FL senator and presidential aspirant Marco Rubio routinely evades questions about why his home city of Miami is drowning by citing the fact that he is not a scientist. So I was mildly surprised during the recent GOP presidential debate when he justified his anti-abortion extremism by announcing with a flourish that his position is based on SCIENCE.
During the debate, he mumbled some argle-bargle about “DNA mapping.” At the time, I remember thinking surely he’s not saying that since human zygotes have human DNA, ipso facto, zygotes are people? I mean, he’s dumb, but he’s not a true Palin-class moron, is he?
Yes, he is. Rubio elaborated on his DNA discovery in follow-up media appearances (CNN clip here), observing that since a zygote contains human DNA and cannot therefore eventually develop into a cat, donkey or other type of animal, it’s a full-fledged human babby from the moment sperm meets egg. He was so proud of this insight that he tweeted about it:
Watch this video and sign this petition if you know that a human life won’t become a donkey or a cat:
https://t.co/neRez6ule9
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 10, 2015
The only question remaining is when will he sponsor a bill to ban cremation, burial and other forms of disposing of human remains? Or outlawing the disposal of toenail clippings, shorn hair, expelled saliva, poop, etc.? Like Rubio, I’m not a scientist, but don’t all of these items contain human DNA, and if so, aren’t they entitled to the same rights you and I have because SCIENCE?
Mudge
Rubio has all the insight of a cat discovering its tail.
Baud
It can however become an ass.
Myiq2xu
So having an abortion is just like the disposal of toenail clippings, shorn hair, expelled saliva, poop, etc.?
Baud
TIL liberals support abortion rights out of a fear of manimals.
Betty Cracker
@Myiq2xu: In your case, yes. But that’s not the point. The point is, contra Rubio, human DNA =/= human being.
MattF
Michael Gerson thinks that ‘establishment Republicans’ must do… something… about you-know-who:
Oh, my.
currants
Off topic garden question: have tomatillo plants (2) first time in my garden. Any advice on … growing them, staking them, when to harvest them…? They are the most tall, spindly, sprawly plants I’ve ever grown.
Baud
@MattF:
He’s almost as uncivil as Obama!
eric
@MattF: I assume this means that those same establishment persons will have to speak out against Rush…….cricket…..cricket….cricket.
Translation: he is messing with our grift, put a cap in his ass.
MomSense
it’s more than merely insulting that men this stupid want to make medical decisions for women.
Mustang Bobby
I comfort myself by knowing that Marco Rubio will never be president and that in January 2017 he will be out of office and can sell cars for Norman Braman.
currants
@MomSense: Agreed. Frustrating. Infuriating. And that men with this same kind of stupid go on and on (and on and on, for decades), loudly, publicly. I begin to think that we really have to blame organized religion for the apparent ability to ‘believe’ things that are demonstrably false.
MattF
Let’s see… Rick Perry has run out of money, Ted Cruz has Found Jesus, Marco Rubio should have stuck with ‘I’m not a scientist’, Jeb! is the dumber brother…
cokane
so, then he’s saying it’s fine to kill cats whenever? Rubio: pro-kitten killing.
ThresherK
@Mudge: My cat chases her tail, and she is offended by the comparison you made.
Keith G
It is just comforting to know (and not the least bit surprising) that all the GOP gang all are in basic agreement about a woman’s right to chose. As long as they are dug in on that hill, they spot us an important advantage.
The political story more interesting to me is what might be happening on our side.
Sander’s is chalking up a serious of “big crowd – enthusiastic crowd” stories. Does this begin to change tactical considerations in the HRC camp? Should it? At what point does she risk appearing detached and lacking political vigor.
With apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein, “How do you solve a problem like Bernie Sanders?”
While the Sander’s campaign may not have crossed the threshold a a threat to HRC, it seem like that is possible.
dedc79
In the not too distant future, doctors will be able to transplant modified pig organs into humans. Presumably at that point, Rubio will move to outlaw bacon and pork chops. Every pig is sacred.
