You can't assume the DHS is working because no attacks have been made unless you have actual evidence that the DHS is stopping the attacks,
True, but you never prove a negative. Even if you caught a bunch of (Insert your terrorist racial stereotype here)'s carrying bombs onto a plane, you still have no proof that they intended to bring down a plane. They could have been simply traveling to a "rock-blasting" convention in NY.
By giving the TSA agents a hard time, all this guy did was hold up other travelers who were trying to get to their destination and make life harder for himself. If the ACLU has their way, then security will removed completely making not only air travel unsafe, but simply being in an area where tumbling plane fragments may pass through fatal.
Now, the flipside of this, and where it relates to this case directly... a box of cash can not bring down a plane and should therefor be none of TSA's business. Their job is the safety of the travelers. Investigating people carrying large sums of cash trough security have nothing to do with airline safety.
Lack of bad guys taking action is not a positive indication that DHS has done anything.
True, but lack of bad guys succeeding in an action may be indication that DHS has done something.
It simply means that forethought and planning by the bad guys has caused them to be unready to act.
It's been eight years. That's a lot of planning. If DHS has caused their plans to be delayed and reworked for 8+ years, then I'd say it's working.
Nothing we or DHS does will really stop a well educated and well planned action by a terrorist.
No, but it can make the planning and action much more difficult, making an attack simply not worth the risk.
Get this through your heads, giving up liberty for security does not assure security it simply assures lack of liberty!
So do you drive without a seatbelt? Do you disregard "one way" signs on a busy street? Do you bang Haitian prostitutes without protection? All of these acts are illegal. Do they guarantee that you will not die in a car wreck, or some deadly STD? Of course not. Then why would you follow these rules. Do these rules "simply assure lack of liberty?" Of course not. So let me correct you faulty statement:
Get this through your heads, giving up liberty for security does not assure security it simply offers more security in exchange for a touch of liberty because dead people have no liberty at all!
No, they ARE the problem and they are looking to create more problems. They are the solution to nothing...
Well, it's been almost eight years since a plane has been hijacked. The DHS has either actively stopped the attacks or their presence has caused would-be terrorist to move their efforts elsewhere. Either way, it looks to me like the DHS is doing their job.
You mean the ranch Bush bought a few years before he was elected to make him look like an authentic Texan even though he was mostly raised and schooled in Maine and Connecticut?
I think it was the whole Governor of Texas title that made him look like a real Texan. Before that, it was the 20 years he lived in Midland TX where he met his wife and raised his kids.
But, hey! Don't let that stop you from hating him. You seem to have such a good grasp of the facts.
Of course they do - they slant drill into Iraq, Saddam bitchslaps them, and we go roll over him after telling him we wouldn't.
That is one of the bullshit excuses Saddam used to invade Kuwait. Of course, you believe it because a guy that rapes the wives of the political opposition and sends the video to her kids has so much credibility. But I'll let it stand because I was talking about the people who live in Kuwait. This doesn't just mean the sheiks in their Rolls, but the Bangladeshi workers, the Bedouins, the jewelry store owners, the guy selling pots, pans and prayer rugs and so on. These guys didn't (supposedly) "slant drill" into Iraq. They went to work everyday trying to feed their families.
Oh, and your bullshit excuse aside, you didn't mention Germany, Japan, Italy and the rest of the places I mentioned. Or was Germany justified because they were framed for sinking the Lusitania?
Yeah, so how are north Korea, Rwanda, and Darfur these days? How about that Taliban? We don't seem to care that much about 'other' people.
N. Korea, Rwanda and Darfur are all excellent examples of where we either didn't get involved or didn't finish the job. And yeah, they all suck. As for the Taliban, they are the guys that repressed the masses and harbored the guy that attacked us. So, the worse off the Taliban is, the better for us, and the better for the people of Afghanistan (most of them, anyway).
