Stones Cry Out

This should carry more weight than, say, someone like me suggesting it.

The scientist who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep has urged fellow researchers to forego embryonic stem cell research — which he says is fraught with practical problems — and pursue more promising types of research.

That’s because he believes other research likely will overtake embryonic stem cell research.

Ian Wilmut spoke to a crowd of stem cell researchers Nov. 29 in La Jolla, Calif., telling them that because embryonic stem cells tend to lead to tumors, scientists should spend their time on non-embryonic forms of research, particularly on a new method called direct reprogramming. In direct reprogramming, scientists avoid stem cells altogether and, for instance, reprogram a skin cell directly into a nerve cell. Researchers have had success doing just that with lab mice. It has the support of ethicists who have opposed embryonic research.

"I’m not quite sure why this hasn’t been pursued more actively," said Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep in the 1990s.

Follow the money, Mr. Wilmut. I have a feeling not even your credentials are enough to get this to happen. But we can keep trying.

The thing is, there is a vastly superior option, with none of the ethical or moral issues.

Wilmut’s speech was reported by the North County Times (Escondido, Calif.), which paraphrased him as saying direct reprogramming would provide the benefits of embryonic stem cell research without the risks. The government, he added, likely won’t spend money on embryonic research if a safer method is available.

If successful, direct reprogramming would turn the political and ethical debate upside down, making moot discussions over which types of stem cells are most promising. Wilmut was speaking in the same state where California voters in 2004 approved a 10-year, $3 billion investment into embryonic stem cell research. No cures have been found.

With embryonic stem cell research, scientists try to take stem cells from embryos and turn them into specific cells for the body. The process is opposed by pro-lifers because it destroys the embryo. In direct programming, scientists — in theory — would take a skin cell and simply reprogram it into, say, a nerve cell, without involving either embryos or stem cells of any kind.

In the results of one mice lab experiment released in 2010, fibroblast cells — found in connective tissue — were reprogrammed into nerve cells.

But again, it’s not about the science. It’s about the money that some companies want from the government. It’s also about the politics of abortion, attempting to soften the issue of killing a child with the thought that the stem cells might help someone. But the reality is, a child is still dying, and the harvested stem cells are full of problems.

And speaking of abortion, there’s a bill going through Congress that would ban abortions for the purpose of sex selection and based on race. But the opposition to this bill by Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU and others shows that their supposed concern for non-discrimination doesn’t apply to the most vulnerable of us all.

As members of Congress hold a hearing today on legislation that would ban sex-selection abortions and abortions done if the unborn child is of a specific race, leading pro-abortion advocacy groups are strongly opposed to it.

Their opposition could explain why organizations like Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the ACLU almost never speak out against the horrible human rights abuses associated with the one-child policy in China – ranging from sex-selection abortions, to forced abortions, to coercive sterilizations and infanticides.

As members prepare to hear from experts on how the sex-selection abortion culture has made its way from nations like China and India to the United States, according to one study, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, ACLU and a total of 30 pro-abortion groups banded together for a letter opposing the legislation, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.

Feminists are up in arms about sex-selection abortions. OK, sorry, that was some wishful thinking. They ought to be, but aren’t.

Pro-life blogger Rebecca Taylor has noted that feminist groups frequently remain silent on the issue of sex-selection abortions.

“One may ask where are the feminists in the face of this disastrous practice that marginalizes all women?  Where are the champions of women and their reproductive rights?  They are mostly silent,” she said. “They championed choice and now that choice is being used to kill millions of female fetuses and subjugate women, they have nothing to say lest the sacred abortion cow be slaughtered.”

The principles upon which the Left stands, especially regarding science, ironically, are mostly politically convenient ones that fall away when the politics don’t work for them. Which suggests that they aren’t really principles at all.

Good morning.

1. Are these ideas past their expiration?
2. The IPCC and a contributor.
3. Apparently to be on the left, you need to check your sense of humor at the door.
4. What to do about Burma.
5. Interesting video sequence.
6. A book recommended, I got it and started reading it.
7. Another book.
8. And one more book, which I haven’t read, but is now in my inbox.
9. Stupid school administration tricks.
10. A translation of “too big to fail.”
11. Innocent until proven guilty … so how do y’all feel about Mr Cain in that context?
12. The primary case against Mr Gingrich.
13. Unprepared for (the extend of the inroads of) moral relativism.
14. Cool tech.
15. Prison and imprisonment … here and here.
16. Searching for Diogenes … or the  candidate furthest from the amazingly dishonest norm (such as Mr Obama)?