NotMax
There’s a blond joke in there somewhere.
Myiq2xu
@Betty Cracker: Human DNA only comes from humans. A living organism with human DNA is a human being.
That’s science.
Baud
@Keith G:
I don’t know. Abortion has been irrelevant in every presidential election so far, it seems.
J.D. Rhoades
@MattF:
Moving beyond the boundaries of serious and civil discourse is what give the Trump Chumps a stiffy.
JPL
Rubio’s faith says he should take care of the needy. I hope someone asks him, how he feels about expanding medicare. I hope someone asks him, how he feels about closing health clinics.
Betty Cracker
@Myiq2xu: So you, like Rubio, are arguing that this is a human being:
You’re just as stupid as he is. But we knew that.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
How do we know that’s not a donkey?
dmsilev
@Myiq2xu: Define ‘living organism’. Scientifically, that is.
wuzzat
Here’s hoping that Rubio gets a plate of scrambled eggs whenever he orders chicken for the rest of his life. Because Science.
SFAW
Maybe not, but he certainly plays one on TV.
bemused
Rubio will always be wet behind the ears no matter how old he is.
NotMax
Rubio has a bright future overseeing the adjunct used car lots of his sugar daddy’s dealerships.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Rubio only cares about that stage of pregnancy. Once they develop, not so much.
Someone needs to ask Rubio, if pre-natal care should be free for all woman.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Good point. Could be a cat for all we know.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Why do you bother responding? Anyone who is so insecure that he has to claim how wicked smaaht (that’s a Masshole expression, not sure whether proper English has made it down to FL) he is in his nym/nom/noom is clearly clueless. As he has proved on other blogs.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Also, if that’s a human embryo, then, according to Rubio, you’ve just posted evidence of homicide.
Joel
You can take cells out of a human body and grow them in culture. So are those individual humans?
Keith G
@Baud: I think it is relevant in campaigns in that it helps define a contrast that is important for holding some parts of our usually unruly coalition in common cause, even beyond general elections.
Todd Akin cast a bit of a shadow and allowed for some good energy to be available to our side.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Unpossible. A pic of a cat-to-be would have some variant of “I can haz Cheeseburger?” printed on it.
Baud
As someone else pointed out, a large number of embryos are destroyed in certain fertilization techniques. Not sure if the GOP candidates really have the courage of their convictions to propose banning that practice.
NotMax
@Myiq2xu
Aha. So those lab modified glow-in-the-dark mice are actually walking, squealing jellyfish, then.
big ole hound
Lets all send a bag of poop to Rubio’s campaign office demanding that he preserve it.
Baud
@Keith G:
Hopefully. The contrast on abortion seems to be a longstanding one. But we’ll see. Obviously, if the GOP gets to replace a liberal justice, it’s game over.
Gimlet
“Pat, I am very concerned because this past weekend my 6-year-old grandson said his dad told him God and Jesus were not real and were just made up to scare people about dying,” a viewer named Elizabeth explained to Robertson in an email.
Elizabeth said that she tried to “explain the truth” to her grandson but he wouldn’t believe her.
“I’m worried for my grandson’s soul,” she wrote.
“You should be,” Robertson agreed. “If there’s any way you can get that child away from that… His father telling him that. I don’t know, but if there’s any way you can get him enrolled in a Christian school
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: So, as well as the caution against picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, there should be added a caution against picking a fight with someone who can embed graphics in a blog post.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: True. I’ve known he’s a clueless asshole since before he got kicked off one of the stupider PUMA blogs back in the day.
Sherparick
This is causing a great sad among “the Village VSPs,” since Rubio is considered the ideal candidate to take on “Evil Hillary” being young, “Hispanic,” “reform minded” regarding public school privatization and Social Security, and a great Hawk willing to bomb or threaten bombing about anyone. But they really find the theocracy stuff distasteful and know that all this stuff will come back in the general.
