bonin has continued to pull back on the side stick.

The men are utterly failing to engage in an important process known as crew resource management, or CRM. They are failing, essentially, to cooperate. It is not clear to either one of them who is responsible for what, and who is doing what. This is a natural result of having two co-pilots flying the plane. "When you have a captain and a first officer in the cockpit, it's clear who's in charge," Nutter explains. "The captain has command authority. He's legally responsible for the safety of the flight. When you put two first officers up front, it changes things. You don't have the sort of traditional discipline imposed on the flight deck when you have a captain." (What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447)

In both cases there was an initial captain's decision to not take weather very seriously, even though both "ships of state" faced serious weather problems, and there were in both cases conflicting command systems operating at the worst possible times.

For example, Air France flight 447 was flying during the beginning of hurricane season, was flying in an area where hurricanes form, and was approaching a major tropical storm area (All the other aircraft that fateful day contacted air traffic control and asked for coordinates so they could fly around and avoid the tropical storm; likewise the captain of the Titanic had been warned by other ships of icebergs in the area, but heedlessly continued on apace).

We are aware of the fate of the Titanic and the Air France flight, but are we aware that these cases reflect on the ship of state of America and the world? (cf. Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us?, Rogue Storms Sneaking Up On Us? - 2).

Our nation and civilization are facing serious Climate Change problems that are also catastrophic because we continue to damage The Global Climate System which generates our weather, including serious storms, droughts, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, melting polar ice caps, and rising ocean levels.

Our captains of our ships of state, like those in the case of the Titanic and Air France, are going full stream ahead, straight into the storm of disaster.

Likewise, conflicting steering systems exist within nations and among nations, both at national capitols as well as at the United Nations.

Like the doomed vessels with citizens on board, the danger of national doom is increasing daily.

One example is that one segment of government (one part of the crew) believes in the science of climate change, while another segment of government (another part of the crew) thinks that the climate change data that is telling us we are heading for danger is nothing to worry about because it is a hoax.

Thus, the crew members are wrestling with each other over the controls:

A majority of Senate Democrats on Monday will launch an overnight "talkathon" until approximately 9:00 a.m. Tuesday to draw attention to climate change.

The overnight effort, organized by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is part of the recently launched Senate Climate Action Task Force headed by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

In a statement, Boxer said Democrats want to "wake up Congress" to the dangers of climate change.

The marathon session is not technically a filibuster in part because there is no legislation under debate, but overnight sessions are rare and likely to draw media attention to the topic — which is precisely the goal.
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The Democratic effort is cause for some confusion because these senators are calling for action in a chamber they control but without any specific legislation to offer up for a vote, or any timetable for action this year.

(Dems Overnight Talk on Climate Change). The republicans will not take the demonstration seriously, since they feel that there is no problem, rather there is only a hoax, and so wrestling with each other for control continues unabated.

The fate of our nation, then, and civilization itself, is also a mystery at this time.

As to the other mystery, there is still no confirmation that the Malaysian Flight 370 aircraft wreckage has been located.

It is all the more a mystery, what with no mayday call, no distress signal, no communication about any problems, no debris field yet, and the aircraft disappearing from the face of the Earth with 239 people aboard.

Some reports about stolen passports and other relevant factors bring up the possibility of terrorism.

Which is like Oil-Qaeda terrorists damaging or destroying our climate system and our ship of state with their fossil fuel drug business.

UPDATE (3/13/14): The Malaysian Flight 370 aircraft is still missing. Meanwhile we also still wonder where the ship of state "America" has been taken.

The next post of this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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The Common Good - 5

"We did it for the common good"

In this series I have been infusing other Dredd Blog series into this current ongoing series so as to broaden the subject matter reach without increasing the verbiage too much.

That way readers can click on and link to similar series or not at their own discretion and interest.

One suggested series for infusion into this "The Common Good" series is: Life After People - The Movie, including Life After People - The Movie - 2.

The "Life After People" television series on The History Channel was a very clever series.

