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So I’ve been away from my little blog for a while but I’m still around and kickin’ like the scalded chicken. Up until about five minutes ago J (my step-son) has been around for the last two weeks. His mother had recently had some kind of surgery and had been hospitalized until just about three days ago so we got to have almost three whole weeks with him! 
I’ve been devoting most of my time to him recently considering he just got out on summer vacation and his father, my lovable dork, has been around a lot more than he has in the past months as well. All this presented the up-to-now rare opportunity to enjoy their company for a long stretch, which I’ve availed myself of to the fullest. Despite being horribly broke we managed a bit of fun here and there.
Now of course his mother has come to steal him away again and I find this weekly heartache is something I now have to face. I suppose it’s one of those things I signed on for when I married this guy. This getting used to have a step-son, coming to love him fiercely and having him yanked away every other week by someone I find it incredible difficult to say anything nice about. Quite emotionally taxing.
And of course I didn’t secretly wish in the deepest, darkest and most closely guarded pits of my soul that she might, maybe, possibly suffer some complication and tragically not survive her surgery.
No, that thought never crossed my mind. What a cruel thing to think, hm? I would never!
Honestly, I’ve already noticed a near palpable pall of depression that descends upon me the moment he’s actually “gone” from the house that largely carries over throughout the weekend. And as he’s only twelve I know I have many years of this to endure still to come.
On the other hand by then he’ll probably move away and it’ll become a permanent thing. Which…isn’t all that better, is it? Really, I don’t know how people have done this throughout human history. Forming such intimate and deep-rooted attachments to children who grow up and move away. I shudder a little to think of actually giving birth to a child of my own and contemplating that they’ll likewise leave the nest and fly away some day. How do people deal with this? It amazes me a little.
I suppose I’m still having trouble with just how firmly I’ve attached myself to these two guys. How completely that stands in such stark contrast to my entire life up until now. What a dichotomy. And yet it is quite cloyingly cliché that I certainly would not ever trade what I have now for anything else. As frightening as it may sometimes be to consider losing how much I’ve invested of myself into these two, I’ve found they’re trustworthy. They often quite joyfully affirm their commitment to me as I do them.
And that’s the stuff, innit?
Honestly. A moment’s reflection and I remember what I’ve already long since come to realize. If they were both gone tomorrow and I were left alone again I’d still have even just the memories, more than enough to bring joy to my life. Even now reflecting back on the past two weeks with J and the pall of depression and loss is alleviated.
For example: just two days ago we watched a couple of our Star Wars dvd’s and laughed until we were breathless at our own voice overs and jokes. Why? Because we’d only just prior visited YouTube and watched this trio of funnies (which I was wise enough to look up ahead of time…YouTube can be rather non-family friendly).
We laughed just about all day off these three alone. If you don’t mind terribly I’ll share. 
Now that’s the stuff. That’s what makes all the trouble, trouble, toil and bubble all worth it, innit? Just recalling the outrageous laughter huddled up over a bowl of Cheesy Puffs makes me not mind so much waiting a whole week until he returns.
Tomorrow is gaming day around here and I get to spend the rest of the weekend lazying around with the hubby. We’re out of Cheesy Puffs but I’m planning on stocking up on Pizza Rolls for game day and that’s nearly as wonderfully unhealthy a snack.
You know. This life ain’t all that bad. I’m kinda liking it. 
Great Britain: The amendment to ban all admixed embryos was defeated by 336 votes to 176. The prohibition on true hybrids was defeated by 286 votes to 223.
British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday.
An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regarded as a central element of the legislation.
The Government is braced for defeat today, however, on a separate clause that would scrap the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father before treating patients. MPs will also consider amendments tonight that would cut the legal limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22 or 20 weeks.
A second amendment, which would have banned the creation of “true hybrids” made by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice-versa, was also defeated yesterday by a majority of 63. Another free vote last night was expected to approve the use of embryo-screening to create “saviour siblings” suitable to donate umbilical cord blood to sick children.
Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, moving the amendment to ban all admixed embryos, said that mingling animal and human DNA crossed an “ultimate boundary”. He said that exaggerated claims were giving patients false hope and that the dangers of the research were unknown. “In many ways we are like children playing with landmines without any concept of the dangers of the technology we are handling,” he said.
My question is: What price is too high? Is there no price too high to pay to cure a disease? Think about what we are talking about here. We’re talking about creating human-animal admixed embyros. So, what is that? The process of creating an admixed human-animal embryo is such: the nucleus of both the human and animal eggs are extracted via glass needle, with the nucleus of the human egg injected into the now empty animal egg. Thus you have a human cell nucleus with an animal cell wall, which still contains the animal mitochondria which still retain their animal DNA. The egg then will develop into what is called a “cytoplastic hybrid embryo”, which will contain about 99.9% human DNA and roughly .01% animal DNA. The cell is then “shocked” with an electrical current to induce cell division and development.
Within three to seven days you have a blastocyst, a hollow ball of human-animal cells surrounding the inner cell mass from which human-animal embryonic stem cells can be extracted. You then culture those cells in a lab as you would any other and viola, you have a supply of human-animal embryonic stem cells to play around with.
Now…what’s the purpose of creating a human-animal embryonic stem cells in the first place? None. There’s no purpose. In fact, the .01% concession to animal DNA is counter productive. What you really want, as a researcher, are purely human embryonic stem cells. So why create an abomination, then murder it and loot it for stem cells? Well, because it’s not technically human. It’s a “human-animal admixed embryo”.
Which, of course, doesn’t answer the question at all.
Take a minute and let that sink in. These folks want to (and will, now that they have a green light) create human-animal admixed embryos, 99.9% human, for no other reason than because they’re forbidden to murder pure human embryos to loot them for stem cells instead. They aren’t even preferable to pure human stem cells, it’s just that it’s such a nice bonus that they get to toy around with creating human-animal freaks in the process.
We can’t murder human embryos for our research, they say. So we’ll create human-animal freaks and murder those instead. That’ll show you people for daring to tell us what we can and can’t do in our research. Plus, we’ve got a great justification for creating and toying around with the human-animal genetic freaks we’ve all been dreaming about since we read The Island of Dr. Moreau as a kid.
These people are every bit the murdering amoral mad scientists that have graced the plot lines of pulp fiction for ages. They should all be shot, every last one of them. They don’t care about healing anyone, they’re mad scientists. Willing to do anything novel, break any ground, without consideration for morality or even rationality. As long as they’re having fun and reaping praise for their accomplishments, murdering embryos and creating hybrid freaks is of no concern whatsoever. In fact, that just make the whole thing all the more interesting.
Furthermore, anyone who objects is clearly a ignorant person. Because they don’t understand just how fun this stuff is.
Sorry, this page has been removed.
From a PM I received to my account over on the Dawkins forum:
Hi,
You’ve taken content from the forum without our permission to do so, which is in violation of the forum rules/visitor’s agreement. We ask you to remove this content from your blog as soon as possible. Failure to do so will get you banned. In that case, we will also take this up with your blogging provider to point them to the violation of our visitor’s agreement.
Thanks and regards,
Richard
So. Honestly I wasn’t aware of any such visitor’s agreement but that’s due more likely to me simply skimming over such. I haven’t any interest in ever returning to the Dawkins forum at all but if I agreed with this policy when I signed on, then I’ll stand by it.
I left the comments intact, though. I don’t suppose they violate at previous agreements and they are pretty entertaining.
Guess what?
I just picked up a letter we got yesterday that I didn’t notice on the desk before. Who was it from? Why, it was from the lovely little place I like to call the Alien Brain Clinic. I may have referenced in the past that I took a baseball bat to the head some years ago and that it has required all manner of wonderfully enjoyable treatments and therapies. Most recently the Alien Brain Clinic has been supplying these.