RSA
This phrase is responsible for so much stupidity…
The real issue, I think, is whether an embryo is a person. Our society has already made the choice that it is okay in some situations to take a human life or allow one to expire through inaction when that human life is not a person. It happened with Terri Schiavo and it happens with every decision to turn off the respirator when brain activity permanently goes away. It happens every day in in vitro fertility clinics. These may be painful decisions, because of who a person was in the past or because of lost hopes for the future, but they’re not about human life per se.
Gimlet
@Betty Cracker:
Is that a Black one, a White one…?
Matt McIrvin
@Myiq2xu: Behold the single-celled human beings!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
NotMax
@Gimlet
Happen to have seen this?
Gimlet
@Myiq2xu:
At what point does God put the soul in?
Sherparick
@Myiq2xu: Really, zygotes are human beings? Every miscarriage should be a homicide investigation? Women must be forced to carry to term every pregnancy no matter what, even the loss of the women’s life? And of course, once the baby is born, how it is cared for, raised, and educated is the woman’s problem, no tax money. It is amazing how worthless human life becomes after it is born for conservatives.
Gimlet
@NotMax:
Not sure whether to ridicule the authorities or get away from the whole lot of them.
Cervantes
Needless to say, human DNA is not a human being — but is that Rubio’s claim?
Or is he saying that human DNA, packaged in a certain way, has the potential to become a human being? If he is saying the latter, it does no good to pretend otherwise.
NB: I have not paid a whole lot of attention to Rubio’s pensées on the subject — but perhaps others have.
rikyrah
@MattF:
BWA HA HA HA H AH AH HA
Trump’s problem is that he does not speak in Frank Luntz-approved language.
That’s it.
RK
@Betty Cracker:
All of us were once at that stage.
Kropadope
@RK: Fertilized egg or stupid as Rubio?
Cervantes
@JPL:
Good idea. Has he not been asked?
Kirbster
So, by Rubio’s logic, my shoebox of leftover seed packets is a vegetable garden, the acorns that drop from the oak trees in my yard make it a forest, and a fertility clinic has sufficient population be its own congressional district requiring representation.
danielx
Trump has moved beyond the boundaries of serious and civil discourse? Trying to discern how this makes Trump and his toxic bloviatings different from those of any number of other Republicans over the past few years. Granted that his stock in trade as an asshole makes him more practiced at insulting all and sundry.
Betty Cracker
@Keith G:
It’s a conundrum for sure. I love what Sanders is saying about wealth inequality and the corrupting influence of money in politics. I think his presence in the race has already shoved the Overton Window a bit to the left on the Democratic side. But I can’t picture this country actually electing him president, even if the GOP coughs up a slimy hairball like Walker or a nightmare like Trump. But people (including the Clintons) said the same about PBO’s electability back in the day.
Cervantes
@Baud:
Numerous bans have been proposed, both federal and state, especially in the context of stem-cell research, where clinically produced human embryos have been the principal source of stem cells.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: But are they proposing bans of embryo destruction at fertility clinics? They may be lunatic enough to do so for all I know. It’s an honest question.
Maybe Megyn Kelly can ask Rubio to indulge in this thought experiment at the next debate: You’re in an IVF clinic when a fire breaks out, and you only have time to save a one of the following: 1) a two week old baby, or 2) a cooler containing 100 frozen embryos. Which do you save?
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: HA!
rikyrah
always thought time travel was interesting, as a theory. in actuality, there aren’t many times my Black self would want to ‘go back to’. When, exactly, would be a ‘good time’……
………………
Watch First Trailers for New Time Travel Web Series About Black People Sent Back to Slavery Days (Would You Go Back?)
Shadow and Act
By Sergio | Shadow and Act
August 10, 2015 at 8:15PM
Well, as I said last fall when “Send Me” was announced during its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign: who in their right mind would want to do that (go back in time to the days of slavery)?
Personally, I say NO WAY. That is, of course, unless I could be like Django and take out a whole bunch of white Southern slave owners (or just like Ken Norton in “Mandingo” with Susan George. Just kidding…Maybe…)
Created by playwright, screenwriter and actor Steve Harper, and starring Tracie Thoms, Gabrielle Carteris, Nelsan Ellis, Jerrika Hinton, Jasika Nicole, and Carlease Burke, and shot earlier this year in and around Los Angeles, “Send Me” follows a black woman (Thoms) who has the power to send black people back in time, to the slavery era.