That series pointed out among other things, in a very nuanced manner, how "things" without people around to maintain them are slowly broken down by powerful processes in the environment of the Earth, a very ancient and persistent process which continues until "things" rust, rot, and otherwise decompose down into component parts, eventually becoming little more than dust in the wind.

The various series mentioned help inform us that "The Common Good" is that which benefits people in the long run, not the short run.

An example is depicted by the fire within and explosion of a fertilizer plant in the small community of West, Texas, which killed the common good producing some of the worst forms of the common bad., because they used lax safety regulations and very bad zoning regulations:

The devastation from the explosion in West, especially given the known destructive power from the Oklahoma City bombing, should have been foreseeable. The rapid and overwhelming response from emergency crews from around north-central Texas has been nothing short of astounding. Clearly, disasters like this are exactly what the first responders prepare for. They knew where to go to establish triage centers. They even had backup triage centers in case they had to evacuate the primary site, which happened in this case. That kind of forethought, as I say, is nothing short of astounding.

Apt. Bldg. Was Too Close - (LM Otero/AP Photo)

So why didn’t local planners demonstrate an equal level of forethought and imagine what kind of problems could arise when you place a middle school, a retirement complex, apartments and houses next to a fertilizer plant with a 12,000-gallon tank containing highly volatile chemical compounds? Someone needs to be called to account for the scores of deaths and injuries caused by this explosion.

(The Dallas Morning News, emphasis added). That writer hit the nail on the head, because he shows that the focus is backwards, upside down, and out of whack in terms of the public good.

Bowing down the the false god of "free enterprise" by letting dangerous mechanizations whirl, hum, and spin without adequate safety regulations is a recipe for disaster, a recipe for the public bad.

This backwards approach, which impairs attempts to increase the reality of the common good, goes hog wild when it comes to disaster preparation and response, but does little to regulate what causes those disasters.

It treats the effect, not the cause, insuring repetitive problems (e.g. Groundhog Day & The Climate of Fear).

In the case of the Texas explosion, there had been no inspections for a long time, and when such inspections do take place they are impotent, for-show-only, play pretend operations that cow-tow to greedy business interests.

A similar escapade has been explored in the recent Dredd Blog post in the current series where we discussed the devastation heaped upon Americans by the big banks (The Common Good - 4).

In that post I criticized the Attorney General, Eric Holder, for saying that those banks are too big to prosecute, even as the civil courts, in a sense, are beginning to say otherwise (Wouldn't It Be Loverly: Big Bank Justice, and see this).

This is the exact state of affairs that Dredd Blog envisioned in The W Direction = The Perilous Path, complaining that the government's primary focus had the nature of reactionary triage rather than visionary prevention (New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage - 10).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Oil-Qaeda gets a tax break for doing "good" public charity:

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The Most Dangerous Moment in Recorded History

Hiroshima & Nagasaki Were Political Shows

It has happened already, will happen again, but there is no way to know if it will work out well the next time.

It wasn't the K-T Boundary extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs along with about 90% of land species, and 50% of marine species some 65 million years ago, rather it was a time when all the nuclear weapons of The U.S.S.R. and The United States were locked, loaded and aimed at hundreds of millions of men, women, and children.

The release of papers from Robert F. Kennedy shed new light on a time when we came much, much closer to nuclear Armageddon than generally believed:

Fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis, many people find it hard to believe that the confrontation could have pushed the US and Soviet Union to nuclear war. Robert F. Kennedy’s newly released papers remind us why this was the most dangerous moment in recorded history.
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“My fellow Americans, with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfillment of my oath of office, I have ordered – and the United States Air Force has now carried out – military operations with conventional weapons only, to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba.”

