There is the concept of scapegoating at play here. Do you really thing that Anderson had anything personally to do with the actions that night? Even remotely indirectly it's a big reach.
What happened was a shame, and awful. An industrial disaster that was unmitigated in it's terror and destruction.
A nearly $500 million settlement was reached with the government of India to repair to extend possible. That's 1980's dollars, by the way. That's a lot of money in India.
A crime equally nasty is that the government in India has done virtually no good with that money.
I'd wager my money on a squad of delta operators against any batallion of any armed forces of any nationality (excluding SAS) anywhere on the planet in real-world fighting conditions.
Read Black Hawk down sometime to read about how a delta guy ran back to base through a free-fire zone literally holding his guts, returning fire, in 100 degree mid-day sun after a 72-hr battle.
MS routinely licenses it's core OS and application code for review.
I've had a job where I had to work with the Windows 2000 source code for about 75% of the system. It's not bad at all. It's very well documentated both internally and externally. Things are logical and make sense. The internal workings of the kernel are very well designed, and show that when originally designed the people in charge knew what they were doing.
There were clearly some crufty parts - extensions and quick fixes. That's not unusual. There was a lot of interface to older stuff - old data access methods, old APIs, old integration that wasn't especially well encapsulated or engineered.
If you had to define how the internal workings of Windows 2k or newer in a few words it would be "heavily over engineered". In other systems, error checking takes place in just one place or on "one layer" of the system. From my viewing, there is a complete system of internal message passing for error trapping going from layer to layer to layer. It is very excellent for debugging.
It means that instead of having 100 people pick potatos you have 3 drive massive machines that auto-pick the same spuds. 100 is more than 3. 3 is less than 100.
Do you really want the government in total control of every bit you pass back and forth via the Internet?
That's not an appealing thought for many people
Re:Was The Game Show Rigged To Get Ratings?
on
Adieu to Ken Jennings
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The thing here is that Jeopardy had been falling in ratings for basically 10 years. There as no chance of a cult of personality for anyone but the host becaus after episodes the guy/gal was out. Also, the money never got that high. You had a lot of 5 time champs with something like 30-50k in winnings, maybe sometimes as high as 100k.
Thats not big enough money to get people really watching. ABC put on "Millionaire" which could give away way more cash on a given night.
It is not co-incidence that the ratings spike started when winners could keep winning and winning. Someone like Ken 5 years ago would have walked away with a cool $150k. No bad, but also, J! would have missed his fan base being developed and watching everynight.
The founding fathers had a "pet" cause. There were courts in England before the revolution. They did not pursue their cause their. The purpose of the English courts was not to correct the types of wrongs that the Americans perceived. Therefore, the founding fathers took the appropriate steps. Revolution.
Luckily the US citizens have a a constitutional right to a redress of their grievances.
The Constitution did not give Congress the right to grant copyright, etc for the purpose of one-sided profiteering by the publishing industries.
It says that Congress can grant copyright for a limited time, in order to promote the arts. Limited and promote are subjective terms which Congress gets to determine by law. The founders could have said "Congress can grant copyright for 7 years" than we could have a different discussion. They chose not to do this.
The answer to you question is you go to the people. People elect Congress. A new house every 2 years, a new Senate completely every 6 years.
The courts are not around to fix corruption. They are around only to answer questions of law and constitutionality. Period.
It most definitely IS the job of the courts to keep Congress in line.
Only in regards to constitutionality or conflicting jurisdiction or laws. The courts cannot, and should not, for example, decide that it dislikes a constitutional law and declare it void. That is not their role in the checks and balances.
The lesson plan is wrong. The Surpmre Court is not a body designed to regulate Congress. Period. Any other claim is bogus. Read Article III of the Constitution. The powers of the courts are extremely limited.
The courts handle issues of law ONLY. They do not pass laws. They do not execute the law. They do not decide if a bill is fair or unfair or nice or not nice. None of that is what the courts were intended or generally do. What courts do is interpret the law. They handle disputes between two laws. Law X says this. Law Y says something different on the same topic. How is this resolved? Courts. Congress passes a law. A citizens is harmed by it and claims it violates the Constitution. The courts hear the case. Does the law violate the Constitution? Yes? The law or section is invalid. That's all. The copyright case is a simple matter.
