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New Civilization News: There Are No Conspiracies |
Category: Government, Public Sector 44 comments 7 Apr 2007 @ 16:57 by vaxen : Conspiracy means..."to breath together." That's all it means but it means that very well. As for Global warming? Try not destroying the Van Allen Belts with your Mega Ton Nuclear Weapons (oops, already gone) also understanding the relationship that the sky has with the earth might do a bit of good and while you're at it maybe disassemble your ''standing armies, navies, air forces, drug forces, White Houses," etc., in short, all the pomp and circumstance of the liars brigade. Politics is there to make sure they keep you hypnotised into thinking that by following their endless 'rants' you actually are doing something to help out 'the world.' Get out of the mess, reinstantiate your independence, deny to them that you are, their presumption, a Corporate slave owned by the UNITED STATES Corporation (That's all it is, it is not a nation, it is a Corporation! Duh...). === Hmmm. "The most fun was the gear used by foreign agents on both sides. One display showed real and counterfeit Soviet passports. Staples in USSR passports corroded, while the U.S. used stainless steel. Valery said hundreds of American agents were caught, because their phony passports had the wrong staples." Ah yes, Lubyanka! === Why is your original birth certificate kept by the Department of Commerce? Probably you may not want an answer to that question... 1933 http://www.sacredscience.com/ ***************************** The definition: WOW! And here I thought "conspiracies" meant a bunch of piracies stuck together by cons in high places! ---jazz 7 Apr 2007 @ 18:02 by vaxen : PS: Judas (Yehuda) was privy to the act. You didn't know that? He didn't hang himself either and was one of the ones who got the dead body out of the tomb before anyone could... Josh was released from prison today! April 3rd 2007! "I can't believe that!" said Alice. "Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - From "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll ON FEB 6 JOSH WOLF BECAME (THE)LONGEST-INCARCERATED JOURNALIST IN U.S. HISTORY FOR REFUSAL TO COMPLY WITH A SUBPOENA ON JOURNALISTIC PRINCIPLES http://freejosh.pbwiki.com/ 7 Apr 2007 @ 19:09 by jazzolog : Maybe The Locusts Ate The Body It being Holy Saturday, I shall digress a moment to answer Vaxen's atypical question, "Ya mean ya didn't know THAT?" As difficult as it may be to believe, Vax actually is every bit the profound theologian that he is a deft diplomat. The act to which Judas was privy apparently is the theft of the dead Jesus. I've thought more recently Judas was a practical fellow, who must have believed Jesus had gone bonkers to come piling into Jerusalem in the first place...to say nothing of heading straight to Wall Street and overturning the computers. After all, Jesus was a country bumpkin, Gary Cooper type, who was likely to upset the realpolitik of the movement once he hit the big time. He might even have been trying to save Jesus from himself, at least in the eyes of Judas. But never mind, let's say Matthew and John at least have it right that a rich man got permission to lay the body in an unused tomb. Was Joseph of Arimethea in on the conspiracy, or did some disciples or other guys get into the tomb later? Since Pilate ordered the body to be handed over to Joseph, wouldn't it seem logical Pilate had a couple soldiers lug the body for the rich man? Maybe not. But if Joseph wasn't in on it, when did the graverobbers get in there? Matthew says Joseph "rolled a great stone" over the opening so nobody could get in---or out? It was this Holy Saturday that saw "chief priests" approach Pilate with precisely the warning that disciples might steal the body and claim resurrection. This, they said, would be an even worse situation than Jesus' preposterous claims to be the Messiah. So Pilate had soldiers go down there and "seal" the stone shut. Did they look in first before sealing it? Was it too much trouble to roll the stone away and look to be sure nobody had stolen it already? Or did those pesky disciples "unseal" the stone somehow, maybe even on the morning of that Third Day? I mean, what's a plot without some logistics? There are a few Christians around who will begin an all night vigil in a few hours...and we want to know. 7 Apr 2007 @ 20:33 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Couldn't we settle for who blew up the 9/11 towers? 7 Apr 2007 @ 21:28 by a-d : Hmmmmm The Roman Empire and Ceasar, Marcus Aurelius, Brutus plus the rest... through out the years. NO conspiracies there either!... Just straight open talk, not to mention; The Public was ALWAYS kept truthfully, openly INFORMED at ALL times about all the "Things In The Makings"!... Sure. But let me tell u ONE thing: http://www.hs.fi/english/extras/photogallery/02 ; ) /// : ) heheheh.... said the Devil, after messing around in the Details! ; ) 8 Apr 2007 @ 00:58 by vaxen : Can... anything good ever come out of Arimithea? ;) I think those in the know used to call old Joseph: "The Fixer." And "rolled a great stone" is a rather homely, poetic, way of saying: "Man you roll a great joint! Where did you get this shit? Wow!" --- Shimon Ha Kashfan "Do not recite sutras. Do not make portraits of me. Just bury my body in the back mountains. It is enough that you cover it with earth." --- Vaxens' final wishes to his 'students?' The old pond has no walls; a frog just jumps in; do you say there is an echo? http://library.princeton.edu/ Luv y'all, ;) 8 Apr 2007 @ 09:38 by jazzolog : Rise Up And Shake Off The Dust! Too bad, I was hoping Vax would let us snort his ashes. {link:http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2050995,00.html} http://www.mrdeity.com/ Happy Easter Folks! 9 Apr 2007 @ 06:58 by vaxen : Ditto... A bit late, admittedly, but... ditto anyways. ;) http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/ 9 Apr 2007 @ 16:53 by quinty : James Baldwin and WilliamO I may have seen that debate on TV, and remember Buckley from that time. Yes, he could become extremely ugly in a very personal manner at times. And when he had a "liberal" on he would engage in rabbit shots to the back of the head. And rather pompously liked to display his superiority by demonstrating the gold plating on his words. James Baldwin was a phenomenal debater. I can recall seeing him take on smug powerful Southern white racists and run circles around them with his brilliance. Problem is, though, with such people you are probably wasting your time. They may eventually see a flash of light on the road of life. But probably not. Today many on the right resent all attempts to rectify America's race problems. They simply claim that none of it exists and that attempts at leveling the playing field are discriminatory against whites. No echoes of slavery. No lingering effects of Jim Crow. No institutionalized racism. If you do bring up slavery as an issue debating them they raucously laugh and tell you that they themselves never owned any slaves. And that what happened more than a hundred years ago is no longer relevant. That they don't have to accept the blame. No one is asking them to, though. Only some of the responsibility. As a society we still have many issues of race to work out. And much of the nativism which is being cast upon illegal aliens today reflects that ugly side of our national character. It’s also popping up in the right’s attitudes (as frequently expressed on the radio) toward Muslims and Arabs. All this is something we should try to remedy and heal as a society. The right would call me an "America hater" for saying all this. And would claim that all they object to are illegals coming here. That legal aliens are welcome. But then they can't recognize the racism which is woven into our society, and want to do nothing to help work it out. Claiming it doesn't even exist. Nor do some far rightwingers see that mocking Muslims and treating them as an unwelcome or dangerous group is the same as racism against African Americans. No, I wouldn’t hold my breath until they see the light. James Baldwin devoted his life to this issue. I wonder what he would say now. 10 Apr 2007 @ 06:43 by jazzolog : Re:commendation & Thanks Quinty I just bought and am in the middle of the DVD release of Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Unrated). Since we remain without cable here in the sticks, I haven't become familiar with his work...nor have I been anything but a distant admirer of rap until now. This documentary is an absolutely brilliant and beautiful testament to the America many of us know is underneath all the crap. The rap describes the crap---and shouts in no uncertain terms for its demise. But Chapelle's sweet soul---with a hot shot or 2 of uncompromised seasoning---leads us onto unexpected, joyous bus rides and a climb circuitously to the top of the Broken Angel we are taking half a century to fix. Here's a conspiracy I join gladly, and this film can be your Golden Ticket! 