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Clark Withholds $60 Million Pledge to Stanford
vocaljess writes: "In an op-ed piece in Friday's New York Times (which you have to register to read, blah blah blah), Netscape creator Jim Clark has announced that he will withhold $60 million he had pledged to donate to Stanford University to build a center for biomedical engineering and science. He states "I believe our country risks being thrown into a dark age of medical research. Biologists are at the threshold of the most important set of discoveries in history, and rather than teach and lead, our politicians react and follow a conservative few. This legislative action will cause the United States to miss a revolution in biology.""
Everything you've said about Europe being better basically has to do with the difference in the size of the US vs. Europe---both in people and in area. For example:
1) It's alot easier to be better in telecommunications when your country is the size of one of our states. We're still trying to get cell towers to every part of the US, because its so big.
2) Public transit only works if you have a large number of people in a small area (see New York). In the US, most people prefer to spread out and live in the suburbs---doing things like owning their own house.
3) Television. To upgrade us to HDTV you have to upgrade the facilities of each and every local network in every big and small town. That's not a small task
Frankly, I can't believe how quickly intelligent people want to go down this stem cell road. Come on, did you read Brave New World and think it was a *good* idea? Did you see Gattaca and say "I want a society like that!". Don't you want to take a small step back and look at the ethical ramifications of using stem cells, with their own distinct DNA, as fodder for whatever experiments we want to conduct? Don't you realize this is not an end, but a beginning of some huge ethical situations?
And not to mention that embryo stem cells have a big disadvantage over adult ones---namely the fact that they have different DNA and will be as prone to rejection as any other transplant. Adult stem cells, of course, don't have this problem.
So many incorrect facts, so little time.
You need to re-read the Constitution I'm afraid.
Regarding federal funding, this falls under the "general welfare" statement in Article I. I believe the Supreme Court has said something on this matter. You know, the Court that interprets the Consititution?
Concerning some of the offtopic points:
Amendment 16 allows for an income tax. Was ratified by the US States I believe.
Regarding state rights. They don't have any in reality. There was a little war concerning that idea. I think it was called the Civil War.
Oh, by the way, just a bit of sarcasm in these remarks!