Day: July 24, 2006

Prof. Stephen Hawking: Quit Donating Organs from Dead People if Stem Cell Research is Bad

Trish

As other western countries line up to fund or not fund stem cell research, Dr. Stephen Hawking offers some words of sanity.

[Stem cell research] is morally equivalent to taking a heart transplant from a victim of a car accident.

Stephen Hawking, the world’s best-known living scientist, has attacked “reactionary” forces in Europe and America who are trying to ban research into stem cells derived from human embryos…

“I strongly oppose the move to ban stem cell research funding from the European Union,” said Professor Hawking…

“Europe should not follow the reactionary lead of President Bush who recently vetoed a bill passed by Congress and supported by a majority of the American people that would have allowed federal funding for stem cell research,” he said in a statement to The Independent.

He was doing good up to last part. In fact, at least 60% of Americans support the government funding stem cell research.

…President Bush and some religious authorities, notably the Catholic Church, argue that the microscopic four-day-old embryos from which stem cells are derived are potential human lives…

But Professor Hawking dismissed these objections, saying that banning stem cells from human embryos is equivalent to opposing the use of donated organs from dead people…

“Stem cell research is the key to developing cures for degenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease from which I and many others suffer,” he said…

“The fact that the cells may come from embryos is not an objection because the embryos are going to die anyway,” Professor Hawking said.

“It is morally equivalent to taking a heart transplant from a victim of a car accident.

Good analogy. Is anyone on the Bush team listening?

Condi Makes Surprise Visit to Beiruit

Jon Ponder

Time Magazine:

The Bush Administration’s message went through a dramatic evolution over the weekend. Last Friday, describing her upcoming mission to the Middle East, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said dismissively, “I can guarantee you, if you simply look for a ceasefire that acknowledges and freezes the status quo ante, we will be back here in six months again or in five months or in nine months or in a year, trying to get another ceasefire because HIzballah will have decided yet again to try and to use southern Lebanon as a sanctuary to fire against Israel.”

But on Sunday, as Rice’s U.S .Air Force 757 headed for the Middle East, she told reporters, “We believe that a ceasefire is urgent.”

So what changed? Officially nothing, most notably the U.S. position. Rice said that her own idea of a ceasefire involved “a cessation of hostilities that is going to last…The south [of Lebanon] can’t be a kind of haven for [Hizballah] to launch attacks.”

What doesn’t seem to matter is the fact that hundreds of innocent citizens are being killed on both sides. Shouldn’t Bush and Condi at least pretend to care about civilian casualities?

Poll: Public Remains Clueless, Buys Bushco’s B.S.

Buck Banks

Numbskull nation: A new Harris poll disproves the theory of evolution — we are not progressing as a species toward some perfect form of homo sapien. Instead, we are devolving into hulking lunks without the ability to discern between truth and obvious Republican spinmeistery. How else explain today’s PollTrack from National Journal?

Despite conclusive reports that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led war, a new survey reveals that a substantial — and growing — portion of the American public believes otherwise.

Half of respondents to a new Harris poll said they believed the statement “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded” was true. That’s a dramatic jump from the last time Harris pollsters asked the question in February 2005, when just 36 percent said the statement was true.

More than seven in 10 said Iraqis are “better off” now than in the Saddam era.

Sixty-four percent also said that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had strong ties to al-Qaida, the same percentage that deemed the statement true last February. More than seven in 10 said Iraqis are “better off” now than in the Saddam era.

Numbers on the success of the war, however, have dipped significantly since last winter. Just 55 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “History will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.” That’s down nine points since the February poll.

Majorities agreed with other statements showing concern about domestic security with respect to the war overseas, with most respondents saying the war has “motivated more Islamic terrorists” to attack the United States and that “spending huge sums of money” in Iraq means fewer resources are available to protect the homefront. Nearly seven in 10 said the war made their country less respected internationally.

Bolten Appears on MTP: ‘A Quivering Mass of Lifeless Tissues’

Jon Ponder

White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten made his first appearance on Meet the Press yesterday. As ever, Tim Russert’s questions weren’t particularly tough or hard-hitting, it’s just that the positions he’s hired to defend are so illogical.

Here’s a review from Russert Watch on the Huffington Post:

Bolten’s debut on Meet the Press was a disaster. He was a quivering mass of lifeless tissues. Nothing more than a befuddled mouthpiece for the incomprehensible illogic of President Bush’s White House. Like Tony Snow and Dan Bartlett, he has an “oh crap, I have no idea what to do or say here — hhhheelllllp me!” look in his eye. It’s a look that most Republicans have these days, but especially so amongst the White House regulars.

On the war in Lebanon, Bolten aped the company line, relying on meaningless spin to stave off saying anything controversial or, heaven forfend, insightful or meaningful. But when the topic turned to the president’s veto of a bill to fund stem cell research, the going got weird:

[To] his credit, Russert really grilled Bolten on Tony Snow’s remarks referring to the embryonic stem cell research as “murder.”

Bolten refused to back his press secretary — the guy he was instrumental in hiring — by also using “murder.” It’d be nice to think that he didn’t back Snow’s remarks because embryonic stem cell research clearly is not murder. But that’s not why. I’m really not sure why he didn’t support his guy, but he didn’t. He did, however, praise the extremely cynical East Room ceremony in which the president announced his veto of the bill while being flipped off by a little girl behind him.

He also reiterated the president’s posture that he refuses to fund the destruction of “innocent life.” At the top of the show, Russert aired one of the president’s choice quotes on the issue: “This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others.”

Russert also pointed out the illogic of it all. These embryos will be destroyed anyway, why not use them to find a cure for lives that aren’t going to be flushed? Who’s going to adopt 400,000 frozen embryos?

Caught on Tape at the G8: More of Bush’s Inane Small Talk

Jon Ponder

From Fox News, so you know it’s true:

“Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country,”
— Pres. Bush to Chinese Leader

Bush expresses amazement that it will take some leaders as many as eight hours to fly home — about the same time it will take Air Force One with Bush aboard to return to Washington.

“You eight hours? Me, too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country,” Bush said, at one point telling a waiter he wanted Diet Coke. “Takes him eight hours to fly home. Russia’s big and so is China. Yeah Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving.”

Later, he says to his host, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin:

A stickler for keeping to his schedule, Bush could also be heard telling Russian President Vladimir Putin, “We’ve got to keep this thing moving. I have to leave at 2:15. They want me out of town so to free up your security forces.”

We can surmise that Bush needed to get back to his gym at the White House to work on his abs.

William F. Buckley: A European Leader As Bad As Bush ‘Would Retire or Resign’

Jon Ponder
“There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush,”
— William F. Buckley

William F. Buckley was the face of East Coast establishment conservativism back in the day. Now Buckley, who founded the National Review in 1955, is suggesting that Pres. Bush should resign:

“If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley says.

Where did the president go wrong? According to Buckley, George Bush has not been conservative enough:

“I think Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology — with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress,” Buckley says. “And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge.”

But what about the legacy of the man we call the Worst President Ever? Buckley whiff it, saying the view of future historians toward President Bush’s tenure in office is unclear:

“There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable.”