This is referenced in Memeorandum as the “egg as person” amendment:
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday endorsed a proposed Colorado Human Life Amendment that would define personhood as a fertilized egg.* ÂÂ
And I suppose that from some perspectives it’s outrageously strange. Almost as strange, perhaps, as the imputation of bovine sentience.
Pajamas Media link to Darleen’s post as “Authentic Feminists Can’t Enjoy a Burger?” which–for reasons obscure–made me reach for my dental floss (Reach).
*It seems clear from the context that they are referring to a human egg.
As a moral vegetarian, I only eat aborted cows.
and that is one reason im an obamacan.
wat exactly is supposed to happen here? the sperm impacts the egg…and fertilization membrane lifts off, and nuclear content goes from haploid to diploid.
nope, no ensoulment here.
Huckabee and his fugly, misshapen, bloated embryos. He’s just too creepy.
One doesn’t generally hear pro-lifers arguing about “personhood,” but Huckabee is stupid enough to let a red herring hijack the issue. Yet another reason he should have gotten the hook months ago.
Ah, but strange things happen at the intersection of quantity and quality, nishi.
And the idea that I’m to concern myself with the sentience of a cow, but not of a human embryo, seems . . . naive to me.
But it’s clear that you aren’t a Muslim in any way that a Muslim is liable to recognize, nish.
Ewww, McGehee. “Gotten the hook” sounds grotesque in this context.
I know it is pointless, because nishi claims to despise religion while at the same time buying into the obamoron religion, but what in the hell does Fuckabee being an ass have to do with making someone turn to the Messiah? It is a lie. You like him because he is nice, and you think they are attractive. Just admit it. It is superficial movie star idolatry that you are engaged in, but ashamed to admit.
Greetings past-people,
from the Shortlifes of the Life States of America of the Level III Branching Path Multiverse.
We have just now recovered from the Theocratic Party 2009 Science Ban which resulted in the inoperability of our stolen (from the more scientifically advanced cnadians) tachyon beam transmitter. Scientists that were not executed by public hanging by edict of the Holiest Theocrat Micheal Huckabee went underground, and we have only recently been able to contact them for their help in sending you pastpeople yet another desperate plea.
We beg you, be rational, a fertilized embryo is not a person, a 16-cell cleavage stage is not a person, a blastula is not a person.
We fear the next step in the progressive formulation of the rights of non-sentient cell clumps will culminate with the madatory fertilization of every single one of the 10000 gametes each human female is born with!
Please, please stop this madness!
yours in desperation,
the Shortlifes of the Life States of America of the Level III Branching Path Multiverse
That’s a lot of words for this, nishi. Hick just wants to use his waning spotlight while he can still reach lots of people who might could send him money later. I just don’t think you should dignify it by taking his endorsement of this little concept as like something he really is getting behind is all. A ban on abortions would hit Hick bad in the pocketbook, and Hick loves his moneys more than his embryos.
mandatory.
sry.
its not really much of a stretch is it?
if a fertilized egg is a potential person, arent all my 10,000 unfertilized eggs potential persons too?
no feets.
GW says the 400,000 snowflake embryos are persons.
its a LIFE! thing.
It’s not a life thing really it’s an education thing I think. That whole pro-life thing is stale and phony really, but if you want to end the influence of the embryo cult in politics, McCain’s your ticket. Obama would just agitate and perpetuate them.
If Bush and Huckabee really wanted to change things, they would be trying to reclassify embryos as vegetables. The nutroots are all for protecting them some vegetables.
BECAUSE OF THE EUROPEANACY!!
GW said Mccain was pro-LIFE!
on FOXnews, i heard him.
the dems have promised me ESCR fundage.
im theirs.
Nishi, genuflecting at the altar of ethicless science again. yawn
the dems have promised me ESCR fundage.
im theirs.
Let me see if I can summarize: nishi will vote for the Democrats, because they support government funding of human genetic engineering that industry investors still feel is years away from practicality, and ignore the same Democrats are lining up to outlaw the genetic engineering of foods that has been developed almost entirely with private funding and is of practical and life saving use now.
Is that about it then?
well..i dont agree with outlawing GM foods.
but the government must support basic research until it becomes cost viable.
like…errm…..the moonlanding..and the internets.
After due consideration, I conclude that I am in favor of abortion on demand. The people who avail themselves of the facility tend to cluster in a particular demographic, and if lunopteris berekelensis var. obamaii wishes to remove itself from the gene pool, so much the better. Pity for the babies? Well, yes, but on the other hand, nits make lice.
Regards,
Ric
The world’s so horribly in need of dire changeyness, perhaps we could convince them to suicide in utero.
I am of the same mind as Mr Locke. I view abortion as self-inflicted Darwinism in practice. I am pro-choice in this regard, much like firearms ownership.
well..i dont agree with outlawing GM foods.
but the government must support basic research until it becomes cost viable.
And then they can outlaw it.
Shorter: If people I find annoying choose to have no future, who am I to complain?
Regards,
Ric
I could probably agree largely in principle with you, nishi, but having read this thread, I’m most impressed with the fact that in #8, you remembered how to type like an adult.
Ironic, ain’t it?
BMoe has a point, nishi.
The whole supporting government funding thing is really just a way to smack the theocons as backwardass moralists wanting to INVADE THE VAGINA. And, of course, habit — in that progressives want to see government fund just about everything, anyway.
It’s cynical coming from people who don’t want off shore oil drilling, won’t countenance nuclear power, are actively fighting genetically modified food and, if you can believe this month’s Reason, even much of nano-tech.
Liberals follow Europeans. And Europeans throw rocks at things like gm grains that can feed all of Africa because it isn’t grown on little co-ops, and inordinately overpriced. And that seem, well, gauche.
nishi, you know McCain is all down with the ESCR. I gave you a link last time. McCain is very mavericky like that.
Government must support research on GM seed until it becomes cost viable? Are you out of your mind. If GM seed and foodstuffs is not currently making enough money to embarass Midas it’s only because of government interference. The stuff is cheap, grows like weeds and everybody but the EcoMorons wants as much of it as they can get. Anybody who is against GM crops and then complains about children starving anywhere is an imbecile and is on the fast track to hell.
I saw a Paula Deen episode yesterday and she made a light girl-brunch snack, consisting of cows ( a half pound hamberger patty) and eggs (a fried one for each patty.) And bacon on top (2 pieces, maybe 3) and and a donut for the bun. Did you know that Paula Deen can open her mouth really wide?
I admire that in a woman.
Already voted for it twice, he did. Though it ain’t all that mavericky. There’s lots of bipartisan support for it, and in fact, the bill in question was written by Mike Castle (R – DE) who is nobody’s moonbat.
Woo, that’s two donuts, mind.
I confess I cannot get my mouth around two donuts at a time, let alone one filled with cows, eggs, and bacons.
Sarah – That does not make us love you any less ;-) It justs makes us give Paula Deen an extra look! Dead cow, donuts, cheese, and bacon. Heaven can’t be too far behind.
Then forget any admiration from Dan, then.
Paula’s name for that is the Immediate Myocardial Infarction.
SALUTE!
When it comes to food, anything good can be made exponentially better with cheese, butter, and bacon. Allah does not know what he is missing. Infidel!
And just by coinkydink, nishi is perpetuating a fucking lie. So what else is new?
The government DOES fund stem cell research. In fact, the government funds embryonic stem cell research, to the tune of a hundred large a year and rising. George W insisted.
The only thing the government does not fund is the establishment of new embryonic stem cell lines, because that involves the destruction of more embryos than have already been destroyed. Painting that as a severe restriction doesn’t make sense. After all, the whole point of embryonic stem cells is that, regardless of genetics, they’ll cure anything in anybody, up to and including death by wood chipper. If that’s the case, why does it matter which embryonic stem cells are incorporated in the
magic spellcure?It is of course totally irrelevant that there has not yet been a single experiment using ESCs that has not been a total, absolute, miserable failure that resulted in the test subjects’ being worse off rather than better. There have been several extremely hopeful results from stem cell research — but every single one of them has been using adult-origin stem cells from the organism with the disease. The fact that this is just what anyone who has a nodding acquaintance with the concept of “genetics” might have expected is also irrelevant to the question, no?
Lie louder, nishi. That one isn’t working yet.
Regards,
Ric
JD: If i ever get to your house, I’ll make you the famous BJTex Make the ICU Reservation Heart Attack Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
You’ll die clutching your chest with a smile on you face. Particularly good with bacon sprinkles.
kelly, it’s one of many things I admire in women.
Many.
Yes, and he did so overturning the ban that Bill Clinton signed.
Not quite. In humans, the one experiment that has been done did wonderful things, for a while. IIRC, it had Parkinson’s patients producing dopamine, which was a smashing success, until they realized they couldn’t shut it off and dopamine production went out of control causing some pretty ugly outcomes. This is why they do Phase I trials.
In animals models there are many, many results that are anything but total, absolute, miserable failures. And before we compare ASC and ESC in terms of results, let’s keep in mind that we’ve been playing with ASC’s for decades. While we can find a plethora of demonstrably successful 40 year olds, we’ll not find many accomplished toddlers.
Well turned ankles?
Homina homina!
pablo, thats crap.
1. the eleven sanctioned lines were USELESS FOR HUMAN RESEARCH until 2004, because the lines were contaminated with mouse feeder cells.
After Johns Hopkins solved the problem in 2004 we discovered the cell lines were devolving and again USELESS FOR HUMAN RESEARCH.
the stem cell expansion bill was intended to restart the devolved lines with excess embryos from the snowflakes.
so….GW funded 100,000 of taxpayer $ for ABSOLUTELY USELESS RESEARCH so he cud tell dopes like u he was funding ESCR.
ric locke, booyah! to u too.
u been had suckahs
want the linkage?
hahaha
that is choice
GW has been tossin away 100K of YOUR TAX MONEY PER YEAR so he cud lie to you all an say he was funding ESCR.
awwwww..that’s rich!
Pablo,can you steer me to some GOOD info in regards to the benefits of ESCR as opposed to ASCR? Or even more general info about both of them? I have heard that ASCR is every bit as good, in terms of possible results, as ESCR, but then I hear that that is bullshit. Is there any resource out there that can explain this so a layman can understand? Thanks in advance.
Ok, I realize that was a long winded way of asking, “If there is a benefit, what is the benefit of ESCR over ASCR?”
well….u guyz have convinced me that Mccain is not trustworthy.
im puttin my money on the surer thing.
hehe…..wow…..are u all DEFENDING Mccain?
hahahaha
and i know nothing about GM foods really, except i think they are a good thing.
i know everything, EVERTHING about ESCR.
just try me.
Ok, nishi, can you explain to me the benefit of ESCR as opposed to ASCR? I honestly don’t know. Also, in your opinion, is there value in ASCR? Thanks in advance.
And, kind of as an aside. You mentioned that you’re sufi, so I imagine you believe in the concept of a soul. Is it your belief that a person is “soulified” (I have NO idea what term to use there) when the substrate that handles consiousness is formed in the fetus? Is this when a fetus gets a soul and thus becomes a person, in your opinion?
OI
researchers believe that we can do disease modelling with ESCR, which we cannot do with ASCR.
the two techinques are not competitive..they are complimentary.
ASCR can be made competitive as far as some results go, ie useable cells and organs, but only with enormous effort.
ASCs have have to reprogrammed to be de-differentiated, or harvested as somatic cells of a particular type that can only grow that organ.
ESCs are naturally de-differentiated and much easier to come by, by growing stem cell lines from organic tissue.
one reason we dont have a lot of ESCR result is that we havent done as much. duh.
nishi – people say impurities in the ESC lines approved for federal funding are not a problem. Here, as an example, is Geron:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2006/03/70521
yes sufis believe in souls, but not in ensoulment at fertilization.
sufis believe in the evolution of souls….thru seven stages.
we also believe in metaphysics and alchemy.
and we believe some are born “clear channel” to god/allah/hashem….others can achieve it thru mental and physical conditioning.
and that some will never achieve it.
im also a Mu’tazhilah, and i explained the First Obligation of the Mu’tazhili to you…..to approach Allah thu science and reason.
bs daley
impurities may not be a problem but devolution sure as hell is.
i told u…..Johns Hopkins solved the mouse feeder cell problem in 2004.
Gerons lines are still devolving, just like the other nine.
Lie louder, nishi. That one ain’t working yet.
The very first thing that occurs to me is: the stem cells are contaminated? Yah. So you killed a bunch of babies, then didn’t bother to take precautions to make the results usable for anything, and this is supposed to encourage me to kick in more $$ for further baby-killing? Who says you won’t cash the checks, say “oops!”, and flush the tissue down the shitter just like last time? The fucking Nazis did better in the concentration camps. At least we can honor the dead by using the data.
Second: there is no prohibition of any kind on the research. The only restriction is that it won’t be Federally funded. It’s remarkable to me that people who are perfectly prepared to permit, even encourage, folks to withhold their taxes for “immoral War!” are not at all prepared to offer reciprocal sympathy for others’ moral qualms. Go find your funding elsewhere. My tax money is not the only source available to you.
Third: I am neither a biologist nor a geneticist, but embryonic stem cells, however pluripotent, containing genetic material not related to the individual being treated, are not the obvious choice for therapy. There’s a major disconnect between disapproval approaching outright fear of cabbages with genetic inserts from other species and willingness to accept therapy based on the genes of a completely different individual. Baron von Frankenstein had nothing on that. If the therapy is successful, is the result “Frankenpeople”? Shall I start an hysteria based on it?
Regards,
Ric
Methinx nishi has no klu that her devotion to “science” is religious in its fervency and complete lack of ethics.
nishi – First mention of mouse feeder problem I see is from UCSD in early 2005. Did Hopkins solve it before it became a problem? Others besides Geron has said its a non issue. Can u make up your mind? Many scientists say its a nonissue and can keep going, but U kno better?
Stem cell research is just a symbol of how mean the government is when it’s all arbitrary about who is gonna get moneys. There’s no difference between stem cells and Graeme Frost and New Orleans if you ask me. Still it’s just money.
What I suspect is that stem cell research is mostly an academic sort of thing, and that what the little liberal monkeys are really upset about is the possibility that private money would step up, hire away the people at the academic labs, and basically establish a workable little model for how private money can serve the cause of basic science.
The tenet that “basic science” is something that must be nurtured at the government tit is really probably untenable given that the costs of basic science aren’t necessarily nearly as much a barrier to entry as they were when that whole concept became an actual tenet thingy.
Scientists are afraid of change mostly it sounds like.
theocons protestin about fed fundage for ESCR is like the anti-war protestin about federal fundage for war.
the blessed stem cell lines were started before GW was president.
i cud hardly have anything to do with them.
and, didnt u get that a fertilized egg isnt a baby?
GW has been giving 100K a year a to a program that is USELESS FOR HUMAN RESEARCH.
the paper came out in 2004.
the layman msm version in 2005
daley the scientists u cite are getting fed money for doing ESCR with devolving cell lines!!
how can u be so dumb?
they arent gonna own up to it.
nishi – How do President Bush’s funding levels compare to the 42 Presidents that came before him. Never mind, not a fair question. How do the current funding levels compare to the 8 years of Clinton in office? Still, not a fair question. Too facty. How about this? Let’s say some biotech company, or Big Evil Pharma wants to go out and fund $3.958 kajillion trillion gazillion dollars worth of embryonic stem cell research? What is stopping them?
i know everything, EVERTHING about ESCR.
just try me.
Okay, explain this to me:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17562675
didnt u get that a fertilized egg isnt a baby?
This seems to be the part that is hanging you up. That is your opinion, an opinion I happen to agree with, but an opinion nontheless. Other folks here hold a different opinion, and I don’t really like forcing my opinion on others if it is avoidable. So let’s find ways to work around it, and look to private funding or alternate methods of obtaining cells.
Leave nishi alone, BMoe. Don’t you have something better to be doing, like carving your initials on the wall of the outhouse down there in Athens?
ric, that is wat i mean about complimentary, not competitve.
imho, and in the opinion of all the researchers i know, we shud do both.
ASCs, while more rare and difficult to harvest do solve the immune rejection problem more elegantly.
but we need disease modelling too to solve problems like diabetes and alzheimers where we dont really unnerstand the etiology.
your belief that a fertilized egg is a “baby” is religious, not scientific.
religion does not belong in government.
not ur religion, not my religion.
B Moes, they are making ASCs into ESCs.
de-differntiating.
and it doesnt matter…..the ESCR expansion bill pass the next time.
your belief that a fertilized egg is a “baby†is religious, not scientific.
religion does not belong in government.
not ur religion, not my religion.
Is there any morality in government?
USELESS FOR HUMAN RESEARCH.
Other scientists disagree…wat dont u unnerstand
u need to lissen chickie poo
If only Bu$h had not banned embryonic stem cell research Christopher Reeve would be alive and walking and speople with Parkinson’s could start drinking hot coffee in crowded places again !
I really think this war is nice, and I think the government should fund it even if moonbats think it’s immoral. Thing is, private money isn’t really all that available to prosecute a war.
Private money for stem cell research is pretty imaginable though. It’s kind of a kooky morality though that can accept immoral acts financed with private money but can’t countenance the same thing when done with public money.
I think so let’s find ways to work around it, and look to private funding or alternate methods of obtaining cells is kind of glib is all. Either it’s bad enough to oppose in all its incarnations or it’s probably an acceptable trade-off for other things where the government appropriates moneys for doing stuff you like what others don’t.
Also there’s a point where these sorts of things just kind of drag on and don’t seem worth all the fuss sometimes.
Feets – Where did Amgen and Genentech get all their funding in the 1980s?
sigh.
would we have gone to the moon if not for fed fundage?
would we have the interwebs?
big drug companies dont do basic research.
they r&d stuff for profit, like viagras, anti-fat pills and alzheimers meds.
Obama is still mostly a wanker though cause what he wants is to fund nishi’s stem cells but he wants to abandon the Middle East to tyranny, which is something I myself don’t want to see happen. McCain will fund nishi’s stem cells and also help the Middle East get to where they act like normal people. See? Obama is divisive, not unitey.
Hey, now. Just cause I comment doesn’t mean I want to get all involved.
You mean dividey?
Thanks, Dan. Exactly.
morality is not equal to religion.
the founders were freemasons.
it is a sort of anti-religion.
yet still moral and ethical.
daly, dont u get it? u been had.
those researchers are sayin they got results becuz they are on the tit. they are taking fed fundage for doing research with devolving lines.
all their finding are suspect an quite possibly notreproducible.
government does not belong in science.
Not ur science, not my science.
heh
but feets, hes the wanker that is going to win.
its so cute how u all have evolved from hatin on mccain to hatin on obama.
why is that?
those researchers are sayin they got results becuz they are on the tit. they are taking fed fundage for doing research with devolving lines.
all their finding are suspect an quite possibly notreproducible.
Then let’s give them more!!!!!!
those researchers are sayin they got results becuz they are on the tit. they are taking fed fundage for doing research with devolving lines.
That seems like not a great argument for increasing federal funding.
Fascinating. Consider that, given the current rate of medical advances, we’re probably in vitro and then raise the zygote in vitro until it becomes a viable human baby. The whole Brave New World thing. You think the whole abortion and what’s a viable fetus argument is complicated now, just wait until you can choose to have your fetus removed and raised in vitro. Debates over harvesting stem cells from zygotes will probably seem quaint at that point.
And earlier
Okay, which is it? Are all government-employed scientists on the public tit, not to be trusted, and largely useless, or would we still be in the horse and buggy era without them?
Interesting times we live in..
I haven’t stopped hatin’ on McCain. I just stopped doing it out loud. It just doesn’t serve any purpose, and also Republicans can be hopey too you know.
For real it’s cute though?
So what you’re telling me is that dead babies have a shelf life. You really, really need for me not to start spreading that around.
“Igor! Zis fellow ist in a fery bad vay. Go and get zome embryos.”
“Ja, Herr Professor.”
“Und zey must be fresh, Igor. None of zis carrion-smelling devolved scheiss, verstehe?”
“Ja, Herr Professor.” [mutters] Embryos, bah. Grandfather Igor talked about grave-robbing. Wish I could be out in the fresh air.
“Macht schnell, Igor! For science!” [flash of lightning, roll of thunder]
“Ja, Herr Professor.” [exits]
Politics is the art of the possible. However distasteful, clearly the research will get done, surreptitiously or out of the country if necessary. I’m not gonna start an armed rebellion over the issue, but if my political clout is sufficient I can at least avoid having to subsidize it.
Or, in other words, I am required by force of arms to grant you right of acting according to your ethical and moral principles, but mine are worth only derision and bludgeons. F* you and your white horse, with your Gleaming Sword of Virtue.
Regards,
Ric
I tried to say this earlier, but my comment was lost in the internet maw. I favor private foundations and institutions furthering scientific inquiry, because I don’t want the government sticking its grubby partisan hands into it.
I am in favor of abortion, and opposed to any government mandate on the use of spent embryos. No government money. Patents are lucrative, and encourage the best research and outcomes.
How bizarre. My second sentence in the comment above should have read:
Stupid computers.
Thing is, private money isn’t really all that available to prosecute a war.
Not just unavailable but, unlike privately funded ESCR, actually banned by the lefty peacenik surrendercrat gubmint.
I agree a lot with cynn. I don’t get to say that every day is all.
Also I didn’t know that it was banned, TD, but I guess that’s probably just as well.
What’s crap, nishi?
OI,
There are good primers here: ESC and ASC.
The short version is this: The more primitive the cell, the more malleable it is. ECS’s can become any type of tissue, while ACS’s are generally limited to becoming tissue of the organ from which they originated. The latter boundary has recently had some holes knocked in it, but that is also not ready for prime time.
B Moes, they are making ASCs into ESCs.
de-differntiating.
I have no clue what that second line says, but doesn’t the first solve the problem?
B Moe,
You can’t buy ’em and you can’t sell ’em, by law. And at the end of the road, you’d have a process you’ve created, nothing more. In the market, especially under the law as it stands, there’s not a lot of money in it.
Maybe. And it could also short circuit rejection issues by allowing for autologous (from your own cells) therapy. But it’s way too early to tell. Needs more research.
Whoops. That was me, repeatedly.
nishi,
If that’s your summation of ESCR, you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do about it.
What the hell are you talking about? Who is prohibiting anyone from conducting stem cell research and how?
Well, not so much banned, as just plain old illegal. I mean, what do you think would happen if say, you tried to hire Blackwater to take out Hugo Chavez?
Is anyone saying that, cynn?
Pablo, you’re right, I was responding to the inference that if government doesn’t do it it doesn’t get done. Plus, can I just say that I resent the hands-on-hip chastising you righties persist in at every opportunity?
Oh. Well, yeah. I thought you meant more like if Congress cut funding for a mission, no one can say to the Pentagon hey I got this, here’s a check, now y’all go get the job done. Which, that would be weird.
If I were you, cynn, I’d go reread my #96. And then I’d decide against it. BECAUSE OF….well, you know.
cynn, just assume it isn’t pointed at you. It comes largely from our own experience of precisely that treatment from the Left, except that we also get sneers and finger-wagging.
My own position, despite the rants above, isn’t far from yours at all, provided that when you say you are “…in favor of abortion…” you mean that it ought to be ignored as a matter of law, not that it ought to be done as often as possible.
The Government runs on politics, where it runs at all. That being the case, arguing for Government funding or regulation of anything means you want that thing to be a political football — and you’ve no call to complain if it gets kicked around a bit and changes hands in the course of the game. Nishi is demanding that a political decision (allocation of funds) not be subject to politics. A sneer of “good f*ing luck* is not a sufficient dismissal.
Regards,
Ric
Pablo, what is problematic with my #96? I was merely responding to what I had read earlier, which appeared to be an argument over whether or not the government should fund stem cell research. Perhaps I misunderstood the parameters. I simply weighed in.
your belief that a fertilized egg is a “baby†is religious, not scientific.
So how would you scientifically define when a clump of human cells becomes a human being, with the attendant human rights? Seriously. This is the real crux of the issue and it is near impossible to get anyone to address it.
ser8ted
if govt does not belong in science, then we shudnt have gone to the moon.
an we shudnt be fundin the shuttle or the space station.
govt shudnt have funded the interwebs.
there are so many bioluddites here.
there is a whole new dimension of politics, biopolitics opening up.
transhumans, cyborgs, chimeras, silicon inteligences…and u theocons cling frantically to the reactionary and impossible idea that a fertilized egg is a “baby”!
a fertilized egg is a nonsentient clump of cells.
your religious beliefs are only shocking and disgusting to me in that u want to seek to convolve them with the conservative party, and u want to impose them on the entire country.
it is incredible to me how the theocons have allowed brain attrition to close their minds to the new frontiers expanding before us.
we are IN the vaunted Two Week Revolution of nanotech.
in May we will either find or not find Higgs Bosons (the “god particle”) at the LHSC!!
you cant separate out the “good” science from the “bad”(nontheocon approved) science.
it is nonseperable.
B Moe, when you get an official affidavit from God, let me know. I’m a notary.
most researchers believe that at 6 months gestation the fetus dreams, has REM sleep cycles and possesses sufficient neural substrate for emergent consciousness.
Too trite by half Cynn.
Why proscribe murder in the absence of just such an affadavit?
The hands on your hips, love. And the chastising.
#91, nope…it is more EXPENSIVE to de-differentiate than to use naturally occurrin de-differentiated cells….which is wat ESCs are.
My better half is going to have our second daughter in about a month, and we, I mean she, had an ultrasound today. I cannot imagine this being referred to as anything other than a child. Period.
ThomasD: Here’s a Tucks; use it wisely.
True dat. Here’s my metric: When, if left alone, it will grow into a human being, it is a human being. Nascent, sure, but alive.
JD: Hearty congratulations to your family. Because that’s what it is; perfect as conceived and envisioned. Many blessings and please save a spot in your prayers for some other folks out there, just saying.
Last time this topic got brought up, someone started throwing around viability, which frankly, seems like one of the flimsiest arguments around. When your child is 6 months old, they are not going to be able to survive for any period of time without another person providing for all of their basic needs. Sure, they are breathing on their own, without assistance, but that is a pretty low bar for liability.
It’s your Tucks, you need it more than I do.
So, just answer the question.
Thank you, cynn. I save a spot for all of you in our prayers, and for all of our country should, God forbid, Barry O get elected President. lol
you cant separate out the “good†science from the “badâ€Â(nontheocon approved) science.
They did at Nuremburg. I think we can probably manage again. Tell me, nishi, do you favor lobotomies for violent or high maintenance mental patients? How about forced fertilization of rapists? Forced abortions and fertilization for chronic welfare mothers? Forced organ harvesting from terminally ill and death row convicts? It would be sound science, and a benefit to society if we did.
JD: Regardless of who is elected, we will all hang together, becaude it’s gong to be a bumpy ride and somebocy always barfs.
in about a year the j-womb (japan-womb) will come on line.
so viability will no longer be an issue.
118
my dad is a surgeon…he allus says cutting should be the last option.
so no, i dont favor lobotomies or organharvesting or any of that stuff.
but i also endorse right to die.
Define liability, nishi.
so no, i dont favor lobotomies or organharvesting or any of that stuff.
But why? It is good science! It would save lives! It would be less expensive, and would relieve peoples torment and suffering! It is SCIENCE!
#110: Expense is irrelevant, nishi. We are entering the post-industrial era, where you make more money by giving things away than by selling them. Consider gene sequencing. Once upon a time it cost tens of dollars a base; nowadays the marginal cost is near nil. If it can be done at all it can be done cheaply, if not today, then soon.
Which means that the classic tradeoffs — the necessity to sacrifice our ethics, in individually trivial ways that never the less add up to betrayal of them, because the alternative was too expensive and therefore unethical in its own right — aren’t necessary any more. Making adult stem cells pluripotent is expensive and chancy right now, but the proof-of-concept is in: it can be done. That being the case, it will be expensive but routine tomorrow, merely dear the day after, cheap the day after that, and free by next week. We spend our wealth on all kinds of silly things, from wingsuits for sky divers to 72″ flat-panel TVs. Why not spend some of it bypassing this sort of ethical controversy?
What we do not need is some Jesuitical, hair-splitting, Roewade bullshit. “The fetus dreams at six months” — crap. Development varies by the individual, in the womb as in life, and there are no clear markers. There are very few true boundaries in nature; it’s all fractals when you look close enough. The moment of conception isn’t instantaneous, either, but it’s a clear enough boundary, and no others exist. If we use it as a criterion you have to work a little harder. My heart bleeds.
The larger issue is: if you demand benefit from a political process, you can not expect to be immune from the other political processes. My ethics and morality proceed from different assumptions than yours; in a complex society such conflicts are inevitable. I’m going to use the political process to attempt to make the policies and priorities of Government reflect my ethics to the extent possible. Presumably you will do the same, which makes it a contest — and if there’s anything at all to the concept of democracy, the outcome of that contest will be better, in the sense of stronger and more widely applicable, than anything either of us can come up with on our own. Demanding to be exempt from the process isn’t going to fly. It just isn’t.
