First off, there is no ban on stem cell, embryonic stem cell, adult stem cell, cord blood stem cell, or any kind of of stem cell research. At all. There is no ban on harvesting them from embryos (no matter the source, in vitro clinics, etc), adults, or crack heads off the street. You can do research on any aspect of stem cells harvested from whatever you want. Then entire debate (and the recent bill) is over whether or not the federal government should fund stem cell research.

Secondly, there is no ban, much to my chagrin, on federal funded research into stem cells. The Bush administration decided that there was a cut off date in 2001 and that any research done on lines of stem cells harvested before that point were fully usable for federally funded projects. If you wonder why you can't receive federal funding for research using stem cells harvested after that point, well, Bush's target demographic are right wing Christians, and any debate about this eventually leads to the slippery slope of abortion. Not an argument I want to delve into here. Just suffice to say that you can get (grr) federal funding for stem cell research. Not only is there not a ban, you can get the government to foot the friggin' bill.

With all that said, I think stem cell research is possibly one of the most promising things to come out of medicine ever. So why do I sound vehemently opposed to any federal funding of stem cell research? I quote Samuel Broder, former researcher at the National Institutes of Health and former director at the National Cancer Institute:

"If it were up to the NIH to cure Polio through a centrally directed program you'd have the best iron lung in the world but not a polio vaccine."

In addition, me being a fiscally conservative fellow, despises the idea of tax money going to fund research. Oh, you think without that money we'll never get anywhere? Oh wait, human Embryonic Stem Cells were isolated and cultured for the first time in 1998 using privately funded research, after Clinton(!!!) signed off on the Dickey Amendment, banning federal funding for any research that involves either creating an embryo, or destroying an embryo in the course of the research. Damn, how'd they pull that off?

After all of that, I still have one more reason why funding this stuff with tax money is a bad idea: if the federal government funded your stem cell research, it would be under their guidelines on how it was carried out, to what end it would be for, what spin could be put on it, and to what purpose it would serve. For example, do you think a republican administration would care if any effort went into AIDS treatment? While I'm not sure of exactaly what control they have over projects that get funded, it would be ludicrous to imagine they would hold no sway at all.

There, I'm done. Maybe I didn't change your mind, but at least you heard a semi-lucid explanation from the other side that doesn't involve when life actually begins or who gets to play God.

Tim Schaffer over at Double Fine has been rocking the boat as of late, trying to get the XBox360 team to put Psychonauts on the 360's backwards compatibility list. Well, I had enough. I came to the conclusion that I can't sit around bitching about something waiting for miracles if the person I'm bitching about doesn't hear me. Fired up the ol' email client and shat out an email to the Double Fine folks:

To Whom it May Concern,

If everyone is so jazzed about getting Psychonauts on the 360's compatibility list so that more people can play it, WHY THE HELL DON'T YOU PORT THE THING TO THE GAMECUBE? Why are you targeting a mouth breathing, Madden obsessed, "hardcore" gamer demographic for your inspired, charming, and completely brilliant outing (I'm talking about Psychonauts here)? I'm no specialist, but to me the XBox/PS2 market is filled to the brim with foul mouthed 13 year olds that wouldn't pee on a copy Psychonauts if it was on fire because it's too "kiddy."

You broke my heart,
Brent.

Now it's time to just sit back and watch as my haymaker of an email invokes the winds of change.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows about this by now, but just in case this news isn't traveling far enough to reach my displaced brethren, the Mayor of New Orleans apparently got injected with angel dust and gave a speech that was crazier than a burlap sack full of mongoloids.

On the day the nation uses to commemorate a man who, for all intents and purposes, gave his life in the pursuit of creating a society where the color of your skin is completely irrelevant, Ray Nagin decided to tell the world that God wants New Orleans to be so overwhelmingly black that he had to use the word "chocolate" to describe it's level of blackiosity. No seriously, chocolate.

Seeming as he didn't use a more inclusive dessert analogy like, say, Rocky Road, I can only guess that I'm not actually welcome there anymore. And while it's apparently open season on the horribly racist food comparisons, I have come up a new slogan to help all the Mexicans that now inhabit the city feel a little more at home: "Latin-Americans: You Put Your Peanut Butter in our Chocolate!" I think it's got a real ring to it. I'm pretty sure I don't have the ethnic immunity needed to get away with saying it, but I'm just following our bold Mayor's footsteps.

Ray Nagin, eat shit. I stuck up for your ass during this entire ordeal, but really, get fucked. I understand you had to say something yesterday, what with it being MLK day and being the mayor of the city that was the target of the magic Republican created, black-people seeking hurricane, but for fuck's sake man.

So, my peeps, is this getting any national media attention? Has this caused any blips on the news radar near the Norteño listening plains of Dallas or the eternally 72 degree and breezy hills of Southern California? If so, what sort of reaction is there?