Let's Be Adult Stem Cells

In part reposted from The Urban Mystic 28 Nov 2007.

The readers of the NY Post have sung the praises of advancements made in adult stem cell research. Now remember, adult stem cells have been shown effective treatment for over 70 diseases and conditions whereas embryonic stem cells have never been shown to be able to do anything. Yet for the longest time Michael J. The Guy Who Can't Act and other limousine liberals said that only Hitler and Capital Bush would want to ban the slaughter of millions of the innocent to fund embryonic stem cell research. For supporters of embryonic stem cell research it's not about curing illnesses or helping people, all that can be done with adult stem cells; no, the crux of the issue is seeing to it that as many abortions as possible are carried out to decrease the surplus population (which is a Malthusian myth) and to prove that God does not exist by forcing people to believe that embryos are just lumbs of goo and not living people.

It's no coincidence that the first Unplanned Parenthood "clinic" was established in the largest black neighborhood in the nation. Founder Margaret Sanger said blacks were a plague that needed to be exterminated and started Unplanned Parenthood with the explicit purpose of eliminating people she and others saw as racially impure. If you check you will find that the people at Unplanned Parenthood want to establish mandatory stearilization for couples who have more than one child. Adolf Hitler awarded Sanger for her work on advancing the cause of eugenics! The abortion craze started to cleanse the earth of people that were deemed undesirable.

Well the people have spoken.

Joe Mulvanerton of Sunnyside NY said "The silence of the supporters of embryonic stem-cell research over the recent discovery speaks volumes as to their true agenda.
"If these supporterswere truly interested in finding cures, they would be dancing in the streets oer this news.
"And instead of spending millions of dollars to vilify President [Capital] Bush over his opposition to ESC research, they wold be suing that money to promote the donation of umbilical cords for stem-cell research."

Gregg Nelson of Chester NJ says "While the ethical concerns of cloning may no longer be a barrier to the pursuit of promising medical cures, stem-cell research will no longer advance the left-wing, estremist abortion agenda, an dthe issue likely will fall off the radar screen of the politicians, preening celebrities and special interest groups.
"In fact, rather than helping advance the cause, they'll likely go back to trashing pharmaceutical companies for their 'greed' in profiting from new medical treatments."

And now I have found an article from Salvo Magazine, written by Denyse O'Leary, discussing the topic of adult versus embryonic stem cells. From that article:

"Interestingly, the prestigious science journal Nature, when making its case for continuing embryo research, announced that ESCR researchers would actually be relieved if adult stem cells eventually proved the more effective therapeutic path. 'Abandoning work on human embryonic stem cells would allow them to operate with a clear conscience and without having to defend their work all the time.'

"So the researchers knew all along that ESCR was wrong? They were violating their consciences? Previously, we had been assured that only religious fanatics viewed ESCR that way."

At the bottom of the article is a (very) partial list of diseases that can be treated with adult stem cells whereas embryonic stem cells have been shown to be completely useless: diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, heart failure, and spinal cord injury.

-Dee

Disproving God, Episode One

In 2008 I recorded over an hour of audio in which I assess various proofs against God's existence. All that material was starting to take up space on my computer so I decided to start uploading it on the internet. It's not very good, in terms of audio quality or coherence, but if you have eight minutes to kill this should provide you with some good laughs and maybe something to think about. The video images I added to the audio is completely random. There will be many more such videos in the future.

*Why does the "rock problem" not work?

*Why is the problem of evil an appeal to emotion and not a legitimate argument?

*If God knows everything you can't win an argument against God, so why bother?

-Dee

Seeing Perfection in the Process: Warfare Edition

In the original Seeing Perfection in the Process I take an integral look at the Kalipolis in Book II of Plato's Republic, a society where everyone works according to their talents and lives their passions, all the while engaging others in a global network of similar ideal societies. I made brief mention of a small defensive force needed to keep the peace in the city and the world as a whole, but not so large as to allow for one city to conquer others and form empires. Below is a more in-depth look at the nature of warfare in the ideal city, complete with demonstrations.

*The defensive force of one city engages the attacking force of another city, leading to stailmate.

*The defending city sends out distress messages to neighboring cities, which send their defensive forces to engage the attacking force, defeating them.

*The attacking force can choose peace of defeat.

-Dee

Dinosaur Extinction The Movie

The Urban Mystic Show episode 14, featuring the dinosaur extinction examination has been finished. Now for your viewing pleasure, here is "Dinosaur Extinction: After the Impact?"

Dinosaur Extinction: After the Impact?

-Dee

The French Revolution

"...the French Revolution ironically was a failed revolution: Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité quickly descended to the towering figure of Robespierre and his Reign of Terror as the revolution spun out control and began to murder itself.... 26 years after the 'Declaration of the Rights of Man' was written up, a Bourbon once more sat on the throne as the King of France - that is what I mean by 'failed' Revolution. Since 1793, France has had no less than 11 subsequent constitutions (while the United States still uses their first)."

