"I remind you that I lean libertarian (without the crazy stuff) so all of my impulses are to allow people the freedom to hurt themselves any way they choose, so long as their corpses don't block my driveway or cost me anything."-Scott Adams, brilliantly summing up and simultaneously making me question my own philosophy.
In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?
According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.
Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."
No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?
This is a big relief, because I have a long term goal of cloning myself and then eating my clone. I don’t have a compelling reason to do it, but most goals are like that. No one really needs to run a marathon or collect beer mugs, but no one is complaining about them. There’s nothing wrong with wanting what you want.
I’m a vegetarian, but I think I would make an exception for my clone. My torso is already full of my guts. Putting a few more forkfuls in there seems like a trivial change.
My clone won’t have a soul, obviously, since clones are an abomination and not a product of God’s approved method of procreation. You can’t expect The Almighty to hand out souls to creatures made in a laboratory. Only real people get souls, and that means there’s no ethical dilemma with eating your clone. It’s just protein with an attitude.
The risk with this plan is that my clone is just like me, and tries to eat me first and assume my identity. But that’s a risk we’re both willing to take.
Do clones have souls?"
I like the final sentence - a pointless declaration of war in the comments section. Seriously, if you haven't started reading The Dilbert Blog yet, you should.
Image from e-spaces.com"I was watching a TV show last night about scientists who can use a modified inkjet printer to 'print' a new organ for your body, one layer at a time, using your own cells that were grown in a dish. They have already created replacement bladders that the body won’t reject. And they are already working on hearts.
You might say you don’t want to live for hundreds of years, but you are underestimating the new mood enhancing drugs that are totally legal and will put you in a state of perpetual bliss.
So there you have it: Immortality is getting nearer, and we’ll all be stupid-happy, and wealthy.
Don’t think about why that prediction is probably wrong. Just enjoy The Wonderful Time."
Some people are like Slinkys. They aren't really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when they're pushed down the stairs.