Question: does Congress have the right to regulate copyright. Answer (according to the courts): clearly yes. Question: can Congress extend the term of copyright? Answer, yes. Question: does extending the term of copyright promote the useful arts? Answer: yes. That's it folks. Is the law unfair? Doesn't matter to the courts. Is the law stupid? Doesn't matter to the courts. Is it mean, hateful, hurtful, damaging? Doesn't matter to the courts.
When you hear people railing against the courts it is most often because they want the courts to right a legislative wrong. That is not the role of the courts! They can only operate within the framework of the concept of judicial review.
It's how the government was designed, and the most effective way to combat purchased politicians.
No its not how it was designed. Read Article III again. Additionally, it is not the most effective way to combat purchased politicans. Nor should the courts be used that way. If Congress passes constitutional legal law that corrupt, bogus, mean, hurtful, expensive, and wasteful due to corruption the courts do not and should not have a role in changing that law! That is not their purpose nor place.
CAN regulate is a completely different thing then SHOULD regulate.
I agree. I am not suggesting elsewise.
Laws need to make sense and promote the welfare of ALL the people the law affects. If those conditions cannot be met, then the matter should be left unregulated, plain and simple.
I suggest nothing else.
I disagree strongly that the courts should not have any say with regard to the actions of Congress.
I have not suggested elsewise. Judicial review is bedrock to our system. Laws are reviewed for conflicts and constitionality.
courts have just as much responsiblity to protect and defend the rights of the people as Congress does
That's false. We have a problem. The courts job is not to protect peoples rights. That is the job of Congress and to a lesser degree the Executive. The courts job is clear, and laid out in the most clear language. The job of the courts to handle questions of law. Period. Sometimes this involves protecting people against mis-use of the law. But that is not the purpose of the courts.
The system of checks and balances means that no branch has absolute authority over the entire government. That's all.
The judiciary is not an equal partner in the government. They do not, for example, have the power of the executive. They do not, for example, have the power to pass laws. The powers of each branch are clearly enumerated. What is not enumerated is remanded to the states.
The premise of checks and balances is not to ensure that no single entity has all the legislative power. Short of constitutional changes, the legislature has 100% of all legislative power. That is their purpose!
Thus if it can be shown (and I think it can) that current copyright acts to retard progress of the arts, then it would be unconstutional and thus illegal.
I think you are wrong. Progress is subjective phrase. It is trivial to show that having healthy huge media companies promotes and strengthens the arts. Disney employs a lot of artists. There is no objective way to prove that these bills retard or depress the arts. At some point the argument becomes easily absurd: is 14 years good for the arts? What about 15 years? Oh that's bad? How about 14 years and 1 day? 14 years and 2 days? Where is the line? What is the formula? This is an exceedingly difficult area, and if you belive you could truly *prove* it you would have bested many who have tried before. Proof is hard in this case.
but the intent is clear. I think it's also pretty clear that life + 50 years is in violation of that.
The courts have repeadetely disagreed with you. They have essentially said that "limited times" means literally, a time period with an end on it. The argument was that if Congress keeps bumping the limit every twenty years it's not a limited time. However, to solve this problem one Congress would have to limit the power of another Congress. This is something the courts have always frowned very heavily on. For example, Congress could not pass a law that would stand review that said "no future Congress may ever extend copyright to more than life + 10". The courts would demolish that, and rightly so. The Congress gets to set *current* law, no law that future Congresses must abide by necessarily. On top of all that, there is a great debate that is non-ending about whether to consider the "spirit" or "intent" of the words. Do we rely on other historical documents - journals, letters, drafts, etc to make a judgement? Or do we build only upon precedent and primary binding sources? The trend is the latter, not the former. Asking the court to go down this route is not a likely path to success.
Congress passed a law that is in violation of the constution (or at least so I believe, as do others).
I do not agree, nor does the SCOTUS. That's all that really matters. Attempting to litigate this again and again is only going to further validate and entrench the law. The primary questions are: does Congress have the right to extend copyright and does Congress have the right to determine what exactly promotes the arts? The courts again and again have answered "yes". Which is why various laws regarding copyright have been very readily held-up.