Did I mention that I thoroughly enjoy the utter torment, humiliation and immeasurable frustration of these therapies and treatments? No? Then let me do so now. I absolutely loved every minute of being forced to work very hard to do things everyone else takes for granted, many times in front of lots of witness, often having it recorded on video even, and utterly failing to manage it. Oh, yes! My most favoritest thing.
To my profound disappointment the sadistic tortu…oh, excuse me…the very kind therapists at the Alien Brain Clinic decided I might just no longer be providing them the enjoyment they seek from their tormen…I mean, therapies. To my shock and great disappointment the letter I received confirms that my improvement in all areas of the goals laid out in the initial assessment seem to indicate I can no longer serve their sick and twisted…dang it…I mean cannot benefit any further from treatment.
It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that I dance with joy and shout, “Woohoo!” at this terrible news. I hope you will join me in my grief and I thank you all in advance for your support in the difficult times ahead.
I normally consider Rantazia a place where I get to rant freely without concern for being fair nor necessarily for being particularly rational. A place for my own particularly odd brand of humor at times as well. Certainly for both at once, when I’m in the mood for such a thing.
Now I’m going to discuss something I fear. Probably the first time for me. I don’t usually fear much. Or rather my fears are usually irrational or exaggerated and so I don’t usually honor them or give them more heed that they demand. This time I think my fear is, if not especially rational, at least approaching normal and maybe even healthy. That alone sets it apart.
My fear concerns death, which is something fairly new to me. And monkeys, which is not.
I think my whole outlook on the topic of death is undergoing some major overhaul recently. Up until now I never really thought much about dying (in the sense that it didn’t bother me, I mean.) I’ve actually spent most of my life trying to hurry things along so you can imagine if you asked me, say, two weeks ago I’d have said it didn’t concern me. If I were dying in a hospital bed I honestly don’t think I’d have had a very strong opinion one way or the other, whether to stay or go. And that itself is actually a very significant improvement from before when death was something I rather admired and looked forward to (or perhaps my infatuation was simply with the process of achieving it.)
Since I got married that kinda throws that for a loop. Now suddenly some very specific parts of the world that I care very much for will change with my passing and I’m concerned whether and to what degree that would be for the better or worse.
The thing that really clinches it is that someone I admire (on the interwebz, I mean) mentioning her husband have passed on, presumably long ago, and that my relationship with my husband reminds her of the relationship she had with him.
That terrified me for most of the day today. Stark raving terror a couple of times.
Because it occurred to me for the first time I think possibly ever to really consider what would happen to me if Matthew were gone. I honestly have trouble getting past even the thought. Which of course causes me to consider maybe he feels much the same way about my passing. So suddenly that’s a much more important issue than it ever was before.
On top of this the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide came up amongst a couple of us over on TOL. Someone asked for an opinion on how best to respond to something someone else said on the matter. I gave my opinion in the attempt to be helpful but I was rather wracked with that mental image all day since then. My husband lying dying and in pain in a hospital bed. How that would make me feel. Followed, of course, by the image of myself in such a state and my husband feeling all the things I’d just imagined feeling.
Which is worse? Feeling those things or lying there knowing he’s feeling them and that I’m the cause of it?
I don’t yet know the answer to that. The question is so oppressive and frightening that it’s difficult to consider objectively. I do not want him to ever die, not before I do. And for the same exact reasons I don’t want to die either, not before he does. I don’t want to see him slip away and be left alone. I don’t want him to see me slip away and be left alone.
Now, I know as a Christian it’s a passing thing. A short period of time to suffer, for whichever of us is left behind. In the grand scheme of things not even worthy of being called a fleeting moment. But even that not-even-fleeting moment is terrifying.
I don’t know how to get beyond even the idea of it.
I’m rather convinced this is just another step in my growth. I’ve no doubt this is something most people have come to terms with long ago and something I long since should have. So I must say I know it’s good in the end and I’m glad for it.
