thanks for the votes of confidence by the way, you too get to be my cronies now.


take your pick of the government programs you want to plunder. please, help yourselves!

sweet, thats three for me, all i need realy. Everyone who voted against me goes to "re-education camps" to learn to correctly sing my praises.

When i want Barritone, dammit, i better be feeling the bass in my bones!!!

i'd vote for plato to be megalomaniac of the month too

I'd vote for Plato as my totalitarian despot :D

yeah, perspective is a bugger when trying to form forward thinking policies.
especially if you live in a place that tries working out future plans in a democratic way.

sometimes (rarely) totalitarian rule has advantages.

assuming you have the right megalomaniac running the show (i'd like to nominate myself)

disease is a funny thing though paradise - those who have been personally affected, or whose family/friends have been affected tend to think that those deiseases are the most serious. we seem to lose all sense of perspective when it's talking about our own.

surely the goal is that we are as free from disease - all disease - as possible?

umm, asthma CAN kill you.

only the most serious diseases??? why?
we should run around with asthma? but cure pulmonary fibrosis?

i figure go at it full throttle.

who knows where the next breakthrough lies?

Or trying to find a cure for paralysis.

Experimenting on animals for medical research for cures for only the most serious diseases, such as cancer, is ok, in my book.

science for the sake of science is fun for all of humanity, as long as a person isn't violated in some way, i say allow the cute bunnies in their Passion Purple lipstick to lead the charge to a future full of sexy bunnies!!

The value in scientific research is often unseen at first, a major difference between the eastern and western aspects of scientific incquery, is the focus on the more dreary "back-ground" information. the study of basic sciences adn the underlying laws and principles that define the natural world.
In eastern science they historically tended to focus more on the actual phenomenon, rather than the underlying principle. and accepting underlying principle. It gave them the early heade start, but they fell behind, because without understanding why, there is only so much you can do with how.

so basically, even though a lot of research seem superflous, even wasteful, the value inherent in a general understanding that scientific research is allowed and unimpeded.

the worry, my worry anyway, is when someone stops one venue of research, no matter how seemingly inane it is, you can kill an entire field of knowledge before it is even concieved. Mendels peas, and darwins little vacation where minor events when they happened. the entire field of molecular and cell biology was born after the wrong idea that cancer was a viral issue caught on as the main possibility.

it went the wrong way, alomst died as a field in the early 80's and is now rebron as the grandady of bioengeneering, nanosciences, and even genetic and pharmacologic research.


seems minor, and it could easily have gone the other way. back surgery advances are traced directly to puppies having similar spinal structures, and who knows what a sharks immune system conceals, though we know it can successfully fight off HIV

anyway. i know, you are saying that "that isn't make up on a bunny"

but, i say, allowing make up on a bunny, or disallowing it, awakens a specter of scientific censorship that can rile up congress (the idiots) and shut down industry after industry.

i feel sorry for the monkeys in the cages. but, science marches on. sorry monkeys. i wish it could have been different.

i once met one that could sign language, and, distressingly enough, it kept signing for freedom. "let me out, get me key, free free free"

very distressing....

makes one wonder doesn't it?

We need to take the matter up with Max-Factor, L'Oreal, and Revlon. Right people, we need to organise a protest outing. Signs, pickets, teh works. Since we're gonna be in a public place, ladies, wear some nice clothes and get made-up so you look the biz, pronto ;) I'll just take a quick shower.

It's clear isn't it:
animals and cosmetics = bad -:-
animals and vaccine research = GOOD! P:

Come on Mystic - go get him. we need a discussion and not sit around agreeing (which we were doing)...

Plato - do your stuff

i disagree, plato. the cure for cancer being the the lipstick is an accidental result of the research - it still does not make the research ok! i'm not a consequentialist and i do not think the end justifies the means at all (and less so the "possibility of a good end" - like lipstick curing cancer)

raspberry red? they've usually got much more exotic names than that you know... but yes, you never know what is a big leap cos it could be a tiny breakthrough in a very long chain

if it was a beauty issue we would go out and slaughter every walrus in the world. Hideous beasts those...

science marches forward, even if it's soft soled lab shoe's trods on the lifes of a few mammals in the process. It's hard to know when seemingly irrelevant research turns out to be a major breakthrough, so i'm for it, hopefully the scientists excersise restraint, but telling them what can and can't be done doesn't seem like a viable option to me.

who knows if the next rasperry red lipstick can cure cancer?

i care about tuna (buy dolphin friendly) and cod (especially if cooked the right way - not too heavy a batter). but i do like dolphins. whales as well - the killer whale in particular. are beautiful. maybe there is a mammalian-bias?

lol @ "progress in .. cosmetics". Well, anything to make you ladies look pretty I suppose (H) ... Hey Shazia, I think my work has led to the death of many guinea pigs and mice, hopefully cute ones ;) ... Thinking point: why does one care more about dolphins, but not tuna or cod? Maybe it's a mammalian bias on our part. (A)

CF, I think you have animal farm confused with animal research. (: P) the former was a disasterous experiment but without the latter we'd make no progress in drug development, cosmetics or otherwise.