“Scientists in China have used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from humans and rabbits, according to a report in a scientific journal.” Whaaaaa? Apparently they’re looking for a cheap source of stem cells. Why rabbits? I guess they must have a lot of them in China. Plus, rabbits breed like, well, rabbits.
Click here for the story…
Woo hoo! My first entry!
This east-coast blackout is affecting all of us. Last night’s Daily Show was cancelled and replaced with MS-TDS. It was entertaining to see Stephen Colbert do is Brian Williams/Stone Phillips/Tom Brokaw immitation…
Al hails from Alberta. Right now he’s somewhere in the US, though his exact location can’t be confirmed. Sometimes he rides a motorbike. One of his cats is named Roux. He is well-informed and has a great sense of humor. I leave you in his capable hands. Be good.
There will be sporadic blogging over the next two weeks. Somehow, my life is getting in the way of the blog. Wait, I meant it the other way around. I’m staying with my folks in Northern Cal. Besides trying to remain sane, I plan to read, write new material, watch a few movies, and figure out who I’m going to vote for in the three-ring circus known as the recall election. Email me if you want to guest.
Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) is in Edinburgh promoting her new book, Global Woman, in which she argues that those “who hire cleaners and nannies so women are free to go out to work are contributing towards a new exploitative ‘servant economy’ which is destroying families in the developing world.” The main blame, she says, lies with men who fail to share the burdens of the home. The article is too short to allow her to make a convincing argument, I think.
Doris Lessing calls Tony Blair a “rabbit” and reminisces about a meeting with Henry Kissinger during which he talked about a “kitten bomb.”
is here. Sample item: “General Richard Sanchez said that he was scaling back aggressive roundups of Iraqis in the search for Saddam Hussein and Baath Party loyalists because he was afraid that “maybe our iron-fisted approach to the conduct of ops was beginning to alienate Iraqis. I started to get those sensings from multiple sources.” Someone give this man a prize.
I could rant on and on about this, but then Tarek pretty much says it all.
Elsewhere, this Reuters headline keeps popping up on my homepage: Schwarzenegger Upbeat, Avoids Outlining Policies. And why should he? He’s got a 10-point lead by speaking in bumper stickers and flashing his plastic-surgery enhanced smile. And the recall is only 6 weeks away.
The Washington Post has a very thorough article by Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus that charges there is “a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates — in public and behind the scenes — made allegations depicting Iraq’s nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support.” In addition, they say, “On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied.”
Orhan Pamuk writes about Istanbul for the BBC’s Sense of the City series.