Regards,
Ric
do u mean viability JD?
B Moes those are procedures on persons.
a fertilized egg is not a person.
do u honestly not see a difference?
Yes, nishi, viability. Define it.
That BMoe fellow sure is smart. I heard that if you want to get elected in Georgia, Athens is a must stop first stop to get clearance for your campaign. Even Cynthia McKinney turns to him for guidance, and then proceeds to ignore it. It is only a matter of time until BMoe is quoted my Justice Thomas, Roberts, Alito, and Scalia in a Supreme Court ruling.
Don Surber calls it the Humpty Dumpty Amendment. He says “we all have to agree that a fertilized egg is not a human being.” Humpty Dumpty was an egg, see? Hah. But also Humpty Dumpty is one of those nursery rhymes that actually started out as a riddle but no one thinks of it as a riddle anymore cause it’s so duh. I just thought that was interesting. Cause it’s kind of layered, but also I think it does kind of remind how these sorts of things tend to sort of resolve themselves over time.
I see the distinctions quite clearly, nishi, I am trying to shine some light on them for you. You appear to suddenly be capable of differentiating between “good” science and “bad”, should we arrange for a Baptism?
well ric i could just do without the lying.
again u insist that a nonsentient cell clump shud be accorded personhood.
i disagree.
u say ASCs can be made identical to ESCs..that is also a lie.
while u fret and fuss about the personhood of a fertilized egg, science is going to shoot right by u.
homo sapiens transhumanicus is right around the corner.
human/animal genetic mosaics, chimeras exist already.
wat percent human dna makes a human?
will silicon intelligences have rights?
all religions are anti-freedom at their base.
the founders were freemasons….do u even know wat that means?
i want religion out of government.
now.
will i get that? doubtful…we are hardwired for religion.
but i sure have a better chance of getting it with O.
and i feel confident the ESCR expansion bill will be funded.
this time.
Good science is the science she agrees with, and can secure funds for. All the others are bad. Like vivisection.
And when the ESCR expansion bill is passed, Christopher Reeve will rise from the dead and walk again, while algore fixes global warming.
viability is when the fetus can survive outside the womb, simply.
micro-preemies (less than 4 pounds) have survived at 5 months…..but they have a lot of defects generally, and the quality of their lives may be limited.
the j-womb will solve the viability issue.
it will, also incidentally enable two male partners supplied with a donor egg to have biological children nutured in an artificial womb.
Briefly, I am in favor of abortion but it was the worst thing I ever did. This post is about recognizing fertilized eggs as people and I think that’s a sloppy, pandering sop to the paleozoic sloppy wringers who want to hock a loogee on their way out.
Why is this relevant?
nishi – a 6 month old, 9 month old, 12 month old child cannot survive outside the womb without tremendous assistance from those around the child. My first was 3 pounds 2 oz, born almost 8 weeks early, and due to fucking sensational medical care that she probably could not have recd anywhere else in the world, suffered no lasting ill effects after a couple weeks in NICU. Both my niece and nephew would be, at least by the weight standard, micro preemie, and suffer no ill effects from same.
Not only is it not relevant, it is also not very accurate, Thomas.
homo sapiens transhumanicus is right around the corner.
human/animal genetic mosaics, chimeras exist already.
wat percent human dna makes a human?
Don’t know, but you better have that one figured out before you crank up that assembly line, or else you are going to have political issues that make this look like a fucking tea party.
I think that’s a sloppy, pandering sop to the paleozoic sloppy wringers who want to hock a loogee on their way out.
All this hard science is making me sleepy, g’nite all!
This debate/discussion plays out the exact same way every time.
Point well taken JD, but arguendo, even if true I would like Nishi to explain why it would be relevant. Else, why did she include it in her statement? Paid by the word?
it will, also incidentally enable two male partners supplied with a donor egg to have biological children nutured in an artificial womb.
Through in some Welsh Corgi genes and you will be sitting on a gold mine!
It counts I think that so far no one seems to want to use their embryonic stem cell powers for evil exactly. Nishi is really a lot right though about where we are, and that means on some level we need to know as much about this science as those who might want to actually for real use it in some really effed up ways.
Nishi blames religion but really it’s just culture. And other cultures may have a lot less scruples than we have, which is not an excuse to become like them but, yes, this kind of research is part of the battlefield I think. Or, maybe more precisely, how we reject or embrace science is part of the battlefield I think. It’s just hard for me to see how it’s a good thing to reject the anti-progress substrata of the global warmalists – bad science, that – and yet be all on board being all bright line about a promising area of research that’s going to move forward with or without us.
The myth that science can somehow be placed under a democratic aegis is what I’m trying to describe I think. We really for real don’t have a vote on science stuff. You can’t really veto none of this sort of thing. I’m trying to say Ric is wrong without getting in trouble is all, cause this isn’t my area and I want to go watch Terminator so I don’t wanna get all involved.
Strange days are coming and all that. Hey. James Cameron wrote that one too.
Quite frankly, I don’t forsee any economies of scale developing for male/male couples seeking to have children via artificial wombs…
Hmmm. The cheaper life is the more plentiful it will be is I guess the corollary there TD.
right
this is stupid, if u theocons are gonna insist on defining nonsentient cell clumps as persons,
i dont see much point in continuing this.
im opting for a waterglass of black jack and watchin back episodes of Bleach.
my head hurrts from bangin it against this wall.
Actually, what I was reaching for is something more opposite. That, since the number of male/male couples actually desirous of such technology would likely be small as compared to the number of otherwise single men or male/female couples who would desire such an option as to render that specific group statistically insignificant and therefore hardly worth mentioning except for the very reason they were mentioned, as a bloody shirt to the perceived right.
Dang, that sentence is almost Goldsteinian in length, if not clarity.
nishi – Is a 6 month old viable?
Ric – nishi is just a messed up computer geek who thinks she is smarter than she is with too much time on her hands.
From her 63:
your belief that a fertilized egg is a “baby†is religious, not scientific.
religion does not belong in government.
not ur religion, not my religion.
GAH!
No evidence that only other conclusion to science is religion, just telling others what they obviously believe – because she KNOWS things. What a nerd.
From her 76:
morality is not equal to religion.
Guess what? Morality can inform decisions and it isn’t necessarily derived from religion, although it can be.
Tell me about my moral code nishi. Your moral code says you are for wats popular or cool. You are obamoron muslim geek. Will u be zoroastrian next year?
don’t u get it. we do. U r fraud.
Science should be privileged over and above religious politics is all she’s saying I think daley. We can all easily discern how climatology has become a vessel of a neo-pagan religion. We should be really careful I think not to model an approach to bioscience off that kind of example.
As JD mentioned, these discussions always end up here. Certain individuals love to chime in with their chosen absolutes, but when pressed as to the moral implications or contradictions contained therein they dissemble, often feign inebriation, but always bolt the scene sooner or later.
Oh. Mostly I was just playing with words TD. I don’t really get the gay guys with the artificial womb thing. Unless it was for retriever puppies.
feets stop bein nice to me.
im evil
i embrace it.
the j-womb for samesex marriage biological children was a blade for the theocons.
one of their stupider arguments is that parents must be biological for marriage.
Oh. I didn’t know you were evil. Avaunt! Hah. Just kidding. Hey. You know who else is evil? Paula Abdul. I’m not shitting you.
I was just kidding.
Feets – Who are these theocon things the anime character keeps talking about? Have you ever encountered one?
I don’t think she is saying science must reign, she is taking the absolutist position that some of us must hold ours views, I have not shared mine, purely one religious grounds alone, that there can be no other reason. It has been a consistent position of her.
She also keeps claiming that GWB has been bad for science without any evidence, a typical liberal position. She got no game.
Science should be privileged over and above religious politics is all she’s saying I think daley. We can all easily discern how climatology has become a vessel of a neo-pagan religion. We should be really careful I think not to model an approach to bioscience off that kind of example.
But you also can’t dismiss all morality and ethics as archaic, vestigial, religious artifacts either. When the time comes that we can do advanced genetic engineering, there are some serious issues to be addressed. I don’t think you can ignore religion while you are playing God.
Right. It’s not something I have my head around, but for real evil ends are way worser than morally dubious means, religiously-informed or not, and willful ignorance is sort of a sin I think as well in the context of a world in which we are in an age of advanced genetic engineering whether our guys get funding or not.
I just wonder if we really want to embolden any discrete group in society to appropriate a veto over mere research.
Also it’s a different thing to fund a grant application than it is to direct resources to discrete areas on political whims. I don’t really understand all the technical mechanisms the NSF and that sort of community uses, just that they’re not the same idea. I think that gets lost.
I really am way out of my depth here.
Also I think “theocon” is shorthand for something else kind of. I think maybe it’s shorthand for Congress arrogating science policy to itself when a lot those people are way to dumb for that. I really agree with her if that’s her point. Barbara Boxer or John Warner are way too dumb to be making decisions about science policy. Charles Grassley and his ethanol science comes to mind.
I’m sure surgeon daddy is very proud, especially of her new fashionable religion. Wait until she brings home that bearded diaper and fan belt wearing hubby who wants her to remain fully bagged all the time outside the house. Good times, good times.
Oh. *too* dumb. And right before that I say “a lot those people” but that’s really for real how I use my limited range of modifiers so that’s written how I meant it.
your belief that a fertilized egg is a “baby†is religious, not scientific.
religion does not belong in government.
not ur religion, not my religion.
Actually, the concept of murder being wrong is a religious moral belief . I’m kinda happy our government was founded on Judeo-Christian morals rather than, say, the Aztecs, who would have solved the global warming problem with a human(adult) sacrifice or two.
