Last Friday, Xavier Becerra, a Democrat of California, and Dave Weldon, a Republican of Florida, sponsored the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act, to ban the practice of patenting genes found in nature.

[ A crucial question : Will it invalidate all the patents that already were issued?

Certainly, there's value in not making a bad situation worse, but for the issued patents, is there a remedy besides waiting for the patent to expire?

I think there is some complexity to this issue that Crichton leaves out which is that some researchers actually do create novel genetic sequences that are related to existing genes, but modified to do something different. Perhaps the answer is to permit patents on the outcome (for example "generating medical grade insulin from genetically modified bacteria") rather than the genetic sequences themselves. Thus, the patent is on the product or process, not the genes that enable it...

EDIT
Some answers to my own questions. Per Congressman Becerra's press release, the bill is not retroactive and will require patent expiry to bring the existing patented genes back into the public domain :

The legislation gives guidance to the USPTO on what is not patentable – in this case genetic material, naturally-occurring or modified. It is not retroactive – it does not rescind the patents already issued. Patents are granted for a period of 20 years from the date that an application is originally filed.

“Thus, if we enact this bill into law quickly, we will reach balance in less than two decades – a patent-free genome that does not hinder scientific research, business enterprise, or human morality,” Rep. Becerra said.

I couldn't find the bill on THOMAS, but a bill of the same name was introduced back in 2002 by Representative Lynn Rivers [D-MI13] and, again, Representative Weldon. It would seem that the current bill is somewhat different. The 2002 bill amended the law to permit as non-infringing certain uses of patented genetic sequences. It does not, by my reading, halt or proscribe the issuance of patents on genetic sequences. The statements above appear to indicate that Becerra's and Weldon's current bill do precisely that : prevent the ongoing practice of patenting genetic sequences.

I look forward to reading the bill... perhaps someone else can find it where I failed...

-k ]

Patenting Life

Cherry wood J & J Beall clock. Banned in Boston.

NOTE: You have to be really, really old to understand the origin of the phrase "banned in Boston."�

Truly? Is there a history of this sort of thing?

Because it seems rather apropos of recent events...

Alarming Clock on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance seeks to defend equal marriage in this state by challenging the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling on Andersen v. King County. This decision, given in July 2006, declared that a “legitimate state interest” allows the Legislature to limit marriage to those couples able to have and raise children together. Because of this “legitimate state interest,” it is permissible to bar same-sex couples from legal marriage.

The way we are challenging Andersen is unusual: using the initiative, we are working to put the Court’s ruling into law. We will do this through three initiatives. The first would make procreation a requirement for legal marriage. The second would prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children. The third would make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony.

... If passed by Washington voters, the Defense of Marriage Initiative would:

add the phrase, “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;

require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled;

require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as "unrecognized;"

establish a process for filing proof of procreation; and

make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognized marriage to receive marriage benefits.

HA! There are so many things wrong with this, I'm not even going to begin to enumerate them. Sweet jesus, people are insane.

Boing Boing: Ballot initiative would require married couples to

Combine unsupervised teenagers, digital cameras and e-mail, and, given sufficient time, you'll end up with risque photographs on a computer somewhere.

There's a problem with that: Technically, those images constitute child pornography.

Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.

What a complete pile of bullshit. I can see the argument if either party had actually posted the pictures somewhere on the internet or sent it around to friends. I'm still not sure criminal penalties are the best way to prevent that activity, but I'll allow that there would be some wrongdoing in that case.

But that didn't happen, and I'm in full agreement with the dissenting opinion. It was a stupid thing to do, and I think they're naive with respect to any expectation of privacy they may have (especially with regard to each other... having the picture exposed through hacking is about 10000 times less likely than it being released as part of a nasty breakup, as almost all of them are at that age). Still, child pornography? Really? Psh.

FURTHER : You can read the sad story of Genarlow Wilson here and don't forget about Marcus Dewayne Dixon (google it) either, both of which are here in georgia and which beg the question of racial equality, quite aside from the direct question of sexual relations between minors, or a minor and a non-minor within a couple years of the same age.

I'll go on record as being against mandatory minimums categorically, so that aspect of these cases I'm clearly against. I will admit that there is some cloudy area in the middle, but I distrust the "family values" based "People under 18 shouldn't have sex, period, ever," argument as a political construct and note further that the redder the state, the lower the age of consent as a generalization. Perhaps these laws are simply out of date, but it's tough for me to see how the legal apparatus should get involved unless there truly was exploitation or rape.

