Knee-Jerk Anti-Cloning Rhetoric

Opposition to human cloning is nearly ubiquitous wherever cloning is discussed. Oddly enough, there are few reasons given for the opposition. Perhaps there are valid reasons to oppose human cloning, but if there are, you don’t hear those reasons discussed. The only discussion one hears is the statement that human cloning must be banned followed by nodding and applause.
Am I the only one asking why? What is the problem with cloning someone? Essentially your just making that person an identical twin sibling. Why is that so objectionable? Is there a fear that the clone will be regarded as inferior to the person from whom they are cloned? If so, why? If the two are genetically identical, why would a person and his clone be thought of as any different from a person and his twin? Why would anyone even think of granting the clone fewer right or liberties?

Are people worried about having their identity stolen? Clones, like any other child would have to be issued birth certificates with their own identification numbers and so forth, and they would likely be a great deal younger than the person from whom they were cloned, so there would be little chance of mistaken identity. Even if there were a chance of that, there is a far greater chance of it occurring between twins, but you don’t hear about twins separated by adoption stealing each others’ identities.

What other possible objection could there be? Are people worried about deformities or other medical issues? In that case cloning should be restricted until it meets the necessary standard of any medical or reproductive technology about to undergo human trials, but that’s not a reason to ban it outright.

Mitt Romney: Pure Class

Canadian Identity

The only time I've ever heard Canadian identity be described is in terms of contrast with the United States. Canadians have always been described as "exactly like Americans except for X, Y, and Z." The X, Y, and Z are the only place you will find anything approximating "Canadian culture."

The problem with Iran having nuclear weapons is that one cannot be sure that Iran is a rational actor. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction depends on all parties involved being rationally self-interested.

This Is Happening with Disturbing Regularity

Why don't all anti-gay Republicans just come out of the closet now and save us all the trouble? We all know they're overcompensating. Every last one of them. Here's more proof.

This one's pretty juicey, too. This guy is a senator from Idaho who voted in favor of cloture on debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment, and against cloture on a bill that would expand the hate crimes laws to include homosexuals. On the side he likes to bugger his bum-buddies in the bathroom.


According to a cop who had the misfortune of being in a public stall when this dude walked in, “I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes.”

The Wonderful Fount o' Fundies

Fundies Say the Darndest things has led me to yet another goldmine of fundamentalist lunacy. This guy, Bill Meuhlenberg, is especially interesting because of his sycophantic enthusiasm for my arch nemesis, Leon Kass. He's all with the "reproductive technology is destroying th family" bullshit.

The article to which I have linked is a review of the book, Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood by some stupid asshole. In the review, Meuhlenberg goes off on the ubiquitous paranoia about reproductive technology, surrogacy, and the like.

According to Meuhlenberg, "Indeed, if personhood is reduced to a simple collection of atoms and DNA, then any sense of human dignity and human rights disappears, for it is senseless to talk of atoms having rights." That would be true if people abandoned the recognition of sentience and self-worth as guarantors of dignity, which would not be the case in the implementation of any reproductive technology. He's right that it's senseless to speak of atoms having rights, because atoms don't have sentience, self-worth, or the capacity to suffer. It is senseless to bestow rights upon anything that either does not or can not value them. It is for this reason that it is just as senseless to bestow rights upon embryos.

The argument that usually follows from fundies when this assertion is made is that embryos have the potential to become something that can have the capacity to value rights. I feel, however, that the point at which this potential is given weight is arbitrary. An embryo has little more potential to become a person than a sperm does. Without a woman's body, an embryo has no more chance of survival than a sperm. Even if there were a significant increase in potential at the time of conception, a sperm still has some potential, but is still not regarded as having the dignity of a person, so potential alone is clearly not enough for a mass of cells to be deserving of rights.

Guys like Meuhleneberg are so paranoid that they believe allowing people to regard anything that happens to have human genes as less valuable than a thinking, feeling, reasoning human being will inevitably lead to denying rights to all human beings. They can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that human dignity is based on more than just the possession of human genes.

Rove Gone?

Wow, Karl Rove resigned. I always thought he was a Loyal Bushy.

The idea that Karl Rove is resigning because he no longer agrees with the Bush administration seems bizarre to me. We all know he has no conscience, so he's not leaving as a matter of principle.

The only reasons I can think of for Rove's resignation are that he has been given some other career opportunity that is better than his current gig, of which I've seen no evidence, or the investigations that are being conducted are about to uncover something that would be very damaging to the Bush Administration if it were to be revealed while he is still a part of it.

I think he's quitting now, so Bush doesn't have to fire him when the really bad shit comes out.

Also, this is intersting: