Microsoft Lies Regarding Software Re-activation, Invades Privacy

I recently woke one morning and upon rebooting my system to clear the memory and basically start a fresh had the distinct displeasure of being confronted by the very odd, to me, warning message that said I had made too many changes to my hardware and would in 3 days lose the Microsoft Windows XP SP2 operating system if I did not activate the software again to ensure I was legitimate. Huh? Like I'm some suspect in a crime?

Now I admit to having a particularly rebellious streak in me and dislike anyone telling me what to do without deserved authority or placing undue restrictions upon me that don't pass logical scrutiny. But this was beyond the pale! This triggered my fairness spiddey sense to it's maximum ever! "What hardware changes my mind screamed inside?!"

I had done nothing, NOTHING, to the internal hardware of this machine. Nothing of any hardware nature had been done since installation of XP save changing the monitor and that seemed to me to be beyond the scope of their activation program. What business was it of Microsoft's that I change my monitor? I understood their paranoid concept behind the activation of software protection of their intellectual property. It meant they stayed up nights worrying over someone installing a new motherboard and not buying a brand new copy of their latest OS, which by the way is unfair in itself! If I buy the software I own it period and I can put it on ANY pc I want as long as I do not duplicate it and make sure to remove it from any previous pc it was on. That's not how Microsoft sees it however. Billy boy ain't rich enough yet it seams.

The most egregious violation of our rights is the fact that Microsoft's OS products represent a monopoly. This is because 90% at least of all software is written to their OS and we are forced to use it because they sure don't allow any other OS to run software applications made to run on their OS.

Oh sure, you can try running Linux, if you happen to have a computer science degree and more time on your hands than reasonable for constant tweaking. It will run applications that can kind of sort of do what some of what is written for Microsoft OSes can do, sort of. Rumor has it even that one might possibly get a Windows clone/emulator to run on it for running written for Window software... when pigs grow wings! I mean Linux is not for the everyday home user. It's a server application for business and not small businesses really. It's also for the random geek with little else to do with their time but do endless tweaking to get this or that orphaned peripheral to work by writing their own code for that old hard drive that no one thought to make a module for. In other words the only really non pro user-friendly, if you can call it that, operating system for the masses is Microsoft's Windows. Like I said a MONOPOLY.

So for all practical purposes we are all forced into this position of slavery to one product without competition and they write all the rules. Of course you can complain but fat chance that will do any good because after all you clicked the little "agree" button to be able to use the crap. It of course wouldn't work unless you did.

Why even have the "agree" button? It's not like we really have a choice but to implicitly agree, do we?

So it was that with all this anger in mind I begrudgingly gave in and began the process to reactivate XP. Well, after all how much trouble is it really?
If you do it online you don't even need to find your original package for the ID and Key number.

However, I wanted to vent my frustration, disgorge my sense of violation on someone for having been threatened because no hardware changes had been made!

Besides, What business is it of Microsoft's if I had changed a hard drive or maybe installed a new DVD or added just one stick of ram too many before running afoul of their idea of "Hey buddy, that's a new pc now we need to see if we should bleed you some more."?!

So it was that I chose to do the call in form of reactivation. The first call failed. The line simply went dead. I called again. Oh I must mention the annoying automated attempt to deny you the satisfaction of griping to a real Microsoft personage. Finally, after I refused to say what the bot was asking and pressing # a half dozen times it agreed to put me in touch with a real-live-person. Finally! About damn time! But as I said the first try failed.

However I had gotten someone that I couldn't even hear. "Miss", I said, "I can barely hear you". In an obviously irritated tone she spoke up and began her spiel wanting the first four digits of the code on my screen. I said, "First I wish to lodge a complaint". "Why is this happening? I have done nothing to this machine!"

She replies that, "If you make too any changes to hardware or software...."

Hold the damn phone! "Did I hear her correctly?", I thought as my blood began to boil.

"The hell you say!" Went through my mind like a shot from a cannon! I practically screamed back at her, "Are you kidding me? Software? I can't change software without this happening? That's outrageous! I'm calling my lawyer!" I was beyond incensed by now. "You have no right to know how much I change the software", I wanted to say but I didn't bother with her another second. I hung up immediately too angry to continue.

Microsoft had out and out lied!

The error message had explicitly said "Too many changes have been made to the hardware on this machine".

There was no mention of too many software changes whatsoever! I thought to myself what an outrageous and what an un-called-for invasion of my privacy had occurred. I was being watched for changes to software!? Of all the unmitigated nerve!!!

Not only is it none of their business how much I change my hardware around it is absolutely NONE of their pea pickin business how many times I load or unload programs! This is simply beyond credulity!

Something must be done to regain our privacy and our rights. Microsoft will have to find less intrusive ways to protect their precious intellectual property.

Two things must happen. The first is a class action lawsuit. I am asking everyone that feels like I do to join with me in such an action.

The second thing that must happen is a lawsuit to pave the way for some competition for Microsoft for their operating systems at the very least. We must no longer be serfs, Microserfs to Microsoft!

END THE SLAVERY NOW!

END THE TYRANNY NOW!

DEMAND A CHOICE NOW!

DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE END TO MICROSOFT'S INVASION OF YOUR PRIVACY!

More than anything else, teach Microsoft the number one rule in business...
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT! Moreover the customer's "RIGHTS" must not be violated!

FutureQ

My critique of fellow SCI's embryonic stem cell debate claims

Preface: I am SCI (spinal cord injured). I belong to several fora where my unique community meets to share tips and discuss, 'life as' issues, etc. A debate ensued over the embryonic stem cell issue. What follows is my critique of certain opinions held by someone that ought to know better in my opinion. He believes he is sacrificing his recovery and in so doing taking the higher moral ground. I disagree that he's, one taking the higher moral ground at all and two, really sacrificing anything at all. Indeed he enjoys adoration from those that flock to those they feel mirror their own feelings over faith issues. Everyone acts out of self-interest. It doesn't matter what selfless act one believes one's self to be enacting, at bottom they did it for a selfish reason. It can be as simple as generating pleasant endorphins from emotions.

My response:

Well what a grand and well-written piece of propaganda we have from Mr. Jlubin. Pardon me Mr. Jlubin if I get a little sarcastic and exuberant below as I expose the flaws in your prose and your logic.

Mr. Jlubin: I am paralyzed from the neck down and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. Yes I want a cure but I don't want it to come at the cost of another life.

FutureQ: Way to narrow it down. I guess logically you really don’t want a cure, because even skin cells turned pluripotent are bound to show some loses of life. Cells are alive too you know. And umm, why mention the ventilator? Does looking more pathetic help your position? Why should it? Shouldn't the arguments stand on their own? You are using a propaganda technique to play upon the sympathies of your readers. Not fair dude!

Mr. Jlubin: Here's a quick review in biology. A sperm and an egg are human haploid cells or gametes (sex cells). Haploid cells have a single set of chromosomes in each cell. Most higher organisms are diploid – that is, they have two sets – but their gametes (sex cells) are haploid.

Each egg or sperm gets 23 chromosomes. When a sperm and egg are combined it's called conception, whether it happens naturally or in a dish. The resulting zygote contains all the 46 chromosomes need to be considered a human. It is a living human at that point based on biological analysis alone. It continues to divide and, when put in the proper environment, will grow to an embryo, fetus, baby, child and adult human.

Being a human, it is entitled to protection to life from the Government. Therefore, the Government should not be funding the destruction of life for the purpose of research. Now your opinion of when a human is a human and entitled to protection obviously differs from mine and president Bush. You can decide for yourself when a human becomes a human that is entitled to protection. Some people think after birth and not before.

I'm against IVF treatments as well because it creates extra embryos in the process.

FutureQ: Good luck with that one. Even the hard core right to lifers, er umm I mean, Repooplicans, have wisely kept their mitts off that one. Well too many of them bringing more of god’s little ones into the world with it right? Power in numbers in the bible belt, ya’ll.

Mr. Jlubin: As for using those extra embryos in research for the possible benefit of others, just because they are going to be destroyed anyway, following that reasoning, here's my problem with that. A person with a traumatic brain injury or in a coma being kept alive on ventilator will never be completely healed and will die without the life-support, so why not harvest their body parts to improve someone else's life? I see both equally wrong.

FutureQ: Indeed why not? I don’t see anything wrong with harvesting organs from someone that previously approved of it being done and they wind up brain dead with no reasonable sign of recovery. Let’s be clear here, comas are not persistent vegetative states. My criteria is the “individual’s mind” is dead. Terri Schaivo’s meat should have been euthanized and harvested, had she made donor arrangements. It should have happened long before all the years wasting away ruined them and before her meat became fodder for political wrangling. She did not exist anymore even though her meat still drew breath.

