This is interesting…

Three scientific teams published separate studies on Wednesday showing that embryonic stem cells can be made by reprogramming some of the genes in adult skin cells, without having to create an embryo – at least in mice.

Let’s see how much media attention this story gets…it doesn’t serve the culture of death, so my bet is, not much.

Read the story here, and note the next to last paragraph where someone can’t help but mention that the government is not funding the research so it’s not moving very fast. If this is important to free enterprise, let free enterprise pay for it!

I normally don’t blog at this time of day…but this is something you need to check out -

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo8wNleZjzo

Try not to laugh…the girl things she’s doing something useful.

First, we have the Detroit diocese talking truth about Dr. Kevorkian:

An official of the Detroit Archdiocese denounced the media “hype” surrounding the parole of Jack Kevorkian, saying the assisted suicide proponent was being “treated as a celebrity parolee instead of the convicted murder he is.”

…

“For 10 years, Jack Kevorkian’s actions resembled those of a pathological serial killer,” said Ned McGrath, director of communications for the Detroit Archdiocese, in a May 31 statement. “It will be truly regrettable if he’s now treated as a celebrity parolee instead of the convicted murderer he is.”

And now, an editorial by a nurse lamenting the nature of testing babies in utero for birth defects (which may or may not be there) and how this testing results in abortions of normal babies as well as those diagnosed with birth defects.

I must confess that I was one of those skeptics in 1973 who thought the pro-life movement was absurd in claiming that the legalization of abortion would lead to an increasing acceptance of euthanasia and infanticide. It was one thing to pretend that there was no baby involved in an early abortion (it took me years to discover that Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion virtually throughout an entire pregnancy) but doctors and nurses would never stand for intentionally killing a born human being. Or so I thought.

Read it here! 

The Church is working on a Chinese version of the Tridentine rite, just as the Vatican is also working on one for us here in the good old USA.  They’ve already received their decree just as we have in the US, and they’re just awaiting translation, revision, proofreading, etc.  One thing is a little disturbing:

Vatican sources have said that, as a courtesy, the letter would be sent to the Chinese government before it was released publicly. The letter follows a meeting at the Vatican in January on the state of Catholics in China.

Why do they continue to validate a government with such massive human rights abuses?  Sending the letter to the government before releasing it implies that some sort of “approval” is needed by the government…

More here

Christopher Hitchens’ brother Peter has responded to God is Not Great, and here’s an excerpt:

My claims, you see, are much milder than his. When I skulk in the pew of a nearly-empty church, repeating the lovely, poetic formulas of the Church of England, I do not imagine that I am saved for all eternity.

For all I know, Christopher is absolutely right – my prayers are pointless and a meaningless oblivion awaits. But if he is right, what a dispiriting, lowering truth it is.

Atheists like to claim they behave no worse than believers, and often better. I don’t deny it, in my case. It would be easy for almost anyone to have lived a more virtuous life than mine.

But why should atheists care, or use such terms as “good” and “virtue” anyway?

If we are weak and poor, we can all summon up self-interested decency, behaving in a kind way, in public, towards those from whom we hope for decency in return.

But as soon as we have the power to do evil, we generally do. What is to stop us, unobserved, doing and planning acts of selfish unkindness against others, as so many of us do – for example – in office politics?

What is to stop us, in the privacy of the home, taking advantage of the goodness of others more generous than ourselves? Who will ever know?

Whole editorial is here