Moby & ethics

Moby says:

ethics only affects what you do if you force your will on other people. That’s when ethics come into the picture. If you force your will on animals, that’s where ethics come into the picture. If you force your will on the environment, I think that’s where ethics come into the picture. If you’re doing something to yourself it’s between you and God and I don’t really think you can apply Judeo-Christian ethical criteria to that, which is where I really really part company with the religious right.

If you want to kill yourself, kill yourself. If you want to get tattoos, get tattooed. If you want to get a first trimester abortion, it’s your body, it’s your fetus, go ahead. It’s between you and God. It’s only when you force your will on another sentient creature that the body politick has the ability to step in and say, ‘No, that’s wrong.’

When exactly does a fetus become a "sentient creature"? When does a baby become one, for that matter?

Nissan Versa review

The NY Times reviews the 2007 Nissan Versa. It likes it well enough, but still likes the Honda Fit better. In any case, having another small car option for Americans is good news.

Are Americans, who have long embraced a bigger-is-better approach to their personal transportation, ready to hug these smaller, friendlier cars?

The prospects seem pretty good, according to J. D. Power & Associates, the market-research company. “It’s irrefutable that the segment is doing well,” said Tom Libby, senior director for industry analysis at an affiliate, the Power Information Network. For instance, sales of compact basic cars — which include, among others, the Aveo, Fit, Versa and Yaris — jumped 118 percent last month compared with August 2005.

Islam's tolerance

anger still swept across the Muslim world, with Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopting a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called "derogatory" comments about Islam, and seeking an apology from him.

"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. (Associated Press)

Mr. Aslam may want to look up the word "tolerant" in the dictionary to fully appreciate the irony of his statement.

Update #1: two churches -- neither of them Catholic -- were fire-bombed in the West Bank

Iran's Holocaust cartoon exhibit

The Holocaust cartoon exhibit opened last month at Tehran's Caricature House, with 204 entries from Iran and abroad.

The cartoons were submitted after the exhibit's co-sponsor, the Hamshahri newspaper, said it wanted to test the West's tolerance for drawings about the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews in World War II. (Associated Press)

I guess we've passed the test?

Population growth in India an asset

A prime reason India is now developing into the world’s next big industrial power is that a number of global manufacturers are already looking ahead to a serious demographic squeeze facing China. Because of China’s “one child” policy, family sizes have been shrinking there since the 1980’s, so fewer young people will be available soon for factory labor.

India is not expected to pass China in total population until 2030. But India will have more young workers aged 20 to 24 by 2013; the International Labor Organization predicts that by 2020, India will have 116 million workers in this age bracket to China’s 94 million. (NY Times)

See also China aging.

Adult stem cells better investment

Embryonic stem cells might hold the secrets to curing paralysis and brain damage, but they've also garnered plenty of controversy with the anti-abortion lobby because they're harvested from embryos.

However, work using adult stem cells - which are donated by grown men and women - is not only free of such controversy, it's actually much closer to getting effective products on the market.

[...]

"Embryonic stem cell research hasn't kept up pace with adult stem cell research," said Dunn. "Adult stem cell research is advancing so far you might not need embryonic stem cells. [...]"

So while embryonic stem cell researchers are experimenting with rats, adult stem cell researchers have moved on to more advanced tests with humans. The embryonic-based stem cell treatments are probably a decade away, but the U.S. market could see its first adult-based stem cell treatments within the next couple of years.

CNNMoney.com

Christian Coalition losing chapters

Giles said he and his Alabama colleagues have "a dozen hard reasons" for the action but would elaborate on only one -- a perception that the coalition's leadership was diverting itself from traditional concerns such as abortion and same-sex marriage to address other issues ranging from the environment to Internet access.

The Christian Coalition diverting itself from traditional (Christian) concerns? Imagine that!

Help aid Lebanon

IOCC is one of the best positioned humanitarian aid organizations on the ground in Lebanon. Since 2001, IOCC has been implementing a USDA-funded school feeding and education program in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, the South and the North, serving a total of 242 schools and 45,000 students. When war broke out, the IOCC Beirut staff turned what was essentially a development initiative into an emergency relief program for thousands of displaced Lebanese families. (IOCC)

Please help alleviate the suffering of those caught in the crossfire.

Embryo-safe stem cells

A biotech company has come up with a way to create embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos.

The new method works by taking an embryo at a very early stage of development and removing a single cell, which can be coaxed into spawning an embryonic stem cell line. With only one cell removed, the rest of the embryo retains its full potential for development. (Associated Press)

But, as with many compromises, people at both ends of the debate are unhappy.

Some stem cell researchers complain that the new approach, though it may hold future promise, simply isn't as efficient as their current method of creating stem cells. [...] Meanwhile, hard-line opponents of stem cell science argue that the technique solves nothing, because even the single cell removed by the new approach could theoretically grow into a full-fledged human.

Maybe this is my ignorance talking, but I thought the main objection against embryonic stem cells was that their creation involved the destruction of embryos. Surely a non-destructive technique is far better than what we have currently?

One can certainly argue that these embryos shouldn't exist to begin with and that there are unethical aspects to the fertility business. But that's a different discussion.

Politics as usual

I've encountered two examples of an interesting use of the word "politics" in, well, politics.

Former Colorado state Sen. Ed Perlmutter is running in the Aug. 8 primary to compete for a open US House seat. He's running ads that promote embryonic stem cell research. He supports this research, he says, because "people are more important than politics". What? So we're now allowed to pick a political position and, if anyone opposes us, dismiss them as "politics"? I'm sorry, Mr. Politician, everything you are involved in is "politics". Search your feelings, you know it to be true! There's something wrong with a politician denigrating politics. What's next? CEOs deriding corporations?

And this morning I heard about the confirmation hearings for acting FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. There's a bit of discussion about how the FDA has been handling the Plan B abortifacient and how/if it'll be sold over the counter without a prescription. There was talk in the Senate about the FDA putting "politics above science". Again, leaving aside the fact that these are politicians talking, I don't know exactly what that's supposed to mean. No one values "politics" over anything! (Except, I thought, politicians, but maybe I'm wrong.)

We get a little closer to a real discussion with the accusation of the FDA acting according to "ideology instead of science". And even closer when Sen. Clinton said that "politicizing" the FDA would mean inserting moral judgments into the process, and that middle-aged men should be concerned because diet drugs could conceivably be outlawed because obesity is "immoral".

So I guess we know what the real problem is. One side of the debate has the moral high ground ("thou shalt not murder") so the other side must resort to name calling and scare tactics. Politics as usual!