Here is the flaw in your logic. You, apparently by all indication, think that a body is a host for some parasite ethereal eternal being but yet you also illogically place person-hood values upon this meat. Science has proven this wrong long ago. There is no such thing as a non corporeal soul that gives a clump of cells arbitrarily human being status. Brain damage can do more than simply alter personality, it can indeed destroy the ‘person’, the ‘ID’, the ‘person-hood’, the ‘I inside’, while the body yet shows primitively understood signs of life.

What matters is information. REAL living human beings develop loving relationships and experiences. All this is information. If the brain is damaged to the point that it cannot retain the information that makes the person the ‘who’ that they were, and there’s not possibility of relearning or becoming someone else anew, then they, to me, are dead period. If that should happen to me don’t waste efforts keeping my meat around, put it to someone’s benefit.

Mr. Jlubin: If the unused embryos can not just remain frozen (which I don't see why not) then they will be thawed out, eventual stop growing and die. At that point they are incinerated as medical waste. To me that is more ethical than removing parts (ie stem cells) from a living human.

FutureQ: So I’m guessing you disapprove of removing your own adult stem cells? After all, are you not a living human being? But really it is more ethical to prolong their existences, oops I mean according to you -- their lives, but in the end, so it looks more natural, let them perish through neglect? Wow! I am nonplussed!

Mr. Jlubin: This is how it differs from organ donation. When organs are donated, a person is declared dead by doctors before the person is removed from life support and organs are harvested for transplant. When stem cells are removed from and otherwise viable "leftover" embryo, it is the remove of the stem cells that kills the embryo. The stem cell are not being removed from a dead embryo. They are not even declared dead by a doctor, just extra not going to be used for IVF.

FutureQ: Uh excuse please but just what criteria exactly is used to declare someone dead that differs so radically from the state of an embryo? Let’s see shall we?

1. Hmmm, no heart beat or pulse -- at least at any time yet proposed for when stem cells would be harvested. Oh yea, no heart!

2. No brain activity. Umm, NO BRAIN!

3. Eyes equal and responsive, yes/no? No = dead if combined with other criteria. Oops, I forgot, no eyes!

4. Cessation of sinus rhythm? Well of course no lungs?

Looks like embryos don’t stack up to organ donors for determination of life over death. Go figure!

Mr. Jlubin: Since pluripotent stem cells can be obtained from sources other than human embryos, it seem more ethical to me not to use human embryos for research.

[End of Mr. Jlubin's forum post]

FutureQ: Eh hem, well not quite the whole truth there, right? Care to elaborate those other sources friend? This is some clever propaganda mate. You’re as subtle as the serpent! Mix a little truth with a lie of omission and voila, have the faithful eating out of your hands! Oh I see they are already aren’t they?

The truth is pluripotency is only available from EMBRYO related products, like cord blood, placenta and of course embryonic stem cells. Now totipotency is available from the sources I am sure is meant here, as in adult stem cells but pluripotency, mmmm-going to need something close to umm, conception like activities.

Shall we explore some more truth?

No one is ever going to use foreign DNA material stem cells for the repair of anything! In other words, IVF leftovers were never expected to be used for cures. I sure the heck do not want any recently mixed of two strangers DNA-containing cell material placed in my spine!

More truth for those interested. It is hardly ever mentioned that IVF uses techniques to mimic the woman’s body in its role to weed the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. That’s too much information for the faithful lest they see through the subtleties. Many of those discarded embryos are discarded for the same reason they would never have implanted naturally in the first place, had they been naturally produced, because in all likelihood they had errors in DNA replication or other. This is not such the hindrance to research if they will never be used for actual treatments because we can still learn from what they do.

The reason for using IVF generated embryonic stem cells is ONLY, and always was, for learning nature’s tricks!

Here’s the fundamental truth of truths! The goal has always been to bypass using embryonic stem cells altogether! As a matter of fact this has finally just been done! Would that this goal had been more widely presented but then it wouldn’t create such a hot button issue to rally the faithful, would it now?

What Mr. Jlubin has not mentioned about his alleged other sources for pluripotent cells is equally troubling. In order to be useful and not consign us all to life sentences of compromised immune systems -- because we would must needs take immuno-suppressant drugs the rest of our lives – would necessarily need cause the actual bringing to life a real living and breathing packed with information human being. To be brought into the world, just so we could rob some of their cord blood, now that’s just special.

The same goes for placental stem cells. I don’t know about the rest of anyone but I cringe when I hear tales of babies born just to cure big sister or Dad, etc. Will they be treated as fairly as if there were not an ulterior motive to their planned existence? Indeed they could not be asked for permission so is that in itself fair? How will they feel when they learn that if not for another’s need they would not even exist? Show me the love!

Another thing overlooked in Mr. Jlubin’s logic is that any stem cells that are pluripotent regardless where they come from can indeed become a human under the right circumstances. If placed in the same conditions that he claims the mere possibility of alone requires us to consider them as being potential human beings with full government protected right to life. This by he and his ilk is considered ‘a given’ regardless if embryonic stem cells would even ever be so treated.

Well that’s the rub is it not? It’s the “right to life” issue that IS most telling here. I say again, all embryonic stem cell research objections are NOTHING BUT a WEDGE ISSUE for anti abortionists.

Mr. Jlubin, can you say you vote for freedom of a woman’s right to choice?

IMPORTANT LOGIC POINT FOLLOWS:

Here is another question for you. It highlights the flaw in your fundamental logic that embryos are persons.

Suppose for sake of argument you are fully capable of the tasks I am about to put forth.

Scenario:
You find yourself visiting an IVF clinic one day, perhaps to get dirt for shutting them down since you say you also object to them as well. For cove and stealth sake you have a friend or sibling or wife or child with you. But the thing is the more radical of your ilk neglected to tell you they intended taking more direct action that day. You find yourself waking up from a sudden shock from he force of a fire bombing that has induced a brief lapse of consciousness. Your loved one is across the room lying still unconscious as flames encroach nearby. As luck would have it or perhaps providence, a number of petri dishes that you recognize to at that moment be containing live embryos has landed in your lap, they total over one hundred.

Question:
Do you drop the one hundred “potential human beings with rights to life and government protection” and rescue your loved one or friend or even a stranger? You cannot carry the one hundred potential humans and rescue the breathing person too, not even one of the dishes and besides if you chose to make a choice of which dish to choose, just which one would you pick? Talk about playing god.

I don’t expect an answer to this above query because anyone reading the scenario knows well beforehand, you cannot answer it and still justify your position. How terrible a person you would have to be to stand by your stated opinion and choose to save the potential lives of the one hundred POTENTIAL HUMANS over ANY living breathing human being with INFORMATION, especially a loved one! One hundred vs one hmmm, oh the quandry.

I rest my case.

Look folks, this is not rocket science. Allow embryonic stem cell research to go forward. I promise it will not lead to wholesale harvesting of embryos or women selling their eggs or renting their wombs or any of the dozen or so strawman horrors that the ill informed and the willfully misinforming have placed as deterrents in the path of progress. It has already been proven we can turn adult cells from your own body into pluripotent stem cells capable of the promise that embryonic stem cells have been promoted for. We only need the actual embryonic stem cells for so long as is required to suss out all their tricks. Is that not reasonable?

Real people, with feelings, hopes and dreams, with the knowledge of loving and being loved are dying while heartless proselytizers mislead and obfuscate the truth in the debate. There should never have been a debate but alas science education in this country is abysmal.

I will make a prediction however. Since he stem cells from co-opted adult cells will be “pluripotent” the right to lifers will still object to them because after all, if they were to be implanted in a womb they too would have human potentiality.

They, if so implanted -- wait-for-it, would become clones!

"Oh the horror!" Umm, not!

FutureQ

Adendum: I strongly recommend the video lecture on the nature of "Potentially Human" and the problems with that notion by Dr. Lee M. Silver found here. Anyone concerned by the embryonic stem cell culture war needs to see this video!

One Man's Brain Washing Comment is the Pot Calling the Kettle Black

The following is my reply to a poster regarding his formulaic comments on the subject of fighting aging and ending death that he made in response to the article found here called: We Die Too Soon; Wise Methuselahs Could Save the World

The poster had the usual things to say, "we die for the benefit of future generations, so evolution can continue and improve", a gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory in itself, and a host of other clap trap that apologizes for aging and death failed sentiments that always try to excuse both as good things. They are anything BUT good things! Here is an excerpt of Dr. Panda's comments:

comment:

We Die Too Soon

by Markandeswar Panda

[Comment posted:34:09]

When science has nearly accepted evolution and is not interested in any other theories on the emergence of life from non-life, its proponents, the scientists must rely upon this force and forget the rest. Death is inevitable for the propagation of new DNA or RNA based life forms No matter what we do can relieve us from the pains of old age and the peaceful death.