These are the words President Kennedy almost delivered in October 1962 announcing what could have been World War III. This draft speech is among several thousand drafts, letters, and handwritten notes from Robert F. Kennedy’s personal files that have just last week been opened at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Robert Kennedy’s writings make vivid how close we came to the brink of war. Had President Kennedy been forced to choose a response in the first 48 hours after an American spy plane discovered the Soviets sneaking nuclear-tipped missiles into Cuba, RFK had no doubt that his brother would have chosen an air strike against the missile sites, followed by an invasion. As he wrote in his notes while discussing this option, “if we go in, we go in hard.”

Had the United States launched an airstrike and invaded Cuba, the Soviet commander on the scene would almost certainly have responded with about 100 tactical nuclear weapons under his control – tactical nuclear weapons JFK did not even know were on the island. The US would have felt compelled to respond in kind triggering an escalation to nuclear Armageddon. As RFK later recalled, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council advising JFK during the crisis was full of “bright, able dedicated people, all of whom had the greatest affection for the US, [but] if six of them had been President ... the world might have been blown up”.

(Christian Science Monitor, emphasis added). The U.S. President did not even know all the facts and circumstances about the danger that was getting closer and closer to the people of the entire world, so he had to make ultimate decisions without ultimate information.

These papers of Robert F. Kennedy have been hidden from general public view, along with the truth of that time, for about fifty years.

That sort of information and secrecy is also true of WW II considerations that concerned ending the war with Japan:

Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.

But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise. [has many citations]

(Washington's Blog). Some officials like to imagine away some of the realities that were talked about during "The Cold War", and every other "reality" for that matter:

Government Reality Makers

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

(When You Are Governed By Psychopaths, quoting Karl Rove). But the only reality that counts, in this context, is the reality that applies to all of us and still endangers us, with even more danger than it did those ~50 years ago:

An expert assessment of China's nuclear weapons strategy highlights the risk of escalation to nuclear war from a conflict beginning with conventional weapons, due to the unusual structure of the nation's military.
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The possibility of combining or sequentially launching conventional and nuclear missiles is deemed a fundamental source of political and military strength – but also generates critical uncertainties:

"The basic dilemma for the war planners stems from the deployment of the two types of missiles on the same Second Artillery bases with fundamentally different capabilities and purposes," Lewis and Xue say.

The article notes that Beijing's nuclear missiles exist to deter a nuclear first strike on China, and are only to be used in extremis. At the same time, the conventional weapons on the formerly all-nuclear bases must be ready to strike first and hard. Targeted enemies and their allies will not immediately be able to distinguish whether any missiles fired are conventional or nuclear.

This means that those enemies may justifiably launch on warning and retaliate against all the command-and-control systems and missile assets of the Chinese missile launch base and even the overall command-and-control system of the central Second Artillery headquarters.

"It could happen ..."

In the worst case, a self-defensive first strike by Chinese conventional missiles could end in the retaliatory destruction of many Chinese nuclear missiles and their related command-and-control systems.

"That disastrous outcome would force the much smaller surviving and highly vulnerable Chinese nuclear missile units to fire their remaining missiles against the enemy's homeland," Lewis and Xue warn. "Escalation to nuclear war could become accelerated and unavoidable." Policies that have led to conventional and nuclear weapons doubling up at the same base could cause, rather than deter, a nuclear exchange.
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Beijing's overall defence strategy has evolved significantly in recent decades. According to the authors, China's revolutionary leader Mao Zedong directly shaped the policies for the Second Artillery, the nation's strategic missile forces.
...
Both US and Russian land-based missiles remain constantly on high-alert status, ready to be launched within minutes. Because of the 30-minute flight times of these missiles, the presidents of both the US and Russia would have only approximately 12 minutes to decide whether to launch their missiles when presented by their military leaders with information indicating an imminent attack (after lower-level threat assessment conferences).

That’s only 12 minutes or less for the president to decide whether to launch global nuclear war. While this scenario is unlikely, it is definitely possible: Presidents have repeatedly rehearsed it, and it cannot be ruled out due to the graveness of its potential consequences.

(The Teapot In A Tempest). The tempest is no longer inside the teapot, rather the delicate teapot is out in the open, exposed to the approaching Tempest.