The bottom line is that the Constitution does not place a "hard" restriction on the number of years copyright extends nor the breadth of enforcement or penalties. Until that is the case, it is up for debate and opinions will vary widely. No one bothers litigating things like the minimum age required to be President. Why? It is specified clearly. No ambiguity. You must be 35 years of age on the date that you would assume office. Otherwise it is a no go. Congress could easily have put that type of restriction on copyright. Copyright is for 7 years. Period. They did not. Ambiguity. Room for review. Room for definition by Congress.
This is a legislative issue. Going about things and hoping for a judical activist to reverse an unpopular niche law is not a very effective use of time, legal talent, or money.
There ya go. Copyrights must be "limited" and they must "promote the progress of science and arts" whereas the Sonny Bono act satisfies neither.
Yes, I am aware. The courts have determined that limited in this sense - as "limited time" means "having an end". That's all. "Promote the progress" is subjective.
The courts may or may not want to side with Lessig and the public commons, but it seems exceedingly rare that we will get another crack anytime soon.
Unless the SCOTUS comes out hard and definitively against the IP industry Congress will quickly act to patch up whatever problems are stated in an opinion. That's just how things are leaning.
The courts aren't the place for this action. Congress has the right to regulate copyrights. If they have gone to far - which I believe - Congress needs to be the one to fix it. "Limited times" means just that: having an end. "Promote the progress" is subjective: keeping Disney in business and healthy can be considered "promoting the progress" in a twisted light.
This matter is quickly leaving the realm of the courts. It is a legislative issue if there ever was one.
One of the things that is happening in this country is that people - especially with issues outside of the sight of the mainstream - are taking their pet causes to the courts for problem solving.
I think we need to face it: the copyright extensions passed by Congress were legal. We had one of the best minds of any generation - Lessig - argue the Eldred case in front of the Surpreme Court. They remained unmoved. Why? Because the Constitution is pretty clear on the issue... Congress gets to regulate these issues as they see fit.
The courts are not the right place to fight this issue. The courts are the wrong place to fight this issue.
Congress is where this is at. They pass the laws, they pass the penalties, they make it all happen. The courts cannot and more importantly should not be used as a legislative tool.
Copyright has swung too far from the commons that defined much of what is good about this country. Congress needs to move it back.
The Courts generally can offer no relief where there is none deserved. What is happening now with the extension, DMCA, etc is *exactly* what was intended by Congress.
Since the process for extracting and multiplying stem cell lines is essentially cloning
You need to research the issue. There is no way that the process of extracting stem cells could be called or confused with cloning. It simply isn't. There is no DNA manipulation. No sub-celluar modification. No reproduction.
The UN move would not have banned all embryonic stem cell research except for the purposes of human non-therapudic cloning.
Right, and I never said it did. I am simply saying it bolsters the conservative claim that other types of stem cells have suitability for a specific purpose - treating spinal cord injuries. The claim from the left was that federal funding was NECESSARY and that ONLY embryonic stem cells - often referred to as "stem cells" - are suitable.
It may be intentional, so Bush can tell his supporters he is "pro-life" when he only pushes measures guaranteed to fail, but to say there is no proposed ban is misleading and false.
Have you read the proposed text? Because I have, and the text nor any riders does not ban stem cell research. If you have some text or a link I will gladly post a retraction.
it he did in fact support and push for a UN Treaty that would have banned it
No, that is false. Bush never supported such a ban. He did support an international UN ban on cloning, including a ban on any type of stem cell for the purpose of human cloning.
The claim was that only embryonic stem cells could solve this problem - spinal cord injuries and the like. Critics claimed that the government was using bad science on purpose. The government claimed that other non-contraversial cells could do the same work.
This proves that embroynic stem cells are not the only stem cells with research value, which is what the government said. The government said they would only fund non-embryonic stem cells and that we should exploit fully the stem cells that do not come from fetuses.
The original claim bandied about during the election and during the debate on this topic is that people like Christoper Reeves could one day walk again if only we would do research on embryonic stem cells. The government has never funded this type of research, and was asked to fund it. The government declined, saying that other stem cells could do the same job without the ethical problems.
Fast forward to today. Non-embryonic stem cells - from a umblical cord - were used to fix a paralized spinal cord. This proves the claim that other stem cells could do the work of embryonic stem cells.