For the believers of prophetic religions it is eternal heaven or hell. For the philosophical believers of eastern religions, it is life, samsAra, and karma. ... [blah blah blah... yadda yadda...]

Please find the rest of Dr. Panda's comments here at the bottom of the page of comments.

For Dr. Markandeswar Panda, Ph.D.(BU);Ph.D.(UCSC)

I am sorry, and with all due respect, I feel you suffer from your own particular brand of brain washing that exceeds that we must do what nature (evolution) or god or karma has dictated. These sentiments could not be further from the truth.

What IS "natural" for human beings is to modify our selves and our environment for the maximum benefit of our lives. Of course this must be done carefully and with an eye to balance and that our needs are not inadvertently negated by mistaken imbalances caused in nature.

IF there indeed IS a god or gods then what right have they to deny us the maximum of improvement even if it means treading on their so called territory? But the truth is there are no such beings and indeed cannot be. Likewise there are no eternal souls that Karma or reincarnation may act upon. Non corporeal entities violate the laws of physics and information theory.

For there to be any information sufficient enough to entail the complete life and essence of a human being would require several teraflops of information storage space! Where is such a huge amount of information storage space to be found in the ethereal? Where is that to be found in energy when energy alone, without matter to form it or guide it, has no capability to hold information? Yes, radio waves and light pulses, etc. do transmit information but they do so only after having it imparted to them by the modulation of a device made of matter. To read the information again requires a demodulator also made of matter. For there to be the simplest of information, a simple binary bit -- a mere on/off statement, there would need to be some differentiation between one chunk of energy -- of these supposed non corporeal beings, souls, gods, etc. -- and another chunk... some dirtiness if you will. This is not possible when all chunks, so to speak, of any said energy must be identical to all other amounts of same. No sample of pure energy in and of itself could ever hold and regurgitate or act upon even the simplest of true/false or 0-1 binary statements.

All that we are is that which is recorded in the 'meat' (matter) of the connectivity of our neurons in our brains and the weights and potentials applied within their workings. This was clearly learned when Phineas Gage lost his personality and goodly nature when a tamping rod went through his frontal lobe when an explosion accident occurred while working on a length of railroad tracks. Why oh why are we more than one hundred years hence from Gage's accident still believing in spirits and ghosts? His accident proved that there could not be a non corporeal aspect to human essence because by the very description of such, being non corporeal, without form, it could not be acted upon by that which does have form. Souls should not be affected by mere accident. Or does god hold liable and consign to hell a man unlucky enough to merely have inadvertent brain damage by no fault of his own? It is a ludicrous situation to even ponder.

We should and we will do everything we can to conquer aging and indeed even make inroads into smiting death itself. Would anyone not figure that it would be long ago so conquered by say a non terrestrial civilization perhaps a million or even ten thousand only, years ahead of we in technology? Or even ourselves a few thousand years from now?

Well of course we expect such things of the constant march of science and technology. Why should it take so long then when while we here discuss our own future possibilities, nowadays tech and science are right now exponentially climbing the ramparts?! We ARE fast approaching a technological Singularity, named for the event horizon of black holes where beyond which we can not retrieve information, yet, in that in our soon to be future development is happening so fast we soon will be incapable predicting even the broad strokes of where it may lead... indeed if we in our present forms can understand at all the levels of technology we will soon collectively reach. I heartily recommend the book "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" by Ray Kurzweil.

Human evolution naturally encompasses changing our environment and ourselves. we have already done this. We have altered natural selection merely by the advent of civilization and wealth procurement. We are on the verge of the safe and prudent ability to alter and perfect, repair mistakes in our own genome. Evolution is now and soon to be more so largely in our own hands from here on out. I for one rejoice in the possibilities.

Lament not the death of death and the same for its siblings disease and aging. Given the savings of knowledge and of verve by keeping our learned alive long enough to really make a difference with the knowledge and wisdom they gained over a hundred and more years of life, will without a doubt find all the necessary early answers needed to ease our transition to a truly mature and worthy species for the universe. We can do it, we have the technology... all we need is the will.

Onward!

FutureQ

Feed the Children vs Global Warming

Some people only think they are smart, like the author of this article, found on Fox News no less, and end up regaling the rest of us with their two cent drug store wisdom to the detriment of our collective intellect. It behooves one to learn the meaning of the word Meme, folks. The cost is far more than two cents though, if we do not employ critical thinking to discern truth from hyperbole and platitude.

To wit, the case here in point. My Dad thought this was plain and simply full of wisdom. He and I being on the opposite side of the Global Warming debate.

Warming Concerns

Thursday, February 22, 2007

By Steven Milloy

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said famed 18th century British lexicographer Samuel Johnson. To update the quote for our current era you might substitute “children” for “patriotism” and “climate alarmist” for “scoundrel.”

Last week, outgoing United Nations World Food Program chief James Morris reminded us that 18,000 children die every day from hunger and malnutrition. Morris called the situation “a terrible indictment of the world in 2007.”

In contrast to our quixotic fixation with trying to fine-tune global climate by tweaking atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the ongoing tragedy of starving children would seem to be a relatively easy problem to solve. After all, wealthy developed nations have plenty of surplus food and the wherewithal to deliver it to the world’s malnourished.

As usual find the rest of this glorious piece of shi.. er wisdom here.

Soooo, hmmm, we feed the starving children then Global Warming catches up because we neglected it for the starving children's sake and still kills them in various hideous ways. Yeah, good plan!

NOT!

Look, I'll give them their precious "Natural Cycle Only" bit for sake of argument. The issue still is we have dumped 30% more CO2 into the atmosphere than would be there without our addiction to fossil fuels. It HAS TO have an effect. Experiments, that we may repeat until we are blue in the face show over and over again that CO2 disallows the sun's radiation escaping back into space thus holding in more heat. This happens the same way the glazing on a hot house holds in warmth, hence the name "greenhouse gases".

Ok, the opposition says it's just a natural cycle, let us keep mainlining oil and coal, etc., we love it all so.... Nah, you see there are serious consequences to allowing the warming regardless of how little or great our addition to the problem. The fact is the planet is warming. I won't go over yet again the consequences, there is plenty of material out there for that. The issue is 'how many', not 'if or whether any', lives will be lost because of it. This mentions nothing of the financial losses.

I say one life lost is morally too many but that is of course and sadly not practical.

We blithely allow thousands per year to die in auto accidents, from diseases that could be cured if real concerted effort were put into it, aging alone kills 100k per day and yes the poor dear starving children die in the thousands per year. Oh yes I am getting to them. But what I am first getting to here is at what point is a few thousand suddenly a few million and is that enough to now pay attention?

Global Warming could easily kill a billion and more at it's worst and at least millions at the mildest. Now our friend from the article alludes we should let that slide and feed the snotty nosed faces of the world instead. My first inclination is to say, why split hairs? Why the choice either/or? Why not take care of both? If we just had the will we could find the way. I have a caveat that I will get to though for the little hungry brats. Oh but don't think I do not love them all, but it is tough love baby!

But first back to what should we do about the so called natural cycles. Does "natural" make them sacrosanct? Does it mean we shouldn't meddle? Of course not! We at the very least should remove our 30% addition to the problem, then argue about natural or not and should we then still sit by and let bad things happen to good people, all the people of Earth!

Oh but there's those starving children that we now let bad things happen to anyway, right? Well some of us. Then there's those that make a big noise and pull at your hearts strings on late night TV to help feed these lovely street urchins. Why are they always so damn cute, not an ugly one in the bunch?

Ok, this will sound heartless but I never will send a penny to any of the feed the children funds.

Why? Because it is tantamount to child abuse! You heard me.

Those starving children are starving for political reasons that most voters will not recognize and those that do and could change it won't lift a finger to. Most starving children are of course third or developing world. Well what do most all of those countries have in common? Answer: backwards customs that relish fertility and/or macho male virility attitudes plus religious superstition against contraception. Men there are often by custom proven more viral and macho by fathering more children including illegitimate ones. Women have little to zero rights or control over their own bodies. They often are virtual slaves if not slaves outright. They are sometimes treated little better in life than baby factories beasts of burden and play toys, traded, sold, bartered, abducted into slavery and worse.