But Harper points out that the people who do this in the series are doing it of their own free will: “It’s not a punishment. They want to go – to explore their blackness, their history, to connect to who they are. It takes place now… and it involves time travel. Candidates apply for the chance to take the trip. Those who want to go are trying to find out who they are now, based on who their ancestors were.”
blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/watch-first-trailers-for-send-me-new-time-travel-web-series-about-b…
Bobby Thomson
@Keith G:
In Portland, which has its primary in MAY 2016. He’s not playing the game to win. He’s playing the game to get as much publicity for as long as possible, and he’s doing a decent job of that.
Dean and 2000 McCain drew a lot of big crowds, too.
The Clinton campaign is being run by Obama veterans. I think they’ll be just fine.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Betty Cracker:
Well, duh the cooler of course. The GOP doesn’t care about human life once it’s left the womb.
Edit…being the GOP – are the embryos from a white or black mother?
Gimlet
@Bobby Thomson:
Dean and 2000 McCain drew a lot of big crowds, too.
As did Obama.
RK
@Betty Cracker: Replace those embryos with late stage octogenarians and you have the same answer. Humans have strange biases and quirks when it comes to morality. That famous experiment where you have to choose to kill a train worker to save many by distanced switch or by hand is an example.
GregB
Change his name to Rube…..yo!
lowercase steve
@Myiq2xu:
So when they insert human DNA into a bacterium in the form of a plasmid to, for example, produce insulin, that is a now a human and can’t be killed?
lowercase steve
BTW:
How is babby formed? How is babby formed? How girl get pregnant?
OzarkHillbilly
@lowercase steve: Stop it. Just stop it. It is not fair introducing facts and logic in this argument. You people should be ashamed of yourselves.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
If Ms. Kelly does that, we might have to start paying eloquent tribute.
You’re asking about moral consistency in politics. Here’s an example: when Bush agreed to fund stem-cell research in 2001, he bragged that his policy “would not encourage the destruction of embryos.” Opponents, especially on the right, observed that not encouraging infanticide was nothing to write home about.
Anyway, like Bush, most Republicans who have waxed eloquent on the subject have chosen not to take their arguments to the logical conclusion. And yet a few have done so, opposing IVF precisely because it creates (in their view) disposable human lives.
Betty Cracker
@RK: To me, there’s a material difference involved in choosing to save a baby instead of an octogenarian. I would save the baby, and if I were the octogenarian, I would urge the rescuer to save the baby (I hope). But it would be an agonizing choice since an actual human being’s life would end as a result of either choice in that scenario. Cooler full of embryos? That’s a no-brainer for most sane folks. Save the baby.
Jeffro
@eric: the translation just about killed me here – that’s excellent
Belafon
@Gimlet: Obama also built a serious ground campaign. I’m hearing about that from Clinton. Has anyone heard about a similar effort from Sanders?
Randy P
@Betty Cracker:
You mean “snowflake babies”? Yes, there is a movement to stop them from being destroyed and put them up for adoption. Google that term
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I think all Hillary has to do is point out, subtly or not, three things: 1) Sanders’ utter lack of foreign-policy chops, 2) the fact that they agree on about 98% of all policy positions or whatever you want to call them, and 3) “it’s time for a female president”.
(Maybe 4) “Who do you want going up against _____________ in the fall: a recent convert to the Dems, or a lifelong champion for D this and D that, yadda yadda”?)
Ukko
@Myiq2xu: So what ever should we do with the problem of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal HeLa cells?
Bob Munck
The great majority of cells in our bodies don’t have human DNA; they’re bacteria. We’re the illegal aliens of our own bodies.
Cervantes
@Jeffro:
Did he vote to authorize Bush’s invasion of Iraq?