So how about examples of countries where the US/UN intervened and saw the job through to completion? Japan and Germany are the first two that come to mind. The people of Iraq seem to be doing better, but that job is not finished yet. The Italians seem to enjoy their freedom. The Kuwaitis love us!
Thanx for the examples of what happens when we don't finish the job.
Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.
The only thing you have to stop people from believing in is their right to impose their beliefs on others. Whether it be Islamists trying to convert the world into a Sharia state, or the U.S. trying to 'help' foreign countries be democratic, no good comes of meddling in others' affairs. Sadly it's one of the most basic human endeavours.
OK, but what do you do if a tyrannical government is forcing its "beliefs" on a powerless populace that doesn't want them? Do you stand by and watch innocent men, women and children be forced into state sponsored slavery and/or get slaughtered by the thousands or millions? Do you turn your head when genocide takes place even though you have the power to stop it?
Most wars are not started by one state wanting to force its way of life on the population of another state. Most wars happen for resources and liberation. So when you say no good comes of meddling in others' affairs, I'll ask you to tell that to a holocaust survivor, or Rwandan refugee. Sometimes, war is not only necessary, but a good thing. Yes, war is hell, but sometimes it's better than the alternative.
He may not have flushed the point out all the way, but the fact of it is that educated people have smaller families generally than non-educated people.
Look at the average family size in the ghetto, sub 20k a year earned income versus in a nice area, like Manhattan with 100k+ a year earned income.
Um, $100k in Manhattan IS the ghetto!
Keep in mind that on occasion, those in the "ghetto" have smart kids. Many people have kids that are smarter than themselves. Was the intelligence of Einstein, Hawking, or Hubble the average of their parent's? Of course not.
Education is not an indicator of intelligence. My degree showed that I had enough money to pay for classes (thanks US Army), had enough free time to study and do the work, and was capable of memorizing what the teacher told us to memorize. Rarely, did I actually have to think. I saw many people that could barely figure out what to do when the stop light changes do better than I did because they had more time, money or the ability to memorize data long enough to pass the test.
There are many brilliant, immigrant cab drivers all over the country who moved their families here so that their kids could have a better opportunity than what they could have had in their native country.
So much of what is sold as Protection these days is all about catching people AFTER the fact.
That's because doing things that would catch them BEFORE the fact are kinda frowned upon. You know, things like checking luggage and searching people before they board flights, searching the belongings of people coming into the country, listening to conversations overseas and so on. Hell, people are pissed that they have to show friggin ID before boarding a plane!
So make up your mind. Do you want to catch these guys BEFORE an attack or AFTER?
Really sounds to me like a combo of on-again off-again symptoms and symptoms that are fairly generic (i.e., shared w/ lots of conditions) than doctors and labs trying to squeeze ever last buck out of someone and their insurance. Now, if there is a problem if the first thing they do is run expensive tests for exotic diseases or something like that. I mean, a responsible physician would consider the a priori odds of each condition. And while I'm sure there are plenty of "quacks" out there, I'm not sure that's the first conclusion I would reach for in this particular case.
Exactly! Her symptoms could have pointed to IBS, poor diet, allergies, repeated food poisoning or even hypochondria. I don't expect a doctor to run every patient with a headache through an MRI. If this poor student truly was visiting quacks, they would have run every test known to man on her just to pocket the CHIP money!
What I really want to know is how they got a sample of her intestinal tissue for a high school science class.
I have yet to hear about an 18-year-old european that had to diagnose her/himself. I don't know what that proves. I'm just saying.
And before today, I had not heard of an 18-year-old American that had to diagnose her/himself. Although, that doesn't prove anything.
From TFA:
"As I get older, the disease can get worse," Terry told KOMO.
Crohn's disease is often misdiagnosed or diagnosed very late, says Dr. Corey Siegel, director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
"Granulomas are oftentimes very hard to find and not always even present at all," Siegel said. "I commend Jessica for her meticulous work."