Then you have the Catholic Church, usually prominent in many of these countries, that sticks their nose in the personal fertility business of these people telling them GAWD doesn't like contraception. The real reason the church is so concerned about this is it gets more power in having more numbers under their banner of belief regardless how impoverished it forces the poor people to stay so because they have more mouths to feed than they can afford.

Then you have our right wingers here in the good ole meddlesome USA that mistakenly believe that Planned Parenthood is about teaching abortion to these poor folks when in actuality contraception methods and women's rights are really the message. Oh but we can't have any of those women's rights bandied about when the bible says such demeaning things about women, can we now? Gotta keep them under thumb for Jesus sake! So they toeing the line with their blind religious leaders unthinking all the way support those that do their worst in Washington to remove any avenue Planned Parent Hood and like organizations have to go into these countries and really make a difference. For folk sake! The preznitwit's constituents don't even want condom use taught in Africa where people are dying by the droves of AIDS passed on by unprotected sex. Starving children? How about starving and born with AIDS?!

Mr. Patriot made a straw man argument but I see straight through it thank you very much. Now why is our sending food aid to these children the same as child abuse? Because, firstly they rarely get any of the aid to begin with. If they do it only means they get to live long enough to repeat the errors of their parents and also have too many children than they can feed passing their starvation circumstances right on to their children and so on.

We do not drop food willy nilly in the wild forest to feed wild animals because with that added unearned extra energy infused into the system they will breed out of control and soon have too many numbers than their local environment can support. I know how that sounds. It sounds clinical and overly scienced but like it or not humans are animals too. But we aren't held by "natural" yearly cycles for estrous. We can breed any damn ole time we please.

What those poor starving children need most is basic human rights and real education. Their mothers and the young girls growing up need the respect they deserve as equals, control over their own bodies and fertility and the right to say no and not have children they don't want or cannot support. Likewise the men need to learn that real men father only those children they can support and not leave it to the women they've abused to on their own handle them and surely not expect other nations to pick up the tab for their excesses!

Education is key but it is not just the third world in need of it.

We already know that as countries become more affluent, educated and democratic their population rates of birth plummet. However, many of our right wing friends have little to no interest in helping Global Warming or the starving children in any truly meaningful ways because after all this world is about to end right? Why make an effort when you expect to be spirited away in the Rapture any day now, hallelujah brothers and sisters can I get an AMEN!? Just make a pile of money to stay comfortable and support your pet political projects such as oh maybe supporting anything Israel does so they get the right to rebuild their temple, of course pissing off all of Islamdom and kicking off World War III in the doing... but hey then JESUS can finally return!! Right? Wrong! As if Jesus, if he is really god, needs humans help to set up his alleged return.

Well it's their mad plan not mine. I think a better plan is to plan for the worst and help our brothers and sisters learn how to feed their own children and have the smarts to know when enough is enough.

FutureQ

Perfect Scape Goat, Perfect Patsy...

...to cover up the crimes of the Bush administration. Look he's not even convicted of the crime he was -- and by fiat the administration IS, under investigation for -- the leaking of Plame's identity. How better to place a wall of deniability between them and the crime? Any thinking individual not blinded by right wing ideology knows in their heart of hearts that Plame was purposely outed by this admin. Is anyone fool enough to think the idea self generated with Libby? C'mon! We ALL know it was from right at he top.

Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Case

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers

1 hour ago

WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

Complete article found here.

One just has to wonder how much Carlyse Group or Haliburton, Brown & Root, etc., stock Libby's family may on the sly acquire way down the road for his sacrificial falling on the G. W. Bush administration's collective swords?

FutureQ

I had a hunch this was coming...

...back in the 90's when I watched an archaeology documentary by John Romer. I still recall his words. He was lamenting the tendency for people, especially Christian apologist so called archaeologists, to presume their findings and see them through their preconceived notions that they assert must fit the Bible narrative. Romer said, "I once knew this bloke that said he'd found a tomb that said "Jesus Bar Joseph", 'Bar something' means son of. Cole'blimey says I, did you dig into it, that might be THE Jesus? No, said the bloke, It couldn't have been him, we know he rose to heaven. [sic]..."

It has been a while so of course I am paraphrasing. I seriously believe this to be the exact same tomb and that "bloke" to possibly be this Kloner fellow. He found it years ago and did nothing with it, why? His personal bias of course... well maybe. At any rate it stayed largely hidden from public knowledge all this time until James Cameron and his partners had the courage to bring it to our attention. Much hay is being made of their lack of scientific method in presenting it, as opposed to oh say letting it stay hidden for dozens more years while painstakingly studied ad nauseum making sure every politically correct bugaboo is well sanitized as to not harm the ever fragile faithful..

James Cameron Finds Jesus, Controversy

Wed Feb 28, 2:11 AM

He hasn't cracked the Da Vinci code, but religious groups are annoyed at James Cameron all the same.

The Titanic Oscar winner's latest project, the Discovery Channel documentary The Last Tomb of Jesus, has been called an attack on Christianity by some who are none too pleased with the film's so-called revelatory findings.

Last Tomb, produced by Cameron and written and directed by Simcha Jacobovi, chronicles the 1980 discovery of a 2,000-year-old tomb in Jerusalem's East Talpiot neighborhood that, the film argues, was the final resting place of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Mary Magdalene and a boy who could have been her and Jesus' son.

As always find the continued article here.

Will this shake the faith of the faithful? Not on your life. At last it won't shake the faith of the most devout. They need not nor heed any science to prove or disprove their faith. It doesn't matter how much fact you pile on them they won't let one single bit dissuade them from their irrational beliefs. Evidence now is overwhelming that 'the Christ' was an amalgam made up from dozens of man god constructs from those times. I recommend the book "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" by Dr. Robert Price.

Close study of the gospels themselves clearly indicates the authors had no consensus at all on the nature, divinity, nor flesh person hood of Jesus. Mythras, Dionysus and a host of other deified humans also were killed on trees or crosses, were born of virgins and rose from the dead.

How do the faithful handle these damning facts that should end these beliefs in any rational human being? Well the Devil, of course, is Omniscient, you see, having the same power as their God, which should be impossible but this is their fantasy after all -- so he saw the future and so influenced people to make these other myths long before Jesus as counterfeits to twist up the truth. Ummm, yeah, right. Occam's Razor says the simplest answer is best and that the best answer is Jesus is the copy not the other way around. By the way, Omniscience is impossible. It would mean the holder of such a power would be powerless to change their mind since they already know what future decisions they will make.

I have now since beginning this post had the privilege of watching the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus". I have to say I am impressed. I do lean toward it being true. However, some serious real science still needs to be done. They must, for instance, prove that all the ossuaries actually were found together and were that way from antiquity. Now if that can be proven, then it will be a huge blow to the apologist now crying foul with unscientific arguments such as, "those names (found on the ossuaries) were common at the time". Yes, on the surface that seems a general valid argument. The problem is we are not dealing with the general here. For instance, to that group of people, as it was pointed out, Mary the alleged virgin mother of Jesus, was known by the Latinized version of the Hebrew Marriame, which is Maria. That is the name found. The so called common Hebrew name for the time would rather have been Marriame or remotely maybe but not likely Mary. It was NOT common except to this special small group of people surrounding Jesus, providing he is a real person even, to call her Mary, the English translation but instead "Maria".

Then is the same group of graves they found one of Jesus' lesser know brothers that was known by the nickname Jose' (pronounced Yosay) or in English today Josey or today Hebrew Yosie, not the common then Joseph. Again unique to this small group and mentioned in one obscure gospel. More examples like this were stated in the documentary basically making the odds overwhelming that it could not be the Jesus family.

Now put on your Critical Thinking caps and ponder, which is more likely, the all too human story that the man named Jesus and attributed, actually after the fact, all the miracles and also historically mythologized as rising, not bodily but spiritually, to heaven, was in fact truly buried or the supernatural resurrected to physical life magical woowoo man made into god Jesus? I'll take the more rational every day. Don't forget as mentioned above there were simply dozens of mythological dying an rising man gods at the time.

Think More Critically people. These Judaic Torah based religions, Judaism, Christianity & Islam, have held this world hostage for far too long. Stop letting your religious friends just slide on faith and not face the facts. Their faith has killed billions and now we have brand new Crusades, or do we really think Iraq was truly about getting Osama bin Laden?

FutureQ

I support the right to keep and bare arms but...