Or rather, I’m sure I will be once it’s past. Right now I don’t like it. Part of me is angry that I’ve been placed in this position, allowed myself to fall into this position, where someone else has come to be as important to me as me. This is a weakness I’ve fought most of my life to steer well clear of and it seems from the moment I became a Christian that God has been leading me directly to this thing that I’ve so despised and feared my whole life.
And now here I am. The weakest I’ve ever been. Knowing this spot is exactly what I’ve been joyfully skipping towards for some years now, my hand in God’s hand, like an eager little girl going to see the funny monkeys at the zoo.
I was never a stupid girl. Foolish perhaps but not stupid. Even at a young age I knew monkeys were hugely entertaining. They were great fun, something that begged to be seen and experienced. Something so wonderful that once you’ve seen it, you simply must run to the bars to get a better look at it.
But if you get too close to the bars they throw monkey poop at you.
I could ask the obvious question. Is it worth it? But it’s a pointless question. I’m already at the bars and I am already enjoying the monkeys so much that I can’t and won’t step back. The view is just too marvelous. It’s just that I’ve only now remembered in my wonder and excitement that monkeys throw poop at you eventually if you stand too close to the bars. It’s just what monkeys do.
So I have to face whether or not monkey poop is worth it. I suppose that it is, really. Heck, I know that it is. That’s the correct answer and I know that’s the answer I’ll arrive at once I’ve gotten past my fear of monkey poop and considered the matter objectively. I just don’t want to consider the matter objectively. I never wanted to go see the monkeys, precisely because I didn’t want to ever consider this question and arrive at that answer.
But I asked God to teach me wisdom. I asked Him to make my life what He wanted it to be before I decided so long ago to mangle and mutilate it. I asked Him to make me what He wanted me to be. Healthy, happy and wise.
And apparently that requires large doses of monkey poop.
DEMOCRAT You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful.
REPUBLICAN You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?
SOCIALIST You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up !!
FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows but you don’t know where they are. You break for lunch with wine. Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You have some vodka. You count them and learn you have five cows. You have some more vodka. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two. You don’t milk them because you cannot touch any creature’s private parts. You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.
IRAQI CORPORATION You have two cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION You have two bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
BELGIAN CORPORATION You have one cow. The cow is schizophrenic. Sometimes the cow thinks he’s French, other times he’s Flemish. The Flemish cow won’t share with the French cow. The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow’s milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy.
FLORIDA CORPORATION You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.
CALIFORNIA CORPORATION You have millions of cows …some of which end up becoming bad hamburger. They make Real California Cheese and are “happy”. Only five speak English. Most are illegal. Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.
[Hehe, a friend of mine sent me this. Thanks, Eddy! ]
Polygyny wins. That’s my prediction. You heard it here first.
Why do I say this? Because the “state” so far hasn’t shown any wisdom whatsoever in their fight against polygyny. Rather they’ve let it go on, contrary to the law, for how long now? How many decades? And when they do finally act they do so on the flimsiest provocation and with an absolutely stunning abuse of power.
The raid on the LDS compound in Texas took place on April 3rd. That’s just over a month ago. The state has since taken 463 children away from their parents.
463 children.
A boy was born to one of the mothers Tuesday. He’s now in state custody. For those that can’t do the math, he’s five days old now.
All this based on phone calls where an unidentified girl claims to have been beaten and raped. Unidentified. Nor did she identify who had beaten or raped her. Officials still can’t verify that call. I’ve yet to see any evidence that it even took place at all.
[Correction: according to "kbp" in Comments on this section she identified the man as Dale Barlow, her husband. Looking into that I found that Dale Barlow is a registered sex offender who claims not to even know any "Sarah" and the call is looking more and more to be a hoax. No idea how I missed that little detail in all this. Thanks again to "kbp" for pointing it out!]
463 children ripped from their mothers, one of them now only five days old. And not one arrest has been made to date.
Not one arrest.
