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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (33397)	3/26/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

One of the most horrible Gothic monsters --- the strawberry that doesn't rot! Giant, earth consuming strawberries with hidden chambers in which battalions of microchemists can hide, and cutting their way out through the firm all-red flesh, attack the other more fragile fruits.

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (33397)	3/26/1999 6:59:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

We hear the voices today of those who oppose tinkered tomatoes and Dolly the Sheep as morally wrong, as Frankensteinian hubris. They are working on killer tomatoes as we speak, and they will someday attack. Killer sheep too: I know, I saw them on Monty Python years ago, and we all know those guys were clairvoyant. You're a scientist, you must be involved. All of you are. The New World Order is behind it. In a few short years, anybody who uses the wrong words in an e-mail will be dragged away by a neo-Gestapo of tomatoes and sheep. On the other hand, mutton goes well with salsi pomodori. Saturday morning, stranded in the big city while Toyota tinkers with the truck. Nothing severe; pre-trip checkup before a scheduled Easter run up into the tribal lands, where breakdown is thought to be undesirable. They replaced an oil seal and apparently did a bad job, it was leaking. So they'll do it again, all apologies, no charge, gave me a rather ridiculous heap to drive around in the interim. Bit of a night last night, ran up some old friends and crawled through the scene as if we were still young sprats. Good fun. Next time I'll be sure to bring the truck in on a Friday, and pay the guy to hold it overnight. Just realized that the SI spellchecker doesn't recognize "e-mail". Strange.

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (33397)	3/29/1999 4:43:00 AM
From: PiMac	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

<<The Chinese ideogram for "crisis" is "danger&opportunity".>> How can we tell the difference? Where do we apply leverage? ... I speak misgivings less as an analogy to the Bomb, than the analogies to come of Stromium 90, 3 miles island, nuclear waste, or irradiated thyroids. It is the unforeseen, hidden, lurking side effects that lay waste to the 'innocent', to the society who do not benefit directly. <<you wondered about our inability to deprogram war and other distasteful traits. We will have sovereign control over such things when we become proficient genetic engineers.>> Upon what gene lies the soul, the reason, the love? Where the greed, the power lust, the sociopathic? The question of control is foremost. Do we accept business control of the applications? Their 1st motivation is profit for the few owners, so the motivations that spawned Valdiz and Bhopal, India remain. How about government? Do election manipulation seem a good mix with species manipulation? The military? The UN? The Pope? An undefined, unaccountable group of experts? Face it, the way we are now with our species, no one can be trusted not to screw it up by incompetence or by self-seeking. We are headed for disasters unimaginable. Unforeseeable equals unpreventable. Nothing will change that. Will we survive. Sure, barring a meteor strike. Eventually we will be better off than now. This is just one more excuse for our species to delay, to not do the right thing. There have been so many already. So, whoever does it, how will it go? The last, few hopes first...aids, leprosy,...? Or the big payoffs, the big PR? Who bets we see a miracle food plant spread across the tilled fields of the earth, and no one knows..no one can know..what danger lurks to wipe it out completely, and with it most of the humans?