...this is just plain stupid. Surely he has a paranoid personality disorder and allowed to do this is danger to everyone around him. How long would it have been before reading of him taking out 30 people at a McDonald's? Is he a postal worker? *joke*

Southern California officials find million rounds of ammo in house fire

NORCO, Calif. Firefighters in Southern California have uncovered a cache of more than one (m) million rounds of ammunition, along with 20 guns and 75 pounds of black gunpowder.

They found the stash yesterday while responding to a reported fire at a single-story house in Norco, east of Los Angeles.

Investigators don't know yet what it was doing there. But they do not think it's connected to organized crime.

The ammunition for shotguns, handguns and assault rifles was found tucked away in metal and wooden boxes in the house and garage.

Firefighters called in sheriffs and hazardous materials teams after having to forcibly keep a resident from running back inside the house.

He's now in custody.

[Not mentioned here but mentioned in a separate video news article is that several illegal weapons were also discovered, hence his incarceration.]

I support the spirit of the 2nd amendment, to keep the citizenry on par with the government in order to prevent governmental tyranny by assumed threat of armed insurrection, but really can the citizenry today TRULY stay on par with the government in this technologically advanced day?

Anyone for their neighbor owning a howitzer or a fully loaded Abrahms tank, F-16 or how about a tactical nuclear (nook-lee-ur) weapon?

It is obvious that the letter of the amendment cannot be now sustained. I do not propose a new amendment or a revision f the original. I do propose a return to the "spirit" of the law again in that we form an armed citizen militia owing no allegiance to the government but solely to their respective communities.

No attempt would be made to disarm individual's legitimate weapon ownership. However, egregious violations of the public welfare such as this guy would be regulated. I doubt someone like this could have passed a psych test and he should not have been allowed to amass as many weapons without passing such a test.

The formation of a local citizen militia might even pacify the paranoid leanings of some individuals that fear the government so badly they feel it necessary to stockpile arms for the ever on the horizon "coming revolution", whatever that means. If people felt that their friends and neighbors that usually have their best interests at heart and together were en masse armed against government or even terrorist violations of personal safety and autonomy, they might relax a little and not seek so much a personal armory.

Would anyone really want it legal for their neighbor to keep a stockpile of grenades, RPG's, mortars and Claymore mines in his garage? Imagine the boom that would make and the lives threatened when a fire, statistically quite likely to occur, consumes your uber armed neighbor's garage. Fires happen all the time and are made even more likely in the presence of chemicals the likes of those in explosives.

We require people to have a license to drive a car. Now I know the difference between a right and a privilege, the car driving being a privilege. However, a car can kill as easily as a weapon so why not some common sense and have people go to classes to learn the proper care and use of guns just as they do for automobiles? A bonus being completion of which allows them to carry them anywhere except perhaps alcohol imbibing establishments. It is silly to not allow honest citizens to carry their own concealed weapons into a bank. An outlaw won't mind the law anyway. But if a bank robber had to worry that any one of 20 to 30 other patrons in a bank could draw down on him/her and not being able to watch everyone, would this not deter such crimes? At the same time the properly licensed and trained citizenry will mean fewer gun accidents caused by people not knowing which end the bullets go in, or having irrational fears of guns that cause shaky handling and often mistaken discharge.

Soon technology will allow for personalized weapons that only fire when they recognize the DNA of the owner. This technology alone will enable easier government control of weapon ownership and especially tracking down of owners when their weapon has been used to cause an unwarranted fatality or injury.

Would it not be better to have in place regulations that enable more citizen autonomy and thwart government excess? Government, whether right or left oriented, will take every inch of latitude allowed them. Will the Democrats for instance, that lambasted certain parts of the Patriot Act -- now that they are controlling congress, roll back some of the most egregious abuses to American freedoms in the Patriot Act? Not bloody likely. Once government has gained a power tool they are not likely to give it up regardless of how some might have chastised their opponents for seeking it in the first place. Therefore it is better to now ahead of time form citizen militias beholding only to their communities, selves and families and perhaps enacting some self regulation at the state level before the federal government, in the name of terrorism, finds another excuse to curtail our freedom.

FutureQ

Too Bad These Police Are Still Alive

I'm glad the old gal got some shots in and actually wounded three of them.

Woman, 91, Dies in Shootout With Police

By Associated Press

3 hours ago

ATLANTA - A police official said narcotics officers were justified in returning fire on a 91-year-old woman they shot to death after she shot them as they tried to serve a warrant at her house.

Neighbors and relatives said it was a case of mistaken identity. But police said the woman, identified as Kathryn Johnston, was the only resident in the house at the time and had lived there for about 17 years.

Assistant Chief Alan Dreher said the officers had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door. He said they were justified in shooting once they were fired upon.

As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m., a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman.

One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.

Sarah Dozier, identified as a niece of the woman, told WAGA-TV that there were never any drugs at the house.

"My aunt was in good health. I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down," Dozier said. "There was no reason they had to go in there and shoot her down like a dog."

Rev. Markel Hutchins, a civil rights leader, said Johnston's family deserves an apology.

"Of the police brutality cases we've had, this is the most egregious because of the woman's age," Hutchins said.

Hutchins said he would try to meet with Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington and would also meet with lawyers.

Ok, ya ya, the police were... "only doing their job", yadda yadda blah blah blech!

It's a job that should not be done or even exist in the first place! You can never successfully legislate morality and especially prohibit what substances people ingest! It is insanity to even try! How many more innocent lives must be lost in this failed "War on Drugs"? Drug use and abuse is a victimless crime.

It only harms the user/abuser if left alone without artificial free market constraints. Plenty of people use and still live productive lives. There would be no crime to pay for drugs if they did not cost so much because of the artificial risk constraint placed on the market by the anti drug laws. How can so called, Conservatives, those that so often align themselves as pro law enforcement and anti drug, and who claim to also be fiscal conservatives, fail to see their effect upon the free market through these useless prohibition polies?.

This poor woman was merely defending herself and her property as is her and everyone's natural right to do. She had to in a city known for violence and violent break-ins. She like as not had bad hearing impaired enough to only hear the loud crashing into her door and not their calls of identification, if indeed they did identify in their zealous pursuit of ooooohhh the bad bad drug dealers. Those drug dealers did not exist.

I'd like to know if before this she was perhaps refusing to move out of subsidized rent apartment or something similar. Maybe a landlord knowing she was armed called in a false claim of drug activity banking on her being shot or arrested or in the very least scared into leaving? I know it sounds too "Hollywood so the drama" but truth is so often stranger than fiction.

In California a man and wife were murdered and property confiscated by the county sheriffs department when on orders of another agency Ca's equivalent of Parks and Wildlife, that wanted their land that backed up to a state park, falsified evidence that the couple grew marijuana. In that case also the man was armed and awakened abruptly hearing intruders, plain clothed officers, late at night. Confronting what he thought were burglars he was shot dead and so was his wife, if I recall correctly.

A PERSONAL VIEWPOINT

I am disabled and as such have had to rely upon others for caregiver service. In about the mid 1980's once upon a time I had just hired a new caregiver to live-in care for me. Just before doing so she abruptly marries some guy she's just met and known for only a week. His just jilted ex girlfriend was none too happy about this and since he had a past record, I came to later learn about, of Marijuana cultivation, she found an eager ear with the local law when she apparently informs them that my new caregiver's new hubby is dealing from my house. I was away the evening the raid went down but it was reported to me that a gaggle of gentlemen came up to the front door laughing and carrying on as if a bunch of my friends coming to party for the evening.

When the door was opened they kicked the person opening it down to the ground stood on his neck then the rest rushed in and threatened everyone with a weapon in their face. I was told and believe they even trained them on the 5 children that belonged to the woman that was to be my caregiver. They turned my house upside down, rip everything to shreds top to bottom and found nothing. No compensation was ever offered, no apology was ever given even when demanded by me. Personal information of mine on an invention concept I meant to patent was never returned. A few years later it turned up on late night TV, you know it as the electronic dog fence. I guess you can say I have a personal interest in the abolishment of these kinds of incidents.

THIS NONSENSE HAS TO STOP PEOPLE!!

How long will we tolerate the ruination of lives that this failed drug war continues to cause? Stop spending the money on corrupt and corruptible law enforcement agencies and personnel and put that money instead to work in educating young people on the dangers of drugs. Provide rehab centers with that money.

Make all drugs legal and taxed and purchasable at a state licensed store. Use the added tax revenue to provide user/abuser work camps where the totally down and out that cannot handle drug use and are unable to remain productive while recreation using will have lodging and medical care and rehab. But provide no mainstream medical for people testing positive for drugs. Allow ubiquitous testing. There would be a price in social status and availability of products like medical, life & vehicle insurance, so that a user's choice does not cost society.