Sounds like it's not that unusual to miss this early on. I assume the symptoms are not that pronounced until later in life and are not that obvious early on. Many diseases are this way. Breast cancer is usually not detected until a lump is felt or becomes visible via X-ray.
I know it was intended as a small poke, but a small light single-purpose device that performs flawlessly is miles ahead of a complex expensive device that does a bunch of stuff poorly.
Just to make things clear, I'm not a Luddite, and actually like (and develop) really cool technology. I just find it amusing that people will just about drool over the capabilities of a small device that wouldn't make it as a kids toy if it were full-size.
Call me when it has excellent voice and/or thought recognition and a non-intrusive wide-screen HUD with a good refresh rate.
It was halfway a poke.
The other half was what a great idea that a cell phone whose primary purpose is actually to be a phone! Bonus that it's easy to use and has no pesky contracts to lock you in.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a phone to actually be just a phone. For people that want that, something like the Jitterbug is a great option.
By the way, am I the only person who thinks that Alan Tudyk deserves to be the real star of "Dollhouse"? In two episodes he out-acted Eliza Dushku's entire season.
I like having (most of) the power of my computer in the palm of my hand, wherever I go. I enjoy being able to browse the web, play a quick game or send some emails as I'm waiting for a table or out on a smoke break.
If you don't like this sort of thing, then don't buy one of these. May I recommend the JitterBug.
At the risk of being branded a heretic, if I wanted a crappy computer with a tiny screen and keyboard, I'd buy a Sinclair.
Why does every chunk of plastic in the world want to be my computer?
Because you can't put your computer in your shirt pocket and take it with you everywhere you go. It's not about trying to be your computer. It's about having a device like your computer with you at all times.
You typed a whole bunch of good stuff and deserve a response, even though the thread is dead.
On the cures thing, I'm going to repeat myself (this makes three by the way.)
"It's fine to point out that no cures have come from ESC yet, but they do have other valuable uses."
I was talking about research. Research is ongoing, that should be an indication that we don't know enough. 10 years is not enough time to learn all we can about how cells turn from "lump of clay" cells into their final form, and for that we need embryonic stem cells.
Personally, I'm not against embryonic stem cell research. I am against killing an embryo for the purpose of such research. I am fully aware that ESC's are nothing more than a lump of cells and come from embryo's that are to be discarded anyway. The problem is that while these embryo's fate is already sealed, are they human. Sure, they don't resemble humans in anything other than their DNA, but when does this clump of cells deserve human rights? I don't know the answer, but even if I did, someone would disagree. So the best course of action is to not even guess as to when a human becomes human and start at the very beginning.
That's been around only for 2 years now, has some of it's own challenges (the oncogenes for one) and I did say "some" of the moral issues. iPSC were made using information gleaned from ESC.
See? That's why we needed ESC research. And, again, we still have much to learn about how embryonic stem cells turn into mature cells in natural development.
I agree that the research is important. There are no restrictions on ESC research, just US government funding. Those limits are only on new stem cell lines. "Old" lines started before 2001 are fully funded by the US government. I understand that these cells are not "pure" enough for actual use in humans, they are good enough for the research that we agree is necessary. What I have not heard with any credibility is that new ESC lines will offer any research benefit over existing cell lines, adult derived cell lines or lines derived from other sources such as cord blood. From my understanding, there is simply nothing to learn from new ESC lines that can not be learned from existing ESC lines non ESC lines.
Still, since there are no limits on private or other-government funding, if these lines truly held promise, they would find the funding they need. Remember, we are only talking about limiting funding from a single government. All private and foreign funding is not restricted in any way.
Oops! God is the biggest fetus aborter around. I'm too lazy to google it up for you, but some large percentage of fertalized eggs fail to attach in the womb. That's a fairly unintelligent design if it's a sin to kill a couple of cells.
First, you would be more correct if you considered mis-carriages "Deity-Induced-Abortions".