(Wait. Did I say “invasion of Iraq”? I meant to say “disastrous, catastrophic, crony-capitalist war-profiteering, immoral, and dishonest invasion of Iraq,” or words to that effect.)
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Makes you wonder what Myiq1Xnavellint thinks about dust mites and their constant feeding on humans, dunnit?
Belafon
@Bob Munck: I went looking up the numbers, and found this:
Sounds like the argument over campaign funding: “94% of Clinton’s donors are small money!” “So, most of her money comes from large donors!”
Alex
Maybe he got a major contribution from a manufacturer of unggue pots? We’d need a lot more unggue pots if this theory became policy. wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Unggue
Jeffro
@Cervantes:
I hear you, completely. I just think that voters – even Dem primary voters – are past that being a major issue. It’s 2015, not 2007/2008 and memories are pretty short. Not excusing HRC, the vote, the war, any of it. Just sayin’
boatboy_srq
@MomSense: ABSOLUTELY. Offensive.
I’m waiting to find out from Rubio (and others) how miscarriage != involuntary manslaughter.
wuzzat
@Ukko: That doesn’t count, silly. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: It helps that she has come out and said she was WRONG.
Miki
@Bob Munck:
Hahahahaha!
See, also, dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2994187/Mystery-alien-genes-Scientists-discover-DNA-NOT-ancestor…
RK
@Betty Cracker: What if you put your question another way: There’s a fire and you can only choose to save that one infant or 100 embryos you know will come to term in months. Wouldn’t logic dictate saving those embryos ultimately saves many more lives and is therefore preferable?
OzarkHillbilly
@boatboy_srq: I’m waiting for the indictments of God the Almighty, Omniscient, and Omnipotent to be handed down.
MattF
Racism in the real world. I guess it’s a happy ending, and it’s good that the white driver stood up for his AA co-worker, but the quotes from the customer near the end of the article are telling.
Cervantes
@Jeffro:
Thanks.
What you say is fair enough, but when push came to shove one of them strongly opposed the biggest US foreign policy disaster in decades — a no-brainer, obvious even to hundreds of thousands of kids not yet out of knee-pants — while the other, either willfully stupid or a coward at the time — voted to authorize it.
In my view, given the scale of the resulting suffering, still not ended, praising the latter’s so-called “foreign-policy chops” requires at least a tiny footnote if it is not to look ridiculous.
Jeffro
@Cervantes:
Or a large footnote – agreed and great point.
chopper
that rubio tweet is amazing. it’s as if he only just discovered on his own that fetuses are where babbies come from and wanted to share it with the entire world.
Betty Cracker
@RK: No. A baby is already a person. An embryo is not. If you can’t see the difference, we have nothing further to discuss.
Steve From Antioch
Stand back kids, I am going to do me some social media videos to jumpstart my campaign, just like Uncle Lindsay.
boatboy_srq
@boatboy_srq: @OzarkHillbilly: It occurred to me immediately on posting that last m#st4rb#tion would then constitute voluntary manslaughter – and, outside the typically Catholic “Every Sperm Is Sacred” riff, dollars to doughnuts we’ll hear [crickets].
Kropadope
@Jeffro:
Is a Jewish president not ground-breaking enough for you?
Also, too, all that Iraq business.
shell
Hes got two completely separate thoughts here: 1: That fetus have human DNA. 2: A fetus will eventually develop into a full term human baby.
They have nothing to do with each other.
MattF
@boatboy_srq: In fact, the Catholic Church is sticking by its Preformationist ideology, regardless of what modern biology says.
shell
In the Middle Ages, The Church said it was at the moment of birth.
wuzzat
@RK: Only if you’re a sociopath.
Cervantes
@RK:
Playing along with you, the answer is no — because “will come to term in months” is likely false if I choose to save the infant, and I do.
RK
@Betty Cracker: Which I think demonstrates how morality is largely irrational, informed by evolutionary and conditional biases rather than logic.
Bobby Thomson
@Gimlet: he didn’t just draw big crowds. He organized and had a long-term strategy beyond making stump speeches.