In short the upshot is people that in this plan would decide to take drugs will self marginalize. To keep them out of the gutters and side streets they must submit to living in work camps if they cannot maintain a certain level of financial security and competence. These camps would be where they will receive treatment but may leave when clean and ready to try life sober again.

Eventually over time most of all people will learn that "the good life" is attained by working for it and that drug abuse can and most likely will get in the way of the efforts of so many. Rather than chance becoming one that cannot handle the drugs and would become addicted and down & out, people would learn it is better to just avoid that possibility altogether and get on with working for the good life.

This could be easily funded with the added revenue from taxing drug sales and the savings from not funding bogus anti drug agencies and their corrupt Drug Czars, like the ones that recently broke the law to oppose free elections in Nevada to legalize Marijuana.

Great Wisdom Found "Down Under"

The Aussies have pulled one out of their collective hats. Let's hope other countries, namely the US take notice and get a clue.

Australian Senate OKs Cloning Embryos

By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writer
5 hours ago

CANBERRA, Australia - Australia's Senate narrowly voted Tuesday to lift the country's ban on cloning human embryos for stem cell research.

The bill, which was approved 34-32, would relax rules on stem cell research and allow therapeutic cloning of embryos for medical research.

Well let us hope they contiue to have wisdom and see fit to allow ACTUAL TREATMENTS from Therapeutic Cloned Stem Cells. Otherwise there is no use for such Embryoic research that intends the use of the actual stem cells therein produced. The only other use is to identify the means by which the cells become pluripotent/totipotent (able to become any needed cell type and regerate thereafter) In other words finding a means to revert adult cells into stem cells that look every bit like they came from an embryo without actually having done so.

The emotional debate on the legislation introduced by a former health minister, Sen. Kay Patterson, began Monday.

Opponents, including Health Minister Tony Abbott, warned that therapeutic cloning is open to abuse and could create animal-human hybrids.

Oh for shame! Little man with tiny brain attempts to scare us with monsters. Oh dear oh dear... lions and tigers and bears... in our genes... oh my!! Learn some actual science moron, we already have animal parts in us, we ARE ANIMALS first of all. More to the point though we carry within us the evolutionary legacy of a zillion things so mundane as even yeast, hence it being so hard to cure yeast infections because our bodies do not readily recognize the yeast as foreign material.

Parliament passed Australia's first laws on stem cell research in 2002, allowing scientists to extract stem cells from spare embryos intended for in vitro fertilization but preventing them from using them for cloning.

This was extremely short sighted of them. This is because the only true benefit of using cloned embryos to harvest stem cells from is to tissue match the nucleus donor so that that donor patient does not suffer immune response tissue rejection. Such rejection would of course have to occur and would of course endanger the lives of patients if one were to use in-vitro left overs. Opponents to ESR rarely ever come forward with that tidbit of information.

Should the bill pass the House, all cloned embryos would have to be destroyed within 14 days and could not be implanted in a woman.

Last minute amendments to the bill proposed by the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, increased from 10 to 15 years the prison sentence for flouting safeguards designed to prevent abuse of embryonic cloning.

Another amendment prevented researchers from getting licenses for creating human-animal hybrid embryos.More short sightredness but for now they are on the right track.

Regarding the dreaded CLONES, oh dear oh my!!

I call for it again, for anyone to give me a plausible rational reason that cloning is wrong, without invoking mysticism or irrational "Yuck Factor" appeals to rediculous knee jerk emotionality not based in science.

As always please refer to the original article found here for missing elements not found in this blog entry.

One More Wise, Intelligent & Rational Country in the EU Set To Allow Therapeutic Cloning

Go figure their government is Socialist and the opposition are Conservative moron slaves to the Catholic Church. Not that I am so left wing that I prefer Socialist only government, I don't. I do prefer Democratic socially conscious governments but above all, government by, of and for 'the people'. Anyway the article is so small I'm including it all below. Do visit the original though for leads to ajacent stories.

Spanish set to allow therapeutic cloning

Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:23pm ET169 MADRID (Reuters) - Spain is set to become one of only a handful of countries to approve therapeutic cloning, despite opposition from the Catholic Church.

The Socialist government said on Friday it had drawn up legislation to approve the technique, a move likely to provoke sharp criticism from the conservative opposition which is closely allied to the Church.

"(Once passed) this will mean it is now possible for our researchers to use nuclear transfer techniques. Spain now joins a group of countries where this kind of research is possible, which inside the European Union includes Britain, Sweden and Belgium," Health Minister Elena Salgado told a news conference.

The legislation, likely to be approved by the Socialists' working parliamentary majority, will further strain relations between the government and the Church, following moves such as the approval of gay marriage last year.

Spain would become only the second predominantly Catholic country after Belgium to allow therapeutic cloning.

Therapeutic cloning involves creating embryos as a source of stem cells to cure diseases, and its defenders say it could provide a cure for conditions such as diabetes and Alzheimer's.

The process is controversial because the embryos are later discarded, angering pro-life groups.

See the original article here.

The Intelligence of Frogs

I guess you can tell by reading the following news item I'm not talking about green amphibians. This is just stupid. How in the hell is this man by honoring his parents wishes in any way hurting anyone apart from himself if even that? Ok, I'll come clean right away. Yes, I'm a Cryonicist.

You'd have to be stupid nowadays not to be. That's right I might have just called you stupid if you are reading this and haven't looked into and signed up for Cryonics. Unless you hate your life you owe it to yourself to take the chance to cheat death. With the pace of tech and science and medicine development at break neck runaway speed advancing toward some exponential unpredictable unknown, how could anyone rule out the possiblity that it might work? I prefer being in the experimental group rather than the control. The control group is guaranteed dead in my opinion. Sure maybe there's an after life but you see I'm not excluded from that by doing Cryonics, why would I be? If that exists it has to be outside of normal time and dimension so it'll still be there if it is there whenever my luck finally does run out.

Has Cryonics a decent chance to work? Even though we cannot predict where the development of science and medicine technology might lead we sure can draw some inferences based on trends. These lead me to believe at least within the next two centuries, but I'm expecting sooner, we'll have licked the total control of matter. If that happens all bets are off. And even if someone hates their life they'll be able to choose a new one, sort of, in the future. I'll get back to that in a later blog. The bottom line though is, there's too much wonderment and exciting possiblities to chance missing out on. I'm sure not going to chance it.

A book that half the world holds dear and wise says that even God said of us (that's right, human beings), "Anything they dream they will do". That's almost a commandment to invent and progress! I'll tell you something true, so far that has been the truest statement from that book ever, in my opinion.

Jules Vern dreamed of flying machines and even nuclear (nook lee ur) subs approximately 100 years (or more than 100 for the subs) before they occurred. This theme rings true for countless visionaries. What they dreamed came true.

I believe what Robert C. W. Ettinger dreamed will also definately come true. He dreamed of cheating death and I'm betting my life on it. Mid 20th century he dreamed of freezing people at the point of death to preserve them for future advanced medicine to revive them. I'll get back to more on that below. For now check out how dumb frogs can be. ;)

Son to Appeal Against Cryogenic Freezing Ruling

Jon Henley in Paris

Wednesday January 11, 2006

The Guardian

A French man has vowed to take his 20-year battle to freeze his dead parents to the European court of human rights.

Rémy Martinot, the son of two cryopreservation enthusiasts who believed scientific progress might one day bring them back to life, said he refused to accept a ruling yesterday from France's highest legal authority, the council of state, that keeping his parents Monique (who died in 1984) and Raymond (who died in 2002) in a minus 65C vault in the family chateau near Saumur threatened public order and health. "I fail to understand how this practice is a threat," he said.

Please see the original article here.

More about the case and 20 uear Martinot struggle may be found here.

Just what are the frogs, er French thinking? I should stop picking on them but they, at least these officials involved in the Martinot case, have it coming for being so bloody minded and short sighted if not plain stupid about this. Are they afraid more will want to do this? What if they do? So what! What's so terrible about that? What, it's not "normal"? What is normal interment anyways? There's been numbers of different ways to inter our loved ones throughout history from mummification to cremation. I personally think burial is hideous. Worm food, ick! Just imagining my loved ones or myself slowly rotting, now that is grotesque. I know worms need to eat too but not me.

