What could possibly go wrong with this plan?
Thanks to advances in DNA technology, scientists can now reconstruct new copies of old viruses. Last year United States government scientists reconstructed the virus that caused the influenza epidemic of 1918. Now a team of French scientists has rebuilt a virus that infected our apelike ancestors several million years ago.
Full article here: (Part I and Part II)
George Bush has just vetoed a bill, approved by both Houses of Congress, which would have allowed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Apparently the President’s ethical philosophy places a higher value on American embryos than on Iraqi or Lebanese men, women and children. Don’t misunderstand ‘embryos’, by the way. We are not talking miniature babies here. The ‘embryos’ used for stem cell research are no bigger than a pinhead, and completely lacking in sentience of any kind.The illogical and hypocritical inconsistency between Bush’s stance on embryonic stem cell research on the one hand, and on slaughtered and maimed Iraqis and Lebanese on the other, is the subject of this article. It is an inconsistency that you could find only in a mind massively infected with the disease of religion.
It is possible to justify civilian casualties of war, if you can make a good ‘lesser of two evils’ case. In Donald Rumsfeld’s charming phraseology, ‘stuff happens’: civilian deaths are ‘collateral damage.’ In this article, I shall compare two kinds of collateral damage – civilians as casualties of war, and embryos as casualties of stem cell research – demonstrating the hypocrisy of those who happily condone the first while vetoing the second. It is worse than hypocrisy, because of the grotesque inequality in suffering caused by the two cases.
If there is a moral justification for collateral damage, it is inherent in the word collateral. To justify collateral damage, you must make a case that it really is an unavoidable by-product of the attainment of a greater good. And the magnitude of that greater good must exceed the magnitude of the collateral damage by some appreciable margin. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 caused enormous damage – death, burns, injury and long-term radiation effects – to innocent Japanese non-combatants. The justification offered is that it accelerated the ending of the war, thereby saving more lives than were lost. That, of course, raises the usual questions. Why the second bomb on Nagasaki? Why drop the bomb on a city at all, instead of staging a spectacular demonstration in an unpopulated area? But I leave such questions to one side. The general principle is that collateral damage is justifiable only by setting it off against a greater good. The collateral damage must be the lesser of evils, otherwise it is morally indefensible.
It is a great article by itself but I wanted to also point out the part on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His question, “Why drop the bomb on a city at all, instead of staging a spectacular demonstration in an unpopulated area?” Is one I’ve never considered before. His writing is infused with these little one-sentence insights like this that he just casts out there and leaves for you to consider. I learned more about evolution in his introduction to The Ancestor’s Tale than I ever knew before. Maybe that just shows my ignorance on the subject (which I am ashamed to say is a part of it), but I think it also serves to illustrate just how intelligent this man is. To me, the crumbs from his writing are like a feast. it inspires me to strive to reach that height.
Does anyone else find this as amusing as me?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people
I think even Sisyphus feels sorry for the person trying to fill that one in.
Did you know that the same inventor came up with both Freon and leaded gasoline? His name was Thomas Midgley, Jr. and he worked for General Motors in the 1920’s and 30’s. One historian remarked that Midgley “had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth history.” At the age of 51 he contracted polio and had to retire. Because of the disabling effects of polio, he invented a series of ropes and pulleys to help lift himself out of bed. At the age of 55, it strangled him to death when he got entangled in it.
The last video today, I promise. Some people might remember the post I had a few weeks ago of the girl that took a picture of herself everyday for 3 years. Well, it turns out she’s not the only person who had that idea (or apparently the first). This is a guy named Noah whose been taking his picture for 6 years:
“The FDA has for the first time approved the use of bacteria-eating viruses as an additive to foods. From now on, these viruses — known as bacteriophage or phage — can be sprayed on ready-to-eat cold cuts and luncheon meats by manufacturers to prevent listeriosis. Sounds delicious!”
12 If this doesn’t work, we’re trying in vitro! In Madagascar, families dig up the bones of dead relatives and parade them around the village in a ceremony called famadihana. The remains are then wrapped in a new shroud and reburied. The old shroud is given to a newly married, childless couple to cover the connubial bed.
13 During a railway expansion in Egypt in the 19th century, construction companies unearthed so many mummies that they used them as fuel for locomotives.
The Brick Testament – An illustrated Bible presented by The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith. Selections from the Holy Bible re-enacted using only Legos. It’s hell-acious! (Yeah, that was pretty bad.)
Update: I’ve been informed by the artist that the original Youtube version I had linked to was pirated. This links to a legal version on Atomfilms.