Teens prosecuted for racy photos

"It's a 19th-century invention that was perfected in the 20th century," he said. "That's part of the evolution of all inventions."

Calling fluorescent lights the "perfection" of lighting technology is like calling a fucking Unicycle the perfection of transit technology.

Don't get me wrong, I'm into saving power... I like that the lights in the common areas of government workplace go off automatically after a set time if no one's moving and I'm even the little gnome who goes around and turns off the desk and office lights of people who leave them on when they leave.

But!
I
HATE
FLUORESCENT
LIGHTING

I can't convey how much I hate it. I can't work effectively bathed in that flat, dimensionless glare; I absolutely feel the effects on my mood and motivation. I feel like I'm suffocating in some oppressive cell if I have to have the fluorescents on. In the halls it's fine (as long as there's no flickering, which is a whole other issue), but in my workspace, it kills me. I was saved in my old building by being in a window cube where the natural light tempered the F-effect, and in my current one by getting an office where I have two, yes, incandescent lamps which I frequently use singly because the light is SOOOOO much more pleasant. I'd rather work in the dark than under fluorescents. I'd rather work with chains on my body and perpetually sticky fingers. Fuck fluorescent lighting 100%.

I see some hope on the horizon in the form of tunable LED lighting which can emit a warmer color spectrum while still being more energy efficient than fluorescent. I don't know that they're available yet, but got I hope they get here before someone demands that I remove my incandescents. I will lose my damn mind.

P.S. Assemblymember* Levine is right when he says

Electricity-saving technologies may not be glamorous, especially when compared with the idea of a shiny new power plant, but the facts are that there are hundreds of electricity-saving innovations now on the market that if fully used throughout the United States, would significantly decrease the electricity the country now uses,

but I don't care if the result is me feeling like shit all the time. Start with weather stripping and insulation and tankless hot water heaters... you'll have to pry my incandescents from my cold, dead fingers.

P.P.S *WTF, seriously. I'm just PC enough to allow that using Assemblymembers to refer to a mixed group of Assemblymen and Assemblywomen is ok, even if it does violate my linguistic sensibilities as unwieldy. Fine, I'll survive. But on his own page? Why, I ask? Why? Who's being offended when I call an Assemblyman an Assemblyman?

Lights out on Edison's bulb?

It is true that the President sometimes needs to make threats that he does not intend to carry out in order to be a credible bargainer on the international stage. But to do this he must also have credibility at home-- people have to trust that he will act reasonably and not get the country into a disastrous conflict-- as he has before-- and disregard wise counsel and recalcitrant evidence-- as he has before. The President must regain the trust of Congress before he can usefully engage in saber rattling. Until he does so, Congress must rein him in. The current Democratic strategy of nonbinding resolutions, I fear, will not be enough. They will be too easily disregarded. The Democrats have assumed that nonbinding resolutions will signal to the President that he is isolated politically. That will do nothing. This President already knows that he is isolated politically. He already knows that the public is against him and he plans to proceed in any case. Like any headstrong individual, this President needs to understand that there will be real consequences for not acting responsibly.

A fascinating (and scary) article...

Balkinization

BoingBoing says

In this special 3-minute-long episode of 24, agent Jack Bauer tracks down the members of the deadly Aqua Teen Hunger Force in order to stop the LED Lite Brites from blowing up

Seriously, pretty well done... nice.

YouTube - Agent Bauer vs. The Moonenites

This dude is fucking ill. I never thought flute could be so cool.

YouTube - beatboxing flute super mario brothers theme

Steve Jobs' open letter about DRM and music yesterday definitely got a lot of tongues wagging, but there's one group that might want to re-read what he wrote. Bit Player (you gotta scroll down to the bottom of the post) reports that our old friends at the RIAA issued a response today lauding Apple's offer to license FairPlay as a "welcome breakthrough" that would be a "real victory for fans, artists and labels." There's only one problem: Jobs didn't offer to license FairPlay at all. In fact, he makes it pretty clear that he thinks that switching to an open model for DRM wouldn't work ("Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies.") and that the best option is to eliminate DRM altogether. We already knew that the majors are totally in denial about this stuff, but to pretend that his letter (however motivated) was anything other than a broadside against DRM is silly.

RIAA misreads Jobs' open letter on DRM, thinks he's offering to license FairPlay - Engadget

In what is being called the most severe attack on the web since the barrage of 2002, the same 13 "root servers" were targeted within the past 24 hours in a presumed attempt to disrupt global network traffic.

...

Now, who else in the world thinks they can single handedly dismantle the internet?

Yes, who indeed.

Hackers attempt to break the internet, fail miserably - Engadget