10 Apr 2007 @ 08:13 by jazzolog : What Is Spin Exactly? Bushie Loyals outdid themselves yesterday with their spin of demonstrations in Iraq to mark the Fall of the Saddam Statue. Forbes is running the AP story describing 10s of thousands of demonstrators screaming for the US to get out of their country. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/10/ap3596256.html (Beware: the Forbes welcome page misspells the word "lose" when it quotes Fred Allen about loosing (sic) his shirt. What next for Yankee grammar?) The White House sublimely (subslimily) spun the story to show how this outcry proves the success of their mission. Where else but in a liberated country could you have such a happy day of freedom? http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070409-2.html (That's the White House website, folks. Scroll down towards the bottom of the press release.) A spin is a lie actually. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not merely a different viewpoint on reality. It is a deliberate attempt to mislead. If the President hires a spinmaster as his righthand man and orders the Cabinet, with its TV and movie production technicians, to carry out that scumbag's pleasures to the letter, is it conspiracy? When the President offers these people to Congress for a little chat, off the record, but refuses to let them testify under oath, is he right? We await Gonzales. In the meantime, Paul Krugman yesterday went a little deeper into the spinning liars~~~ Sweet Little Lies By Paul Krugman The New York Times Monday 09 April 2007 Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can't picture their leaders being dishonest about such things. But there's another political lesson I don't think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie - the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren't meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong. For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush's credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn't believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security. Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots. The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out. Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run - especially compared with its successor - seem mired in scandal. Even in the post-9/11 environment, little lies never went away. In particular, promoting little lies seems to have been one of the main things U.S. attorneys, as loyal Bushies, were expected to do. For example, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, appears to have been fired because he wouldn't bring unwarranted charges of voter fraud. There's a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state's purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence "beyond thin." But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor's administration. This is the context in which you need to see the wild swings Republicans have been taking at Nancy Pelosi. First, there were claims that the speaker of the House had demanded a lavish plane for her trips back to California. One Republican leader denounced her "arrogance of extravagance" - then, when it became clear that the whole story was bogus, admitted that he had never had any evidence. Now there's Ms. Pelosi's fact-finding trip to Syria, which Dick Cheney denounced as "bad behavior" - unlike the visit to Syria by three Republican congressmen a few days earlier, or Newt Gingrich's trip to China when he was speaker. Ms. Pelosi has responded coolly, dismissing the administration's reaction as a "tantrum." But it's more than that: the hysterical reaction to her trip is part of a political strategy, aided and abetted by news organizations that give little lies their time in the sun. Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy - which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impe'sonate a legitimate news organization. But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time's Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that "the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal." For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi's trip titled "Talking to Terrorists." The G.O.P.'s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective - and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly - as long as many people in the news media keep playing along. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040907F.shtml 10 Apr 2007 @ 15:32 by quinty @72.195.137.102 : Democracy at work See how the Iraqis love us? They are so grateful to be free they want to kick us out. And that they can express this desire demonstrates their gratitude. Don't you just love it? About forty or fifty years ago Norman Mailer wrote somewhere that presidential power is so great that a president can set the mood of the country during his tenure in office. As a longstanding Bush basher the overall national mood currently appears giddy, fearful, phantasmagorical, uncertain, and crowded with idiotic lies. Yeah, old George has really done it. 10 Apr 2007 @ 23:40 by a-d : How'bout this Jazzo? http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.8.MadAsHell.htm 11 Apr 2007 @ 01:22 by vaxen : Derech Ha Gav: There is no innocence and altruism with the corporate media; it has been designed for one purpose: to control human beings, from cradle to grave, to the dictates of our corporatist masters, making us over the course of our lives obedient consumers, producers and slaves to the corporate world. It has been designed, through years of trial and error, to make of us all a grandiose army of good Americans, compliant, acquiescent, passive and ignorant, a nation of serfs in feudal servitude to corporatist lords. Make no mistake, to those governing over our lives, we are nothing but the cogs in the system of consumer and producer, nothing but the energy that feeds the giant engine of mass production and consumption that only serves to fatten the wallets of the corporatist world and the levers of control over our lives. Thus, inconvenient truths about their methods of control and manipulation will always be massacred in favor of charades and fictions, in favor of propaganda and dumbed down infotainment, lest the truth of what America has become be allowed to permeate throughout the dormant minds of 300 million citizens. http://www.nw0.info/?p=eBooks%20and%20Audio%20Books/ 11 Apr 2007 @ 07:21 by vaxen : But actually... I wonder: Have you ever come across the concept of Judas being the most loyal of all the Disciples? If it had not have been for Judas the mission (Jesus' mission/assuming he existed at all) never would have been accomplished. However it would not be fair to say that Judas was set up either! But he only did what he was commanded to do. Such is that two faced God (YHVH) that 'they' talk about out both sides of their faces. Enlil as opposed to Ea or HU. Old stuff. Ostara is a Goddess! Esther, Astarot, Astarte, In(Lady)Ana... etc., In effect those who think that they are controlled - are. Neo-Con Source Docs http://www.nw0.info/?p=eBooks%20and%20Audio%20Books/Neo-Con_Source_Docs/ 11 Apr 2007 @ 17:47 by vaxen : And... If you don't, perchance, catch the 'links' at the above site then here is: http://www.bewareofthis.info/ Caution: The page is around 6Ms so... you have been warned. 11 Apr 2007 @ 22:22 by vaxen : Doom... Doomsday for the Greenback By Mike Whitney The American people are in La-la land. If they had any idea of what the Federal Reserve was up to they'd be out on the streets waving fists and pitchforks. Instead, we go our business like nothing is wrong. Are we really that stupid? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17512.htm 12 Apr 2007 @ 10:29 by rayon : Jazzo Noaoo To add to your bon mots half way up - Jesus was certainly no bumpkin, he spoke at least three languages. Mainly Greek which was the intellectual mode of the time, even in Rome all the best people spoke Greek, it was de rigour. Then there was Aramaic the language of most of the people and broadly spoken, and then of course, Hebrew, he would also have learnt a bit of Latin to be able to talk with Pilate. His Disciples and the apostles, some could write, were not so literate . Joseph of Aramathea, a well off citizen, would not have troubled with a bumpkin, are you serious here?? Bumps don't do serious deep deep stuff. Sorry this is a digress from a another head on debate, and want to add other comments later. When can we buy the Dictionary of Vax, "breathing together" and "look more deeply" what Watch Words are being thrown? 12 Apr 2007 @ 11:58 by jmarc : Heads up Kurt Vonnegut died for your sins. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OEU17G1&show_article=1 Now, I have read every single thing that I could find ever published by this nutty fellow, and I'm still hopelessly republican. There really must be a conspiracy afoot... Anyway, he will be missed. He had me in tearful laughter over the simple drawing of a star * in "Breakfast of Champions". And nobody in the upper echelons saw it fittingly ironic to fire bomb Tehran today (or by the 6th of April, if we were to have believed the Russians). How Ironicly un-ironic. There really must be a conspiracy. well, anyway, be careful about what you pretend to be, as people may begin to think that you are that way. Toodles, or should I say, poo tooh weet. 12 Apr 2007 @ 15:49 by quinty : Speaking of April 6 I suppose you guys are aware that Bush is searching for a "War Tzar?" I kid you not. (Though I admit it's no laughing matter.) But isn't part of the president's job description Commander in Chief? Now Bush would never look for a CEO because he can easily see himself in that position. Right? But he needs somebody to run this war for him. After all, how many wars did he run before becoming president? He couldn't even warm up by invading Mexico when he was governor of Texas, though I'm sure he would have been a little more competent at running a war if he had. So he's looking for somebody who's good at doing this kind of thing. Now we got rid of Saddam and though he had some practice he can't be asked. But hold it! Stop! Remember who we have in jail down in Florida? Pineapple Face! Manuel Noriega! He would be great at the job and he could also serve as a "puppet" in Iraq and run the place for us. For he has had experience there too. There’s a guy sitting in jail ready to go, right here in the United States. And that the guy is a convicted felon shouldn’t matter to George: look at the other felons he’s brought into his administration. Manuel Noriega would be overjoyed to go. So not all is lost. Wait and be patient. If April 6 came and went there's still plenty of time. All we have to do is brush off a nice suit for Manuel and he’ll be ready to go...... 12 Apr 2007 @ 15:58 by jazzolog : In The Sense Of Provincial I don't want to get to heavy on a term I tossed off with a bit of levity, but nevertheless (unless one is a believer in the stories of Jesus having been a world traveler...and there are some) one would not spot him as a sophisticated man about town in Jerusalem I should think. People can know many things and be full of wisdom, but still not fit in the Big City. Judas probably was more hip to the scene---at least in surface matters---and freaked when he saw what Jesus was letting himself walk into. Sorry also about the Vonnegut death, but he had been ailing for some time...and was becoming downright bitter. Hopefully it was a gentle passing for him. Glad to hear jmarc enjoyed reading him...but not surprised. Liberals always are more fun. No surprise either that jmarc didn't find himself brainwashed into giving up Republicanism: the whole repeat/repeat drone is the rightwing's tool. As for the Commander in Chief thing, the president I believe is commander to the armed forces but not us civilians. Eisenhower never flashed a salute to military personnel while president...because he considered himself a civilian. It's these clowns who never served that started all this militaristic behavior. When he talks to Congress it is as civilian president, not commander in chief. 12 Apr 2007 @ 20:25 by vaxen : Noriega... is a whacked out porn freak who loves Heroine and whores. Guess he might fit the bill but... he doesn't speak Arabic but I guess Spanglish is close enough for the 'neo-cons' and if not there is always Spanish Fly. He is in jail according to? In any case his Voodoo didn't do him a helluva lot of good and he got a bit too uppity and thought that he was actually running the show... War Czars, drug Czars, Russian Czars... it's all the same. My heart died at wounded knee. Yours? Been to the Panama Canal of late? Can you say: Kung Pao Lo Wen Ming Tang? If you ask me the Bushitskies are looking for a bullet... I think I know where there are a few unmarked... Hell why not give Israel a chance. They love mass murder and would soon put a damper on the beast from Luxemburg. Personally? I think dropping tons of pork fat, from the sky, over the whole of the Meddling East would do the job just as well as anything else but, gotta use up all those surplus bombs and Depleted Uranium hollow points, armour and... Who knows, they probably use it as filler for their Hamburghers too... Yeah, right, you'd marry a gulf war vet...right? Get Romeros' "Night of the Living Dead" and watch it this time. It was first done in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Couldn't you tell? "Look what they done to my song, Ma..." --- Arlo Guthrie? 5.5 million years is the 'half life' of DU. And this schmuck needs a war Czar? And this schmuck needs a war Czar? All pelt the chief! Ah, you may have noted that all the four stars that were asked to step up to the plate and forget about their retirement... refused. Now where do refuseniks generally end up? ;) 12 Apr 2007 @ 23:09 by quinty : We just keep marching on..... Spanglish, Arabic, what do they care? Once we establish democracy in the Middle East "English only" comes next. (I mean, could these ingrates also be Bush bashers?) In the immortal (or immoral) words of Hunter Thompson: "What they fail to understand is the essential goodness of the white man's culture." Yeah, right on. Speaking of which, the railroading of Don Imus by an irrational lynch mob has raised my dander. At this moment there basically two kinds of people in the world: those who listen to Don Imus and those who don't. Those of us who have may be perplexed by the odd permutations coming out of his mouth at times. I mean like mad, man. But we know he is no racist. Period. (But no lynch mob ever asked if their victim was beaten as a child or not. Subtleties are not their forte. Blood is what they want.) At times I wonder about this country, how under the influence of the mass media it can so often lose its collective mind. The acceptance and rush to war in Iraq, for example. And now this Imus confab. (Which, of course, is far less important.) Pork fat? Now there's an idea. Do you think there is any profit in it for Cheney? It may work if there is. And yes, I noted the four stars told their Commander in Chief to take a walk. Gee, and it could have been such a career enhancing choice. Even if they only retired and joined a boardroom somewhere. But think of the opportunities! Not even General Jack E. Ripper could choose all his bomb sites. That’s progress!!! Thanks for the great laugh, Vax. 13 Apr 2007 @ 02:22 by vaxen : Certainly... you are very welcome my friend. It has been said that laughter is the best therapy. There are a few five stars around, though, but they are only used in time of War. UN police actions do not count and can be handled by a dinky little old four star... for that matter there are plenty of Colonels around who would be quite adequate for the small time parlor tricks being tested in the TARG dumping grounds. Making mutants of us all. Imagine in ten years, with all that nuclear crud floating around in our atmospheres, in our waters, in our food, in our... Well, Yatrus (Iatros in Greek) always did have a lot of fun here on this ancient planet. After all... it is his Laboratory. ;) http://heide-marie.vox.com/ 13 Apr 2007 @ 09:56 by jazzolog : Could Any Logwriter Be So Blessed? or even logROLLER for that matter? Well, maybe logrollers are too busy...especially if the log is rolling in bacon grease. What I mean is~~~to have 2 such commenting wits as these guys gracing his vague attempts? Oh well...I wasn't going to put this up at NCN (in fact I already stuffed the emailboxes of some members with it this morning) but now the positive hopefulness of Paul and Vax has me inspired~~~ Is this a baby? http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k4/images/BlastocystFinal.jpg