Either way, you are so right! Why do we jail all these people for murder when their so called "victims" would have been killed by God, mother nature, or spaghetti monster eventually anyway!
Yep, it's amusing that they'd rather have the embryos thrown away in the garbage or incinerated rather than be used to actually further medical science.
Yep, it's amusing that some people would rather have their dead bodies buried under ground or incinerated rather than be used to actually further medical science. Yet, for some strange reason, people are given the right to decide what happens to their bodies after they die. Who do these people think they are?
They're not even 200 cells. Hell, more cell dies last time you sneezed.
If you only consisted of 200 cells, you'd really think twice about sneezing. See, it's not the fact that it only uses 200 cells; that's irrelevant. What matters is the percentage. When 200 cells means 100%, it has a lot more meaning. Besides, how many cells are required before a blob of human cells deserves human rights?
But, if you want to play by your rules, fine. How many cells do you have? If I have more, does that mean I can deem you non-human?
So you feel that we can ethically use what we obtained unethically. That's certainly a convenient position to take, but it's ethically bankrupt.
Actually, it was a compromise. Bush did a lot of that early on and every time he reached across the aisle, he drew back a nub. Just look at how YOU are treating him for offering something that the previous president didn't offer. So even though it was more than what you had before, it wasn't everything you wanted, so you bash him like a spoiled child who throws a tantrum when she gets a new car on her 16th birthday in the wrong color.
According to the people who actually use the sanctioned cell lines, they have already deteriorated to the point of uselessness
Slashdot Mirror
You can't assume the DHS is working because no attacks have been made unless you have actual evidence that the DHS is stopping the attacks,
True, but you never prove a negative. Even if you caught a bunch of (Insert your terrorist racial stereotype here)'s carrying bombs onto a plane, you still have no proof that they intended to bring down a plane. They could have been simply traveling to a "rock-blasting" convention in NY.
By giving the TSA agents a hard time, all this guy did was hold up other travelers who were trying to get to their destination and make life harder for himself. If the ACLU has their way, then security will removed completely making not only air travel unsafe, but simply being in an area where tumbling plane fragments may pass through fatal.
Now, the flipside of this, and where it relates to this case directly... a box of cash can not bring down a plane and should therefor be none of TSA's business. Their job is the safety of the travelers. Investigating people carrying large sums of cash trough security have nothing to do with airline safety.
Lack of bad guys taking action is not a positive indication that DHS has done anything.
True, but lack of bad guys succeeding in an action may be indication that DHS has done something.
It simply means that forethought and planning by the bad guys has caused them to be unready to act.
It's been eight years. That's a lot of planning. If DHS has caused their plans to be delayed and reworked for 8+ years, then I'd say it's working.
Nothing we or DHS does will really stop a well educated and well planned action by a terrorist.
No, but it can make the planning and action much more difficult, making an attack simply not worth the risk.
Get this through your heads, giving up liberty for security does not assure security it simply assures lack of liberty!
So do you drive without a seatbelt? Do you disregard "one way" signs on a busy street? Do you bang Haitian prostitutes without protection? All of these acts are illegal. Do they guarantee that you will not die in a car wreck, or some deadly STD? Of course not. Then why would you follow these rules. Do these rules "simply assure lack of liberty?" Of course not. So let me correct you faulty statement:
Get this through your heads, giving up liberty for security does not assure security it simply offers more security in exchange for a touch of liberty because dead people have no liberty at all!
No, they ARE the problem and they are looking to create more problems. They are the solution to nothing...
Well, it's been almost eight years since a plane has been hijacked. The DHS has either actively stopped the attacks or their presence has caused would-be terrorist to move their efforts elsewhere. Either way, it looks to me like the DHS is doing their job.
You mean the ranch Bush bought a few years before he was elected to make him look like an authentic Texan even though he was mostly raised and schooled in Maine and Connecticut?
