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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (110836)	1/27/2008 9:31:51 PM
From: Kerry Phineas	Respond to of 132070

'Derivative' is a catch all term. In any case, it seems like our economy is over leveraged/ not sufficiently capitalized to respond to the current crisis. If I'd been paying attention to whats been going on in our financial markets I'd have been whining about this for a couple of years. This happens all the time in the US. You'd think we'd learn a lesson sometime. (Note that I am taking some short positions to counter some of my long positions, but I'm not very invested right now.) rgemonitor.com

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (110836)	1/28/2008 1:12:36 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Scientists hit back at Catholic church over 'cybrids' 17:19 25 January 2008 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie Scientists are responding angrily to claims by the Catholic church that a new bill currently before the UK Parliament "will allow scientists to create embryos that are half human, half animal". Catholic churches across England and Wales read a statement making this claim to their congregations this week, and calling on Catholics to protest. British scientists have responded angrily that there are no such plans. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill due to be discussed later in 2008 in the UK House of Commons changes the regulations governing assisted reproduction and embryo research. It is strongly backed by the government and expected to become law next year. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales sent a letter to parishes which was read in churches on Sunday 20 January, saying the bill raised "key concerns". The leading concern was about hybrid embryos: "for example, from the egg of a woman and sperm from an animal. To do this would be a radical violation of human dignity." Treatments for disease It is "a radical violation of the truth", says Chris Shaw of King's College London. He says experiments currently planned call for implanting an adult human cell into an animal egg, from which all the animal DNA is removed. The resulting embryo contains only human genes, and should produce embryonic stem cells genetically matching the donor. Such "cybrids" are "devoid of an animal genetic identity", says Stephen Minger, head of the stem cell lab at KCL, one of two UK labs that has applied to conduct such experiments. "We are very disturbed that the Catholic bishops claim the bill will allow us to create half-human, half-animal embryos," says Lyle Armstrong of the second lab at Newcastle University." "The aim of our experiments is to discover ways to make stem cells [to treat] human diseases," Armstrong says, "not to give birth to some abnormal chimera. Even if this were possible it has no scientific or moral justification and is in any case strictly prohibited by the legislation." In fact, the bill does create rules for embryos created by fusing human and animal sperm or eggs, as well as for cybrids, and for chimeras or transgenic embryos created by adding animal cells or DNA, respectively, to human embryos. None of these may be implanted in a woman, created without a licence, or kept longer than 14 days or the first signs of formation of a central nervous system. 'Common humanity' A background paper accompanying the bishops' statement recognises that no British scientists are planning to create true hybrids using human and animal sperm and eggs. However, they insist that even cybrids are a mixture of human and non-human which is not compatible with Catholic theology, and "fails to respect our common humanity" in secular terms. "There must be some limits on what we allow scientists to do in the name of research," the UK paper states. Even though cybrids cannot be implanted now, "who knows if someone somewhere will implant it in an animal?" The British bishops are planning public meetings to rally support. Catholics constitute 8% of Britain's population. The bishops call on Catholics to join forces with other religious groups – and with environmentalists. "If people are unhappy about genetically modified tomatoes, they should be made aware of proposals in the bill to allow the creation of genetically modified human embryos!"