Like JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis mentioned above, today's officials who will or who will not invoke the Armageddon sequence, don't truly know the dangers this civilization is facing.

All too often they are thinking mainly of "themselves and theirs" (New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage), which only further endangers "themselves and theirs."

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Deepwater Horizon Keeps On Killing & Drilling

Two Years Ago - Deepwater Horizon

Great addiction takes extraordinary effort, if the addict hopes to recover the ability to refuse to use the crippling drug.

The oil addiction problem for civilization is a great addiction.

The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, which to this day, two years after the explosion shown in the photograph took place, triggered events that are still killing people, and still killing the environment, with the poisonous drug civilization is greatly addicted to.

Today, I will quote from a blog that links to several sources which lay out an ongoing, terrible, and lasting situation.

A situation destructive to our environment, and destructive to our people all along the gulf:

... there are numerous signs that the worst-case scenario may be playing out:

• New York Times: “Gulf Dolphins Exposed to Oil Are Seriously Ill, Agency Says

• MSNBC: Gulf shrimp scarce this season (and see the Herald Tribune‘s report)

• Mother Jones: Eyeless shrimp are being found all over the Gulf

• NYT: Oil Spill Affected Gulf Fish’s Cell Function, Study Finds

• CBS:Expert: BP spill likely cause of sick Gulf fish (and see the Press Register’s report)

• Study confirms oil from Deepwater spill entered food chain

• Pensacola News Journal: “Sick fish” archive

• Agence France Presse: Mystery illnesses plague Louisiana oil spill crews

• MSNBC: Sea turtle deaths up along Gulf, joining dolphin trend

• MSNBC:Exclusive: Submarine Dive Finds Oil, Dead Sea Life at Bottom of Gulf of Mexico

• AP: BP oil spill the culprit for slow death of deep-sea coral, scientists say (and see the Guardian and AFP‘s write ups)

• A recent report also notes that there are flesh-eating bacteria in tar balls of BP oil washing up on Gulf beaches

• And all of that lovely Corexit dispersant sprayed on water, land and air? It inhibits the ability of microbes to break down oil, and allows oil and other chemicals to speed past the normal barriers of human skin. Background here. NYT: Impact of Gulf Spill’s Underwater Dispersants Is Examined Speaking on the chemical ingredients of the dispersants used, “The report finds that “Of the 57 ingredients: 5 chemicals are associated with cancer; 33 are associated with skin irritation from rashes to burns; 33 are linked to eye irritation; 11 are or are suspected of being potential respiratory toxins or irritants; 10 are suspected kidney toxins; 8 are suspected or known to be toxic to aquatic organisms; and 5 are suspected to have a moderate acute toxicity to fish.”

(Washington's Blog). It is an ugly, deadly addiction that requires extraordinary effort to resist, which our government is not taking seriously enough, and an extraordinary addiction that our government is not resisting well at all:

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region. The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

(Independent, 12-13-11, emphasis added). Not only that, now methane has been discovered being released from cracks in the arctic ice:

The researchers found significant amounts of methane being released from the ocean into the atmosphere through cracks in the melting sea ice. They said the quantities could be large enough to affect the global climate. Previous observations have pointed to large methane plumes being released from the seabed in the relatively shallow sea off the northern coast of Siberia but the latest findings were made far away from land in the deep, open ocean where the surface is usually capped by ice.

Eric Kort of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said that he and his colleagues were surprised to see methane levels rise so dramatically each time their research aircraft flew over cracks in the sea ice.

"When we flew over completely solid sea ice, we didn't see anything in terms of methane. But when we flew over areas were the sea ice had melted, or where there were cracks in the ice, we saw the methane levels increase," Dr Kort said. "We were surprised to see these enhanced methane levels at these high latitudes. Our observations really point to the ocean surface as the source, which was not what we had expected," he said.

"Other scientists had seen high concentrations of methane in the sea surface but nobody had expected to see it being released into the atmosphere in this way," he added.