I think it was the whole Governor of Texas title that made him look like a real Texan. Before that, it was the 20 years he lived in Midland TX where he met his wife and raised his kids.
But, hey! Don't let that stop you from hating him. You seem to have such a good grasp of the facts.
I'm sure what you remember from high school is a good reason to dismiss the Carnegie Melon research team's results.
I think the important thing to ask is, "Who paid for the study?"
After 8 years of field service I still use a road map and Google Maps. I just don't need another crutch
I'll get off your lawn, shall I?
My GPS tells me that I'm on my own lawn!
The Kuwaitis love us!
Of course they do - they slant drill into Iraq, Saddam bitchslaps them, and we go roll over him after telling him we wouldn't.
That is one of the bullshit excuses Saddam used to invade Kuwait. Of course, you believe it because a guy that rapes the wives of the political opposition and sends the video to her kids has so much credibility. But I'll let it stand because I was talking about the people who live in Kuwait. This doesn't just mean the sheiks in their Rolls, but the Bangladeshi workers, the Bedouins, the jewelry store owners, the guy selling pots, pans and prayer rugs and so on. These guys didn't (supposedly) "slant drill" into Iraq. They went to work everyday trying to feed their families.
Oh, and your bullshit excuse aside, you didn't mention Germany, Japan, Italy and the rest of the places I mentioned. Or was Germany justified because they were framed for sinking the Lusitania?
Yeah, so how are north Korea, Rwanda, and Darfur these days? How about that Taliban? We don't seem to care that much about 'other' people.
N. Korea, Rwanda and Darfur are all excellent examples of where we either didn't get involved or didn't finish the job. And yeah, they all suck. As for the Taliban, they are the guys that repressed the masses and harbored the guy that attacked us. So, the worse off the Taliban is, the better for us, and the better for the people of Afghanistan (most of them, anyway).
So how about examples of countries where the US/UN intervened and saw the job through to completion? Japan and Germany are the first two that come to mind. The people of Iraq seem to be doing better, but that job is not finished yet. The Italians seem to enjoy their freedom. The Kuwaitis love us!
Thanx for the examples of what happens when we don't finish the job.
Oh, and I love your sig:
Pacifism. Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.
--Orwell
(Read the whole thing. It's brilliant!)
1. stop people believing in something
The only thing you have to stop people from believing in is their right to impose their beliefs on others. Whether it be Islamists trying to convert the world into a Sharia state, or the U.S. trying to 'help' foreign countries be democratic, no good comes of meddling in others' affairs. Sadly it's one of the most basic human endeavours.
OK, but what do you do if a tyrannical government is forcing its "beliefs" on a powerless populace that doesn't want them? Do you stand by and watch innocent men, women and children be forced into state sponsored slavery and/or get slaughtered by the thousands or millions? Do you turn your head when genocide takes place even though you have the power to stop it?
Most wars are not started by one state wanting to force its way of life on the population of another state. Most wars happen for resources and liberation. So when you say no good comes of meddling in others' affairs, I'll ask you to tell that to a holocaust survivor, or Rwandan refugee. Sometimes, war is not only necessary, but a good thing. Yes, war is hell, but sometimes it's better than the alternative.
He may not have flushed the point out all the way, but the fact of it is that educated people have smaller families generally than non-educated people.
Look at the average family size in the ghetto, sub 20k a year earned income versus in a nice area, like Manhattan with 100k+ a year earned income.
Um, $100k in Manhattan IS the ghetto!
Keep in mind that on occasion, those in the "ghetto" have smart kids. Many people have kids that are smarter than themselves. Was the intelligence of Einstein, Hawking, or Hubble the average of their parent's? Of course not.
Education is not an indicator of intelligence. My degree showed that I had enough money to pay for classes (thanks US Army), had enough free time to study and do the work, and was capable of memorizing what the teacher told us to memorize. Rarely, did I actually have to think. I saw many people that could barely figure out what to do when the stop light changes do better than I did because they had more time, money or the ability to memorize data long enough to pass the test.