Kropadope
@RK: What was that bit about counting chickens before they’re hatched?
Cervantes
@RK:
Substitute “can appear” for “is largely” and “as well as” for “rather than.”
Nothing controversial.
Jeffro
@Kropadope:
K, Cervantes already schooled me on the Iraq contrast – noted!
And yes, “Jewish president” would be plenty ground-breaking.
In any case, either would be fine to me and the vast majority of Dems, who will gladly crawl over broken glass to vote for the eventual D ticket instead of whomever the GOP puts up. I think I’m going to redouble my efforts to shut up about Hillary vs. Bernie and stay focused on the real enemy & issues this election. People are clearly pretty sensitive about Dem stuff, as if there is more than a couple % difference between them on the issues (especially as compared to the GOP candidates – I mean, seriously?)
If anyone needs a refresher, go to http://www.isidewith.com and see not only how close Clinton & Sanders actually are on the issues, and how little any sensible Dem has in common with even the so-called “moderates” of the GOP
Jeffro
PS Just re-took the quiz for funsies and came up with 1% of difference on my issues between Clinton & Sanders (both mid-90s). Cruz still comes up lowest on the GOP side for me at 2% total…still not sure how to get that to 0% but I will keep trying…
Kropadope
@Jeffro:
Hence the “also, too.”
I took the test a couple months back. I wound up with (these are rough guesses)
Sanders: 92%
Clinton: 87%
O’Malley: 67%
Huckabee: 33%
All other Rs: something like 20
Cruz: 7% (this one I’m sure about)
So, yeah, they agree on a lot; however sincerity, approach, and where one chooses to focus his/her attention all matter.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Human DNA.
What is it?
Turns out the “human” part of DNA is pretty damn small. Let’s take pond scum, also known as algae. Pond scum and a human being have over 70% of the same DNA. You can look at it as pond scum has 70% human DNA, or a human has 70% of pond scum DNA. No difference.
Bobby Thomson
@RK: if you mean those embryos are implanted in living women, then yes, save the fucking women. Otherwise you’re an idiot.
Kropadope
@Bobby Thomson: Win!!!!!
Cervantes
@Jeffro:
That’s an arguable point, but see here, courtesy of commenter Betty.
RK
@Cervantes: Actually, many leading voices in the field such as Pinker, Bloom, Singer, Haight, etc. think Hume was right, that morality is essentially instinctual, which would explain why babies and even other animal species exhibit a moral sense.
NorthLeft12
@Sherparick: I wouldn’t snark about the miscarriages being homicides as there are a few Central American countries where that is the law, and the women who had the miscarriages are now in prison for “killing their babies”.
This is the eventual goal of those reasonable folks on the right wing……where every unborn human [well, the white ones at least] is precious and unique, but like a new car is immediately devalued on birth to just another kid who is the sole responsibility of the woman who had them. And I have heard first hand how these people refer to those women [will not repeat it here]. Same as all the rest.
Those pro-birthers raise my blood pressure. Good news is that their hypocrisy has made me realize that I no longer have a place in the RC church and can actually divert my donations to people in need, not a corrupt bureaucracy.
Chris
@Jeffro:
Honestly, I’d love to see the “Jewish President” thing just to watch the various wingnuts thread the needle between their “I don’t want a President who hasn’t accepted Jesus as his personal lord and savior” and their “Jews are God’s Chosen People” shtick.
Kropadope
@NorthLeft12:
No, if they were devalued at birth, the RWNJs would support pre-natal care. The fetus never has value to them, they want to control the mother.
Cervantes
@RK:
Arguable, sure — but honestly, was Betty Cracker claiming otherwise?
Bobby Thomson
@Cervantes: the failure to come out against XL is problematic, but there’s an awful lot of “differences” there on issues where the president won’t ever have an opportunity to sign legislation. Sanders is far to the left of Clinton (and FDR) when you’re talking about ideals. When you’re talking about actual legislation the differences are much smaller.
Or from another perspective, Obama did some shitty things that Bernie is on record as opposing, but on balance Obama has done a good job.
