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This article makes for fascinating reading. I never knew exactly what the "Watergate Scandal" entailed, but from the article it sounds like the plot of a spy or conspiracy movie. The kind where you're thinking, "surely the real world doesn't actually work this way . . ."
Throw in a car chase and a famous actor and it's a sure recipe for box office success. In fact, it was made into a movie in 1976; "All the President's Men." Not that I've seen it.
The article by Bob Woodward
More information . . .
This article on the "stem cell adoption issue" is also of interest to me. No matter what your position on stem cell research, finding homes for 9,000 (at least) potential babies is difficult at best and impossible at worst. There are thousands upon thousands of children alive right now who are in need of homes and not nearly enough people to adopt them. Nevermind overseas adoption; we have a government-run foster care system (I know nothing about this, really) to take care of children who no one has yet adopted.
Adopting an embryo is even more difficult than adopting a child, though-- it has to be implanted into the surrogate mother and incubated for the requisate eight months or so.
Also interesting is that one orginization cited in the article claims to have found embryo donors for 145 families-- and of those 145, 59 of the pregnancies have been successful, producing a total of 81 children (that potentially means 22 sets of twins, unless there were triplets). Which means that only about 2/5 of the pregnancies were successful. I don't know how that compares to national statistics, but it certainly makes me think about the issue in a different way.
It amuses me to see the Catholic church and other conservative churches split on this issue, though. People make such conundrums for themselves . . . sometimes I think they must enjoy it, the debate and the guilt and the stress and the moral back-and-forthing, because they seem to go out of their way to create it. Of course, they would argue that they themselves don't create it; I'm not going to comment on that one.
In any case, I like to think of myself as a practically-minded person as far as my positions on politics are concerned. I follow my reason and my heart in tandem whenever possible, and that path is never mapped out or codified in any book. I also try not to force my opinions on other people, even when I'm posting current events-related information here (though it's probably fairly clear what I think despite that).
Despite the last, I will state straight out what should be abundantly clear to everyone who has ever bothered to read my political ramblings: I don't like President George W. Bush.
In fact I dislike him to the point that my bias infringes deeply on my efforts to be level-headed and fair in my consideration of any issue that he might express a public opinion on. So articles like this one fill me with a cheerful glee inappropriate for the prospect of a potentially crippled national government. But if it means that Bush can't get anything done, I can't help but feel it's a good thing.
Random curiosity: do any of you actually read my politicky posts?
Throw in a car chase and a famous actor and it's a sure recipe for box office success. In fact, it was made into a movie in 1976; "All the President's Men." Not that I've seen it.
The article by Bob Woodward
More information . . .
This article on the "stem cell adoption issue" is also of interest to me. No matter what your position on stem cell research, finding homes for 9,000 (at least) potential babies is difficult at best and impossible at worst. There are thousands upon thousands of children alive right now who are in need of homes and not nearly enough people to adopt them. Nevermind overseas adoption; we have a government-run foster care system (I know nothing about this, really) to take care of children who no one has yet adopted.
Adopting an embryo is even more difficult than adopting a child, though-- it has to be implanted into the surrogate mother and incubated for the requisate eight months or so.
Also interesting is that one orginization cited in the article claims to have found embryo donors for 145 families-- and of those 145, 59 of the pregnancies have been successful, producing a total of 81 children (that potentially means 22 sets of twins, unless there were triplets). Which means that only about 2/5 of the pregnancies were successful. I don't know how that compares to national statistics, but it certainly makes me think about the issue in a different way.
It amuses me to see the Catholic church and other conservative churches split on this issue, though. People make such conundrums for themselves . . . sometimes I think they must enjoy it, the debate and the guilt and the stress and the moral back-and-forthing, because they seem to go out of their way to create it. Of course, they would argue that they themselves don't create it; I'm not going to comment on that one.
In any case, I like to think of myself as a practically-minded person as far as my positions on politics are concerned. I follow my reason and my heart in tandem whenever possible, and that path is never mapped out or codified in any book. I also try not to force my opinions on other people, even when I'm posting current events-related information here (though it's probably fairly clear what I think despite that).
Despite the last, I will state straight out what should be abundantly clear to everyone who has ever bothered to read my political ramblings: I don't like President George W. Bush.
In fact I dislike him to the point that my bias infringes deeply on my efforts to be level-headed and fair in my consideration of any issue that he might express a public opinion on. So articles like this one fill me with a cheerful glee inappropriate for the prospect of a potentially crippled national government. But if it means that Bush can't get anything done, I can't help but feel it's a good thing.
Random curiosity: do any of you actually read my politicky posts?
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