There are many brilliant, immigrant cab drivers all over the country who moved their families here so that their kids could have a better opportunity than what they could have had in their native country.
So much of what is sold as Protection these days is all about catching people AFTER the fact.
That's because doing things that would catch them BEFORE the fact are kinda frowned upon. You know, things like checking luggage and searching people before they board flights, searching the belongings of people coming into the country, listening to conversations overseas and so on. Hell, people are pissed that they have to show friggin ID before boarding a plane!
So make up your mind. Do you want to catch these guys BEFORE an attack or AFTER?
Finger. Nail. (ouch!)
How is this a troll statement? What mod did this guy piss off in the past?
Seriously though, how did she get a sample of her intestinal tissue? There are only two entry points to the intestines.
Really sounds to me like a combo of on-again off-again symptoms and symptoms that are fairly generic (i.e., shared w/ lots of conditions) than doctors and labs trying to squeeze ever last buck out of someone and their insurance. Now, if there is a problem if the first thing they do is run expensive tests for exotic diseases or something like that. I mean, a responsible physician would consider the a priori odds of each condition. And while I'm sure there are plenty of "quacks" out there, I'm not sure that's the first conclusion I would reach for in this particular case.
Exactly! Her symptoms could have pointed to IBS, poor diet, allergies, repeated food poisoning or even hypochondria. I don't expect a doctor to run every patient with a headache through an MRI. If this poor student truly was visiting quacks, they would have run every test known to man on her just to pocket the CHIP money!
What I really want to know is how they got a sample of her intestinal tissue for a high school science class.
I have yet to hear about an 18-year-old european that had to diagnose her/himself. I don't know what that proves. I'm just saying.
And before today, I had not heard of an 18-year-old American that had to diagnose her/himself. Although, that doesn't prove anything.
From TFA:
"As I get older, the disease can get worse," Terry told KOMO.
Crohn's disease is often misdiagnosed or diagnosed very late, says Dr. Corey Siegel, director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
"Granulomas are oftentimes very hard to find and not always even present at all," Siegel said. "I commend Jessica for her meticulous work."
Sounds like it's not that unusual to miss this early on. I assume the symptoms are not that pronounced until later in life and are not that obvious early on. Many diseases are this way. Breast cancer is usually not detected until a lump is felt or becomes visible via X-ray.
How hard is it to block all traffic based on the country of origin, China in this case?
That last post was not supposed to be from AC.
I know it was intended as a small poke, but a small light single-purpose device that performs flawlessly is miles ahead of a complex expensive device that does a bunch of stuff poorly.
Just to make things clear, I'm not a Luddite, and actually like (and develop) really cool technology. I just find it amusing that people will just about drool over the capabilities of a small device that wouldn't make it as a kids toy if it were full-size.
Call me when it has excellent voice and/or thought recognition and a non-intrusive wide-screen HUD with a good refresh rate.
It was halfway a poke.
The other half was what a great idea that a cell phone whose primary purpose is actually to be a phone! Bonus that it's easy to use and has no pesky contracts to lock you in.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a phone to actually be just a phone. For people that want that, something like the Jitterbug is a great option.
Take no offense. It was just a light poke.
By the way, am I the only person who thinks that Alan Tudyk deserves to be the real star of "Dollhouse"? In two episodes he out-acted Eliza Dushku's entire season.
You watch Dollhouse for the acting?
I like having (most of) the power of my computer in the palm of my hand, wherever I go. I enjoy being able to browse the web, play a quick game or send some emails as I'm waiting for a table or out on a smoke break.
If you don't like this sort of thing, then don't buy one of these. May I recommend the JitterBug.
Someone please mod parent down and do not click on link (unless you are into that sort of thing)
At the risk of being branded a heretic, if I wanted a crappy computer with a tiny screen and keyboard, I'd buy a Sinclair.
