Truly a cost of living increase
Since I exhale carbon dioxide, is my breathing going to be regulated and taxed too?
Since I exhale carbon dioxide, is my breathing going to be regulated and taxed too?
From the article, British team grows human heart valve from stem cells (emphasis mine):
By using chemical and physical nudges, the scientists first coaxed stem cells extracted from bone marrow to grow into heart valve cells.
Still a big goose egg on the embryonic stem cell side, which is why we need to funnel billions of tax payer dollars down that rat hole, right?
For me the “Windows Question” has long since been decided. I don’t like it. I don’t want it. I use it only because I have to. Others feel differently, and that’s fine. In fact, a good friend of mine, who is likely reading this post via an RSS feed :), really likes Windows and makes a good living writing Windows software, for which I applaud him, but I’m digressing. Personally, I prefer a Unix or Unix-like operating system, especially on the server, though I’ve also enjoyed using Linux on the desktop as well. For me, then, there’s really nothing to debate, but for many, there is, which makes this article extremely interesting. Does not sound good at all.
In a recent Time article, Al Mohler concedes “that science may one day prove homosexuals are born gay” and he very well could be right. This was greeted by the homosexual community with a fair amount of glee, until they read where he states that, even if this scenario should come to pass, it in no way changes the morality of the lifestyle. Conservative evangelicals hold that homosexuality is a sin, no matter what its cause, just as we don’t condone drunkenness, gluttony, and chronic anger, for example. It may be that there is a biological cause for these lifestyles (indeed, there is strong support for a predisposition to anger and gluttony/obesity), but that doesn’t negate their harmful moral and physical consequences, nor does it remove from those afflicted the necessity to resist the predisposition. These people1 (and, maybe, someday homosexuals) may have the deck stacked against them, genetically, but that doesn’t mean one should just give into any old urge that crosses our mind. To that point, we all have the obligation to pursue a life of holiness, whether our sin is as “big” as homosexuality or adultery, or as “little” as speeding or “white” lies. The Holiness of the Lord makes no distinction, and neither should we.
1 I use the phrase “these people” with the painful understanding that it is far too common for Christians to separate ourselves falsely from “these people.” It doesn’t take a whole lot of honesty to see that we’re just as flawed as those we pharisaically excoriate, so it is certainly with the humility of an admitted sinner that I make these statements, knowing full well that I have my own list of offenses for which to answer.
Over at The Corner, they have a pretty funny thread about bumper stickers going. Here are some highlights:
Great Bumper Sticker [Jonah Goldberg]
Yesterday the fair Jessica and I were stuck behind a pickup truck with many liberal bumper stickers. My favorite was (quoting from memory) “Let’s have a time limit on poverty, not just welfare.” I love this. The image that comes to mind is of some dude lying on the couch, his wife and/or mother hectoring him to get a job and he says, “look, my poverty time limit is over in six months, then we’re golden.”Re: Great Bumper Stickers [John Podhoretz]
I visualized world peace once. It was nice.Re: Great Bumper Stickers [Jonah Goldberg]
I once imagined a world where we paid for our military with a Pentagon bake sale. It raised $113.48. The following week Belize declared war on us.
Good stuff. 🙂
In a recent interview with Sean Hannity, GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said this of abortion, “I oppose it…I hate it…However I believe in a woman’s right to choose.” Why the tension? Why does he hate it? Why does he oppose it? If it’s because it kills an innocent human being (which it does), then why does he defer to choice of the woman in determining whether or not the child is allowed to live? If all life is valuable (e.g., someone can’t arbitrarily kill a toddler), why should the life of the pre-born be a “disagreement of conscience?” On the other hand, if it doesn’t kill an innocent human being, what’s the big deal? If it is just a blob of tissue (which we all are, by the way), why hate and oppose its removal? Rudy’s stance is completely illogical, and one of the primary reasons (no pun intended) I won’t be voting for him unless I have to.
Angela just told me this story:
I said, “Who are Mike and Jeannie?”
He said, “They are on K-lub and someone says don’t miss Mike and Jeannie tomorrow morning.”
What a cool boy, eh? 😛
This past Christmas, “Santa” brought everyone some candy, and that candy, in the hands of a three year old, taught me a lot.
…
I hope she’s right:
4D Imaging Will Be the End of Abortion [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
There are more amazing pictures peeking into a mother’s womb, via the Daily Mail (the above is a model, click for the 4Ds).
From the piece:
London-based obstetrician Professor Stuart Campbell, who is the pioneer of 4D scans in Britain, performed the scans for a National Geographic documentary.
He says: ‘It was fascinating to see the babies in more detail than ever before. I was amazed at the detail in the faces – smiles, blinking – and the interaction between multiple foetuses.’
For about seven years now, Angela has been cutting my hair. We figured we could save a lot of money if we were to just buy a hair cutting kit once, versus paying $10-$15 month. Recently, we started wondering if we could save some time in how we cut my hair. Traditionally, she would clipper the back and the sides, then use scissors and a comb on the top, but that takes a lot of time and is a bit more difficult. What we started wondering is if we could just use clippers, albeit with a longer guard, on the top, replacing the need for scissors.
Well, since we have no major picture/family events any time soon, we decided last night that it was time to try it. We started of with a 7/8″ guard on top, but that seemed too long, so we dropped it down to 1/2″ and let her go to work, which she thought was hilariously awesome. The end result? …