Wow, they can Fed Ex ANYTHING these days!

.. even "babies":

The package went astray because of an erroneous Zip code. In a panic, she drove to a FedEx warehouse to retrieve it herself.

"I went to the counter, and I wasn't leaving until they gave me that tank," she said. "I said: 'You have my babies there. I need you to hand them over.' "

There were eleven of them, and only one lived. But what do you expect, they were sent Fed Ex! You'd think they could at least have put them in a crate with a few breathing holes. A tank, what were they thinking!?

Ok, they we're actually embryos, and they were in a cryogenic tank, (read article here). They didn't die until later:

Over the next three years, she insisted that her doctors transfer all of the embryos into her womb, two or three at a time. She had four transfers, and three miscarriages. Tanner was the only one who survived, but "we were committed to all 11 of those babies," she said. "We were going to see it through as long as it took."

That's quite a commitment! Not sure if it is wise, (imagine if you had eleven kids), but I'll give points for putting your money where your mouth is. Why would someone make a commitment like this?

As evangelical Christians, the Brinkmans, who are both 32, believe that life begins at conception and that each embryo is a person.

I try not to throw stones at people's religous beliefs. They aren't negatively affecting anyone's life, so why mention them? Well, they are being used as props for a Bush photo op, (again, read full story). I'm glad they were able to benefit from something that was just going to be thrown away, but this isn't a solution to the underlying problem:

Proponents of embryonic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of the embryos but which many scientists think has enormous potential to develop ways to repair organs and fight disease, say there are so few adoptions that thousands of embryos will be discarded if they are not used for research. Even if such adoptions were to increase manyfold, "it will not solve the question of what happens to the leftover embryos," said Michael Manganiello, senior vice president of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation in Washington.


Please read the rest of the article, but take note on the following excerpts and...


PLEASE READ BETWEEN THE LINES
(a new series.. maybe)


Some Snowflakes donors are as concerned as the recipients about the fate of the embryos. Kathryn Goodrich, 47, of Webster, Minn., said she felt "blessed" when her leftover embryos were adopted by Janet Mason, 37, a family practice physician in Columbus, Ohio. "I needed to know that they were not going to science, they were not going to be destroyed and they were not going to a couple that might have a lifestyle that I would not choose for my own children," she said.

READ - I believe in saving lives.. as long as it means that no hellbound lesbos get their turkey basters on my microscopic babies! I'd rather them die!

But the Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, who has a doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and is staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, argued that embryo adoptions would make Catholics complicit in test-tube fertilizations, which the church considers illicit. Moreover, he said, artificially implanting an embryo in a woman's womb is a "grave violation of the nature of marital sexuality."

READ - We believe in the sanctity of life.. as long as the guy in the big funny hat says it's okay.
OR - I said MARITAL sexuality! You thought I was going to leave myself open for another priest joke, didn't you?

"... maybe even Gidea"

Speaking of that asshole Tom Delay, it seems that a recent bill on stem cell research was up for a vote. There were actually two bills up in the House, one for funding embryonic stem cell research, and another one for funding umbilical cord stem cell research. The latter passed 431-1 in favor, the former passed 238-194 in favor. Bush has stated he will veto the embryonic bill, which need 52 more votes in favor, in order to override the veto.

This is not a partisan issue. Fifty Republicans voted in favor of the embryonic stem cell bill. However, ol' Tom "the Hammer" Delay has a problem with it:

Majority Leader Tom DeLay said before the vote it would be wrong for the government to finance "medical research predicated on the destruction of human embryos."

"An embryo is a person," the Texas Republican said.

Please review the embryonic stem cell harvesting process here, (or any reliable source, for that matter). The cells used in the process are less than a week old, and cannot be seen with the naked eye. They do not look like "tiny babies", or even little shrimp. Most people would barely even know what they were looking at if no one told them beforehand. They are a extremely small cluster of cells. An embryo is not a person.

To top it off, most of the of candidate embryos are thrown out anyways. Bush supports the very fertility treatments that cause this waste, and then blames embryonic stem cell research for destroying "human lives." Not only is his grasp of science lacking, but he is a hypocrite as well:

Bush held a news conference Tuesday surrounded by families who had either adopted or given up for adoption embryos remaining after fertility treatments.

"With the right policies and the right techniques, we can pursue scientific progress while still fulfilling our moral duties," Bush said. "The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo."

Supporters of the bill say only about 10 percent of excess embryos are adopted; the rest are discarded.