And the current government impedes working on embryonic stem cells for "ethical" reasons, when the cells get thrown in the trash can anyway?
Impeding and not funding are different things. An imposition is banning or blocking or imposing harsh regulations. Anyone, including you, can fund and research embroynic stem cell research. California has decided to do it for themselves. Good for them! The claim that bothers me the most, however, is that this result somehow proves that we don't need embryonic stem cells.
The claim before this development and during the election was that Christopher Reeves would walk again if it not for the Bush administration banning federal funding of new stem cells. It was a dramatic gauntlet thrown down, and one that is fundamentally false.
The bottom line is that the issue here is the future development of "factories" of human bits and pieces. It frightens people. Embryonic stem cells are thrown away, but we both know that in short order they would be harvested efficently and clinically with absolutely no regard to their nature: much like antibodies or animal specimens are harvested today.
It is hardly disturbing that the government would elect not to fund a practice which is very fairly consider contraversial for a pay-off that is available through other means or highly hypotethical. Bush has said repeatedly that if other avenues are exhausted or the circumstances warrant it a revisitation of the issue can be made.
The work was done in Korea, you idiot.
So? The work is done. Their work will be the basis for future work. Everything here worked. The Federal government of the US did not have to fund harvesting of embroynic stem cells.
Why pretend that because it happened first in South Korea that it doesn't count. The whole world has television, radio, and the Internet, correct?
Also expect that once the Fundies get Roe v. Wade overturned, the affluent will simply hop a plane to a more civilized country (such as Canada or Mexico) to terminate their pregnancies.
Many people, including myself, would take the position that any country that allows a fetus at 9 months - perhaps only days from delivery - to be partially delivered, have a hole cut into the skull, and have the brain sucked out with vacuum to better faciliate crushing the skull with a vise, and then extracted limb by limb with a pair of forceps to be more civilized.
The central argument of anti-abortionists is that it more civilized to bring the fetus to term and give it to a family willing and able to raise it instead of destroying it like a cancer or a mishapen cheek bone.
Slashdot Mirror
UC was heavily regulated at the time of the accident. Little did it good to the thousands who died.
Libertaniarism is good in this sense because at least you don't suffer from the perception that you protected by the government.
There is the concept of scapegoating at play here. Do you really thing that Anderson had anything personally to do with the actions that night? Even remotely indirectly it's a big reach.
What happened was a shame, and awful. An industrial disaster that was unmitigated in it's terror and destruction.
A nearly $500 million settlement was reached with the government of India to repair to extend possible. That's 1980's dollars, by the way. That's a lot of money in India.
A crime equally nasty is that the government in India has done virtually no good with that money.
Ahh.. RIGHT.
I'd wager my money on a squad of delta operators against any batallion of any armed forces of any nationality (excluding SAS) anywhere on the planet in real-world fighting conditions.
Read Black Hawk down sometime to read about how a delta guy ran back to base through a free-fire zone literally holding his guts, returning fire, in 100 degree mid-day sun after a 72-hr battle.
No, the architecture of the code is execellent for debugging 3rd party apps.
For example, drivers, kernel mode tools, etc.
Lots of debt, perfect payment history.
Ahh, no.
MS routinely licenses it's core OS and application code for review.
I've had a job where I had to work with the Windows 2000 source code for about 75% of the system. It's not bad at all. It's very well documentated both internally and externally. Things are logical and make sense. The internal workings of the kernel are very well designed, and show that when originally designed the people in charge knew what they were doing.
There were clearly some crufty parts - extensions and quick fixes. That's not unusual. There was a lot of interface to older stuff - old data access methods, old APIs, old integration that wasn't especially well encapsulated or engineered.
If you had to define how the internal workings of Windows 2k or newer in a few words it would be "heavily over engineered". In other systems, error checking takes place in just one place or on "one layer" of the system. From my viewing, there is a complete system of internal message passing for error trapping going from layer to layer to layer. It is very excellent for debugging.
It means that instead of having 100 people pick potatos you have 3 drive massive machines that auto-pick the same spuds. 100 is more than 3. 3 is less than 100.
See?
Do you really want the government in total control of every bit you pass back and forth via the Internet?