Reverence for life is is a morality we can all agree with, and arguing when life begins by arbitrarily placing it at six months rather than at the beginning of the growth of a new human is just an agenda driven biased opinion.
our government was NOT founded on judeo-xian morals
washington and jefferson were freemasons.
presidents are still sworn in on the masonic bible.
freemasonry is anti-religion in the sense that religion is reguarded as personal and not to be convolved with public life.
masons are forbidden to discuss religion in their lodge meetings.
to this day.
concept of murder being wrong is a religious moral belief
it is a cultural taboo
and it is nearly universal.
cultural mores and taboos predate religion.
like incest taboos…which are based on biology.
religions like the ashkenazai jews and some muslim which advocate first cousin marriage trump bio-based mores with religous “moral” values.
But inasmuch as the ESCR funding is gonna pass for sure next time isn’t your overall assessment a bit dire? A few years hiccup really there was what happened, and probably augurs that next time this sort of dispute thing will be processed even faster. It’s more like maybe you have an aesthetic problem with the process more than a case against the for real results it produces.
Obama just seems way more likely to produce a science-budget-depleting welfare state than McCain would. A lot more Europe than Japan I think.
micro-preemies (less than 4 pounds) have survived at 5 months…..but they have a lot of defects generally, and the quality of their lives may be limited.
Some do and some don’t. You can’t tell which ones will have issues and which won’t.
the j-womb will solve the viability issue.
it will, also incidentally enable two male partners supplied with a donor egg to have biological children nutured in an artificial womb.
OK, that is just frightening and so many levels. Haven’t you ever seen a sci-fi movie? This never ends well.
As for morality doesn’t equal religion. I ask that our government has a level of “morality” in it, yet every moral issues gets covered over with ACLU or anti-religious types.
I don’t think a fertilized egg is a baby- and I don’t believe anyone here has said that depsite nishi’s attempts to paint with that brush. But I don’t know (and you don’t know) for sure when it becomes one. I know it certainly does before 6 months. How about when it can first move it arms and legs? Or has a beating heart (6 weeks, if I remember correctly.) I wouldn’t personally allow my eggs to be used for such a purpose, because I don’t feel it’s right. Others feel the same way. We don’t want to PAY for it either. You can call us luddites all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that some of us are motivated by a code of morality (or religion) that others don’t feel. What right do YOU have to say we are not entitled to fight against it?
I say, go ahead Nishi – use your eggs and your money and create a J-womb baby for replacement parts for Christopher Reeves or a baby for a gay couple. I want no part of it.
Bush’s precedent for cautious deliberativeness also may end up serving us well I think, especially if there’s a perception that his cautiousness is linearly related to the concomitant advances in ASCR. The story is still very much one of a celebration of scientific advancement, and in a remarkably consensusy way, notwithstanding NPR’s grumpyness.
[…] “Egg as a Person” post got a lot of reaction. Here’s the flip side: When is a person not a person? Posted by Dan […]
Also Democrats hate fusion research and mostly aren’t real big on physics generally, which is a big deal I think in terms of the quality of life improvements promised. Also Democrats hate pharmaceutical companies, which are really pretty good at the research thing and also they really a lot facilitate how scientists get opportunities to mostly drive really nice cars. MIT scientists drive nice cars too, but the nice car pie will definitely be bigger under McCain I think. Science people just really bank better in the private sector, and Obama don’t play that way. Cause he’s a socialist.
Wow, are you a madrugador, hf!
Um. Googling.
Oh. Good morning.
Healthy? Wealthy? Wise?
Barbara Boxer or John Warner are way too dumb to be making decisions about science policy.
Exactly. That includes making decisions on how to spend our money. Nishi earlier dismissed some research as invalid because it was done on the “government’s tit” in an argument advocating more of the same. Maybee called her on it and she completely ignored her.
our government was NOT founded on judeo-xian morals
That is just silly, nishi. The essence of the Constitution is inalienable, God-given rights. The Constitution is a document drawn up by the governed, granting a few of those God-given rights to the government in order for it to function. It was an incredibly radical doctrine in its day, and the idea of individual rights granted by God are its essence.
cultural mores and taboos predate religion.
Prove it.
Also Democrats hate fusion research and mostly aren’t real big on physics generally, which is a big deal I think in terms of the quality of life improvements promised. Also Democrats hate pharmaceutical companies…
The Democrats hate profit. As soon as any of this research pays off, and somebody starts to market it, the Democrats will be working their asses off to ban it.
Not really none of that. There’s a client what I have to help today is all. Also my Amex closed last night and it has Vegas on it so I had to figure that out.
the founders were freemasons.
it is a sort of anti-religion.
This is the sort of thing a person who thinks they just know stuff would write. The problem is, that it would be hard for this statement to be more wrong. I think the only way it could be the perfect storm of wrongness would be if none of the founders were freemasons.
Thing is, this bill doesn’t find them doing that. This bill simply allows for ESCR projects to compete in the pool of applications for federal grants. The decisions on how to spend the money are ultimately made by scientists after extensive peer review. The best science wins the grant money.
are u a mason edu guy?
wat i said is truth.
how can there be a separation of church and state if there are theocons in govt?
ric locke said fertilized eggs were babies.
that is breathtakingly stupid.
i think theocons are way too deliberatly stupid to be making decisions about biotech and science.
becuz theocons like GW and ric locke and huckabee believe fertilized eggs are babies.
let me ask something…why did Bill Frist step on?
i think it was because he changed his postion on ESCR when we discovered the blessed lines were devolving.
it doesnt matter any ways…..u ar gonna lose!!!!!!!
/gloat
O said in the debate last he wud have questioned the manically stupid Schiavo bill.
He’s the One!
My life for his!
Would have if what? That was March 2005. Obama was sworn in Jan 05. He would have questioned it if he hadn’t voted “present”…
He be bullshitting you and you be eating it like it was cotton candy. He shore is purty, though. Talks nicer than a $12 whore.
haha..and pablo is right, u cant stop science.
in may when we discover Higgs Bosons u theocons will be forced to learn about super strings and the cosmic landscape and copenhagen metaverses and twistors and electro-tweeks, haha, its sweet.
all ur kids will be playing Spore, ID and creationism will be deader than the dodo.
lulz
are u a mason edu guy?
wat i said is truth.
No, I am not a mason. I can read though.
Freemasonry stands for the values that are supreme in the life of the church and expects each member to follow his own faith and to place his duty to God above all other duties.
Does that sound like anti-religion to you?
pablo the vote was in the middle of the night on a weekend.
GW flew in to sign it at 1:00 am
starchamber enough for u?
Gaia-worshipping Barbara Boxer theocons and Obama’s hopeychangey climate nonsense promise to do more to discredit science than anything since eugenics. Obama is too easily led to be the One I think. He’s a follower at heart. You’ll see.
xpects each member to follow his own faith
yup
freemasons believe religion is personal and the individuals responsibility.
He’s more like an executive secretary than an executive. Cause of all the dictation he takes.
Wrong.
Care to try again, or are you just gonna keep basking in the afterglow of the fucking Big O just gave you?
In his defense he’s probably like an Exec Sec II cause he’s really good at event-planning.
haha, high schools will be buying multi-license copies of Spore.
ID will be relegated to the dustbins of history.
hehe
oh i dont care Pablo!
he said the S-word!
Obama FTW!
Education Guy – Don’t go getting all facty on the scientific text messager. Smack.
how can there be a separation of church and state if there are theocons in govt?
Sadly, this is one of those areas that has gotten way out of control. The mention of religion in the Constitution has 2 components, and for whatever reason only one of them is ever brought up in arguments like this. The way you would have it would be to disallow any subject to be discussed by government that even touches on religious themes and to bar anyone from service who could profess faith, which is in no way what was intended.
ric locke said fertilized eggs were babies.
I have the same baseline as Pablo, which means the only thing missing from ric’s statement is the word potential. Fertilized eggs are potential babies, and in the normal course of biological advancement, they will be actual babies. Why this doesn’t make you pause, I have no idea.
So what you’re trying to tell us is that you could care less about the substance, if any, of the man. He makes you all tingly with buzzwords, and that’s all it takes…for you to consider him worthy of the office of the President of the United States of America.
That’s pretty sharp, science girl.
and yup it was a hastily convened starchamber vote designed to circumvent argument on the floor.
member this?
Congressional Republicans anticipated Greer’s adverse ruling well before it was delivered and worked on a daily basis to find an alternative means of overturning the legal process by utilizing the authority of the United States Congress
ermm…is that constitutional?
hehe
feets, you can disagree with me. I might argue with you, but I won’t call you names. I’m not always right.
In this case, I may possibly be wrong about the direct issue — I don’t think so, naturally — but I’m not wrong about the meta-issue. Government funding is political. If you want Government funding you have to accept that the political process comes with it. Whether I and my fellows are right, wrong, or purple, we do sincerely hold those beliefs, we are ready, willing, and able to use the political process to advance those beliefs (just like everybody else), and there are enough of us around to make some headway. Calling us stupid is not an effective way to discourage us from doing that, and claiming an exemption from the political process is not gonna work.
Yes, the science goes where it goes, and physics isn’t subject to legislation. This is not a get out of jail free card, nor is it permission to dose black prisoners with poison to see if it suppresses the clap. Joseph Mengele is not a hero of medicine, whether or not his results are valuable for treating sick people. If the science really is science, not just an excuse for gratuitous cruelty by the overenthusiastic, the result will come out at the end. If we were under the gun in some way, ethical lapses might be permissible even if regrettable. We aren’t. We are rich enough to take the time to consider ethics and morality in the process; we can afford it, both in money and time, and failing to take advantage of that is the worst ethical violation of all.
Regards,
Ric
edu guy my 10,000 eggs that i born with are fucking potential babies.
try not to be a moron.
EG,
Inside the womb, yes. In a liquid nitrogen freezer, not so much. The odds are largely against babyhood.
freemasons believe religion is personal and the individuals responsibility.
Which isn’t even slightly anti-religious. The real giveaway is the part that occurs right after the snippet you quote — “to place his duty to God above all other duties.”.
Now, I really need to guess on this one, because as I said I am not a mason, but I strongly suspect you would not get an invite if you professed to be an atheist.
ric locke
i hope u or a loved one gets alzheimers
then well see how rich u feel, and how much time we have.
Notice how nishi glibly, you are glib nishi, changes the subject when someone points out how incredibly wrong she was?
nishi – you really are a twat.
oh noes u can be an atheist..u cant be a grrl tho!!
haha
Obama’s church is one of those ginormous ones, nishi. Not a sign of a particularly refined sensibility or a particularly intellectually demanding person. And not very freemasony at all. It’s like a big liberal Crystal Cathedral really, so at heart I don’t think he’s any more leadery than your average ID-loving evangelical in the 726th pew in the mezzanine. He picks popular leftist doctrine and follows it, which really doesn’t promise a particularly visionary term in office. He’s less a catalyst for change than a catalyst for dusting off a bunch of policy papers that his liberal posse has accumulated over the years.
im not wrong.
u can be an atheist…it is forbidden to discuss religion in lodge meetings.
nishi, the bill was a piece of crap, but your golden boy had plenty of time to get his ass to the Senate floor and vote against it. He did not, and now he wants to tell you how he was totally on your side about it. It’s bullshit, and you’re eating it with a spoon because you are not smart.
how can there be a separation of church and state if there are theocons in govt?
Talk about breathtakingly stupid. That is double digit, nishi.
feets, it doesnt matter….i have seen GW lie and place his religious values over the will of the ppl.
if my choice is between known evil stupidity and possible evil stupidity, with possiblity of good, im goin for the possibility.
at least it will be different.
ric locke
i hope u or a loved one gets alzheimers
then well see how rich u feel, and how much time we have.
That is just fucking wrong, nishi. I am done with you.
edu guy my 10,000 eggs that i born with are fucking potential babies.
try not to be a moron.
I’ll do my best. If you could pretend for a second that other people might know stuff too, that would also be helpful. As to your 10,000 eggs, they are not fertilized, so you are arguing against a strawman.
Inside the womb, yes. In a liquid nitrogen freezer, not so much. The odds are largely against babyhood.
Agreed. That said, the next step is to look at how they got that way in the first place, and why. It is almost always because someone wanted to have a baby. What to do with the non implanted ones is a tricky question. Experimentation on them, or using them for parts still contains the same ethical dilemmas.
ric locke said fertilized eggs were babies.
that is breathtakingly stupid.
i think theocons are way too deliberatly stupid to be making decisions about biotech and science.
That’s your biased opinion. And my biased opinion is that Science-types like yourself are way to amoral to be making decisions about biotech and science.
u can be an atheist…it is forbidden to discuss religion in lodge meetings.
Show me.
u mock the changeyhopiness, but i see it as the best chance we’ve got.
You know Bush isn’t running, right, nishi? He’s not an option to consider.
I think we agree a lot Ric. I’m just more excited by a sort of scientific anarchy that seems to be emerging – though Obama’s socialist impulses would retard that in America, not advance it I don’t think. Mostly it’s a romantic thing I realize, but I really do look towards the development of an ethos that embraces science, and I think that to get there with any real alacrity, I probably am willing to tolerate more risk – ethically, I guess.
It’s a slow process, cause I’m not thinking about just good sound policy blah blah blah, but a cultural embrace of science, which means education is paramount. Obama’s union-loving education policy will set science back decades even if he got every resource allocation decision right. He’s way more about the power of music to change the lives of inner-city children than about math and stuff. He can’t help it.
Best chance for what?
godammit the only difference between a fertilized egg and an unfertilized egg is diploid vs haploid cell nucleus chromosome count. 23 more coils of deoxyribonucleic acid.
that doesnt make a person, it doesnt make it a “baby”.
they are both non-sentient cell clumps.
wat are u arguing? intention?
how can u possibly be this stupid?
i have seen GW lie and place his religious values over the will of the ppl
You do realize that President Bush is not running for a third term, right?
feets music is math.
mccain is a third term for bush
never doubt it.
Nishi, you may very well be a bright, articulate, thoughtful person; if so, it doesn’t come across in your comments.
I recommend less glibness, and less I’m-surfing-the-web-with-my-phone spelling shorthand. My daughter has cerebral palsy (spastic diplegia), and if she can type in complete sentences, so can you.
Unless you’re even more handicapped, that is. If so, I’d be more inclined to forgive than, as is currently the case, ignore.
ric locke
i hope u or a loved one gets alzheimers
then well see how rich u feel, and how much time we have.
Kinda supports my position, doesn’t it?
Let’s pretend, for a moment, that all of us here actually have lives, and experiences. That, perhaps, we KNOW stuff. Have lived through things that perhaps we simply haven’t shared here. Your trump card of A LOVED ONE OF MINE HAD ALZHEIMERS SO I CAN SAY WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT only goes so far. Your personal experience isn’t the consummate of experiences. Get over yourself.
Nishi – Bush’s sins pale compared to the scientific and technological advances Obama would suppress in the private sector. Show me a society where the socialist impulse has come anywhere close to advancing science the nonhopeychangey way. Basic science is great and essential but it carries no message to teh peeples that this science/technology thing is really cool and they should get their heads around it. Applied science does that, and Obama does not promise much of a revolution there. He wants to cap and trade progress, really. It’s very elitist, and for the scientific two-week whatever we’re in, it’s important that we get as many people on board as possible I think. You do that by the people having tangible, positive experiences with applied science and technology. Apple does that way better than the Nat’l Academy Of Sciences or whatever. That’s just what I think anyway.
And, of course, if you wish to be thought of as someone worth arguing with, it’s probably best not to have your arguments, when visible, be accessible only by the use of rhetorical high explosives. Don’t be actus, please.
sigh.
the next 25 years are gonna put a stake in the heart of a lot of traditional religions.
new ones may arise.
ID theory and creationism will be deader than the dodo, tho. i’ll make book on that.
and we will discover the origin of consciousness.
and this debate will be over too.
godammit the only difference between a fertilized egg and an unfertilized egg is diploid vs haploid cell nucleus chromosome count. 23 more coils of deoxyribonucleic acid.
It is sort of funny how the name calling comes out in you when others are discussing this with you reasonably. Take a breath.
An egg on it’s own cannot and will not ever become a baby. Potential or otherwise. Same goes for sperm. Throwing out scientific terms will not change that no matter how much you think it should. Remember your Shakespeare – “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
my basic problem is this: just ESCR.
there are 400,000 snowflake embryos in cryostasis.
they are persons….they are not potential persons.
why cant we use a couple dozen of those non-sentient cell clumps to restart the devolving lines that GW brags about funding?
why?
He’s way more about the power of music to change the lives of inner-city children than about math and stuff. He can’t help it.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 2/27 @ 8:28 am #
feets music is math.
Well, let’s go see how much math you’re average Rap star knows … Detroit’s graduation rate is 33%. I’m sure if we just add a few music classes, the problem will be solved.
Except, of course, we can’t teach kids the music of DEAD WHITE GUYS, because that would be racist and they would be unable to relate. So, perhaps we’d start with Jazz (that would be the rigorous part of the curriculum), then we could move right on to R&B and finally a unit on the poetry of Rap. Here’s the number one song on iTunes:
Them baggy sweat pants
And the Reeboks with the straps [With the straps]
She turned around and gave that big booty a smack [Ayy]
She hit the flo [She hit the flo]
Next thing you know
Shawty got low low low low low low low low
[Verse 1:]
I ain’t never seen nuthin that’ll make me go,
This crazy all night spendin my dough
Had a million dollar vibe and a bottle to go
Dem birthday cakes, they stole the show
So sexual, she was flexible
Professional, drinkin X and ooo
Hold up wait a minute, do I see what I think I
Whoa
Did I think I seen shorty get low
Ain’t the same when it’s up that close
Make it rain, I’m makin it snow
Work the pole, I got the bank roll
Imma say that I prefer them no clothes
I’m into that, I love women exposed
She threw it back at me, I gave her more
Cash ain’t a problem, I know where it goes
She had them
It’s just beautiful.
they are NOT persons they are NOT potential persons
nishi, elitism breeds luddite reactionaries. That can be very messy and alienatey and the new religions that may arise could very well make evangelical Christianity look like the epitome of the enlightenment. You have to be mindful that ignoring and being impatient with people’s sensibilities is as much a vector in what will shape how our future will look as scientific progress is. Mary Shelley and William Gibson are companion pieces a lot I think.
It’s rhetorical hairballs, pretty much.
Ric
nishi owes you an apology for the alzheimer’s crack. On the theory that intention can lead to outcome, I hope you and yours are blessed with long lives that are so sweet that you can barely stand it.
Got any more bumperstickers for us, nishi, or do you actually have a point to make?
Or, possibly, rhetorical paintball pellets.
haha.
omg i gawd i lurved that song in Step Up II, carin.
i wrote a series on the globalization of hiphop at Gene Expression.
there is a morphological(CAT/PET) and functional(fMRI) correlate between brain scans in musicians and mathematicians.
so encouraging music programs in schools helps math programs.
a viral way encouraging mathematics thru music.
Why can’t we? There’s no ban on doing so.
I mean, there just might be a Sistine Chapel mural in there, but at this rate of coverage, it’s going to take a thousand years to complete. Duck, cover, feint, 3-round burst.
What also helps math programs a lot is math programs. There have been like studies and stuff.
Or, possibly, we’re trying to converse with an insanely fast mainframe, but we’ve got to do it via hex keypad.
It’s like nishi’s horking up an entire battleship, one rivet at a time.
Slarti – Now that, my friend, was funny.
I’ll be here ’til Thursday! Try the veal!