So basically, he thinks 10% ain't bad. Only 10% of the embryos are human lives, the other 90% don't count. Hell, adjust that percentage anyway you want, but the fact is stem cell research does something good with this waste. This research is not killing anything to begin with, and the embryonic cells are bound for the medical waste bin already. If he really wanted to preserve every last embryonic cell, he would want to outlaw fertility treatments. The last time I looked, there were a lot of unloved kids waiting to be adopted out there. This is nothing but cheap political theater:

"To reduce this issue to an abortion issue is a horrible injustice to 100 million Americans suffering the ravages of diabetes, spinal cord paralysis, heart disease, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, cancer, MS [multiple sclerosis], Lou Gehrig's disease and other fatal, debilitating diseases," said Rep. Jim Ramstad, a Minnesota Republican.

"What could be more pro-life than working for a cure for a loved one?" asked Rep. James Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, another of the bill's 200 co-sponsors, who suffered a spinal cord injury at age 16 and cannot walk.

So let's protect a cluster of cells, but treat real animals like just another product. I'm not a member of PETA by a long shot, (god I love bacon), but I believe one needs to at least be consistent if they want to be a self-righteous prick. Shit, think about all the human beings already here and in other countries, the real human life being thrown away everyday. Some of these politicians seem to have more sympathy for a blastocyte* than they do an actual person suffering from a war's "collateral damage", starving to death, or dying from an easily preventable disease. (Sorry, didn't mean to get all Sally Struthers on ya).

Yup, we are back sliding philosophically into the Dark Ages, while we grudgingly advance technologically, (ironically). I'm not saying there aren't some ethical concerns that need discussing, that is the case with any applied scientific research. And embryonic stem cell research is not a panacea, the fountain of youth, or immortality. But the current level of ignorant, fundamentalist thinking even astounds MY cynicism!

Even basic birth control is being attacked in this country. Trained pharmacists are not dispensing the pill to women in some places. This concept of "life" is moving further back into the biological chain of events. Next thing you know, there will be protestors around a pubescent boy in the bathroom trying to clean up after a nocturnal emission, chanting "Genocide!!!" Oh wait, we only attack women on fertility issues in this country, never mind.

This absurdity has reached comic proportions. In this light, I can't help but be reminded of a song...


An excerpt from Monty Python's "Every Sperm is Sacred" [from The Meaning of Life]:

Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate

Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.


Have a good three day weekend, (if you have one), and jack one off to spite the fundamentalists, and in honor of Delay, the biggest jack-off of them all!


NOTE: Blue italics represent excerpts from the CNN.com article.


* "An undifferentiated blastomere of the morula or the blastula stage of an embryo." - just in case you didn't know and were too lazy to click the link above. This is what they use for embryonic stem cell research. If someone shows you a slide of something that looks like a shrimp, it is a much later stage of the embryo. They are either an idiot, a manipulative liar, or both. Please ignore them, and pick up a fucking science book!

Pot, I'd like you to meet Kettle

Ahhh, nothing like a hot, steaming cup of irony in the morning! Tom Delay critized NBC for using his name in an unflattering manner in a recent episode of Law & Order about the slayings of two judges. In one scene, a frustrated cop says, "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt."

If you will remember, this is the guy that said, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," when condemning judges who decided not to prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

Now, this is what he wrote to NBC, "This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse."

I don't think I have to explain this one to death. Of course, he didn't mean that people should go out and kill judges that don't follow his agenda, but he has a bad habit of trivializing real tragedy by politicizing it with very brazen, inflammatory language. The word "hypocrite" might not be perfect in this situation, but I don't think Delay has room to criticize someone for trivializing a "sensitive issue" or tragedy.

Don't even get me started on the whole "activist judges" thing. There doesn't seem to be a fundemental, consistant principal that dictates when a judge is being an "activist judge". It doesn't seem dependent on whether they uphold or overrule previous decisions. Nor does it seem to necessarily have anything to do with ruling laws unconstitutional or not. It doesn't even have anything to do with a judge's personal beliefs affecting their decisions, (as Bush's recent judicial nominees plainly demonstrate).

No, what is at issue is the independence of the judiciary branch. As long as they agree with the majority in congress, they aren't "activist judges", it seems. Frankly, these politicians slept through their government classes when the teacher was discussing the importance of checks and balances, (in elementary, middle, high school, and college), or they are a bunch of fucking asshole. I vote assholes.

Sorry, I guess I started.