Well, I was busy this morning … and have an early flight back to the windy city (from the temporarily windy SouthWest) and won’t have time then. So, here’s what I found out in the wide world today and yesterday.

1. A little grist for the Habermas/Ratzinger can secular society survive question.
2. Our happy regulatory state, who needs freedom when you can ban happy meals?
3. Education as signaling.
4. GOP speechwriters bread and butter for the summer campaign.
5. Hypercard? Heck, how about AREX? Now, that was completely cool.
6. Grunt! I’ll allow here that in college I began lifting and went from a completely skinny prototypical pencil necked geek to a bench press of 225 while at a weight of 155. I’m lifting again, and Wednesday before Thanksgiving managed a one rep max of 195. Woo hoo.
7. National debt by nation, how about consumer debt? Howzzat figure in?
8. To solve a problem, using the tools at hand.
9. Biz taxes.
10. Somebody hasn’t read much Solzhenitsyn on the subject of suffering. I’d recommend beginning with the First Circle. Or read this, which I read (most of) on the plane ride west.
11. Those emails don’t come of as from seekers but salesmen.
12. A book recommended.
13. Lawyers might defend it, but when you have to “go carefully through the rhetoric” to figure out if he really made the promises that the speech(es) seem to imply, the rest of the world calls that lying.
14. Kind like all them California individualists all dressing and speaking identically.
15. “Famous historian” … whom I’ll admit of whom I’ve never heard. But then again apparently his field, to judge from wiki, is contemporary American history … a topic on which I have read little if anything.
16. Getting closer to an actual viable commercial replacement that meets the “gets better mileage” than my current car.
17. Security and the world, part one and part two.
18. Obama and the sociopath connection.
19. Meritocracy and misunderstanding.
20. One serious can of RAID, wonder what the bug looks like now.
21. Modern science and the totalitarian state.
22. Our failings highlighted too.
23. And some advice for putting Church and life together.

The one charity that has the lowest administrative costs (i.e. more of your donation actually gets to the needy) is being boycotted by the Gay Liberation Network. Why? Because it adheres to its religious beliefs. It stands up for what it believes in.

(Ever notice that folks who admire others who "stand up for what they believe in" almost invariably don’t appreciate it when they don’t agree with what’s being stood up for?)

Bil Browning explains his opposition to the Army this way.

As the holidays approach, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in front of stores dunning shoppers for donations. If you care about gay rights, you’ll skip their bucket in favor of a charity that doesn’t actively discriminate against the LGBT community.

The Salvation Army has a history of active discrimination against gays and lesbians. While you might think you’re helping the hungry and homeless by dropping a few dollars in the bright red buckets, not everyone can share in the donations. Many LGBT people are rejected by the evangelical church charity because they’re "sexually impure."

While the Army, as a church, does indeed believe that homosexuality goes against God’s plan for us, they most emphatically do not discriminate on who can receive their aid. That charge is entirely false. Everyone can share in the donations.

However, the Army is allowed to decide who represents it to the public. And that’s where the Army will indeed stand up for what it believes in.

And the GLN is free to start its own charity. Light a candle instead of curse the "darkness", and all that.

In the meantime, consider dropping a little bit more in the kettle this year. And it may not be a bad idea to make that a standard practice. Donations have been going down year-over-year, and which is why the "kettle season" has been moved up to a few days before Thanksgiving, rather than the long tradition of the day after it. It’s a down economy, but especially for the needy.

Good morning.

1. Two from Mr Christie, here and here.
2. Exactly! A good resource book from a secular philosophical perspective is from Mary Midgely in Wickedness.
3. So, good idea or not?
4. I suspect the reason revelations of misconduct have not affected the true believers.
5. A huge roundup of alternative history fiction involving Mr Hitler.
6. So, is that what the OWS is about?
7. OK then.
8. Taxes and income disparity.
9. We kill them. The point is not the killing, I’d think, but killing them humanely.
10. Impromptu improv.
11. Even considering this requires such a radical readjustment to my notions of justice that I’m still not seeing how this might be a good idea.
12. A book considered.

Good morning.

1. Almost $8Trillion and … no oversight.
2. What is bought by economic overstretch and causing global catastrophe, yet still praised. Head in sand much?
3. Charting an industry’s journey into la la land.
4. A lesson in self-organization or professorial petulance? Whaddya think?
5. The part supposedly “for the working class” eschews the working class.   Surprising nobody.
6. A movie plug.
7. Iran targets EA.
8. Ryan and the OWS.
9. A talented short film.
10. So racism and a discussion, are the scare quotes warranted?
11. Climategate 2.0 … I missed it.
12. ID and evolution an atheist supporter in academia?

