Stem cells and Maurice Strong
Jul. 20th, 2006 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drscottGeorge Bush has just used his first veto to continue a silly policy which greatly restricts research into embryonic stem cells because a small minority of religionists thinks frozen embryos that are destined to be flushed are human beings. Oddly, the same people haven't tried to make flushing said embryos murder. Or make whacking off a capital offense, the absurdum to which this reductio is headed.
And speaking of people who ride religious belief structures (faith-based creeds like Marxist/Leninist thought, Catholicism, Islamism, and Earth First-style environmentalism) to power, we have the example of Maurice Strong, a Canadian career government and NGO player who's been enriching himself and friends for decades by peddling influence and abusing the Utopian ideals of the population. Here's today's WSJ piece discussing his role in Tongsun Park's conviction in the Iraqi/UN Oil For Food scandal, and here's a more general discussion of his many roles as éminence grise for Whirled Peas.
And speaking of people who ride religious belief structures (faith-based creeds like Marxist/Leninist thought, Catholicism, Islamism, and Earth First-style environmentalism) to power, we have the example of Maurice Strong, a Canadian career government and NGO player who's been enriching himself and friends for decades by peddling influence and abusing the Utopian ideals of the population. Here's today's WSJ piece discussing his role in Tongsun Park's conviction in the Iraqi/UN Oil For Food scandal, and here's a more general discussion of his many roles as éminence grise for Whirled Peas.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 07:54 pm (UTC)I'm so sick of politicians, but there's no way to escape them and their evil webs thrown across the fabric of earth. Get me outta' here!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 08:16 pm (UTC)Re: politicians, most of the time I comment on their doings here only to point out things my readers are very unlikely to have seen somewhere else. All too many accept at face value what their team says, not realizing both teams (we're talking US here) are shot through with corruption, and pretend to care about issues only insofar as it helps them keep power and extract goodies for themselves and their co-conspirators. Of course both parties are also shot through with idealists and other useful idiots, who believe their team is trying to create Heaven on Earth. It's the latter who let the former continue their looting spree.
For a century and a half, this country partly solved the problem of restraining politicians' overwhleming ability to grab resources for themselves. So it can happen, it just requires a wary and educated populace who understand nothing is free.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 08:20 pm (UTC)