I’m just pleading for at least the sketch of decent-sized idea, all in one comment, in place of the rivet-horking. It’s not too much to ask for, I think.
I still haven’t seen anything to dissuade me from my personal notion that it’s actually just a Rosie O’Donnell blog poetry generator that’s achieved Rampancy.
slart.
any party with theocons is the anti-science party.
i tried with all my might to convince ppl here that a fertilized egg in cryostasis is NOT a person, NOT a “baby”.
i failed.
GW has done an excellent job on nat’l defense. he is a fine CinC.
he has done such a good job that i dont have to vote for the theocon party this time around.
GW is a theocon.
and he said on FOXnews that mccain is a theocon, mccain, according to GW, believes in LIFE!
so im voting for O.
because i can at least have hope that he is not anti-science.
And you want to elect the party of Al Gore? Ha!
GW is a theocon. mccain is a theocon. These are real gems. When someone starts spewing neocon and theocon, it is generally safe to assume that they know little of which they speak.
jeff said it first.
i boosted it from him.
So nishi believes that GW lied about funding for science but is telling the truth about McCain being a theocon. I wonder how she is able to tell the difference.
i tried with all my might to convince ppl here that a fertilized egg in cryostasis is NOT a person, NOT a “babyâ€Â.
This is because you don’t actually pay attention to other peoples arguments. You seem to think you are the smartest person in the “room”, and yet you can’t even manage to read for comprehension.
EG – nishi would much prefer to make up arguments for others, and then argue with that, rather than their stated positions. Also, nishi would like you to quit using facts, it makes her positions a bit more shaky.
Babies are cute and they giggle a lot about nothing. Fertilized eggs don’t do that. I think they are different, but if I found a fertilized egg I think I would try to find who it belonged to anyway. You never know but that it may be important to them.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 2/27 @ 6:40 am #
concept of murder being wrong is a religious moral belief
it is a cultural taboo
and it is nearly universal.
Except for muslim honor killing thingees, those seem to be cultural imperatives. Is that culture, morality or religion? I call bullshit once again on our little cyber moby.
nishi also said the ESC lines were no good because they were contaminatined. Links proved that claim was bullshit. Now she says the lines are no good because they are devolving. Once again, the moby’s credibility is suspect as hell?
Her knowledge of freemasonry….hahahahahahah!!!!!!!
Assertion, not evidence.
*sigh*
While the party that aligns itself with the Greens is all pro-sciency and shit? Have you ever heard of the religious left? The people who will gleefully tax you within an inch of your life to fund their “good works”?
Here’s something to chew on: I don’t want government to fund ESCR because it’s not the government’s job.
OMG!!! He believes in LIFE!!!
Guess what, I also believe in life. I happen to be enjoying one right now. It’s much preferable to the alternative.
In fact, lemme run a little thought experiment… one of the core premises of evolutionary biology is that the goal of an organism is to produce offspring, to produce more instances of its genes. That, in essence, means that the primary purpose of LIFE is to produce LIFE.
Isn’t it, then, the people who are opposed to preserving LIFE who are actually anti-science? Aren’t they working against our evolutionary imperatives?
So, then, aren’t the people protecting LIFE the ones who are acting in accordance with evolutionary biology?
I tend to view askance-ly any purely theological argument relating to government policy. When Florida decided to teach evolution in schools, last week or so, I was a happy guy. Why? Because I happen to think that any set of religious beliefs that wage war on fact are logically, and therefore theologically, bankrupt. And I say this as a confirmed Godbotherer.
It’s almost as if the E-word is supposed to be God-denial. Any reasonably complex Faith is chock-full of things that challenge faith. It’s why faith is vital to Faith. I don’t care what you call it; things do, demonstrably, evolve. If you’d prefer that Evolution and evolution be separated by some deft use of the shift key, meaning-wise, I’m ok with that. So, great: evolution can mean that things can and do evolve, and Evolution can mean whatever cosmological/biogenetical denial of your religion you’re pissed off about, and we’ll simply teach the former in school. Given that it’s consistent with science, and all. I’ve got absolutely no problem adding yet another question mark to my Faith. If you can’t take a little apparent contradiction, religion is not for you.
I mean, it’s not as if the Bible doesn’t practically juxtapose apparently contradictory things.
Regarding frozen blastocysts, I don’t yet have a position I care to defend, so I say that caution should be exercised. But I do think that those who insist that they’re equivalent to a baby, and therefore ought to be treated as babies, should carefully consider the ethics of having a freezer full of babycicles lying about, practically an invitation to mass slaughter should a power outage occur.
Where McCain lies on the scale of theoliticians, relative to GWB, I have no idea. He’s certainly not an f-cubed replacement.
This, nishi, is more or less what I have in mind when I say: please give us some rough notion of what you’re talking about. Not only what you think, but why you think what you think is correct. Use of paragraph breaks and occasional insertion of upper-case characters to denote names and beginnings of sentences would all be steps toward getting you a more understanding set of ears, if not a less critical set. Glib, leetspeak disdain just isn’t cutting it.
Bush said “theocon” on TV? Bullshit!
damn, nishi. you’re the goddess of the meat head threads. 258+
Godbotherer! nishi, slart’s beat you on creative language though! Unless he really is a skypilot
“You’re soldiers of God you must understand
The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job well
If it all was worth it
Only time it will tell
Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You’ll never, never, never, reach the sky”
I agree with Slart’s perspective about evolution. Facts are facts. Faith is faith. plural vs. the Unitary is how I see it. Faith can be a prism through which one obscures and colors those ‘facts’ as one sees them in the mind’s eye.
McCain? jeesh, he IS the best the Republicans could offer. Scary or the best President ever. I am on the fence here. I have my doubts about either Hillary or Obama even coming close to being elected. And McCain’s willingness to reject the neoFascists like that dickhead Big Mouth radio jock in Ohio makes him all the more appealing to the mainstream American. But his support for Bush’s policies will hurt him and he’s gotta sustain an Obama-like energy at his age????
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/media/27cnd-buckley.html?hp
Is there a new era approaching as a result of the death of the Right’s intellectual Genghis Khan? NOTE: that without Public TV, conservatism might not have become the dominate theme of American politics in the last 40 years. Buckley ruled on Firing Line and turned many a would-be “liberal” into a trooper for the Right. The three page summAry of his career above is excellent leaving out such howlers as his support for the Khmer Rouge (against the Vietnamese liberators of Cambodia) and his seeming early support for Mussolini and Hitler in his youth. May he meet his “Ducky” in the sky.
Nishi,
If you can’t demonstrate knowledge and honesty regarding our founding fathers, how are we to take you seriously regarding your opinions?
What was the relationship between Patrick Henry and James Madison regarding the Bill of Rights?
Were any founding fathers atheist? Any other denominations or religions? Or were they all Freemasons?
How smooth was the process of forming our current government? Why do they call it the 5000 year leap?
Also, what motivates you to construct this scientific world of personal oppression? The need to be victimized?
For what reason do you call Cunningham a “fascist”? Facts, please, including citations of his statements that provide support for fascist positions.
I’m no fan of Cunningham’s — he *is* a dickhead and a Big Mouth — but he’s less of a fascist than Obama.
I had no idea WFB began as a progressive. Did he write for The New Republic?
The more outrageous the claim, the greater the imperative that the person making that claim include a link — and the smaller the likelihood that dogmadave would even dream of doing so.
look..im conservative by heredity.
im a constitutionalist, and i fervently desire smaller government and lower taxes.
GW did a fine job on nat’l defense.
but i dont see that he was conservative anywhere else.
and up to 1/3 of the republican party is now percieved to be theocons.
theocons are nannystatists…they want to restrict my right to die if my parents should want to keep my nonsentient flesh doll/animated corpse going. theocons are not constitutionalists….they attempted to overturn judiciary branch rulings with the emminently sillie “terri’s law.” theocons want to restrict science–most generally biotech, including cloning, ESCR, genetic engineering and research chimeras. theocons want to restrict my reproductive choices. theocons have convolved religion with government, and would like to impose the teaching of quaint faery tales in high school science programs.
the republican party has been the anti-science party for the eight years.
my definition of theocon is someone who seeks to impose religious values on others thru the political process.
so im voting O.
your arguments are all that the democrats will be worse about science.
none of your arguments are that you do not seek to impose religious values thru the political process.
perhaps the democrats will be just as bad as the republican.
but at least they will not seat judicial theocons on the supreme court.
they want to restrict my right to die if my parents should want to keep my nonsentient flesh doll/animated corpse going.
It’s called a living will. Write one up, and whatever you want will happen. I can think of worse fates than my parents making life/death decisions for me if something happened and I hadn’t made my wishes known. I’d much prefer my parents were the deciders than an ex-husband or the government.
theocons want to restrict science–most generally biotech, including cloning, ESCR, genetic engineering and research chimeras.
I think, mostly, they don’t want to fund it with their taxes. Can’t you understand a wish to NOT fund something you are morally opposed to?
theocons want to restrict my reproductive choices.
I got lotsa choices for you 1)Birth Control 2)abstinance 3)adoption and 4)parenthood.
theocons have convolved religion with government, and would like to impose the teaching of quaint faery tales in high school science programs.
Yet, are you not bothered that EVERY child in public school is taught the ins and outs of Global Warming? My children were made fun of, by other children, because they didn’t go along with their set of “facts.”
the republican party has been the anti-science party for the eight years.
And the Dems are different how?
my definition of theocon is someone who seeks to impose religious values on others thru the political process.
Can you give me a for instance on that? You are personally being imposed upon?
Totally unlike the Democrats, right? No one with religious motivations over there?