(Independent, 4-23-12, emphasis added). Surprises are not very good sometimes, and this is one of those times.

The next post in this series is here.

Triage: Still In Deep Water - 2

As Hurricane Irene sets a course for The Carolinas, then up the East Coast towards New York, then on to the New England area, some people are taking it seriously.

The U.S. Navy for instance.

Did you watch The Second Fleet leave port from Norfolk, Virgina yesterday?

They wisely left the harbor and went into open water far out into the Atlantic Ocean to face Hurricane Irene from a safer place.

Safer in the sense that those ships are designed to handle open ocean, but can be sitting ducks while in a harbor during a hurricane.

They did not take any elderly, sick, homeless, or financially impaired people with them.

The elderly, sick, homeless, and financially impaired people are being beaten down, and have been beaten down for some time now by Hurricane GOP.

The wealthy right wing, whom the GOP serve, have left town for vacations in Europe, Hawaii, or exotic places to "ride out the storm" with their new tax refunds, originally called "The Bush II tax cuts for the wealthy".

Once upon a time every government agency considered themselves to have a mission of protecting elderly, sick, homeless, or financially impaired people in times when conditions make it impossible for them to stand alone.

That is why we all gave those agencies a little of our money, our tax dollars, to use to help elderly, sick, homeless, or financially impaired in such times of need.

The elderly, sick, homeless, and financially impaired people on the streets won't be on any naval ships, won't be rescued by state and local governments who need help themselves, because of Hurricane Bad-Economy, which was brought to us originally by the Bushies.

In the first post of this series Dredd Blog posted:

Long before the Deepwater Horizon disaster Dredd Blog predicted the future of governmental response to disastrous catastrophes.

For example, in the post New Government Climate Change Policy: Triage we pointed out that governments would morph into hyper-selfish entities.

Dredd Blog opined that those entities would develop programs to ensure the survival of government bureaucrats, programs not designed to ensure the survival of their people, and would increasingly keep those policies hidden from their people by the power of the state secrets doctrine.

(Triage: Still In Deep Water, see update here). The right-wing doctrine of "me first, you last" has now permeated the governments, so the people will continue to suffer.

The courts have ruled that it was MOMCOM that caused the flooding catastrophe in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, by making defective levees to protect the elderly, sick, homeless, and financially impaired people on the streets of New Orleans.

The GOP now say that government itself is bad, when actually it is only bad government that is bad ("bad government" means right-wing imperialistic forms of militant government).

Good government, government which is solemnly dedicated to the populace, not the military fortress or Wall Street, is not a bad concept.

Thankfully Irene lost power and came down to a Cat 1 at landfall.

That means more elderly, sick, homeless, and financially impaired people on the streets will survive this one.

Authoritarian Green Glow In The Dark - 3

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant

The Ecocosmology Blog had a post "Mafia Contract Out - On Mother Earth", some time back, concerning one treacherous policy of the Sicilian Mob.

A cynic might say that mob was acting like a "legitimate" government by dumping nuclear waste into the ocean.

We note that many would naturally think that no legitimate government would allow poisonous nuclear material to get into the water tables or waterways, at least not deliberately or on purpose.

The photo above is of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant near Omaha, Nebraska, where the FAA is not allowing any aircraft to fly over, even though the plant is in a "cold" shutdown (right mouse-click for a larger version of the photo).

The red rectangle outlines the main nuclear power plant complex along the banks of the flooding Missouri River.

You can see that the place is flooded, with flood waters rising.

The previous post in this series has another photo and some more information, including a link to a story which says:

Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard - sometimes at hundreds of times the limit. While most leaks have been found within plant boundaries, some have migrated offsite.

(Daily News). A Wikipedia article says "Tritium is potentially dangerous if inhaled or ingested. It can combine with oxygen to form tritiated water molecules, and those can be absorbed through pores in the skin. The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect".

We don't need a nuclear expert to tell us that the flood waters around and/or in a nuclear power plant complex, like Fort Calhoun, is going to seep down and become contaminated.