Now before any of you go and say, "it's snake oil for the gullible and hopeful" or "it's a scam to get people to give up their retirement funds", I have a story for you that blows that bollux out of the water. I'm not a rich man and I'm disabled as well. As such I live under certain financial restrictions my government burdens me with. I would never on my current income have been able to afford Cryonics on my own. I wouldn't have been allowed to save enough, even if that were fiscally possible on so little. I am not healthy enough to get a life insurance policy to fund it. I should clarify here that we are talking economies of scale. If you make 30k a year than ten dollars to me is like $50 to me. Most people pay for it with life insurance afforded on a normal not wealthy income. It costs only as much as coffee a day.

Well in late 1999 I got involved with the Cryonics community when my brother, tired of hearing me preach to him and the family, got me a link to a message list. There was a discussion going on that compelled me to bare my woes for all to see. I didn't expect what happened, in fact quite the opposite because I had been rather, well, terse in what I had to impart. It didn't matter, the next day having heard of my trapped situation several had pledged several thousand dollars toward my suspension policy.

The best thing of all was that early on Robert Ettinger, the actual "Father of Cryonics", had himself donated. However, after about a year the donations had plateaued and Robert wasn't having that. Lots of charities slack off when the news is not new anymore, it wasn't a big deal to me. But it was for Robert and so he created a new fund for me out of the existing pledges and kicked in another 13k of his own estate if the remainder to bring it to 33k total could be gathered. It wasn't long my fund goal was met and so by the grace of the wonderful future forward thinking loving people in Cryonics and Transhumanism I am fully funded for Cryonics at Cryonics Institute of Michigan. Neat stuff, huh?

That's right you could be signed up for so little too, just about 30k. That's a standard automobile these days. Isn't your life worth a dumb ole car?

Ok you green amphibians, er ah, French people, back off the Martinot's. Tell your leaders to get a clue!

Hollywood Hotties & Hunks in 2040!! Eeew Baby!!

I think these photos speak for themselves why every effort should be put into curing aging now!! Eeeew eeeew eeeeew!!

Ok ok, seriously aging is no joke. We love our grammas and grampas dearly. It's rough on them getting old and feeble and frail, then dependant on others. Continued below...














The best thing we could ever do for for our beloved elderly and for ourselves and our children is cure aging and get onward to truly maturing as a species... a long lived wise and gentle species that loves life so much it has put all efforts possible into extending it and reducing death especially from causes like disease and war and famine.

I believe it will take achieving such a feat to gain the time to grow truly wise and to have enough life to appreciate it more than we ever could. Short lives make life cheap. Having a longer life to lose to foolishness would have a profound effect on society.

Please put your spare change to a fine use, maybe a better use than whatever it goes to now -- only the individual knows -- please give to the Methuselah Foundation's Mprize fund and help find for us all a cure for aging.

Just what the Stem cell controversy needs, more controversy... Not!

Just great! What an ass! It's bad enough what we, the supporters of Stem Cell Research, must put up with and now the guy we'd looked up to as a hero has let us all down. No doubt this will put fuel in the furnaces of the luddites to try and cook us with.

Well it won't matter and it won't phase us. There's more than just one person doing this work. We needn't put all our eggs in one basket. It might in fact be the pressures placed on him from the moronic luddites that drove him to allegedlt do this. He must have been feeling a desperate need to make breakthroughs that prove the worth of the science with so many lives waiting and hoping and depending on positive findings all while being unduly placed under the hotlamp by overly hostile uber critics.

Doc: Stem-Cell Pioneer Admitted Fake Data

By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea - A doctor who provided human eggs for research by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said in a broadcast Thursday that the South Korean scientist admitted that most of the stem cells produced for a key research paper were faked.

Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, told KBS television that Hwang had agreed to ask the journal Science to withdraw the paper, published in June to international acclaim. Roh was one of the co-authors of the article that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.

Roh also told MBC television that Hwang had pressured a former scientist at his lab to fake data to make it look like there were 11 stem cell colonies.

Roh said nine of the embryonic stem cell lines Hwang claimed were cloned in the paper were faked, and the authenticity of the other two was unknown.

Roh told MBC he heard from Hwang on Thursday morning that "there were no embryonic stem cells" because all colonies have since died in the lab.

Hwang did not answer his phone and researchers from his lab at Seoul National University could not immediately be reached for comment.

Hwang was staying at the university's hospital, spokesman Yang Sung-ki said Thursday evening. The researcher has been undergoing treatment there for stress since last week, the spokesman said.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, in the Philippines for a state visit, called for caution regarding the reports on Hwang's
work.

"Let's watch the situation," Roh said, according to Choi In-ho, the president's vice spokesman.

Sage advice indeed. Please see the continued article here.
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It's not always all about human beings

We tend to get caught up in the politics and meliu involved in the issue of cloning, something I hope everyone can tell by now I favor -- even for humans for compassionate reasons, but this article goes to show it's not always just about us. I am so in favor of redressing the damage that human advance has caused in nature wherever possible. Replenishing threatened and even extinct species where possible, where in the latter complete or reconstructed DNA samples can be obtained, is one endeavor I stand firmly behind.

Leave it up to the Chinese to jump right on in and do the right thing.

China Clones Threatened Gazelle Species

By Associated Press

Thu Dec 8, 4:10 PM

BEIJING - China has cloned four Mongolian gazelles, a threatened species, by maturing the clones in goat wombs, the official

Xinhua News Agency said Thursday.

The clones were created by scientists in Linyi city in eastern Shandong province, Xinhua said.

Twenty-six goats were implanted with the clones, resulting in six baby gazelle births, it said. Two of them were stillborn.

The surviving four clones were "doing well, running and hopping a lot," Xinhua quoted the scientists involved as saying.

The name of the facility and scientists who carried out the experiment were not given.

Animal cloning has been done successfully in numerous countries. Other animals that have been successfully cloned are sheep,

cats, goats, cows, mice, pigs, rabbits, horses, deer, mules and gaur, a large wild ox in Southeast Asia.

Technology Review at it again, unprofessionalism abounds

There was a recent article over at Technology Review where they found a fellow willing to poke fun at Aubrey de Grey. But despite there being a $20,000.00 prize for professionally debunking SENS, Dr. de Grey's theory for treating the disease of aging, this fellow apparently didn't have what it takes to take that challenge. No, cute prose is all he can offer. It's rather unprofessional. The following is my comment to the piece that apparently never got published on the website and it now appears that a great many negative comments made by others toward Miller's approach have been removed. Go figure!

Not a single comment in favor...

....of Richard Miller's feeble attempt to deface de Grey. I've read every single comment and found not a single comment supporting Miller's lack of professionalism. Is TR going to take note that again they've put their foot in their mouths by allowing this garbage to be printed?

Miller, if you aren't smart enough or talented enough to take on SENS point for point then what EXACTLY is your motivation for attacking its creator with mere childish satire? Are you trying to become known from here on out in the annals of history as one of the few morons that killed millions of people long before their time, robbing them of incalculable numbers of years of enjoyment of life by holding up the progress to cure aging?

Do you really think, given the pace of development of human technology -- just imagine the airplane was only invented 102 years ago and think of where we are now and are heading with flight and even space flight, that we will never cure aging? Are you really that dense? So if it's possible someday then what your and others efforts to doubt it are only really accomplishing is simply a delay of it. That delay will cost lives, have you even considered for a moment the moral implication?

What if those that objected to artificial respiration had managed to stop people developing that for say 100 or more years?

Luddite [UN]Ethics doing its dirty work again

I'm really getting sick and tired of the luddism at work today that is holding back our progress and would if allowed do much more than merely hold it back. I am especially sick of the driving principles behind it one of the worst of which is called The Precautionary Principle. It means that before any new experimental procedure, device, science, technology, or whatever should be implemented every precaution that can be beforehand considered should be taken. Well because it is impossible to foresee every single danger in something this principle effectively halts all progress.

Many people these days cannot handle the pace of change and so are in full on panic stricken "Future Shock". They wish to put everything on hold. However, it's not possible to halt progress but it is possible through laws and regulations and mob rule panic, to slow it down. However, slowing certain things down causes lives to be lost. The following is something along this line. Though the person involved might be able to Strictly speaking survive without the described procedure, it would hardly be called living.

Imagine eating and being unable to seal off things from dribbling out of your mouth because you have no lips! Imagine losing half your face and going through the rest of your life facing the world as such. Many brave folks have had to do so with no relief in sight whatsoever throughout history. A new and history making procedure could change all that but wouldn't you know it, some people think it is "UNETHICAL". Go figure. What ever could be their reasoning that a face transplant would be unethical especially when medical and psychologically necessary?