If Sanders can expand his appeal beyond white college-educated anti-Clinton people on the internet, those differences might be salient. But indications are he’s nearing his ceiling within the Democratic Party, to say nothing of voters generally.
boatboy_srq
@NorthLeft12: It’s highly snarkworthy. Without hammering on that particular aspect (among others), the anti-choicers’ intentions can still be passed off as defensible and aimed at protecting the preborn (whatever the BLEEP that means). Unless conditions like what you describe are front-and-center of the response, then a good portion of the hatefulness of the anti-choice target conditions are still acceptable to an uncomfortably high number of people.
JCT
@lowercase steve: Just walked through my lab and grad students were hanging up rodent hearts that express HUMAN genes with mutations in them. Are they the murderers or do I take the fall? Maybe I should ask Marco.
wuzzat
@JCT: Pictures of the hearts, or the actual hearts? Murder aside, the latter shows some odd taste in decor.
boatboy_srq
@JCT: Don’t ask Marco. He won’t put anyone in prison, but he’ll retroactively cancel everyone’s research grants and make you resubmit your research proposals in terms of the four humours.
Heliopause
Wait’ll somebody tells him what’s in a sperm cell and that every time he jerks off he kills a quarter billion of them. Boy, is he going to feel guilty.
JCT
@boatboy_srq: Can Marco count to four? I have my doubts. All fun aside, just IMAGINING these imbeciles having influence on research funding gives me angina.
@wuzzat: heh – truth be told I do have pics of the more interesting ones on my phone for sharing with colleagues… sad but true.
Cervantes
@Heliopause:
OK, let’s call that proposition [A].
Here’s (the Betty Cracker rendition of) Rubio’s view [B]:
I assume you see the salient difference between [A] and [B].
Cervantes
@JCT:
They’ve had too much influence for the last twenty years.
Are you in the Boston area? I’m on vacation but when I get back I could introduce you to my cardiologist.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: If Hillary can’t beat back Sen. Sanders, she won’t beat whatever dickwipe is the Repub nominee.
Jeffro
@Kropadope:
Cruz-lover! I got a 2% and still can’t figure out what he and I agree on. Breathing?
Paul in KY
@RK: Nope. Save the already-here. Those embryos may not make it out.
Paul in KY
@MattF: What a POS ‘customer’. Got the manager fired.
Heliopause
@Cervantes:
Yes, there is an unstated premise in (B).
Kropadope
@Jeffro: I didn’t look into it, but apparently the 33% for Huckabee was based on environmental issues. Not sure if that means he actually wants to be a responsible steward of the environment or if I have some weird impiety.
JCT
@Cervantes: No kidding – been dealing with it my entire career. But really, the current crop of Republican candidates take science illiteracy to new level. Worrisome.
No, I’m out west, but since I’m also a practicing cardiologist if yours is an academic, I may know him/her already…
Applejinx
@Belafon: Yes, in fact. I don’t know if they’re quite OFA-grade but it interested me and got my attention. This is well before black justice issues got bumped way up in priority and he might not have as much ability to cover this anymore, but when he spoke in Keene NH I was there, and he had a lot to say about democracy working as civic duty, about how we have to get out and organize and run for office and actually do things.
It was not unlike Obama’s first campaign except in that case, it was here (Balloon Juice) where people were insisting that to donate money wasn’t enough, that you had to get out there and do things.
Bernie is still saying the message that Obama started with, about get off your butt and go do campaign work and civic work for your town, city, country.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, only wants money or for me to do social media things that make them look bigger and more important, but don’t ask me to do anything beyond click the donate button and then sit back for another four years.