Why does every chunk of plastic in the world want to be my computer?
Because you can't put your computer in your shirt pocket and take it with you everywhere you go. It's not about trying to be your computer. It's about having a device like your computer with you at all times.
You typed a whole bunch of good stuff and deserve a response, even though the thread is dead.
On the cures thing, I'm going to repeat myself (this makes three by the way.)
"It's fine to point out that no cures have come from ESC yet, but they do have other valuable uses."
I was talking about research. Research is ongoing, that should be an indication that we don't know enough. 10 years is not enough time to learn all we can about how cells turn from "lump of clay" cells into their final form, and for that we need embryonic stem cells.
Personally, I'm not against embryonic stem cell research. I am against killing an embryo for the purpose of such research. I am fully aware that ESC's are nothing more than a lump of cells and come from embryo's that are to be discarded anyway. The problem is that while these embryo's fate is already sealed, are they human. Sure, they don't resemble humans in anything other than their DNA, but when does this clump of cells deserve human rights? I don't know the answer, but even if I did, someone would disagree. So the best course of action is to not even guess as to when a human becomes human and start at the very beginning.
That's been around only for 2 years now, has some of it's own challenges (the oncogenes for one) and I did say "some" of the moral issues. iPSC were made using information gleaned from ESC.
See? That's why we needed ESC research. And, again, we still have much to learn about how embryonic stem cells turn into mature cells in natural development.
I agree that the research is important. There are no restrictions on ESC research, just US government funding. Those limits are only on new stem cell lines. "Old" lines started before 2001 are fully funded by the US government. I understand that these cells are not "pure" enough for actual use in humans, they are good enough for the research that we agree is necessary. What I have not heard with any credibility is that new ESC lines will offer any research benefit over existing cell lines, adult derived cell lines or lines derived from other sources such as cord blood. From my understanding, there is simply nothing to learn from new ESC lines that can not be learned from existing ESC lines non ESC lines.
Still, since there are no limits on private or other-government funding, if these lines truly held promise, they would find the funding they need. Remember, we are only talking about limiting funding from a single government. All private and foreign funding is not restricted in any way.
Oops! God is the biggest fetus aborter around. I'm too lazy to google it up for you, but some large percentage of fertalized eggs fail to attach in the womb. That's a fairly unintelligent design if it's a sin to kill a couple of cells.
First, you would be more correct if you considered mis-carriages "Deity-Induced-Abortions".
Either way, you are so right! Why do we jail all these people for murder when their so called "victims" would have been killed by God, mother nature, or spaghetti monster eventually anyway!
Yep, it's amusing that they'd rather have the embryos thrown away in the garbage or incinerated rather than be used to actually further medical science.
Yep, it's amusing that some people would rather have their dead bodies buried under ground or incinerated rather than be used to actually further medical science. Yet, for some strange reason, people are given the right to decide what happens to their bodies after they die. Who do these people think they are?
They're not even 200 cells. Hell, more cell dies last time you sneezed.
If you only consisted of 200 cells, you'd really think twice about sneezing. See, it's not the fact that it only uses 200 cells; that's irrelevant. What matters is the percentage. When 200 cells means 100%, it has a lot more meaning. Besides, how many cells are required before a blob of human cells deserves human rights?
But, if you want to play by your rules, fine. How many cells do you have? If I have more, does that mean I can deem you non-human?
So you feel that we can ethically use what we obtained unethically. That's certainly a convenient position to take, but it's ethically bankrupt.
Actually, it was a compromise. Bush did a lot of that early on and every time he reached across the aisle, he drew back a nub. Just look at how YOU are treating him for offering something that the previous president didn't offer. So even though it was more than what you had before, it wasn't everything you wanted, so you bash him like a spoiled child who throws a tantrum when she gets a new car on her 16th birthday in the wrong color.
According to the people who actually use the sanctioned cell lines, they have already deteriorated to the point of uselessness
Citation please.