That water is then going downstream to contaminate places on the way to the Gulf of Mexico, which hardly needs any more pollution done to it for a thousand years.

The berm around the plant burst to let more water in closer to where they did not want it to go. More contaminated water will now go downstream.

Los Alamos National Lab, in New Mexico is in danger by another climate change related phenomenon: fire storms. An evacuation is in process.

Scientists are convinced that human civilization is causing global warming induced global climate change, which in turn is causing these weather problems.

Not only that, their climate models show it will get a lot worse.

Authoritarian Green Glow In The Dark - 2

In the first post of this series we pointed out the damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused by earthquake and tsunami.

But we also dabbled into another hypothesis by some other scientists.

They hypothesize that anthropogenic global warming induced global climate change is a source of some earthquake and volcanic triggering caused by pressure placed on hair-trigger Earthquake zones around the globe.

In the post today we will discuss the same climate change that is causing the melting of glaciers worldwide, as well as melting the vast ice sheets at the Earth's north and south poles.

This accelerated melting of the ice is putting more and more moisture into the Earth's atmosphere, and as a consequence is eventually causing the rise of ocean levels as that melted ice turns into water vapor, then rain, then ultimately flows through the river systems to reach the sea.

The increased moisture in the atmosphere in turn leads to increases in rain in some areas, then flooding as the water finds its way to the oceans.

Because the ice caps kept river banks to a narrower path (not as much water flowing) before the advent of industrial age, we built structures closer to the center of waterways, rivers, and we even regularly built structures well within those flood plains.

We built those structures, including some nuclear plants, during a time when water was captured in polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers, resulting in less moisture in the atmosphere, so the water flow was concentrated in a narrower area of the vast drainage systems within the nation.

River banks were further from the structures we built then, including some nuclear power plants.

Now the global warming induced climate change is endangering those structures, including nuclear power plants in the USA.

The photo at the top of this post is of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska, which is in danger due to the flooding of the Missouri River:

A fire in Nebraska's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant briefly knocked out the cooling process for spent nuclear fuel rods, ProPublica reports.

The fire occurred on June 7th, and knocked out cooling for approximately 90 minutes. After 88 hours, the cooling pool would boil dry and highly radioactive materials would be exposed.

On June 6th, the Federal Administration Aviation (FAA) issued a directive banning aircraft from entering the airspace within a two-mile radius of the plant.

"No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered by this NOTAM," referring to the "notice to airmen," effective immediately.

Since last week, the plant has been under a "notification of unusual event" classification, [because] of the rising Missouri River. That is the lowest level of emergency alert.

(Business Insider). To add to the danger, for the past few days tornadoes, strong winds, and even more rain have been blasting the area where the nuclear power plant sits alongside the swelling waters of the Missouri River.

One congress member has stated that the propaganda media has ordered a news blackout concerning the near meltdown triggering events that have already happened at Fort Calhoun.

If so, my guess is that the blackout was ordered because Fort Calhoun is only a few miles from downtown Omaha, Nebraska (million people in that area).

That floods are a danger to nuclear power plants is officially indicated because the plant was in "cold mode", that is, it had been shut down some time ago before the flood, for scheduled maintenance.

When the time came to restart the reactors the decision was made not to restart them because they anticipated these floods, which meant danger.

Thus, floods are a danger to nuclear power plants, just as tsunamis are.

For visual proof of that, the Toxins of Power blog has a video of Fort Calhoun (bottom of post) together with some expert discussion of the flood danger.

The AP is reporting that 2/3 - 3/4 of the nuclear plants have chronic leaks which contaminate the water table, soil, and potentially the air around them.

See here, here, here, and here.

Floods could carry that contamination far away from those plants.

The rise in sea level can only happen, as a function of melting polar ice fields, when the water that was once ice is no longer in the atmosphere, but has finally reached the ocean.

As long as evaporation keeps the water in the atmospheric cycle, out of the ocean waters, that climate change factor will still be isolated to floods, excess rain, and other moisture related disturbances on land.