Surgeons Criticized Over Face Transplant

By JOHN LEICESTER and MARILYNN MARCHIONE, Associated Press Writers

PARIS - An ethics debate broke out over the world's first partial face transplant Thursday with one surgeon challenging the decision to operate, while others suggested a bit of jealousy might be at play.

That's probably the most telling part of this for reasons why ethicists put their noses where they ought not to.

At the same time, several doctors raised concerns about the psychological health of the French woman who received a transplanted nose, lips and chin on Sunday. She had been brutally mauled by a dog in May, and her identity remains unknown.

Of course this makes perfect sense. Only the perfectly mentally healthy deserve psychologically stabilizing surgery. Please note my sarcastic tone.

Dr. Laurent Lantieri, an adviser to the French medical ethics panel, said the surgeons who operated violated the panel's advice because they failed to try reconstructive surgery first. He said a transplant donor was immediately sought without trying to repair the woman's face with more conventional surgery.

Prey tell with what they were going to reconstruct missing lips with?

Lantieri, who had seen a picture of the woman, said, "She had a complete amputation of both lips. The tip of the nose was amputated." Her new donated facial parts came from a brain-dead woman whose family gave consent.

The panel had previously objected to full face transplants but said partial ones could be considered under strict circumstances, which included first trying normal surgery.

"The ethics committee said this kind of transplant should never be considered as an emergency procedure," Lantieri said.

What? Are they insane? What if someone's life depends on it? At this moment I cannot think of why a face transplant would mean the difference between immediate life and death in an emergency situation but I rankle against the principle that they could arbitrarily say such a statement. How could they know for certain some day some situation might arise that does?

However, surgeon Denys Pellerin, of the National Consultative Ethics Committee advised by Lantieri said, "as long as the transplant is not total, it is not unethical."

Excuse me? What could possibly be the reasoning here? Maybe one day when newer methods could rebuild a patients own face we'd then have reason to take pause at the identity issues raised. However, by that time it might be possible to wear a different face at will, who knows? Right now I see no plausible reasonable objection when it helps someone get through their life after a defacing injury.

And Dr. Jean-Pierre Chavoin, secretary general of the French society of plastic surgery, noted that Lantieri had planned to do a face transplant himself and had been beaten.

For shame.

Carine Camby, director general of the agency under the French Health Ministry that coordinates organ procurement, said normal reconstructive surgery could not have been used in this case.

"It is precisely because there was no way to restore the functions of this patient by normal plastic surgery that we attempted this

transplant," Camby said. "She could no longer eat normally, she had great difficulty speaking and there is no possibility with plastic surgery today to repair the muscles around the mouth which allow people to articulate when they speak and not spit out food when they eat."

As I figured.

Camby also said the patient "received many psychiatric examinations. The psychiatrists decided that she understood the surgery and that she accepted all of the consequences, including the risk of rejection and of failure, the risk of immune supression treatments and the need to take them for life."

But Chavoin, who took part in preparatory meetings about the patient's case over the last several months, questioned her psychological health.

The patient "seems to have quite a depressive profile," he said.

Hmmm, maybe because SHE GOT HALF HER FACE TORN OFF!!?? These guys take the cake. It's the Precautionary Principle at work in practical application and it costs lives when physicians are too cautious to try what very often may be someone's last hope. Medical malpractice is no excuse. Patients are always required to sign away rights to sue in such experimental cases.

I have personal experience here. I also have personal experience with having trouble getting new and experimental procedures even considered let alone acted upon. I lost a kidney while looking around for someone to try something that I had invented. It wasn't until I found someone with the same idea that I had before I got the lifesaving procedure done that has contributed to saving my only remaining kidney. How about that? A mere PreMed dropout (due to medical leave of absence) having a unique and new solution to a problem and an actual surgeon having the same idea contemporaneously without knowledge of each other? Cool, huh?!

Back to the case of these (so called) ethicists passing judgment on this facial transplant. Here again we see not only the Precautionary Principle in effect but yet again the prejudicial application of mental health as a precursor to receiving treatment. I myself had to get psych tested before having an abdominal implant of an anesthetic drug pump inserted that also helped save my life from severe spasticity and pain. The condition is common with spinal injury and called Hyper Reflexic Autonomic Parasympathetic Dysreflexia, Dysreflexia for short. It causes extreme high blood pressures that threatened daily to cause heart disease and the immediate danger of a stroke.

The Medtronic Intrathecal Baclofen pump implant has saved my life. I have no doubt of that. It was getting insane the amount of incessant random muscle cramping my body was doing at the time. Still I barely squeaked by because on the psych test I answered to the negative for believing in the supernatural while answering to the positive that extraterrestrial life may exist. Now I'd have thought those were very rational answers but noooo! Imagine being told you can't have a life saving procedure because you have a history of say depression or whatever. Who today is totally free of ever having been depressed?

The operation was done at a hospital in Amiens, in northern France, by ground-breaking transplant surgeon Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard and Dr. Bernard Devauchelle. Dubernard led teams that performed a hand transplant in 1998 and the world's first double forearm transplant in January 2000.

The hand transplant recipient later had it amputated. Doctors said the man failed to take the required drugs and his body rejected the limb.

Lantieri said he was fearful that this operation could turn out like that first hand transplant if the patient is psychologically unstable.

Dubernard did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday. A news conference is set for Friday.

The face transplant patient, now in Dubernard's ward in a Lyon hospital in southern France, was also to have a second experimental treatment _ an infusion of the donor's bone marrow _ to try to prevent rejection of the new tissue.

"Maybe Jean-Michel Dubernard is revolutionizing the concept of transplantation," Lantieri said, but added that the patient now was being subjected to two untested treatments.

So frickin what!! If the patient agrees and it is necessary or has a good chance to prevent the failure of the first operation, then why not? It's the patient's choice.

Lantieri, who developed his own plans to attempt a partial face transplant, said members of Dubernard's team contacted him last spring, seeking details of his protocol.

He said that a surgeon in Lille where the transplant donor lived, had reviewed the woman's record and told him he was concerned about the circumstances of her injury. It involved one or two dogs, Lantieri said.

Why should the manner of injury have anything to do with it? I suppose it might if someone purposely injured themselves and it was thought possible to do the same again making the efforts to repair possibly wasted effort then yes by all means reconsider doing it but this is not the case here. Even if she still owns the dog or dogs responsible, which I highly doubt, it would be highly unlikely she'd place herself in the same danger again. Something that traumatic is nothing to chance repeatedly.

In the United States, surgeons and psychologists at two medical centers that hope to offer face transplants _ the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Louisville _ declined to comment Thursday on the French case.

Go figure, maybe because they had more sense? Perhaps here s a good place to mention the apparent differences in the two schools of luddism ethics I see that seem to come from opposing schools of thought "across the pond", as they say, from each other. It seems to be more right wing oriented in the US and more toward the left wing of the spectrum in Europe. In the US Christian Fundamentalism often flavors the luddism with people citing issues as being "against god or playing god". In Europe it seems to be the fruit loopy part of the left wing spectrum that dominates the luddite thought, such as the attitude towards GM foods fostered by extreme Greenie thought where it is merely issues that they feel are "against nature" rather than a deity. Now I am an avowed Liberal/(small L) libertarian (sort of) but the European lefty attitude against GM food and GM people is way way too left for me even. Of course it barely needs being said that I strongly disagree with the motivations behind US right wing ("Xian Right") flavored luddism. The very meaning of "Conservative" is "Prefers the status quote, resists change".

In an interview at the Cleveland Clinic in July, surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow stressed the several years she had spent developing procedures and how carefully her team now is working to select potential candidates for the operation.

"I hope nobody will be frivolous or do things just for fame. We are almost over-cautious," she said at the time.

Another surgeon familiar with the French case sounded more optimistic despite the woman's horrific injuries, which he said were caused by her own dog.

"She still has her own eyes, which are a lot of a person's expression ... we'd expect she'd turn out to be a pleasant-looking girl," Dr. Earl Owen told the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia.

Owen said he supervised the French surgeons as they practiced for the procedure. He said the woman will look more like herself than the donor, who he said was a woman.

"We expect the bone structure underneath to be a more powerful delineator of what the outcome will be physically than the skin and the nose and the lips," Owen told the Morning Herald.

Lantieri also said that while he had concerns, "I'm still very positive.

"Dubernard is a great surgeon. We have to wait now to see if it succeeds."

I sincerely hope it does succeed. I hope many other people can benefit from face transplants and bone marrow transplantation to counter immune rejection of transplanted tissues. The luddite ethicists need to shut the hell up and stop this luddite cultural trend that is holding up progress and hurting people and costing lives.