So my blog is basically a take off of Tom's. I could have just posted a reply but it would have been really long so I'll blog it instead. First of all:
Batman.
One thing about Batman bothers me. He not only stops the bad guys, he stops other renegades!
No one else can be a renegade? No one else can dress up like a bat and try to fight crime? What makes Batman different from any other citizen? Just because he doesn't wear hockey pants?
Oh, that's right, Bruce Wayne has more money than God. This gives him the right to act as unofficial police and then some (by "then some" I mean that he has the right to go all Rodney King on criminals). And because he has the money for toys and costumes and cars gives him rights above and beyond normal human beings.
That kind of makes me mad. Does that mean I can never be a hero? Just because I don't have money coming out of every orifice of my body means that I can't spend my time and energy helping cops do their job? Just because I might have to actually earn money to go buy crime fighting toys means I don't have the right? That's it! I'm making my own costume and running around Folsom at night protecting the streets! Just try to stop me!
The only thing I agree with Batman on is that people should get their own costumes or animal of their choice. Don't be a bat! A little originality please! Plus if you screw up you make Batman look bad. So pick a different animal or Cryptozoilogical animal (like a liger!) and go out there and kick some criminal fluffernutter! Don't let Batman tell you what you can and cannot do!
I'm going to be a screaching eel! "Do you hear that princess? Those are the screeching eels! They always get louder before they attack!" Yeah....that's awesome.
Stem Cells:
I do remember seeing something on tv about stem cell research and from what I remember all stem cell research is not illegal. They are not allowed to create any more than they already have. Stem cell research on existing stem cells was not outlawed.
I don't know how I feel about stem cell research. I think it would be easy enough to allow people donate cord blood and placenta for them to collect stem cells from so that there would not be a need to create them. I think it would clear up the whole problem. It's probably not that simple but it makes sense to me.
Now let's talk about cord blood. Currently you can save your child's cord blood for any emergencies in the future, although I bet it cost a fortune. But currently we're at the bare beginnings of this sort of technology, discovery, issue (whatever you want to call it). In the future I can see this becoming, if not madatory, then so common place that people don't even consider not saving cord blood. And since most people will be saving cord blood in specific facilities and not their refridgerator, there are going to be some issues.
How easy would it be for the government to keep a database of everyones genetic makeup when they have everyone's cordblood saved? On one hand this is great because so many more crimes would be solved in almost no time at all. On the other hand...how much information do I want the government to have about me? I'm not a huge "privacy" advocate because technically, it isn't a right provided to us by the constitution. We consider it the same as "freedom" but really it's not. You're free to do whatever you want but if you do it in public expect someone to be watching you do it. You're only privacy is really in your own home. Duh! (Assuming you don't have nosey neighbors).
Seriously, there's probably someone out there who can explain to me why the government will take information on my genetic makeup and do something evil and bad with it, but I really don't know what it is. Maybe they'll diagnose my illnesses before I'm even sick. Maybe they'll make clones of me to serve in the military. Maybe they'll find my gene that makes me 10 TIMES MORE AWESOME THAN EVERYONE! Again, I don't know. I expect all the weirdos who read this to figure out how the government is going to screw this one up.
Go at it people!
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10 comments:
When does the Batman vs Superman debate begin? (btw, Batman F T W. Superman has nothing on him.)
If you let the umbilical cord completely stop pulsating as quite a few souces suggest there is no cord blood left to save/donate...
anyway, you can donate cord blood now, and you can dictate (supposedly) if that blood is saved for a stranger donation in the future or for research...so I could see it being very easy to take someones stored cord blood and just "accidentally" put it in the wrong part of the lab...
I'm kinda surprised this has not already occurred...but I don't have much faith in society...
I don't know what Batman FTW means.
Oh and the pulsating umbilical cord makes sense to me because whenever we were foaling a mare or the cat was having kittens we always waited for the horse/cat to take care of it themselves. (for the horse it would snap after a while and for the cat she would chew through it) but we always knew to let it be because blood would continue to flow through to the baby. So I always wondered why people were in such a hurry to cut it...Hmmmm.
Just a note on your point about the permissions for researches to use existing stem cell lines. Part of what got me thinking about this topic was an article I read last week in Newsweek, and this part stuck out to me:
... the answer almost doesn't matter, because stem-cell research has become the latest casualty of a plague sweeping biomedical science: advances in the lab aren't reaching patients. Only part of the blame for the logjam can be pinned on President George W. Bush's 2001 executive order that crippled human embryonic-stem-cell research, which means that the problem won't magically disappear when Bush leaves the White House next January. To be sure, his order has acted like ankle manacles on a racehorse: not even a thoroughbred can advance when researchers are prohibited from using federal money for studies on any stem-cell lines except those that were in existence in 2001. There were 71 then; 65 have since proved useless. Researchers have turned to state and private money, and although that falls well short of what federal agencies could provide were it not for Bush's ban, there have been notable successes in using human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to treat lab animals."
So it appears that there are actually only 6 stem cell lines remaining from 2001, when GWB's executive order took effect.
Oh, by the way, if more people want to read it, that Newsweek article is at:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/143788
FTW = For The Win
Batman is a wee bit more mortal than superman. Mr. Kent only has one weakness. Batman's vulnerability makes him more interesting.
Batman kicks Superman's a$$ in both Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns" and in Jeph Loeb's "Hush". Thus ends the debate. The comic shop manager has spoken.
Yes, Dark Knight Returns was awesome.
In it you realize Superman has more than one weakness. You just gotta consider non-physical weaknesses.
And if anyone knows how to exploit any kind of weakness, physical or not, it's Batman.
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