That's not an appealing thought for many people
The thing here is that Jeopardy had been falling in ratings for basically 10 years. There as no chance of a cult of personality for anyone but the host becaus after episodes the guy/gal was out. Also, the money never got that high. You had a lot of 5 time champs with something like 30-50k in winnings, maybe sometimes as high as 100k.
Thats not big enough money to get people really watching. ABC put on "Millionaire" which could give away way more cash on a given night.
It is not co-incidence that the ratings spike started when winners could keep winning and winning. Someone like Ken 5 years ago would have walked away with a cool $150k. No bad, but also, J! would have missed his fan base being developed and watching everynight.
The founding fathers had a "pet" cause. There were courts in England before the revolution. They did not pursue their cause their. The purpose of the English courts was not to correct the types of wrongs that the Americans perceived. Therefore, the founding fathers took the appropriate steps. Revolution.
Luckily the US citizens have a a constitutional right to a redress of their grievances.
The Constitution did not give Congress the right to grant copyright, etc for the purpose of one-sided profiteering by the publishing industries.
It says that Congress can grant copyright for a limited time, in order to promote the arts. Limited and promote are subjective terms which Congress gets to determine by law. The founders could have said "Congress can grant copyright for 7 years" than we could have a different discussion. They chose not to do this.
The answer to you question is you go to the people. People elect Congress. A new house every 2 years, a new Senate completely every 6 years.
The courts are not around to fix corruption. They are around only to answer questions of law and constitutionality. Period.
It most definitely IS the job of the courts to keep Congress in line. Only in regards to constitutionality or conflicting jurisdiction or laws. The courts cannot, and should not, for example, decide that it dislikes a constitutional law and declare it void. That is not their role in the checks and balances.
The lesson plan is wrong. The Surpmre Court is not a body designed to regulate Congress. Period. Any other claim is bogus. Read Article III of the Constitution. The powers of the courts are extremely limited.
The courts handle issues of law ONLY. They do not pass laws. They do not execute the law. They do not decide if a bill is fair or unfair or nice or not nice. None of that is what the courts were intended or generally do. What courts do is interpret the law. They handle disputes between two laws. Law X says this. Law Y says something different on the same topic. How is this resolved? Courts. Congress passes a law. A citizens is harmed by it and claims it violates the Constitution. The courts hear the case. Does the law violate the Constitution? Yes? The law or section is invalid. That's all. The copyright case is a simple matter.
Question: does Congress have the right to regulate copyright. Answer (according to the courts): clearly yes. Question: can Congress extend the term of copyright? Answer, yes. Question: does extending the term of copyright promote the useful arts? Answer: yes. That's it folks. Is the law unfair? Doesn't matter to the courts. Is the law stupid? Doesn't matter to the courts. Is it mean, hateful, hurtful, damaging? Doesn't matter to the courts.
When you hear people railing against the courts it is most often because they want the courts to right a legislative wrong. That is not the role of the courts! They can only operate within the framework of the concept of judicial review.
It's how the government was designed, and the most effective way to combat purchased politicians.
No its not how it was designed. Read Article III again. Additionally, it is not the most effective way to combat purchased politicans. Nor should the courts be used that way. If Congress passes constitutional legal law that corrupt, bogus, mean, hurtful, expensive, and wasteful due to corruption the courts do not and should not have a role in changing that law! That is not their purpose nor place.
CAN regulate is a completely different thing then SHOULD regulate.
I agree. I am not suggesting elsewise.
Laws need to make sense and promote the welfare of ALL the people the law affects. If those conditions cannot be met, then the matter should be left unregulated, plain and simple.
I suggest nothing else.
I disagree strongly that the courts should not have any say with regard to the actions of Congress.
I have not suggested elsewise. Judicial review is bedrock to our system. Laws are reviewed for conflicts and constitionality.
courts have just as much responsiblity to protect and defend the rights of the people as Congress does
That's false. We have a problem. The courts job is not to protect peoples rights. That is the job of Congress and to a lesser degree the Executive. The courts job is clear, and laid out in the most clear language. The job of the courts to handle questions of law. Period. Sometimes this involves protecting people against mis-use of the law. But that is not the purpose of the courts.
The system of checks and balances means that no branch has absolute authority over the entire government. That's all.
The judiciary is not an equal partner in the government. They do not, for example, have the power of the executive. They do not, for example, have the power to pass laws. The powers of each branch are clearly enumerated. What is not enumerated is remanded to the states.
The premise of checks and balances is not to ensure that no single entity has all the legislative power. Short of constitutional changes, the legislature has 100% of all legislative power. That is their purpose!
Thus if it can be shown (and I think it can) that current copyright acts to retard progress of the arts, then it would be unconstutional and thus illegal.
I think you are wrong. Progress is subjective phrase. It is trivial to show that having healthy huge media companies promotes and strengthens the arts. Disney employs a lot of artists. There is no objective way to prove that these bills retard or depress the arts. At some point the argument becomes easily absurd: is 14 years good for the arts? What about 15 years? Oh that's bad? How about 14 years and 1 day? 14 years and 2 days? Where is the line? What is the formula? This is an exceedingly difficult area, and if you belive you could truly *prove* it you would have bested many who have tried before. Proof is hard in this case.
but the intent is clear. I think it's also pretty clear that life + 50 years is in violation of that.
The courts have repeadetely disagreed with you. They have essentially said that "limited times" means literally, a time period with an end on it. The argument was that if Congress keeps bumping the limit every twenty years it's not a limited time. However, to solve this problem one Congress would have to limit the power of another Congress. This is something the courts have always frowned very heavily on. For example, Congress could not pass a law that would stand review that said "no future Congress may ever extend copyright to more than life + 10". The courts would demolish that, and rightly so. The Congress gets to set *current* law, no law that future Congresses must abide by necessarily. On top of all that, there is a great debate that is non-ending about whether to consider the "spirit" or "intent" of the words. Do we rely on other historical documents - journals, letters, drafts, etc to make a judgement? Or do we build only upon precedent and primary binding sources? The trend is the latter, not the former. Asking the court to go down this route is not a likely path to success.
Congress passed a law that is in violation of the constution (or at least so I believe, as do others).
I do not agree, nor does the SCOTUS. That's all that really matters. Attempting to litigate this again and again is only going to further validate and entrench the law. The primary questions are: does Congress have the right to extend copyright and does Congress have the right to determine what exactly promotes the arts? The courts again and again have answered "yes". Which is why various laws regarding copyright have been very readily held-up.
The bottom line is that the Constitution does not place a "hard" restriction on the number of years copyright extends nor the breadth of enforcement or penalties. Until that is the case, it is up for debate and opinions will vary widely. No one bothers litigating things like the minimum age required to be President. Why? It is specified clearly. No ambiguity. You must be 35 years of age on the date that you would assume office. Otherwise it is a no go. Congress could easily have put that type of restriction on copyright. Copyright is for 7 years. Period. They did not. Ambiguity. Room for review. Room for definition by Congress.
This is a legislative issue. Going about things and hoping for a judical activist to reverse an unpopular niche law is not a very effective use of time, legal talent, or money.
There ya go. Copyrights must be "limited" and they must "promote the progress of science and arts" whereas the Sonny Bono act satisfies neither.
Yes, I am aware. The courts have determined that limited in this sense - as "limited time" means "having an end". That's all. "Promote the progress" is subjective.
The courts may or may not want to side with Lessig and the public commons, but it seems exceedingly rare that we will get another crack anytime soon.
Unless the SCOTUS comes out hard and definitively against the IP industry Congress will quickly act to patch up whatever problems are stated in an opinion. That's just how things are leaning.
The courts aren't the place for this action. Congress has the right to regulate copyrights. If they have gone to far - which I believe - Congress needs to be the one to fix it. "Limited times" means just that: having an end. "Promote the progress" is subjective: keeping Disney in business and healthy can be considered "promoting the progress" in a twisted light.
This matter is quickly leaving the realm of the courts. It is a legislative issue if there ever was one.
One of the things that is happening in this country is that people - especially with issues outside of the sight of the mainstream - are taking their pet causes to the courts for problem solving.
I think we need to face it: the copyright extensions passed by Congress were legal. We had one of the best minds of any generation - Lessig - argue the Eldred case in front of the Surpreme Court. They remained unmoved. Why? Because the Constitution is pretty clear on the issue... Congress gets to regulate these issues as they see fit.
The courts are not the right place to fight this issue. The courts are the wrong place to fight this issue.