The above is from an interesting article on the French Revolution, a favourite topic among the secular, politically correct, intellectual crowd the world over. Hailed by some as the birth of the greatest virtues humanity has ever come to understand, as outlined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. They raise the revolution up to godly heights; the emergence of a reason powerful enough to liberate the world from God. William Wordsworth didn't share in those people's sentiments when he wrote "Head after head, and never heads enough;
For those that bade them fall."

The greatest evils ever, Hitler (20 million killed), Stalin (43 million killed), Mao (60 million killed), were the result of the French Revolution. They took their ideology from Jean Jacques Rousseau (who liked to sire illigitimate children and wine and dine with the ultra-rich while pesants starved to death), and were moulded in the image of Maximilien Robespierre. Every subsequent tyrant who preached equality and justice, and forced freedom on their subjects is the legacy of the French Revolution.

It marked the rise of the intellectual empire of atheism, which is destined to fall in the demographic winter (atheists aren't having enough children to replace their ranks who die of old age, whereas religious people reproduce with fervour).

The article goes on to say:

"Can you force a person or people to be free? Can one person - or small group of people - truly discern a clear 'General Will' which represents the entire people? Is this not in practice a call for dictatorship?"

-Dee

Dinosaur Extinction: After the Impact?

"The age of the dinosaurs ended 65 million years ago with a gigantic asteroid. No one knows precisely when or where the next asteroid will strike. Could humans be the next species to face extinction?" (From the Science Channel website)

On the Science Channel 2 July 2007 there was a docu-drama called "Super Comet: After the Impact" (the latest in the super disaster films, the previous being "Supervolcano"). It follows four groups of people in different places (Mexico, Hawaii, France, and Camaroon) trying to survive a comet of similar size as the one that impacted 65 million years ago hitting in pretty much the same place. What are the odds of that? I don't know but it can't be very likely, but for sake of edutainment let's assume this comet hit in the very same spot the last one did. There were a few bits of outdated science that were presented, and some continuity problems which I will present as follows.

1. The impact is said to have created a megatsunami 3000 feet tall after impacting the ocean near the Chicxulub peninsula, resulting in massive inland flooding around the world. However, about 40 minutes later when a satelite image is shown of the region, the crater is entirely on land. It was a land-based impact and therefore could not have created a megatsunami.

2. The film tells us that ejecta from the impact (debris shot out of the crater and into space) will rain down on the earth and raise temperatures to 600 degrees F, enough to ignite all flamable material on the surface of the planet. We know this is not true. The Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago was believed to have let do world-wide forest fires because a layer of ash was found all over the world's surface, however ash can be blown by the wind thousands of kilometers, and we know the huge impact created very fast winds. Charcoal, which cannot be blown far by the wind, was not found world-wide, meaning there were no forestfires consuming all flamable material on the planet. There would have been fires endemic to the region of impact but there could not have been fires all over the globe. There's just no evidence of it. If a similar sized object impacted the earth it would have to be made of napalm in order to turn the world into one big fire.

3. The impact is said to hit a region of carbonate rock, which combined with the water vapour in the atmosphere would produce sulfuric acid rain (H2SO4). This, too, is wrong. How do we know? Well, there's no evidence of it happening when the previous Chicxulub impact took place. If you'll remember your days from science class you'll recall that when sulfuric acid was poured into the container of sugar it turned into a giant black thing. Well if we are to believe battery acid fell from the sky it would have killed vunerable amphibians living in the shallow waters. And that's precicely what we don't see! The amphibians didn't go extinct when the dinosaurs did, even though they were more succeptable to the battery acid rain! In fact amphibians thrived following the impact since there were no giant lizzards roaming around eating everything.

So what? No megatsunami, no world-wide forest fires, no battery acid rain. What next? Well, did an impact really kill off the dinosaurs? The evidence is starting to look shakey. Prof. Gerta Keller of Princeton University and Prof. Wolfgang Stinnesbeck of the University of Karlsruhe have come up with some compelling evidence to toss aside the theory of a single large impact killing off the dinosaurs. Fossil records show a gradual extinction happening over millions of years. Furthermore, cores drilled from the Gulf of Mexico show that the Chicxulub impact happened 300,000 years BEFORE the dinosaurs went extinct.

Well, what did kill the dinosaurs? I'm getting there. 500,000 years before the K-T boundary, and 200,000 years before the impact, massive volcanic activity began in India. A flood basalt eruption produced millions of cubic kilometers of new rock over hundreds of thousands of years and created the Deccan Traps.

This massive volcanic activity exerted pressure on the biosphere and caused the gradual downfall of the dinosaurs and other Cretaceous creatures. The Chicxulub impact was just one of a long line of hits the earth took during this time period. It is believed a second impact (the K-T impact), larger than the one at Chicxulub, was the final straw that pushed the dinosaurs over the edge and produced the tell-tale iridum layer. The exact location of this second impact (which it will be called here until someone comes up with a better name than the K-T impact) has yet to be discovered, but tentative evidence points to somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Next time will the producers of mega-disaster docu-dramas insert more science and less Jerry Bruckheimer? I don't know, but hopefully an equilibrium will be reached when "Super Sun Spot: Day of Reckoning" comes out.

-Dee