Nuts & Mutton

If this op-ed piece, in yesterday’s NYT, by Michael Crichton is true, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever read. How can somebody hold a patent on a gene? What’s next? In the not too distant future, will a person who is diagnosed with a genetic disease have to pay royalties to someone for the privilege of having it? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds, if they’re already having to pay royalties on some treatments!

I hope he left enough room to put “I am an idiot” on his forehead.

How could you not love a woman who pitied Canadians for “living next door to the Simpsons?” Or who, writing about Rush Limbaugh, compared being attacked on air by him to being “gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle?” Screamingly funny, but it should be pointed out that it was said en passant in a devastating critique of the same oaf, in the May/June 1995 edition of MotherJones. She really nailed the “Lyin’ Bully,” as she so rightly identified him.

Interesting that the investigators into the alleged abuse felt there was no need to talk to the alleged victims. Another nail in the coffin of justice in Bush’s America. Which can be summarised as, “it didn’t happen, if we say it didn’t happen.”

Aint love grand?

. . . I’m sensitive to shifting baselines.

I only became aware of this article, when it was re-printed in a local rag. It’s an interesting concept, one that’s hard to argue with. (Not that it stopped the First Husband, but disagreeing with everything I read approvingly from the daily papers is a knee-jerk reaction with him at this point!) It seems to have become linked with ocean decline, mainly thanks to the Shifting Baselines website and blog. It seems a pity to confine the concept to climate change.

Poor old Charlie Brooker. Howlingly funny, even if it was written on a PC. Although I haven’t seen the British ad, I have to admit that, even as a Mac user, I hate the Mac ads. He’s right in characterising the Mac actor as “a smug, preening tosser.”

I love American presidential elections. I especially love the early stages, with all the milling about and jostling for position, not to mention the ghosts of yesteryear threatening to queer everybody’s pitch. Like Ralph Nader, who says he might be forced to enter the ring if Hillary goes into the lead. And John Edwards, who has always epitomised for me the phrase “shiteating grin.”