Sometime Blues

The Economist: Regenerative Dentistry

This is a really strange story about the most mundane human imporvement that can result from stem cell research. Also, this is terrific. My teeth are lame, and I have always wanted new ones. It now appears that in a few decades I will be able to discard these and start changing them every few years. Now all I need is a way to grow a new circulatory and digestive system. Then I will be set. |

BBC: Scottish Chef Crowned Curry King

Well I promised gastronomical news, so here it is. This guy, like great Indian food, is awesome. |

Pravda: Epicenter of Racist Violence

What I cannot understand is that in a world where America and her "allies" (like Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Russia) claim to be fighting terrorism, how can racial violence fail to be called terrorism. Just because these criminals don't attack ethnic Russians, doesn't mean that they are not using violence to provoke fear in a population. In Russia it is easy to write off the apathy of law enforcement as the detactchment of a government concerned only with Chechen rebels and political rivals. However, racial violence is not dead in America, and George Bush has seldom if ever addressed the issue of domestic terrorism that doesn't involve Muslim fundamentalists. Why, if this "war" is primarily concerened with putting an end to terror, are some forms left to be dealt with later? This is not a lost generation. This is one face of yet another international conspiracy to terrorize millions of civilians. |

Fugufish.org: Gay Marriage

I know that mine is not a totally unique view, but I believe it has a place nonetheless. I agree that the government should get out of the "marriage business." I believe that marriage is for one man and a woman but I also believe that the religious beliefs of myself or others should not govern acts like sexuality and marriage, which do not threaten anybody's right to life, liberty, or property. If the government wants to represent all Americans and not a narrow electorate of conservative voters, which requires cleanly funded elections and significant voter turnout, it will restrict its regulation of family arrangements to child welfare and legal/economic arrangements like civil unions, different from marraige in that they do not rely on love or religion to validate them. I think it is just to restrict civil unions to two people because, if not, lots of people could dramatically take advantage of the economic benefits of civil unions unfairly. Aside from this, there should be no restriction of legal "marriage" (a term which I feel has no place in legal discussions.

I also think that dismissing a comparison between forbidding gay "marriage" and anti-miscengenation laws is careless. Those who forbade romance and legal interactions between blacks and whites of opposite sexes used their own historical definition of marriage to provide justification for a certain type of injustice which was illegal. I think that the government should give no recognition of romantic relationships, only economic ones. but if any of these relationships are recignized, then all of them must be recognized to ensure that no Americans are treated and second class because history has shown that this can happen, even in a republic that worships at its own altar, celebrating its own traditions of liberty and justice.


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