I’ve been noticing that distinction and would prefer Bernie’s people to take over. I worked for OFA twice and nobody did a thing about reaching out to get my help running some field office or whatever. Money only. I’m going to start checking around to see if there are Bernie offices I can give time and labor to. If it’s only about money, stick Trump in there because we’re done. But the last two times it hasn’t been only about money, and I wish the Dems would stop acting like it was.
boatboy_srq
@JCT: 4 arrives a lot sooner than 118, and compounding humours is a lot simpler than the molecular-biological equivalent processes. Added plus: “DNA” becomes a euphemism for “qualities the Creator endowed Man therewith” and not an actual organic molecule that affects the growth of an organism. Don’t feel that your angst is unique: at my university there were more ideological students (and trustees) who were convinced that teaching natural sciences was Giving In to Satan and that the entire discipline should be barred from campus.
boatboy_srq
@Paul in KY: Two telling quotes:
… and…
Emphasis added. Notice that Lowe’s is dropping a pretty broad hint that business from racist bigots is something they can survive without. And notice that the customer is all about her rights, even when they trample on other people.
Danville, VA. Midway between Lynchburg and Durham NC. Explains a lot.
boatboy_srq
@Randy P: Earth: population 22 billion.
Honestly, do these idjits have one single clue? And no I do not expect a non-snarky answer to that.
Bobby Thomson
@Cervantes: that B accurately summarizes what Rubio actually said? Yes, it’s stupid, but nobody’s being unfair to Rubio by reporting what he said.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: Agree all the way around. Feel worst for the black driver. Things like that just bring you down.
Ramalama
@Betty Cracker: Have you seen this explanation from an actual scientist:
Matt McIrvin
@boatboy_srq:
This reminds me a lot of the creationist arguments that evolution is impossible because of the second law of thermodynamics. They bear no relation to actual science, but if you look into the substance of the arguments, you discover pretty quickly that what they’re calling the second law of thermodynamics is actually an old theological principle called “causal adequacy”: the notion that the cause of a thing must possess excellences or perfections equal or greater to those of the thing itself. This is what creationists think the second law says, but it’s actually just an old idea from Christian apologetics. Hume took some time to rip it apart back in the 1700s.
Anyway, I felt very proud of myself when I figured this out… and then I googled the phrase again and discovered that Intelligent Design advocate William Dembski likes to sling the principle of causal adequacy around by name as if it were a scientific term. So it should have been obvious.
swkellogg
@Myiq2xu: You’re not including@Gimlet: If you recall Wilmut’s cloning of Dolly, they drove a mammary derived somatic cell nucleus back to a germ line state by introducing it into an enucleated ovum. In so doing, they altered the pattern of protein expression of said nucleus from that of a terminally differentiated cell type to that of the more plastic embryonic type (from which they could ultimately produce a complete organism). Thus they proved that the essential difference between a somatic cell and a embryonic cell was in fact the pattern of protein expression. Therefore, one can only assume that it is a matter of time until individuals laboring within the conveniently new field of IjustpulleditoutofmyassbecauseIthinkitmakesmesoundsmart science (IJPOMABITMMSSS for short) discover the elusive “soul protein” and dispatch the heathen’s arguments posthaste.
This process will no doubt involve subcloning, Tesla coils and head transplants.
Stay tuned.
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
You’re barking up the wrong tree. Point was that the joke in A fails because A and B are not similar enough.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
That’s because you’re a gentlewoman of exceptional class, breeding (in the Victorian [I think] sense), and perspicacity.
Myiq2xu
@Betty Cracker: Yes. That’s science, and religion. Anything else is an arbitrary and artificial distinction.
I am not a religious person. I support legal 1st trimester abortion, as well as medically necessary 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions. That is a political compromise recognizing both the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child.
I’m not gonna pretend that it’s “just a clump of tissue.” If that were true than abortion wouldn’t be a serious issue. But just because we allow some abortions (safe, legal and rare) that doesn’t mean we should dehumanize the babies being aborted to make it easier on anyone’s conscience.
You can hate, mock, insult and dismiss people who disagree with you, but that doesn’t make you right or morally/intellectually superior to them.
Hunter
@Myiq2xu: There is less than 2% difference between the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees. We actually share a significant percentage of our DNA with cats and donkeys.
So, what counts as “human DNA”?
And actually, I can think of numerous instances where human DNA has led to jackasses.