A human embryo in the blastocyst stage of development. Opponents of embryonic stem cell research argue that it is unethical because extracting stem cells destroys the blastocyst, which they believe is morally equivalent to a person. Embryo ethics As the debate over stem cell research resumes in Washington this week, the moral principle on which the White House bases its position remains largely unexamined By Michael J. Sandel | April 8, 2007 As the Senate prepares to take up stem cell legislation this week, Congress and the president are at odds over a tangled question at the boundary of science, ethics, and religion. President Bush has restricted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and last year cast the first veto of his presidency when Congress tried to ease the restriction. With majorities in both houses of Congress ready to try again, the president has threatened another veto. The main arguments are by now familiar. Proponents argue that embryonic stem cell research holds great promise for understanding and curing diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, and other debilitating conditions. Opponents argue that the research is unethical, because deriving the stem cells destroys the blastocyst, an unimplanted human embryo at the sixth to eighth day of development. As Bush declared when he vetoed last year's stem cell bill, the federal government should not support "the taking of innocent human life." It is surprising that, despite the extensive public debate -- in Congress, during the 2004 and 2006 election campaigns, and on the Sunday morning talk shows -- relatively little attention has been paid to the moral issue at the heart of the controversy: Are the opponents of stem cell research correct in their claim that the unimplanted human embryo is already a human being, morally equivalent to a person? Perhaps this claim has gone unaddressed because stem cell proponents and many in the media consider it obviously false, a faith-based belief that no rational argument could possibly dislodge. If so, they are making a mistake. The fact that a moral belief may be rooted in religious conviction neither exempts it from challenge nor puts it beyond the realm of public debate. Ignoring the claim that the blastocyst is a person fails to respect those who oppose embryonic stem cell research on principled moral grounds. It has also led the media to miss glaring contradictions in Bush's stem cell policy, which does not actually live up to the principle it invokes -- that destroying an embryo is like killing a child. It is important to be clear, first of all, about the embryo from which stem cells are extracted. It is not implanted and growing in a woman's uterus. It is not a fetus. It has no recognizable human features or form. It is, rather, a blastocyst, a cluster of 180 to 200 cells, growing in a petri dish, barely visible to the naked eye. Such blastocysts are either cloned in the lab or created in fertility clinics. The bill pending in Congress would fund stem cell research only on excess blastocysts left over from infertility treatments. The blastocyst represents such an early stage of embryonic development that the cells it contains have not yet differentiated, or taken on the properties of particular organs or tissues -- kidneys, muscles, spinal cord, and so on. This is why the stem cells that are extracted from the blastocyst hold the promise of developing, with proper coaxing in the lab, into any kind of cell the researcher wants to study or repair. The moral and political controversy arises from the fact that extracting the stem cells destroys the blastocyst. It is important to grasp the full force of the claim that the embryo is morally equivalent to a person, a fully developed human being. For those who hold this view, extracting stem cells from a blastocyst is as morally abhorrent as harvesting organs from a baby to save other people's lives. This is the position of Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, a leading advocate of the right-to-life position. In Brownback's view, "a human embryo . . . is a human being just like you and me; and it deserves the same respect that our laws give to us all." If Brownback is right, then embryonic stem cell research is immoral because it amounts to killing a person to treat other people's diseases. But is he right? Is there good reason to believe that the blastocyst is a person? Some base this belief on the religious conviction that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception. Others defend it without recourse to religion, by the following line of reasoning: Human beings are not things. Their lives must not be sacrificed against their will, even for the sake of good ends, like saving other people's lives. The reason human beings must not be treated as things is that they are inviolable. At what point do we acquire this inviolability? The answer cannot depend on the age or developmental stage of a particular human life. Infants are inviolable, and few people would countenance harvesting organs for transplantation even from a fetus. Every human being -- each one of us -- began life as an embryo. Unless we can point to a definitive moment in the passage from conception to birth that marks the emergence of the human person, we must regard embryos as possessing the same inviolability as fully developed human beings. This argument can be challenged on a number of grounds. First, it is undeniable that a human embryo is "human life" in the biological sense that it is living rather than dead, and human rather than, say, bovine. But this biological fact does not establish that the blastocyst is a human being, or a person. Any living human cell (a skin cell, for example) is "human life" in the sense of being human rather than bovine and living rather than dead. But no one would consider a skin cell a person, or deem it inviolable. Showing that a blastocyst is a human being, or a person, requires further argument. Some try to base such an argument on the fact that human beings develop from embryo to fetus to child. Every person was once an embryo, the argument goes, and there is no clear, non-arbitrary line between conception and adulthood that can tell us when personhood begins. Given the lack of such a line, we should regard the blastocyst as a person, as morally equivalent to a fully developed human being. But this argument is not persuasive. Consider an analogy: although every oak tree was once an acorn, it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that I should treat the loss of an acorn eaten by a squirrel in my front yard as the same kind of loss as the death of an oak tree felled by a storm. Despite their developmental continuity, acorns and oak trees differ. So do human embryos and human beings, and in the same way. Just as acorns are potential oaks, human embryos are potential human beings. The distinction between a potential person and an actual one makes a moral difference. Sentient creatures make claims on us that nonsentient ones do not; beings capable of experience and consciousness make higher claims still. Human life develops by degrees. A further reason to be skeptical of the notion that blastocysts are persons is to notice that many who invoke it do not embrace its full implications. President Bush is a case in point. In 2001, he announced a policy that restricted federal funding to already existing stem cell lines, so that no taxpayer funds would encourage or support the destruction of embryos. And in 2006, he vetoed a bill that would have funded new embryonic stem cell research, saying that he did not want to support "the taking of innocent human life." But it is a striking feature of the president's position that, while restricting the funding of embryonic stem cell research, he has made no effort to ban it. To adapt a slogan from the Clinton administration, the Bush policy might be summarized as "don't fund, don't ban." But this policy is at odds with the notion that embryos are human beings. If harvesting stem cells from a blastocyst were truly on a par with harvesting organs from a baby, then the morally responsible policy would be to ban it, not merely deny it federal funding. If some doctors made a practice of killing children to get organs for transplantation, no one would take the position that the infanticide should be ineligible for federal funding but allowed to continue in the private sector. In fact, if we were persuaded that embryonic stem cell research were tantamount to infanticide, we would not only ban