Daily Archive

Reuters, reporting “the facts”:

Parliament on Monday will debate legislation allowing human-animal embryo research that scientists say could help treat conditions like Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis but that opponents say is unethical…

Odd that Reuters chose not to phrase that instead more this way, but this blog will:

Parliament on Monday will debate legislation allowing human-animal embryo research that scientists admit could see the creation of human-animal hybrids and fetuses discarded in the millions but scientists argue the research is ethical…

Because that is similarly factual.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill of which that is a part, also includes:

…the removal of the requirement for doctors to consider “the need for a father” when offering fertility treatment…

True, mores have thankfully loosened and moved on: why should a child have an identified father? Even better, think of the “fun” it will be a few decades from now, when thousands of people have grown into adulthood, no one knows who their fathers were . . . and those “fatherless” adults are all milling around out there with many possibly being half-brothers and half-sisters. Gosh, just imagine the new avenues of research that will suddenly open up, and all the new funding that will be needed?

The BBC reports:

Ministers have condemned Burma’s military rulers for their slow response to offers of international humanitarian aid since last weekend’s cyclone.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband accused the military junta of “malign neglect” and said he would be “amazed” if the death toll was under 100,000.

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said he had been “horrified” by events of the past week…

Thus we see the Labour Government shift into righteous indignation and collective horror mode over the horrific behavior of an already well-known to be horrific “government”.

What can be done? Some have wondered if, other than slamming down thesauruses and hurling some newly uncovered nasty invective culled from within, a more robust response might be called for:

…Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said the time was “now drawing very close” to “taking the most drastic step of all” of “dropping aid directly into Burma, irrespective of the wishes of the Burmese regime“…

Actually, what that also goes to show is what a Liberal Democrat considers “the most drastic step of all”: aid drops without [gulp] permission. Chilling stuff, isn’t it?

Apparently, Mr Clegg doesn’t consider an invasion as drastic as unapproved air drops. Of course, even if some few others have pondered that, for a whole host of reasons an invasion is out of the question, and even delivering aid by air drop without the junta’s approval is very difficult. Still, Mr Clegg is not the only one pondering that “most drastic step”, as Time Magazine May 10 points out:

…Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says…

Now the U.S. is supposed to be acting all “unilateral”? Yet there are major downsides in doing that, too, of which perhaps opposition from the Burmese junta is just one matter. More importantly, undoubtedly members of the Government and Mr Clegg and his Liberal Democrats will then suddenly be “horrified” at how, in the rush to fly in help, those mass supply drop flights might not have been “carbon neutral”.

Scoff if you will, but joined up thinking is vital. Someday the few surviving Burmese will thank us for taking wider planetary survival into account. Remember, in the long run, we should aim to “make planes history“.