After these messages we’ll be riiiiight back!

The sole purpose of this post is to show the many ways in which BoingBoing amused me today.

Four legs good, two legs bad!

I’ve started this entry a number of times now.  I think the trouble lies in the fact that I’m so damn angry about it that I can’t form a cogent argument.  What has my knickers in a twist this time is a newly released statement by Massachusetts governor Mitch Romney in which he claimed his stance against stem cell research was borne of a desire to prevent the United States from becoming Orwellian (as opposed to the more likely reason of trying to garner support for his likely 2008 presidential bid).  Where do I even start with this one?

The position against stem cells holds that since (in their belief) life begins when sperm meets egg, destruction of the embryo to gain its pluripotent cells (capable of becoming almost any cell in the body and thus having nifty possibilities for health care research) is immoral and murderous.  The critics also argue the slippery slope, fearing that allowing stem cells to be harvested will lead to the creation of embryos specifically for this purpose (rather than the much more likely prospect of couples being allowed to donate their unused in vitro fertilization embryos rather than just having them tossed out, as an unknown number are each year).

Romney’s statement came from the recent announcement by Advanced Cell Technologies that they had found a way to harvest a single cell from a frozen embryo, leaving the rest of the cells to (potentially) develop into a person.  Instead of greeting this as the compromise that this is, the stem cell opponents are still afraid “[i]n laboratories you could have trays of new embryos being created.”  I’m genuinely astounded.  Has he ever even talked to a scientist, or more succintly, a lab manager?  They are not going to do more work than they have to (or pay for the fertilization) when they can use any of the thousands of embryos already in storage without damaging the embryo.

The coup de grace of this statement was in Romney’s description of “[stem cell research being] Orwellian in its scope.”  Has he ever actually read Orwell?  I’m not a literature expert, but I’m pretty sure Orwell wrote about the control of the government over its people and the extent to which it will go if allowed.  I think Gov. Romney was perhaps reaching for Aldous Huxley, with Brave New World’s scenes of fetuses being decanted along an assembly line.  A word of advice, sir: you’re more likely to be taken seriously if you actually have a clue what you’re talking about rather than dropping buzzwords simply to make yourself sound smart.

Please do not feed the indie kids

Dear Steve Jobs,

I think you need to have a chat with your marketing department. While I realize that these commercials were meant to make me desire a Mac by making the Mac guy look hip and awesome and the PC dude look frumpy and geeky, they seem to have had the opposite effect.

I like Macs. My family’s first computer was a Mac. I didn’t speak to my mother for days when she decided to get rid of said Mac in favor of a PC. In general, I’d go back to a Mac if I could afford one. But your new commercials have only made me sympathize with the poor PC guy while turning me off of Macs because of the smug, self-important indie-boy Mac user. Don’t be a hater, indie-boy Mac user – embrace your inner nerd!

Mr. Jobs, if you want to entice more people to buy Macs, lowering the price would be a great start. Make commercials that encourage computer n00bs (as they say) and gamers to go for the Mac. Really, though, looking down your nose at the 99% of the population who has never heard a single song by Mogwai doesn’t help your popularity. Kthxbye.

Love from my PC laptop,

Me

Ooh, shiny

I’m consistently amazed by the new tech toys that come out and the speed at which they progress. I got my first DVD just 4.5 years ago and now, between my husband and myself, have a collection of hundreds. Just a few years ago I first heard about flash drives and portable mp3 players – now everyone has at least one of the two. I finally looked up Skype to see what all the cool kids were talking about and went fangirl (OMGSQUEE!) over the fact that I can have free, easy-to-use video conversations. So now that I can have my very own videophone, all I need is a mylar jumpsuit and a flying car and I’ll be all set for THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. The really sad part about this is that I know I’m behind the times on most of these innovations, leaving the truly tech-savvy looking at me as if I were a drooling moron (not that I’m discounting the possibility). At least being behind the tech curve gives me something to be amazed about tomorrow.