it but treat it as a grisly form of murder and subject scientists who performed it to criminal punishment. It might be argued, in defense of the president's policy, that Congress would be unlikely to enact an outright ban on embryonic stem cell research. But this does not explain why, if the president really considers embryos to be human beings, he has not at least called for such a ban, nor even called upon scientists to stop doing stem cell research that involves the destruction of embryos. In fact, Bush has cited the fact that "there is no ban on embryonic stem cell research" in touting the virtues of his "balanced approach." The moral oddness of the Bush "don't fund, don't ban" position confused even his spokesman, Tony Snow. Last year, Snow told the White House press corps that the president vetoed the stem cell bill because he considered embryonic stem cell research to be "murder," something the federal government should not support. When the comment drew a flurry of critical press attention, the White House retreated. No, the president did not believe that destroying an embryo was murder. The press secretary retracted his statement, and apologized for having "overstated the president's position." How exactly the spokesman had overstated the president's position is unclear. If embryonic stem cell research does constitute the deliberate taking of innocent human life, it is hard to see how it differs from murder. The chastened press secretary made no attempt to parse the distinction. His errant statement that the president considered embryo destruction to be "murder" simply followed the moral logic of the notion that embryos are human beings. It was a gaffe only because the Bush policy does not follow that logic. The president's refusal to ban privately-funded embryonic stem cell research is not the only way in which his policies betray the principle that embryos are persons. In the course of treating infertility, American fertility clinics routinely discard thousands of human embryos. The bill now before the Senate would fund stem cell research only on these excess embryos, which are already bound for destruction. (This is also the position taken by former governor Mitt Romney, who supports stem cell research on embryos left over from fertility clinics.) Although Bush would ban the use of such embryos in federally funded research, he has not called for legislation to ban the creation and destruction of embryos by fertility clinics. But if embryos are human beings, to allow fertility clinics to discard them is to countenance, in effect, the widespread creation and destruction of surplus children. Those who believe that a blastocyst is morally equivalent to a baby must believe that the 400,000 excess embryos languishing in freezers in US fertility clinics are like newborns left to die by exposure on a mountainside. But those who view embryos in this way should not only be opposing embryonic stem cell research; they should also be leading a campaign to shut down what they must regard as rampant infanticide in fertility clinics. Some principled right-to-life opponents of stem cell research meet this test of moral consistency. Bush's "don't fund, don't ban" policy does not. Those who fail to take seriously the belief that embryos are persons miss this point. Rather than simply complain that the president's stem cell policy allows religion to trump science, critics should ask why the president does not pursue the full implications of the principle he invokes. If he does not want to ban embryonic stem cell research, or prosecute stem cell scientists for murder, or ban fertility clinics from creating and discarding excess embryos, this must mean that he does not really consider human embryos as morally equivalent to fully developed human beings after all. But if he doesn't believe that embryos are persons, then why ban federally funded embryonic stem cell research that holds promise for curing diseases and saving lives? Michael J. Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book, "The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering," to be published next month by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. © Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/04/08/embryo_ethics/?page=full 13 Apr 2007 @ 10:26 by rayon : Got by the Throat This is the worst, Ayurvedically this converts the situation of hell (difficulties pending reincarnation) to one of Antartica or the Artic, or Saturn, or somewhere of frozen ice. Even if the spirit has not taken up residence in the embryo, the impact of freezing the human tissue form will ultimately cause all the diseases related to an inbalance of the Air, Movement, Ether, Dispersing Energetical operated functions and physical material organs where this Energetic resides naturally, called in Sanscrit the Vata, and ENCRIPT genetically the disease (probably reducing this function in the living organism) into the very tissue (this will effect all nerves, and the ethereal systems, the nadis, and other such elemental entities of the AURA, the higher manifestations, of VATA. (This could also encript the state of OLD AGE immediately into the small embryo, reducing the lifespan to that of a wholly different something (can't call it Being). They will be unable to reproduce (controlled by VATA in healthy natural state - not even allowed to eat FROZEN foods predominantly) themselves outside of this freezing process, so they are up a very uncomfortable one way street to nowhere. It is unlikely that such processes will lead to normal self replication, normal and self being the operative words, with replication consigned to Obselecence, and rendering it as an Archaic decorative, romantic notion being utilised to sell the entire aforementioned concept to those accepting blindly science, and blindly all else in Life it would appear. Whenever, these images appear on our screens almost regularly once a week (and on every news item through the day and night), I shield my eyes with my hands to prevent even the image of this manipulation entering into my being. This is not a conspiracy, it is a boast to frighten the majority of people, it will undermine their self esteem, making people feel helpless against such new societal institutions. Who can blame them to go into switch off? and stay there? Some things in nature are supposed to happen in privacy, without be spied upon, it may be required at all levels of organic life developments, otherwise is desecration and perversion. The Carthagenians were destroyed because they had the reputation of "Eating their Children and Infants". I believe this is symbolic for living a life which gave no inheritence to the younger generation. Libya had marble columned cities aplenty, there was fantastic opulence in Lebanon, they all endured crashing earthquakes and no one wants to go anywhere near these places now, people do not even know about them. This process is affecting the natural reproduction cycle mechanism, in ADDITION to everything else being chucked into our seas and air. Apparently, it is very hard to get a good body in each reincarnation, that is why we should respect and look after them. It is a vital rare form, and even born in a poor hard working state it is still a great gift to be acknowledged, because not being born when one might need to be to do karmic stuff is supposed to be not so good. It was an intriguing day until seeing this appear on the system. 13 Apr 2007 @ 13:04 by vaxen : Parlor tricks "...saying that he did not want to support "the taking of innocent human life." --- Right, George. Federal funds, taxpayer money? This is the sleaziest, most despicable bunch of people I have ever come across in ten thousand existences. Who the hell are these people anyway? These 'Amurikans' who cop to such inane drivle? Storm the White House and tear the damned place apart and then hang them all! Oh, that will happen someday just as surely as I am writing this. Nicola makes a great point. In fact, I had never even considered her viewpoint based on the ancient Ayurvedic science. But for this country to act as if George Bush is the supreme dictator of the land? Rebellion is nigh. Surely no one can take the word of this man as being anything less than hollow and filled with the darkest of days and intentions! Murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraquis, Afghanistanis and anyone else who disagrees with them and then saying that a blastocyst is innocent life and that innocent life must be protected? Herod reincarnated? Worse... Federal counterfeit money - just what we all need more of that we might forever remain debt slaves of financial institutions gone amok. Thanks jazzo and especially thanks nicola. I'm no fan of what goes by the name of ``Science." Can you say Eugenics? "What they fail to understand is the essential goodness of the white man's culture." --- H.T. You're a good man, jazzolog. 