Well, I’m back on the West coast (Pacific time).

1. Robots in prison.
2. A Defense toy … which at the very least has a cool name.
3. A book recommended.
4. A movie recommended as well.
5. A plug for being race blind.
6. Heh.
7. Tech and translation.
8. Time and US vs not-US covers.
9. Oppose aff action. Perhaps the Admin wants to foster resentment for vets.
10. An assertion. Is it supportable?
11. Choosing who you will be, is important.
12. Ms Stein as feminist.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

1. Open book exams in the information age.
2. So, guilty today? It hadn’t occurred to me, so I guess I’m not.
3. So, was the left sold out?
4. And the best comic short on Thanksgiving ever.
5. Bumbling American grand strategy … or not.
6. The EU and the ECB.
7. Which is perhaps the advantage of the tradition of the Nativity fast instead of the Advent cycle.
8. Cold kills.

Whenever I try to give credit to Ronald Reagan for participating in the fall of the Soviet Union, I often hear that its fall was an inevitability, and it just so happened to occur on Reagan’s watch. I have to point out to them that Reagan was the first President to come along with an intent to defeat communism, not just contain it. And then to have the Soviet Union defeated "on his watch", with nary a nuke dropped, is one of those "coincidences" you don’t often see in politics; where the effect so closely mirrors the cause.

Interestingly, some of those who say the fall of communism was inevitable weren’t around when it happened. I was. And so was Lech Walesa.

Lech Walesa said that there would not be a free Poland without Ronald Reagan, during the unveiling of a statue in Warsaw of the late American president on Monday.

The former Solidarity leader said that “as a participant in these events,” it was “inconceivable” that such changes would have come about without the last American president during the post-1945 cold-war era.

Walesa added that thirty years ago, it seemed that the fall of the communist system would not be possible without a nuclear war.

Reagan stood strongly, and very publicly, with Poland against the Soviets. This was not an appeasing President. The Soviet Union was wrong and evil, and Reagan was not afraid to call it that, to the consternation of so many American liberals. (Just ask if, after Reagan walked out of the Reykjavik summit, if they thought nuclear war was a distinct possibility.) Lech Walesa agreed, and understood that history could just as easily played out very differently, if Reagan had not believed that victory was possible.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. Poland certainly is.

Good morning to y’all.

1. An idea … seems not so good to me. Whaddya all think?
2. American cryptography done right, a last survivor passes on.
3. So, what in the FDA is being done to cut this time to market down. If the answer is “nothing” as I suspect it is, then the FDA is failing its primary function.
4. Mr Obama on OWS, Chicago hasn’t to my knowledge had a big OWS presence compared to other cities, but the smell of human waste was quite noticeable last weekend.
5. While I’d agree that continued employment and bonus should be tied to performance, I’m not convinced “standardized tests” are a good metric.
6. Mr Wright noted approvingly.
7. Perhaps not the expected reaction given the litany of events?
8. A closeup of an unusual missile launch, and I have to say this is a (welcome) contrast to the Vietnam era drug abuse means of dealing with stress and boredom.

Last weekend, at the CSO (Chicago Symphony) I was privileged to hear a rendition of Ein Heldenleben (which translates as “A Hero’s Life”), note in the remarks below I’m drawing on the excellent program notes provided for the concert. Richard Strauss (pronounced Rikard with a hard “k” for the ch) wrote this to reflect and remind the listener of Beethoven’s Eroica. The Beethoven “Hero” Symphony itself was initially pointing to the Heroic life of Napoleon (and after general disappointment with Napoleon and his decision to invade Russia. But the hero in Strauss’ work is not Napoleon or Alexandar (neither the Tsar or the Macedonian conqueror) but … himself.

It’s an interesting thing, to witness a grand tone poem to the heroic image of … an urban mild mannered domestic fellow, who granted is a musical genius, but … the “heroic” scenes painted aren’t the normal visions of heroism. The foes vanquished in martial and magnificent phrases are … chattering art critics. The beautiful visions of love and romance, the young neighbor girl whom he was engaged to teach music, whom he subsequently married.