A Methanol Economy Way Out of Here - 4

The Indy 500 is where the power brokers are today.

In the series A Methanol Economy Way Out of Here, we mentioned in the first post that "methanol was the required fuel for the Indy Racing League (IRL) from the 1960s until 2006".

Methanol is a clean burning fuel which powered the fastest race in the nation, all the while producing no green house gases nor carbon monoxide along the way.

Methanol fuel was used by the big human race for about 46 years in the most powerful and the fastest of the race's cars.

This human race is celebrated today at the Indianapolis 500, but is the celebration about something that is not really happening?

Is the celebration really about hearing "the bridge is out just ahead", then nevertheless pushing the gas pedal to the floorboard, rushing headlong into a self-induced Armageddon, gleefully accelerating toward the "finish line"?

We first posed that question and subject matter in Tidalgate, New Government Climate Change Policy: Triage, and Will This Float Your Boat, after hearing that the Obama administration had reversed itself to order full-on drilling offshore, onshore, and anywhere else, for the dirty oil that is bringing on the demise of civilization.

After that demise, when those who survive get to bury 5-6 billion corpses, or just dig the smell of suckcess for awhile, what will the new civilization look like?

In the posts A Methanol Way Out Of Here, and A Green Way Out of Here, we pointed out that some people get it, and in the post Someone Figured It Out we show that even some governments get it.

Let's hope those who get it are among the survivors, so that the new human race will be methanol based, or something better, so we can watch a race in a better civilization.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post is here.

Church Chat

You want jobs?

How about an entire industry based on the faith lobby?

(Remember that both true and false faith is something that replaces evidence. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". KJV Hebrews 11:1; "faith" is a replacement for evidence)

In Driving Miss Crazy we pointed out some of the problems faith in government can lead to.

For example the source code that runs the computer that decides blood levels of alcohol, and the source code for the computer that decides election results, are secret, meaning your faith in them is required:

A secret code making legal decisions, or deciding elections for that matter is simply unacceptable, and as long as Americans are satisfied to have the rights of accused drinking drivers violated, they set the precedent for their own rights to be violated.

(Intoxylizer Source Code). Did you notice that the author mentions the source code of voting machines also in general being a state controlled secret?

Think also about the classified budget, because anything that is a secret, or anytime you take their word for it without evidence, is a quasi-religious type of realm based on your faith in them.

Some observers point out that this faith tends to lead to huge industries with a misguided motive:

The second reason is political. "Alcohol related" statistics paint a picture of epidemic proportions that demand government action (and money) and a mobilization of citizen action. It justifies bigger budgets, more authority for enforcement agencies, and rationalizes a whole industry designed to feed off the "Drunk Driving epidemic." Multi-million dollar industries, organizations and bureaucracies are dependent on maintaining the aura of a drunk driving epidemic. This illusion would be impossible to maintain if the true magnitude of drunk driving caused accidents and fatalities were actually itemized and categorized into meaningful segments ... remember that the definition of alcohol-related does not mean alcohol-caused. For their own reasons, NHTSA has chosen to define an alcohol related crash as an accident in which a driver, passenger, bicyclist or pedestrian had any measurable alcohol in their system. Furthermore, cause, fault or circumstance are not considered. For example, a winter chain reaction crash on black ice on I91 involving 10 cars and three deaths would be considered alcohol related if one of the drivers had taken some cough syrup medication that morning. If you feel that I am engaging in hyperbole, refer back to the May 5 OLR study that uses the same example.

(National Motorist Association, emphasis added). The history of several industries, including organized crime, traces back to the Eighteenth Amendment “prohibition” ideology.

A federal appeals court writes down some facts indicating, as will be seen, that the origin of various aspects of some federal law is religious-faith based coming from temperance movement ideology.