Now, here’s an exercise for you. Forget the words “LDS” and “compound”. Drop “polygyny”, “polygamy” and “incest” from the discussion. Let’s pretend all this took place under some other similar circumstance. Let’s pretend this was taking place in some neighborhood in…oh…let’s say downtown Detroit. The state receives a phone call that someone in the neighbor has been beaten and raped but don’t know the identity of the person nor of whoever may have committed the crime. They swoop in, close off the whole neighborhood, cart off 463 children and a month later still haven’t made a single arrest.
How would that go over do you think?
Right now it’s perfectly acceptable. We’re all quite content with it. Because hey, you know…they’re just a bunch of nutty Christians.
I agree. They are nutty Christians. I wouldn’t hang out with them either. But they are citizens of this nation just like me.
And just like you. Bear that in mind. Especially if you live in Detroit.
So I surfed by my blog today and I find I haven’t posted anything since the 28th (my hubby’s birthday, btw!) After being away for a while and then returning with nothing more than a post about sand dollars it occurred to me that I should write something.
Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t think of anything to rant about.
Seriously, I’ve had quite a few irritating things happen recently and there are a dozen current events in the news that tick me off. We’re having some pretty serious financial troubles here on the home front as well. That mess with the freaky polygynist Mormons in Texas is certainly worthy of a good, solid rant at both parties involved. I could say quite a lot about the clear disconnect in Bush’s economic stimulus package as well. If giving back our tax dollars stimulates the economy so much…why did you take them in the first place exactly?
In fact, the dog made a nasty mess on the living room floor this morning come to think of it.
Yet, I have absolutely no compulsion to rant and rave about any of that. If anything I would rant a bit about having nothing especially to rant about.
Then occurred to me that maybe I should be thankful for that. Honestly, I’m writing this and the main thing on my mind is grabbing a big mug of french vanilla flavored coffee, slumping into that deck chair on the back porch and dragging that stupid dog into my lap for an hour of good, solid pet and scratch. That strikes me as a really great idea. I’ve decided I’ll go do that.
I’ll get to cleaning up the house later. I mean, I already cleaned up the dog poop. Everything else is in pretty good shape.
I guess with the life I’ve led I’ve gotten so used to fighting that even the lack of anything in particular to get good and mad about is a bit disquieting. Yet on the other hand I’ve learned since becoming a Christian that peace and serenity are good things, not states of being that are best avoided. I honestly never knew that before. I always saw being happy and content as a weakness. It invited attacked. Such a state of mind was something that would only encourage the masses of evil people out there looking to hurt you to come after you and get you while your defenses are down.
Now though that doesn’t bother me so much. I think primarily because I’m stronger than I have ever been before. Now the idea of some knucklehead coming around and picking a fight doesn’t really much concern me. I’m fairly certain I can smack them down and get on with my day without even breaking stride. I don’t spend all my days huddled in the corner, waiting for the next attack. Now I laugh and have fun. I catch myself smiling at people now and again.
I even wear sandals on occasion.
Yeah, that’s right. Sandals. Those “shoes” that don’t cover your toes. You know, people can stomp on your feet while you’re wearing sandals and mess you up pretty good.
I find I like wearing sandals. Now of course I’m only wearing one at the moment. The other foot is splinted and wrapped, leaving me hobbling about on a crutch after dropping my favorite (still my favorite!) big black cast iron frying pan right on the poor thing. I wasn’t even wearing sandals at that moment or anything.
You know, I don’t even feel like ranting about my broken toe.
So what does a Christian do in such a situation? I mean, we all know that Christians only exist to judge others, rant and rave about every moral issue they can think of and generally make other people feel bad. What in the world does a Christian do when they feel really, really good despite the fact that they’re totally broke, the world is full of insane idiots, the dog messed on the carpet and they’re hobbling around on a crutch because they dropped a frying pan on their toe?
Well, you praise God, give him a big grin and thumbs up, grab some java and pull that dumb dog into your lap for a good scratch.
So. I’ll go do that.
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