This vision, this recasting of the ordinary is a reversal of the contemporary Arendt inspired “banality of evil” … replaced in this case with a recasting into a frame reminiscent of Odysseus or Achilles … our more ordinary life. So “banality of evil” becomes the heroic banal.

St. Augustine as he begins his autobiography begins with … Creation. Augustine sees himself in cosmic context. Our countries founders saw themselves as a set apart from the common. In fact there was a notion that this sort of pride was a good thing. Perhaps what Ein Heldenleben is suggesting is that we take this notion into the ordinary. Or perhaps  put differently, our ordinary lives should not be seen as anything but extraordinary. That is, the ordinary per se is not heroic but needs to be recast in that mold, that is we all need to strive for excellence, not because “everyone is the best at something” (which is false) but because striving for excellence is required someone how sees himself as heroic.

Good morning.

1. OWS and excellence.
2. Security FAIL.
3. Tick, tick tick … when will it go boom?
4. Man as industrious ant … and the speed of reclamation when we leave.
5. The real question was who thought sending the two women to that event was a good idea?
6. A question for the anti-gun nuts … how else is this going to be dealt with?
7. Big Tobacco, the most successful green movement out there.
8. Pithy summation of history.
9. I don’t think that’s the point. I’d imagine every campus has a constant flood of sexual scandals which it is dealing with. The trick which Penn failed to notice was this one in particular need action not coverup.

I’ve been on something of a sabbatical with regards to blogging and news-reading in general. I have, however, saved some links during that time, so here’s a bunch of them.

If even the Dutch have fallen out of love with windmills (by which I mean, they can’t afford to keep subsidizing them), you gotta’ wonder.

Right after Alabama’s illegal immigration law kicked in, unemployment dropped in a big way. Yeah, those jobs you keep saying Americans won’t do? Turns out they just might.

Spain has apparently had enough with the failed policies of socialists. They voted them in to appease terrorists back in 2004 following the Madrid bombings. But since then, Spain has been tanking economically along with the rest of Europe, and what seemed like a good idea at the time has now been revealed to be a huge mistake. This past weekend, conservatives won a landslide victory.

Iranian Christian pastor update: "Yousef (also spelled Youcef) Nadarkhani, sentenced to death a year ago after a court of appeals in Rasht, Iran, found him guilty of leaving Islam in September 2010, is in deteriorating health, according to a member of Nadarkhani’s denomination, the Church of Iran, who requested anonymity. "

"Who would Jesus protest?" According to Jimmie Bise, working from the New Testament, He wouldn’t be protesting government. He’d be changing hearts, one individual at a time.

Iran with nuclear weapons capability. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but I’m certain many on the Left will be shocked, unfortunately.

And finally, the oldest social network is new again. (Click for a larger version.)

Good morning.

1. Hate speech and assault.
2. Iran/nuke apologetics begin.
3. Pinoy catholics in Israel.
4. Imaginarium? Why not just say fantasy driven politics.
5. Mixing sport methods.
6. Black markets avoiding the regulatory state(s).
7. The ontological argument for God’s non-existence.
8. Hopefully the end to that travesty, but I fear it’s premature for that pronouncement.
9. The missing middle connection.

Ben Witherington is a Biblical scholar whom I highly respect. While I’ve not read any of his books, I have heard him interviewed several times, and recently read his critique of Frank Viola & George Barna’s book Pagan Christianity. When it comes to New Testament data, you’d be hard pressed to get a better or more thorough commentator.

However, in perusing his site, I ran across a post he wrote (just after the 2011 Tucson shooting in which Rep. Gabby Giffords was gravely wounded and 6 other people killed) regarding firearms and gun ownership in general. Suffice it to say that he is less than enthusiastic about the manner with which the 2nd Amendment is exercised in 21st century America. While he is entitled to his opinion, I must say that I consider his arguments to be weak and without substantial basis.

In Guns and Religion – Enough is Quite Enough, Witherington lists the following pro-gun arguments which, as he puts it, are actually “myths”.

Myth # 1: “Guns don’t kill people”

Myth # 2: “If we ban guns, only criminals will have guns”

Myth # 3: “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights gives the private citizen the right to own whatever gun his heart desires”

Myth # 4: “Hunting Animals (e.g. Deer) is a Sport”

Myth # 5: “The Best Way to Protect Yourself and Your Family is to Buy Guns”

Rather than actually address these “myths” properly, however, he resorts to erecting straw men, following illogical paths, tossing out red herrings, and presenting false or misleading information. Let me address what I believe to be the problems with his arguments.

Read the rest of this entry