13 Apr 2007 @ 15:42 by quinty : Stem cell research Would God care? I don't think so. What gives me the right to speak for what God would think? The same right anyone else has to speak for God. And there a lot of people who believe they have the One and True and Only message. The belief that "life" begins at conception is a human conviction. And God had nothing to do with it. While in the meantime, well, you know..... science and clearheaded thought (such as that expressed by the Harvard professor) are forced once again to face the rigid medieval convictions of doctrinaire religion. A new production of Inherit the Wind has come along. And hearing about it someone pointed out to me that the author believed all that monkey trial furor was a thing a of the past. That that attitude is expressed throughout the play. Surprise. Surprise. What is it about humanity that makes so many of us require a solid faith in the concoctions of our own minds? Even if logically we should all know that what each one of us perceives is not necessarily an ultimate truth? That the universe is much larger and mysterious than anything we can grasp or imagine? When does life begin? Millions, billions of years ago? Does it pass on through us in a steady stream, a little breaking off to form into individual persons? Was there no life before conception? Will it all end? Is life an expression of God, a proof of His existence? A manifestation of the Godforce which collected here on our own small planet in this giant universe? I don’t believe anyone has the answers to any of these questions. Let the scientists do their work for the good of us all. 13 Apr 2007 @ 16:35 by bushman : Hmm, The revolving door of souls, she has many egg, far more than she could give birth to. He has a billion per drop, the combo so random, still, she wont birth 20,000 children in her life, and for him its 1 out of a billion. Nature works like a system thats closed , that builds internal presure, as with any device that does this, there has to be a bypass system to balance the internal flow. Like in your car engine, you have an oil filter, but this filter does not clean 100% of the oil, maybe 60% accualy goes thru the filter, the rest is bypassed back into the system. The flow of souls to body, is life, the whole action is life, since the soul is indestructable, it will be reborn till there is no flesh left on the planet. Like rain must form on a dust spec, so must the soul be born from the flesh. We got 6 billion souls on the planet, most of them here as a result of the system being over loaded. My view is out with the old , in with the new, but we live longer, and have more babies, so it would be better to ban doctors, the part that is imoral here is that new life would be use to preserve old life and life that has no purpose, life that can only sit and swat at flies. My view is that if they can get the cells they need from the body they will be fixing, that is ok, but if they take it from new life that is not good. Still the midle dark and light ground, would be to bypass the souls that will be atracted when an egg gets fertilized. It really wouldnt be murder but self regulation, since more eggs get flushed down the toilet and sperms never see an egg. The new life they get the cells from has no eyes and ears, maybe only the sence that it is. To the new life, it would think that is what they are for, like the kids that never knew life with out a microwave and a phone. Seems God created everything, everything that could ever be imagined, all things, I don't see how it matters, it's part of our education into how God accually exists as one thing. I mean come on, trees drop thier untimly fruit, some animals eat thier own babies and others babies, they have souls too. Its a closed system of flow, and man is a device that was designed to control that flow internaly, the real question here is, who decides who gets to stay and who gets sent back to the end of the line. :} 13 Apr 2007 @ 17:20 by vaxen : Scientists? I am not in the least opposed to stem cell research and true science but there is a lot that goes by the name of science which isn't. Making of these small minded men giants is to make a great mistake. Take a good look at Eugenics, for example, something the Bush clan know about only all too well. It was science that brought us the ovens in Germany and elsewhere wherein people of many races were sytematically, scientifically murdered. It is science that brings us neutron bombs and the threat of total annihilation. It is science that brings us... mind control and a billion other things which we do not need as human beings. Science, per se, is nothing but a sacred cow. Authorities? Experts? Yeah, in robbing everyone of their dignity and substance. Most so called 'scientists' are a vapid egotistical lot interested more in funding their precious projects than in fostering life. Oh, there are good men who just happen to be 'classed' with that group but they are few and far between. FAS is a good example of some, so called scientists, human beings, who care and are trying to do something about the threatened doom that we all face largely do to... science! It might do well to research the origins of the word. Could be quite enlightening as to what true science is as opposed to the chicanery which oft goes by its name... Same goes for the neuter word 'god!' Comes from the ancient sumerian root... HU (EA)! Quite revealing... Incidentally FAS means 'fart' in Arabic... I'll let that one ride out the storm. ;) 13 Apr 2007 @ 22:50 by quinty : Well Vax sometimes the scientists at the top stoop to practices unbecoming. At least for folks of their high standing reputations and stature. True, poets and painters can be drunks and chase after defenseless minors for sexual gratifications. Hardly ennobling their subime work in their private antics. We expect that, after all. And Hemingway once reflected on what might have happened if Lord Byron had led a troupe of Girl Scouts through the woods. He advised against it. But scientists? In their antiseptic white lab coats? They have lied, cheated, and shamelessly crushed rivals only to garner all the glory and the prize for themselves. Not all are Doctor Mengeles of course. But ethically they can be pretty low. Which is unbecoming to such brilliance. If the people with brains behave in so base a manner what can be expected of those of us down below? What a crushing burden it can be to be human! But Vax! Why assume they are all more or less like that? Why even bring up this darker aspect? Even when they pose, prevaricate, lie and mislead about their accomplishments they still bring about the results. For it is not about nothing that they fight over for the acclaim. And that end, the results of their work, is what really counts. That those wonder medicines, drugs, miracle cures and procedures are also there. If my memory were not so bad I could remember examples of the above. Scientists who stole the glory for themselves. Robbing others of the Nobel and their rightful place in history. Fortunately, this doesn’t appear to have effected the cures they discovered, though someone here may be able to put me right on that? 14 Apr 2007 @ 01:59 by vaxen : Well My best friend in Israel discovered interferon. He is a bio chemist and a real scientist. When Medifarm Pharmaceuticals sent him to Australia and Greece to 'create' markets for their cancer drugs it was with the notion that their drugs would be creating cancer! Of course there were drugs that could mimic a cure... but Lawrence had a conscience. At that time I was doing a lot of sculpture and selling very well, in Israel and Europe, also he was very interested in my art... when this happened to him he came to me and asked me what I thought he should do. I, as well as his family, told him to get out of the racket. He did... even though the position was terribly lucrative, he had his own lab, and he was building a house at the time. There are, of course, so called scientists that are ethical and can't be bought. Tesla died peniless with the American Government literally stealing all his work! Wilhelm Reich died in prison! Sciencia is "knowledge" and purportedly one who dedicates him/her self to the acquisition of real knowledge for the betterment