Yes, curling! The only sport where you can use the line “Only then did the usually stone-faced Fenson … raise his broom in victory” without soundling like an idiot. Oh, wait, you still sound like an idiot. Ah well, it’s still a sport.
To paraphrase Whittington:
“I’m sorry for standing there while you carelessly shot at a bird before checking to see if the area was clear. I’m sorry that the heart attack I had caused by your inability to look before you shoot caused you to worry. I’m sorry that while I lay in the hospital recovering the press decided that your inability to notify them in a timely manner resulted in you having to suffer their questions.”
His actual quote is “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have {sic} had to go through this week”. Apparently getting shot is now the fault of the person shot and not the shooter. I guess all those gang-bangers will have a new defense if they get arrested for doing a drive-by. “Gee your honor, if the VP can shoot someone and have it be the other guys fault, why can’t I?†It’s an idiotic statement and one that seems like Whittington is trying to get Cheney indebted to him.
I’m the first to admit that the story was a non-issue. Cheney accidentally shot someone on a hunting trip. No malice was involved. Unless it comes out that Cheney was drunk or goofing around I’m willing to accept it as what it appears to be, an accident. But for the victim to come out and apologize is just a bad sign of how much power this administration wields.
So if a child of American parents is born in the air over international waters on a non-US carrier (Lufthansa, British Air, etc.), how does that affect the child’s US citizenship? Seems strange to give birth while flying on a plane, but apparently it happened to Russians on a Russian flight.
I don’t have the original qoute, but according to the New York Times, the Bush administration had the following to say about their domestic spying:
Bush administration officials deny that they have violated the 1978 statute, noting that apart from the special eavesdropping program, they are going to the FISA court for warrants more often than any previous administration.
Um, how is this an argument for legality? That’s like saying that I “follow the speed limit, apart from when I speed” in order to justify my me pleading not guilty for speeding. The majority of people follow laws most of the time, but when they don’t, they are still commiting a crime.
At 39%, President Bush is only ahead of Nixon (27%) and Carter (36%) in approval ratings. That’s not a good thing. What could make it worse? Conservative leader, Pat Buchanan attacking you on your forign police. I have to wonder how low Bush’s approval rating will fall before, if ever, it picks up again. Of course, with 60% of the country thinking we are going in the wrong direction, maybe he won’t improve. Then again, Buchanan is a bit of a nut sometimes.
Last night, the President articulated his (and many others) ignorance of science:
A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research — human cloning in all its forms … creating or implanting embryos for experiments … creating human-animal hybrids … and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator — and that gift should never be discarded, devalued, or put up for sale.
What he want’s to say is that we shouldn’t be creating half-human/half-pig abominations of nature with twisted science gone awry. Instead, what he end’s up saying is that the use of human genes in animals should be ÂÂÂbanned and that if there is an animal gene that corrects Down syndrome or Parkinson’s, it shouldn’t be used because that would be a human-animal hybrid. Of course, his fear is well grounded in TV shows like Seinfeld, but the reality of the situation is much more complex.
But it brings up a good question. What defines “humanâ€. Chimpanzees contain 98% of the same genes as humans. If we were to add or change the remaining two percent to match the human genome, would the chimp be a hybrid? The definition of “human†is a label we have created to identify our species, but the distinction is not so clear cut as main-stream science would have us believe. Take, for example the Tasmanian wolf. It looks like a wolf but it’s not. It’s not even part of the canine family. It’s a marsupial, but it looks like a wolf, hence the name. In fact it’s Latin name, Thylacinus cynocephalus, means pouched dog with wolf head. It’s an artificial categorization of a creature that falls short of telling what it actually is.
Names and classifications are distinctions created by humanity to give order to the world. Nature has no concept of dog or human. It doesn’t recognize species or linage. There are no animal or plants. There is no living or dead. At least not as far as nature is concerned. Instead it’s all the same thing, just different forms.
So I look at what the President said, I have to chuckle. “[C]reating human-animal hybrids†is about calming the fears generated by late-night B-movies, with images of a half-man/half-fish creature preying on the innocent maiden as she swims in the lagoon; or alien/human hybrids with an uncontrollable urge to procreate. It’s a fear of a child who looks at those movies as if they were real.