Congress is where this is at. They pass the laws, they pass the penalties, they make it all happen. The courts cannot and more importantly should not be used as a legislative tool.
Copyright has swung too far from the commons that defined much of what is good about this country. Congress needs to move it back.
The Courts generally can offer no relief where there is none deserved. What is happening now with the extension, DMCA, etc is *exactly* what was intended by Congress.
Since the process for extracting and multiplying stem cell lines is essentially cloning
You need to research the issue. There is no way that the process of extracting stem cells could be called or confused with cloning. It simply isn't. There is no DNA manipulation. No sub-celluar modification. No reproduction.
The UN move would not have banned all embryonic stem cell research except for the purposes of human non-therapudic cloning.
Right, and I never said it did. I am simply saying it bolsters the conservative claim that other types of stem cells have suitability for a specific purpose - treating spinal cord injuries. The claim from the left was that federal funding was NECESSARY and that ONLY embryonic stem cells - often referred to as "stem cells" - are suitable.
It may be intentional, so Bush can tell his supporters he is "pro-life" when he only pushes measures guaranteed to fail, but to say there is no proposed ban is misleading and false.
Have you read the proposed text? Because I have, and the text nor any riders does not ban stem cell research. If you have some text or a link I will gladly post a retraction.
it he did in fact support and push for a UN Treaty that would have banned it
No, that is false. Bush never supported such a ban. He did support an international UN ban on cloning, including a ban on any type of stem cell for the purpose of human cloning.
The claim was that only embryonic stem cells could solve this problem - spinal cord injuries and the like. Critics claimed that the government was using bad science on purpose. The government claimed that other non-contraversial cells could do the same work.
This proves that embroynic stem cells are not the only stem cells with research value, which is what the government said. The government said they would only fund non-embryonic stem cells and that we should exploit fully the stem cells that do not come from fetuses.
The original claim bandied about during the election and during the debate on this topic is that people like Christoper Reeves could one day walk again if only we would do research on embryonic stem cells. The government has never funded this type of research, and was asked to fund it. The government declined, saying that other stem cells could do the same job without the ethical problems.
Fast forward to today. Non-embryonic stem cells - from a umblical cord - were used to fix a paralized spinal cord. This proves the claim that other stem cells could do the work of embryonic stem cells.
And the current government impedes working on embryonic stem cells for "ethical" reasons, when the cells get thrown in the trash can anyway?
Impeding and not funding are different things. An imposition is banning or blocking or imposing harsh regulations. Anyone, including you, can fund and research embroynic stem cell research. California has decided to do it for themselves. Good for them!
The claim that bothers me the most, however, is that this result somehow proves that we don't need embryonic stem cells.
The claim before this development and during the election was that Christopher Reeves would walk again if it not for the Bush administration banning federal funding of new stem cells. It was a dramatic gauntlet thrown down, and one that is fundamentally false.
The bottom line is that the issue here is the future development of "factories" of human bits and pieces. It frightens people. Embryonic stem cells are thrown away, but we both know that in short order they would be harvested efficently and clinically with absolutely no regard to their nature: much like antibodies or animal specimens are harvested today.
It is hardly disturbing that the government would elect not to fund a practice which is very fairly consider contraversial for a pay-off that is available through other means or highly hypotethical. Bush has said repeatedly that if other avenues are exhausted or the circumstances warrant it a revisitation of the issue can be made.
The work was done in Korea, you idiot.
So? The work is done. Their work will be the basis for future work. Everything here worked. The Federal government of the US did not have to fund harvesting of embroynic stem cells.
Why pretend that because it happened first in South Korea that it doesn't count. The whole world has television, radio, and the Internet, correct?
Also expect that once the Fundies get Roe v. Wade overturned, the affluent will simply hop a plane to a more civilized country (such as Canada or Mexico) to terminate their pregnancies.
Many people, including myself, would take the position that any country that allows a fetus at 9 months - perhaps only days from delivery - to be partially delivered, have a hole cut into the skull, and have the brain sucked out with vacuum to better faciliate crushing the skull with a vise, and then extracted limb by limb with a pair of forceps to be more civilized.
The central argument of anti-abortionists is that it more civilized to bring the fetus to term and give it to a family willing and able to raise it instead of destroying it like a cancer or a mishapen cheek bone.