Andrew Sullivan uses a Barack Obama's interview on the meaning of religion as a launching point for a recent post. Here are Obama's words: "I think this is the historical moment we're in — we have come to define religion in absolutist, fundamentalist terms. So to be a believer is to be…
Go ask one of those opponents of stem cell research why it’s OK to donate a kidney. They’ll look at you like you’re nuts. They’ll tell there’s a person who’s about to die and another person with an extra kidney, and it’s all that simple.
In 2006 you won’t hear any protest that kidney donation is something Frankenstein would do. Stem cell research opponents won’t assert that the extra kidney constitutes a “human life” even though it is alive and human. They won’t tell you that kidney transplants are morally wrong. They won’t claim that a kidney has an invisible soul.
Instead, they will reassure you that a spare kidney is not a unique human being. They will tell you that kidney cells are only “potential” human beings (reproductive cloning, illegal in most countries, could accomplish this). As icing on the cake, they will assert that kidneys don’t feel any pain.
At that point you’ll need to jump in. For starters, you might remind the stem cell research opponents that blastocysts (from which stem cells are harvested) are clumps of about 150 cells small enough to fit inside Roosevelt’s eye on a U.S. dime.
You might then add that blastocysts are only five days old when the stem cells are harvested. At this point in time, the stem cells are pluripotent: they can develop into all the different cell types in the body (except the placenta), but they have not yet developed into any specialized type of cell. …
President Bush has often used the term Islamic Fascists. Here is a short and though-provoking video that challenges Americans to examine its own national character according to a 14-point fascism analysis (based on the writings of Lawrence Britt). The video was create two years ago, as America entered Bush's second term.
Click here for the video of the recent ABC undercover investigation showing the kinds of things army recruiters are telling potential recruits these days. To check out the President's outlook on this issue, check out this article by Tim Grive of salon.com. Here are statements made by President Bush today at…
This is part of the stinging verdict announced in the November 20, 2006 edition of The American Conservative: Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did…