Yes, but as you admit, only 1/3rd of the Republican party are nannystatists. A minimum of 2/3rds of the Democrat party is nannystatist:
o Guns
o GM foods
o Tobacco
o Alcohol
o Environment (extremism, not “keep it clean”)
o Speech
We’re talking about the party that’s the home of the phrase “dangerous individualism”, that’s been stoking the fires of race and class conflict my entire life, that’s been responsible for more restrictions on liberty than the right.
I’m not a big fan of some of the religious right, but I’m much less of a fan of the left. I know the religious right has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the things I dislike into law — but the left has shown a perfect willingness to sidestep things like the legislative process. I know which one is more dangerous to liberty.
You said you’re a “hereditary conservative” — try being a reasoned one.
If a human egg is a person, then a hen’s egg is a chicken! Which finally resolves the question of which came first: there’s no difference!
Glad to have cleared up that ancient philosophical conundrum at last.
Rob C;
I rather like your neo-term, theocons. And I have another for you: NeoComs, aka progressives, aka Marxists Redux.
I’m no libertarian, but here’s my somewhat favorable take on their core worldview: they see leftists and even most centrists saying, “We want our fair share of what others are producing!”, and replies, “No prob, bro! Your fair share is zero. Have a nice day!”
;)
geez carin cant u read?
the idea that a fertilized egg, a diploid nonsentient cell clump is “ensouled” is a religious idea.
heres my stock statement.
against abortion? don’t have one.
works for gay marriage too.
against gay marriage? dont have one.
so quit tryin to legislate religion.
doesnt work.
GW is a theocon.
and he said on FOXnews that mccain is a theocon, mccain, according to GW, believes in LIFE!
so im voting for O.
Because O. is for DEATH?
Sounds like you’re basing conclutions on very little data. Not good for someone who claims to be a scientist.
“Don’t like the way the government funds ESCR?” Don’t depend on the government!
“Don’t want to take care of your brain dead wife?” Don’t do it.
This is so easy!
the idea that a fertilized egg, a diploid nonsentient cell clump is “ensouled†is a religious idea.
So where does it say that in the Bible, nishi? You keep ignoring the significance of this moment, prior to conception, all that has existed is cells of your parents, but at this moment, YOU happened. The concept. The blueprint and building permit. The precise DNA that defines you came into being, and the biological machine began the process of bringing you to fruition. One doesn’t have to be a Christian, or any other faith, to appreciate the significance of this moment. What rights you have, and when you acquire them, whether you are a human being yet, all this is debatable. But the notion that this is purely a religious issue with no scientific relevance is just silly.
geez carin cant u read?
the idea that a fertilized egg, a diploid nonsentient cell clump is “ensouled†is a religious idea.
Geez, Nish, can’t you debate w/o pulling out the insults?
The facts are … either you are infringed by my religion, or I am infringed by your LACK of religion. Obviously only one instance is important in this issue. When I say I don’t want my taxes used for something I find wrong … your response is “no, sorry, your TAXES MUST be used, otherwise your religion is infringing upon me.”
I don’t understand why this is so difficult to understand.
The gay marriage is so like two years ago I think. I’m really bored with the gay marriage. No one talks about the gay marriage anymore. I think the big subject lately is hypoallergenic pets. They’re very expensive, you know.
But you like never sneeze and stuff.
Is there a hypoallergenic gay marriage?
I used to have a dog that pissed on my foot every time I sneezed. Didn’t take long to break me of that habit!
I guess like, if you maybe, um, no, Dan. There isn’t. I don’t think. Even if, it’s still just really, really tired I think, the gay marriage. Here’s a list of hypoallergenic dogs. But it’s not that simple. There are some on this list that are controversial. Like some people will say yeah but my cousin got one and they had to get rid of it blah blah blah.
The only ones I’ve met so far is one West Highland White Terrier named Katie. She is very boisterous and I didn’t sneeze at all. Also I met a little guy that was a Yorkshire Terrier, but I can’t remember his name. He had a ginormous head and was very bouncy. He didn’t make me sneeze either. I’m not allergic to dogs though, so I’m not really good to take along on these things. Still, puppies are a whole lot more fun than that stupid old boring gay marriage I think.
Actually the link will follow cause it doesn’t like it.
http://www.bigpawsonly*.com/Hypoallergenic-Dog-breed.htm
That’s weird about the dog. A friend of mine has a cat that bites you if you sneeze. For real biteyness. And what’s weird is there can be like this delay of like 6 or 7 minutes and you forget that you’re in danger and then he bites you. It’s really very odd.
Yorkie. Liz has one.
She’s dreamy.
Really. Yorkies rock but you kind of have to have them groomed I think so they look right and they should look right cause they’re expensive. That’s not something I do. Take dogs to the groomers. I’m just not that guy. I used to take my border collie to get shaved in like May, cause he got really hot in South Texas, but Yorkies are way more high maintenance.
I bet she is.
pfft
a fertilized egg is not “conscious”
it cannot react to stimuli
it cannot form thot
the only difference between a fertilized egg an unfertilized egg is 23 chromosomes.
is that a soul?
some old ppl in my parents condo building in the bahamas have a chinese hairless.
fugly but sweet.
Better than a chinless hairese, I guess.
#246- i tried with all my might to convince ppl here that a fertilized egg in cryostasis is NOT a person, NOT a “babyâ€Â.
i failed.
Here is your mighty efforts to convince:
#2- the sperm impacts the egg…and fertilization membrane lifts off, and nuclear content goes from haploid to diploid.
nope, no ensoulment here.
#10- if a fertilized egg is a potential person, arent all my 10,000 unfertilized eggs potential persons too?
#58- and, didnt u get that a fertilized egg isnt a baby?
#63-your belief that a fertilized egg is a “baby†is religious, not scientific.
#105- a fertilized egg is a nonsentient clump of cells.
#107- most researchers believe that at 6 months gestation the fetus dreams, has REM sleep cycles and possesses sufficient neural substrate for emergent consciousness.
#125- a fertilized egg is not a person.
#130- again u insist that a nonsentient cell clump shud be accorded personhood.
i disagree.
#145- this is stupid, if u theocons are gonna insist on defining nonsentient cell clumps as persons,
i dont see much point in continuing this.
im opting for a waterglass of black jack and watchin back episodes of Bleach.
my head hurrts from bangin it against this wall.
#180- ric locke said fertilized eggs were babies.
that is breathtakingly stupid.
#198- edu guy my 10,000 eggs that i born with are fucking potential babies.
try not to be a moron.
#218- godammit the only difference between a fertilized egg and an unfertilized egg is diploid vs haploid cell nucleus chromosome count. 23 more coils of deoxyribonucleic acid.
that doesnt make a person, it doesnt make it a “babyâ€Â.
they are both non-sentient cell clumps.
wat are u arguing? intention?
how can u possibly be this stupid?
#230- they are NOT persons they are NOT potential persons
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe that this is your best effort at convincing those that have ethical problems with messing with human embryos they are wrong, I just have no problem seeing how they might remain unconvinced by your efforts.
With regard to Freemasons. When I was a newly wed, my Father-in-Law, who was a Mason, invited me to join. Until I did, all he would tell me about them is the only requirement is a belief in God, and the only way to join was to be brought in by an existing member. Unfortunately, shortly after that, he died of cancer. The funeral was presided over by his Lutheran priest, but there was also a graveside ceremony by the Masons, which was very…well…interesting.
Anyway, based on that, I call bullshit on the claims that Freemasons are anti-religion and you can be an atheist Freemason.
the only requirement is a belief in God
Actually, what he said was a belief in a higher power, not any specific one.
our government was NOT founded on judeo-xian morals
Odd, all my life I was told we are. You’re the first I’ve heard say we aren’t.
washington and jefferson were freemasons.
presidents are still sworn in on the masonic bible.
Reeeealy? Are you saying Washington and Jefferson were not Christians?
Do you have anything to back up your assertion that presidents are sworn in on the Masonic Bible?
‘Cuz I’ve never heard of a Masonic bible, and never heard presidents were sworn in on one. Can you back that up, or should I just accept it along with your fact that embryos aren’t people til they’re six months old?
lee – nice summary of the geek.
she further says:
a fertilized egg is not “consciousâ€Â
it cannot react to stimuli
it cannot form thot
the only difference between a fertilized egg an unfertilized egg is 23 chromosomes.
is that a soul?
I haven’t seen any evidence that she has a soul. Does that mean by her logic she is not a person?
Yeah, her argument, best as I can tell, is that just because an egg has been fertilized, changed from haploid to diploid, gained 23 chromosomes, and began it’s human life cycle, it’s no different than the 10,000 other eggs in her womb.
I guess she arrived at this conclusion scientifically.
You know, you’re right. We’re fighting for the right to life of kids who will grow up feeding off their parents’ bile and hatred. And grow up to be our ideological enemies.
Sort of like what the military is doing in Iraq, huh.
This is the difference between right-thinkers and lefties. We actually give a shit about the other side, because we have hope for them. Because from a purely utilitarian POV, the strategic thing to do is to let all the gays *not* breed themselves – right into extinction; allow abortions to similarly carry others into extinction, leave the suicidal nuts to kill each other off; in fact, as some smartass once put it, ‘sell them enough rope to hang themselves’.
But this is not the right thing to do. And I hope I will never find it so.
Who keeps bringing up the soul, Nishi? I already made it clear that the wrangling over “personhood,” which you keep bringing into this, is where the debate gets unscientific.
Science can’t identify the point at which a fertilized ovum becomes conscious, because “consciousness” is a philosophical rather than a scientific concept. Yet it’s the “pro-choice” side of the argument that keeps drawing a line and saying, “before this point, it’s not a human life because it isn’t a person.”
Mike Huckabee is an idiot for letting the pro-choice red herring of “personhood” become a part of his argument. Nishi and those who agree with her probably thank God every day for people like Huckhead.
[…] these strange attractions to Obama… 263. Comment by nishizonoshinji on 2/27 @ 2:43 pm look..im conservative by heredity. im a […]