In this post, among other things, Dredd Blog will try to show that temperance ideology has made its way into federal law though the religious faith of once Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, along with ordained Episcopalian Priest Senator Danforth and who knows whom else:

“Thereafter, a version of section 523(a)(9) was introduced by Senator Dole as part of the Omnibus Bankruptcy Improvements Act of 1983 (the Omnibus Act). S. 445, 129 Cong.Rec. 9953, 9957 (April 27, 1983). After Senator Dole introduced the Omnibus Act, Senator Danforth remarked: "Subtitle D is a modified version of S. 605, a bill I introduced earlier this session ... [which] would have defined drunk driving as a willful and malicious offense for purposes of the bankruptcy statute. The provision in the bill before us achieves the same result by specifically stating that debts arising from drunk driving shall be nondischargeable." 129 Cong. Rec. 9998 (April 27, 1983).”

Lugo v Paulsen, 886 F.2d 602 (3rd Cir. 1989). Senator Danforth was an ordained Priest, and Senator Dole is a lifetime member in the arm of the Methodist Church that had activities called the “temperance movement” which led to the Eighteenth Amendment, then the Twenty First Amendment:

"The temperance movement was the social concern which most broadly captured the interest and enthusiasm of the Methodist Church. The movement was strongly tied to John Wesley’s theology and social principles. Wesley’s abhorrence of alcohol use was taken up by American Methodists, many of whom were active and prominent leaders within the movement ... The Methodist stance against drinking was strongly stated in the Book of Discipline. Initially, the issue taken was limited to distilled liquors, but quickly, teetotalism became the norm and Methodists were commonly known to abstain from all alcoholic beverages ... Due to the temperate stance of the church, the practice of Eucharist was altered — to this day, Methodist churches most commonly use grape juice symbolically during Communion rather than wine. The Methodist church distinguished itself from many other denominations in their beliefs about state control of alcohol. Where many other denominations, including Roman Catholics, Protestant Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Unitarians, believed that the ill-effects of liquor should be controlled by self-discipline and individual restraint, Methodists believed that it was the duty of the government to enforce restrictions on the use of alcohol. In 1904, the Board of Temperance was created by the General Conference to help push the Temperance agenda ... To this day, the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Missions holds property across on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, which was built using funds provided by laypeople. Women of the church were responsible for 70% of the $650,000 it cost to construct the building in 1922. The building was intended to serve as the Methodist Church’s social reform presence of the Hill. The Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals was especially prominent within the building.

(Wikipedia, emphasis added). Senator Danforth, (the priest at Reagan's funeral), as an ordained Priest was obviously influenced by his religion, and Senator Dole was influenced strongly by his church ideology as well:

"Bob was raised in that kind of environment where everything rotates and revolves around the activities of the church, the rhythms of the [Methodist] church, the rituals of the church ... “At this point in American history, in American culture, in a small town, in the Midwest, everything revolves around the church. Nothing takes place that is not in some way headquartered and centered in that church. A pastor is a high prestige position, high esteem, in a small town. So Bob Dole grew up in an environment where everything is ordered and organized by the rituals and the rhythms of that church. And he learned the small town values of a, of a church that is this white clap or steeple church that is kind of a, almost a cliche, but everything it stands for has an ordering, organizing, a centering of one's life and that's where, that's where religion was centered and that's where you centered your faith, through the rhythms and rituals of that church."

(Public Broadcasting System, emphasis added). While the Establishment Clause is not supposed to allow religious law (the temperance movement is a religious movement), and due process doesn't allow unconstitutional application of any laws, yet there they are in black and white all over the place.

As it now stands, some federal law looks like an ugly throwback to an ugly part of our history (prohibition) that still mobs us, and still satiates someone's desire to exalt their religious doctrine over other religious doctrine, all in structured tension with the Establishment Clause and the Fifth Amendment.

The faith that God Is On Our Side flies in the face of Christians fleeing Iraq, after we brought "democracy" to them, unless of course one has enough "Christian faith" to believe that faith works in mysterious ways (including building a nation of the Oilah Akbar religion, a.k.a. the resurrected Mithraism).

Any other examples?