Man, everyone. I just got back from a three hour HOA annual election and member meeting. My wife is president and it sucks … royally. She is doing a great job, but everyone just shows up an vents their spleens…

And I was going to give up swearing this year…

I think I’ll watch Death Wish II (fits my mood) and nurse this cold/flu that has kept me home the last two days.

Oh, one last thing. Anyone hear from MarkH, JoeK or Marcia. I realize everyone has real lives, but we’ve not seen them around for a while now.

Michaelj - you’re just flat wrong.

The only part of the story that is uncertain, is the source of the radio transmission wherein someone says ‘you will explode in minutes’.

On another day, and in other constricted waters (the port of Aden), another US navy warship was refueling one morning, when a small open boat with two guys aboard approached, and then detonated, killing 17 sailors and nearly sinking the ship.

Whatever the hell else they are, five go-fast boats playing grab-ass with a US Navy task force in the constricted (and international) Straits of Hormuz is certainly not “nothing at all”.

In a compressed amount of time, the captains on the scene had to decide whether to hold their fire, and risk a blinding flash and a gaping hole in their hull, and horribly burned, maimed, and dead sailors; or open fire and certainly create a major-special international incident.

As fashionable as it is to blame absolutely every evil on President Bush, it is worth recalling that the successful attack on the USS Cole was an enormous boost for al Qaeda’s worldwide prestige, and it was an incomparable recruiting and fundraising tool for them, in the run-up to their cataclysmic attack on New York City….and the attack on the Cole occurred on The Great, Martyred, and faux-First Black President - Bill Clinton.

But I think there is a distinction to be made between horticulture by more “old-fashioned” methods and modifying things at the molecular level by marrying DNA from dissimilar crops that would never cross-pollinate naturally. The latter seems, again, more fraught with danger.

Unintended consequences are a fact of life whatever we do, although I’m with you there.

I tend to immediately discount concerns of this sort - especially the protests against genetically modified crops. Good God! - the human race has been growing genetically modified crops for about as long as we’ve grown anything on purpose (as opposed to gathering what can be found).

We have genetically modified dogs and other animals for a long, long time, although granted - the ‘modification’ was done the old fashioned way (if you get my thrust).

What do you all think of meat and milk from cloned animals? The FDA just released a report that says they think “most” (how comforting) of it poses no health risks.

I’m against it for several reasons, most of them tied up in what I call the “law of unintended consequences.” Off the top, I can think of these objections:

1. There have historically been a lot of birth defects with cloned animals. Some of these are not apparent until the animal is well into maturity (I think Dolly or some of her “sisters” exhibited rapid aging) and some are not apparent to the naked eye. I don’t think anyone wants to eat that sort of meat.

2. What about diminishing the diversity of the gene pool and inbreeding. Who is going to make sure this does not happen? Corporations? Government?

3. What other consequences could there be? What if we later find out that eating meat from genetically diverse animals is important or essential to health.

Bottom line, the motive for cloning is money in the form of increased profits from cloning of animals that are genetically culled for the traits of meat quality and yield. This seems like a very dangerous road we are going down. Once again.