Lately, I’ve taken the attitude that, “I absolutely do not give a damn.”  And I mean it.  It’s been a mind-altering, uplifting, emotionally freeing sort of change.

     One of the greatest gifts has been: laughter.

     Especially when I read crap like this.  Or this.

     Or even this, from New Scientst…

Don’t say cloning, say somatic cell nuclear transfer [SCNT]. That at least is the view of biologists who want the term to be used instead of “therapeutic cloning” to describe the technique that produces cloned embryos from which stem cells can then be isolated.

[…]

Kathy Hudson and her colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC asked more than 2000 Americans whether they approved of deriving stem cells from embryos produced by cloning. For half of the sample they used the term “SCNT” instead of “cloning”, and this raised approval ratings from 29 per cent to 46 per cent, Hudson told a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in New Orleans last week.

     Politically correct science?  What’ll they think of next?

     Regardless of what you call it, human cloning is little more than another way to speed up the process of destroying our already shallow gene pool.

California geneticists have managed to get working human brain cells in mice.

Geneticist Fred Gage injected embryonic human cells into two-week-old fetal mice as they developed in the womb. When the mice matured, some human stem cells survived and became functional components of the mice’s brains and nervous systems.

The question begs to be asked as to wether these mice now show a propensity to sit on the couch with a remote control and a bag of potato chips.

“I’d ask the Minister whether … it’s appropriate in this case for a woman’s body parts to be inserted into a sheep when that’s normally been the domain of Tory males…”
— Grant Gillon, Alliance MP, New Zealand Parliament

     It was a serious day in Parliament on July 4th. One can imagine that the conversation regarding the cloning of human organs would have been rather dry had it not been for Alliance MP Grant Gillon, who delivered one of the best one liners NZ Parliament has seen in a good while.
     Most every Kiwi will agree that they’ve made a similar joke at least once in their lives. New Zealand’s media has made a farce of the situation, most notably TV3 and their coverage of the incident. Apparently, some people both in and out of Parliament are less than impressed, taking stances against “moral outrage” rather than having a laugh.

     Gillon rescinded the statement immediately and apologised for the joke, but this isn’t good enough for some MPs who seem more intent on continuing the mudslinging of late (not to mention the outrageous cries for “accountability”) rather than doing anything for the common good.
     Former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley seemed the most outraged at Gillon’s comment as she was interviewed by TV3. After first attacking Gillon’s behaviour she went on to explain her disdain, saying that “bestiality” is “pornographic,” and that this sort of behaviour, besides being illegal, was “intolerable.” Her language and use of pronouns made it unclear what, specifically, was illegal — the joke itself, making a joke in Parliament or buggering sheep.

     As if that weren’t ludicrous enough, other media reports have been offered regarding Gillon’s statements as being “sexist.”
     In defence of local media however, there was a later report that more than twenty years ago Gillon made a “sexist” statement in Parliament. Unfortunately, that was the entirety of the report, and it fails to elaborate the least bit. We are all left to wonder whether he did something direct like calling an up-and-coming Women’s activist a “bitch,” or whether he humorously vocalised his disdain at having Tampon commercials broadcasted during televised Rugby games.

     One has to wonder about peoples’ inability to take what Gillon said as the joke that it obviously was. Perhaps the ones most argumentative about it possess a guilty conscience.

     But someone said the comment was sexist…?

     Ok, fine… Maybe it’s not just the guys doing it…

Note: author of cartoon cannot be found, or s/he’d have credit.