and advancement of human kind does so altruistically. I was supposed to become a scientist. All my schooling, from early on, was dedicated towards that end only... no one asked me about it. So I became an Artist, warrior and spy. Cool combo... Now? Just me... The cures? Well, they weren't hidden and lots of plagiarism exists in the sacred white washed halls of the Academic Sciences... Like I mentioned somewhere before... someday we will shoot them on site. Mark my words... and we will know why. Thanks for your input on this, quinty san... My IQ is just as high as any of their Geniuses and that became problematic for me. Long story... I've known a lot of scientists in my life and the ones that became personal friends were always very humble and good people. I don't forget them. 14 Apr 2007 @ 14:38 by quinty : As a baby I met Einstein. The Spanish Republic's foreign minister, Julio Alvarez del Vayo, knew everybody. He and my father had been friends since the First World War and we visited Einstein once in his home on Long Island. Even though I was a baby I can still vaguely remember his face. It made that powerful an impression on me. And, of course, I had no idea nor cared when I was one or two years old who he was. It was the great impression of his deep humanity which stuck with me. My mother likened him to a "pair of old slippers." And having spoken to some people who worked with him it appears he may have been surrounded by ambitious climbers at Princeton but that he wasn't that way at all himself. So I think he would fit into your category of "humble and good people." As for the name drop I just committed, ah well. If the story was bad I apologize. If it interested you then there's no need. 14 Apr 2007 @ 15:21 by vaxen : No need... I don't consider your revelations to be "name dropping" in the least. As a small child I sat on the knees of Gurus but... so what? Well, it colors a persons life to have such wonderful experiences (the wonder being relative). The aura of humility and humanity cast by such scions of 'humanity' rubs off...goes into the soul and expresses itself in a myriad of ways. Got to meet Werner Von Braun, as well, and attend his lectures at a small College where he was oft most honored guest. As I mentioned Werner, even though he was a NAZI, was one of my boy hood heroes and he, too, was a humble (debatable), and brilliant (Without question), man... I like to think that these great people have somehow formed my being into being an overall sentient and, sometimes, loving sapient. I know of your background, quinty san, and respect you to the max for it. Well, I respect you cause you are you...first and foremost. Maybe someday we'll be as great and humble humano sentients as they were (and still are). Thanks, bro, for letting us into that area of your life. Good show mate. PS: Got to meet Ronnie Hubbard, too... 14 Apr 2007 @ 20:26 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : I agree with your second paragraph. I think just seeing Einstein's face had an enormous influence on me. A baby, he looked down at me (was I in my mother's arms? Some kind of crib?) and his face was close: smiling in that gentle manner we are all familiar with. Those incredible eyes, the lines, the long gray hair. Yes, there was something very powerful transmitted there. And in my moral devlopment that one childhood experience has had a huge influence, effecting everything I've ever done since. Really. If you doubt me you should have had the experience yourself. No abracadabra or spookiness here. What's more, you put it quite well Vax. (Also, I remember seeing the face of a stranger from my buggy when I was a baby. I believe it was on Fifth Avenue near Washington Square in New York. A face so horrible and ugly that (lol) I think it permanently traumatized me. I can still remember his looking at my mother astonished when I broke out into loud shrieks and sobs. Boy was I a pittiless kid. Poor man. He may have had a heart of gold. I think in that moment the beginnings of my existential questioning occurred :-} 15 Apr 2007 @ 16:28 by a-d : Quinty, what a great Experience! I can totally feel the truth in your words about "something very powerful transmitted there". I loved to see pics of Einstein and to hear about him, read about him when I was a little kid. I always thought -was convinced indeed, that Fate had made a terrible mistake by not placing me in his family! He felt so much -even just from photos, like my Kindred Spirit! and Today, I can totally understand how I as a child felt that! We were on the same Wavelength! Kids are automatically in very high (Co-)creativity zone -as it were- until removed from there by the System. In other words; Kids have their energy flow & being/ness in/from the/ir Genius frequency!( This is why the Ed.Sys.> schools is what it is and the as deadening as possible! Their Mission & Purpose is to KILL the Spirit of Genius in every child!... and has been so, intentionally, since the conception of a (public) Ed. Sys!) Einstein was very much Child-like; he never left his Genius frequency! Indeed all REAL Scientists are the ones who managed to remain in that frequency and in there they can dream up Inventions, make discoveries; not becoming Sell Outs for the Corridors of Bureaucratic Institutions. A clerk-mind walking those corridors NEVER was a mind who gave Mankind ANY Inventions or Cosmic Insights! Apropå "No Conspiracies": Einstein's Genius served him very well in one more manner: kept him on the tight rope without "falling down" like so many other real Genius Scientists. Tesla, Reich, Diesel comes to mind right away: They were all made to fall... one way -or the other!.... 15 Apr 2007 @ 17:19 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Yop As a tiny baby I was held in the arms of Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, William Shirer, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Walter Wanger, John Ford, Pepe de Creeft, Juan Negrin and many other artists, writers, and politicians. And Einstein's face is the only one I remember. If Richard will indulge me to go on with this, it wasn't until I was a kid in grade school that I attached the memory with the famous man of the world, seeing Einstein's photograph in a book or magazine. And connecting that image with the vivid memory of his face during that visit years before. I'm afraid, though, that the image has faded somewhat with age. But we have all seen that face: the gentle smiling expression. The unruly hair. That's the one I remember. 16 Apr 2007 @ 00:38 by vaxen : And Of course, Nagasaki and Hiroshima not to mention the stranglehold 'their' heinous inventions gave to their puppet masters. 16 Apr 2007 @ 02:50 by a-d : That was your friend Oppenheimer! : ) and he then committed suicide... just like Judas Iscariot did! ... sooo, listen to your Mom, kiddo, an' just shut up and finish your porridge , kid! ; )hehehe... 16 Apr 2007 @ 05:07 by vaxen : No... that was ALL of them, Tesla included (Though this is oft unknown for he left the project early on. He was to head the project but Oppenheimer got there and the rest is history.) However, I can understand your assumption. Oppenheimers famous quote from the Bahagavad Gita may have lead you astray in your thought processes. cf: Einstein with his relativity theory can be rightly called the father of the atom bomb. But eminent humanists like late Romain Rolland have said that Einstein did not do his best to prevent the development of the atomic bomb. In the words of Romain Rolland, "Einstein, a genius in his scientific field, is weak, indecisive and inconsistent outside it". As a Jew, Einstein became unpopular with the Nazi rulers of Germany and had to flee to the USA. There his eminence as a scientist attracted to his camp many great figures in science like Leo Szilard, the Hungarian genius, and Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist. To this galaxy of scientists was added Niels Bohr, the Danish servant, who has been called the Pope of Nuclear Physics. Einstein well realised that there were many eminent scientists in the Nazi camp who were capable of advancing further towards an atomic bomb. He felt that the main source of Uranium in the world, namely the Belgian Congo, should be kept out of German hands. As such on August 2, 1939, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt asking for the USA’s intervention in keeping the Congo out of Nazi occupation. ... In the words of one of them, "Each of us was going to understand what he had witnessed and most of us were shocked at what we had done". Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist in charge of the team, felt that about 20,000 Japanese might die because of the atom bomb and that might save hundreds of thousands of human lives if Japan could be forced to surrender without and invasion. As the day for the bombing of Hiroshima approached, the scientists became frantic and one of them even thought of demonstrating before the emerging United Nations, protesting against the use of the atom bomb. Seventy of the top scientists wrote a letter to President Truman warning him that using the atom bomb "Opens the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale". But still their effort was doomed and the Government of the USA decided to use the atom bomb against the Japanese. They succeeded as scientists, but failed as humanitarians. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010805/spectrum/main2.htm http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010805/spectrum/bomb2.gif === Enola Gay Perspectives: Development of the Atomic Bomb Developed by a group from the University of Maryland, this page provides information on the people, places, and things involved in the first Atomic bomb. Many of the people involved in Atomic bomb activities are represented, with long and descriptive biographies: Oppenheimer, Einstein, Szilard, Groves, Bohr, and others. Make sure to check out the letter from Einstein to the president under his section, a graphic image of the actual letter, though difficult to read, is provided along with the text. The "places" section gives information on Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, while the "things" section includes nuclear bomb information, Enola Gay information, and the assembly of explosives. Another interesting graphic is a layout of the labs in Los Alamos, listed under the photo-album section. http://www.lclark.edu/~history/HIROSHIMA/dirc-hist.html === III. Oppenheimer: Physics, Physicists, and the State Week 9: The Physicists' War Monday, 2 April: Physics under Hitler: deutsche Physik and the bomb The Farm Hall Transcripts, edited by Charles Frank (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 70-91. Michael Frayn, Copenhagen. Wednesday, 6 April: Physics in the US: Radar and the Atomic Bomb Lawrence Badash, Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 27-47. Robert Serber with Robert Crease, Peace & War: Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 121-44. Week 10: The Bomb and Beyond Monday, 9 April: Film: The Day After Trinity Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945), pp. 206-26. J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists, November 2, 1945," in Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections, edited by Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 315-25. Wednesday, 11 April: Film: The Decision to Build the H-Bomb Lawrence Badash, Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 48-62, 80-88. Jeremy Bernstein, "The Need to Know," in Asymptotic Realms of Physics: Essays in Honor of Francis E. Low, edited by Alan H. Guth, Kerson Huang, and Robert L. Jaffe (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), pp. xvii-xxiv. Week 11: Physicists and the State Monday, 16 April: school holiday, no classes Wednesday, 18 April: McCarthyism and the Oppenheimer Hearing Oh my, how history repeats itself. Monsters and most of them Jewish. Interesting... “Some say that we pass from spirit into the physical at birth and conversely pass from the physical world into spirit at death. I say that we never pass from the spirit.”—Atwater "...more than one way to skin a cat http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mor1.htm ." 16 Apr 2007 @ 07:08 by vaxen : LITHOPHONE A percussion instrument made of stone. This name is applied to any instrument made of stone that produces a ringing sound when hit. There are a surprising number of them around the world in places as far apart as Togo, Iceland and Venezuela. The Chinese ch’ing is a set of 16 L-shaped tuned stone slabs, which are suspended in a large frame and struck on their long side with wooden mallets or padded sticks. The word is often applied to a specific example, the Vietnamese dan da, a set of resonant stones. A set in Ho Chi Minh City and another now in Paris can lay claim to be the oldest extant music instruments in the world, from 6,000 years ago. The stones were found in 1949 by Georges Condominas in a village in the central highlands of Vietnam. They were quarried from a place nearby where the rock is made of petrified wood and were chipped and shaped to tune them to a perfect pentatonic scale. They can still be played, by hitting them with wooden mallets, to make a sort of hugely antique stone marimba. "My future, my future, lookin' bright - baby I need shades." --- rockafella-remix http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bal1.htm 18 Apr 2007 @ 14:08 by rayon : Miraculas wonders of natural science - when they have been personally perceived and experienced to work and can be studied in a perfectly logical fashion, which they are - there is a v strong desire to promulgate this awareness, especially as it mitigates against the development of horrendous unnatural outcomes, a whole load out of Pandora's Box. Having seen, known and experienced, it is natural to wish it for others. Good health in men especially brings about an acceptance of ill health in others which will of course be taken care of by the wonders of modern science, helping the healthy no doubt handsome man, to sleep at night. So, it is him and many others doing the foisting of modern medicine - ask no questions (hope to get diagnosed, not automatic by any means, can take years) costly too, upon the unfortunates who do fall ill and who may rather like the idea of being told that they actually could be in control of their own health by doing it another way. A way that is perfectly in keeping with the working of nature adding to the glory of the world. The primary reason all the horrible diseases abound as they do for poor unfortunates is because of living in unbalanced systems and lifestyles which build up over time as inherent weaknesses before manifesting uncontrollably. Those not interested in nature's way are contributing to the manifestation, more than those who do not. Its a tough call Quinty sorry. Plain and simple, it is the Ostrich syndrome. 25 May 2007 @ 09:18 by jazzolog : Goodling And The Regent No, not the presidential regent. The college. (The thread off this spool certainly spilled all over the floor, eh?) Back up at the original entry mention was made of Monica Goodling and the only picture of her that existed online at the time at a barbecue reunion at her alma mater. At the time I couldn't place what Regent University was supposed to be about, but the other happy participants at the picnic looked shiveringly straightarrow to me. And so they were. Everyone knows now that Regent was founded by Pat Robertson "to bring to bear the will of our Creator, Almighty God, upon legal education and the legal profession." The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday, "Regent University claims 150 past and present members of the Bush administration among its alumni." A hundred and fifty! {link:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-goodling23may23,1,3386390.story} And of course we know also that Monica Goodling's empty brain has filled the headlines of every newspaper in the country this past week. For an unforgettable photo of a faithful face any boss would love to see following his orders and the AP account of her testimony, have a look here~~~ http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070524/NEWS/705240532/1039 29 Apr 2016 @ 07:51 by Bandar Togel @103.12.162.4 : brilliant! I would like to share this ar Togel Online Singapore Togel Online Hongkong Bandar Togel Singapore Bandar Togel Togel Online Terpercaya Bandar Togel Online Terpercaya Togel Online Agen Togel Online Terpercaya Agen Togel Online Other entries in Government, Public Sector 9 Sep 2008 @ 21:25: The United States Demonic Assault On The World Cannot Stand 13 May 2008 @ 12:36: THE STATE IS NO 'BIG MAMA' BUT AN ENABLER 13 May 2008 @ 09:20: The Superclass 9 Mar 2008 @ 14:01: What Will It Take? 24 Dec 2007 @ 21:41: X-Mas In NOLA 1 Dec 2007 @ 19:13: Art of Mental Warfare 26 Oct 2007 @ 05:20: Thought Crime Law 1 Oct 2007 @ 18:49: The Adoption of the Nazi State, with silence. 16 Sep 2007 @ 09:19: AMERIKAN DEMOCRACY DEAD 14 Sep 2007 @ 06:17: SURRENDER
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7 Apr 2007 @ 11:05, by Richard Carlson