Like many molds, fungi, insect larvae and other parasites, it seems that human fetuses can gestate in a variety of places. Apparently the fertilized egg can "fall out" of the fallopian tube and implant anywhere in the mother's abdomen. If it happens to land on a spot which has a particularly rich supply of blood and nutrients, it will grow into an actual baby. Several healthy babies have been born after gestating in the liver [BBC]. One doctor interviewed for the article aptly referred to such a child as a "miracle baby." Surely it is part of God's magnificent plan for all things, that some zygotes develop in the liver, in order that it may be called a miracle when they don't die... It may seem like God is just doing things the hard way, but I speculate that such occasional wierdness is motivated by His desire to see the word "miracle" in print more often.

The now infamous Star Wars kid is getting $4000 that was raised to make up for his global humiliation [link]. You can view the movies here.

It may be an annoying cliche, but just for kicks I'm going to post the following Hitler comparisons:

"I'd prefer to have a child in a school where there's a strong appreciation for values, the kinds of values that I think are associated with the Christian communities, so that this child can be brought up in an environment that teaches them to have strong faith and to understand that there is a force greater than them personally." -Education Secretary Rod Paige "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people." -Adolf Hitler "I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for president." -George W. Bush "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." -Adolf Hitler

Danny Glover has been fired as MCI spokesman, apparently because of his political views. Apparently a phone campaign launched by MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" had something to do with it, as claimed in this editorial. According to the article, Glover's "extreme views" and actions include the following:

He called the president of the United States a racist, he blamed American policy for the murderous acts of September 11th, and he signed a petition comparing American soldiers in the Gulf War to 9/11 terrorists. He called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” And most recently Mr. Glover signed a letter of support for Fidel Castro.

I don't know many of the details of Glover's statements. His celebrity status is not owed to his political views, but to his visibility as an actor. MCI hired him as spokesman because of that visibility. I don't think most Americans would have been interested in Glover's political views if not for Scarborough Country's "celebrity muck-raking." Why would the folks at MSNBC want to get a non-politician fired for his political views? According to Joe Scarborough, "It has everything to do with an American citizen being held responsible for his words and actions." "Responsibility" for political views includes losing your job? What does it mean to have "irresponsible" opinions? Is that Scarborough-code for unconservative? What kinds of professions should hold people "accountable" for their political views and activities? Should we allow liberals to be teachers or university professors or child-care providers? Should they be allowed to raise children? Though, as I said, I still don't know precisely what Glover has said on these issues, the opinions which this article references do not sound that unreasonable to me. Someone might have a collection of valid reasons from which they conclude that Bush is a racist (perhaps based on crime-and-punishment data from Bush's tenure as governor of Texas). American foreign policy has played a significant role in the rise of terrorist groups. It is not an "extreme view" that the US government provided funding and training to Osama bin Laden and the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, which later evolved into Al Qaeda. That is a fact. American policy is thus partly to blame for the attacks, and our government's apparent refusal to learn from past errors will probably lead to more indirectly US-sponsored terrorism against US interests in the future. America has also played a central role in all of the destructive violence that swept the world during the nineteenth century. The carnage really began in the 1860's when Richard Gatling (an American) invented the Gatling gun. He sold his gun to the British army, which used it to sweep across much of Africa and Asia, leaving each newly occupied area much less populated than when they found it. I don't directly blame the US for all this carnage; I blame our close ally, Great Britain. The US during this period was mostly isolationist, quietly supplying the armies of Europe with military tools for imperial expansion. Waning imperialism was arguably at the root of every conflict in the 20th century. In hindsight, the role of the US was really one of negligence. The rise of Castro is another example of negligent foreign policy leading to a global crisis. Sure, he was a bloody dictator who began puging his political opposition as soon as he came to power, and refused to hold free elections. But what really annoyed the US was Castro's decision to nationalize all US-owned businesses in Cuba. American investors were stripped of their assets in the peon island country. The US responded by ostracizing Castro. Castro and the Cuban delegation to the UN received undignified treatment in New York in 1960, being driven out of their hotel. They moved out of Manhattan and went to a hotel in Harlem, where Castro befriended Malcolm X and Nikita Khrushchev. As Malcolm X put it, "Premier Castro has come out against lynching, which is more than President Eisenhower has done." In a final insult to the new Cuban government, the US empounded Castro's plane in compensation for "unpaid debts." In the midst of all this foul treatment from the US, one thing was no doubt clear to Castro: he and his country amounted to nothing in the eyes of the US government. Washington would never be friendly with Cuba unless Cuba went along with the interests of the US. It must have been glaringly apparent to Castro that he could elevate himself to immense importance by allying with the Soviets. This relationship was consumated when the USSR provided Castro with a new plane in which to return home. Washington did nothing to pursue a friendly relationship with Cuba, to encourage Castro against his affiliation with the Soviets. Intimidation was the wrong answer, because Soviet backing gave Castro the ability to reciprocate. The Cuban missile crisis was a painfully obvious outcome from this chain of events. The arrogance of US policy toward Cuba took us barelling down the road toward nuclear war. And I've apparently gone barelling away from the point of this post. The point was, Why should I, the potential customer, care what the MCI spokesman thinks about Castro?

Take the Autism Test. A normal score is around 16.5. People with autism or Asberger's syndrome tend to score 32 or above. I scored 37. Any other autistic people out there?

From PhysicsWeb: Some Japanese scientists have suggested that an ultra-high energy neutrino beam could destroy nukes.

The researchers suggest sending a neutrino beam with an energy of 1000 TeV through the Earth to wherever the nuclear weapon was located (see figure). The beam would produce neutrons in a 'hadron shower' and would cause fission reactions in the plutonium or uranium in the bomb. These reactions would either melt or vaporize the bomb.

Sounds great -- not to mention cool. But, of course, when somebody set us up the bomb, there are always snags. 1) The neutrino storage ring would have to be hundreds of times larger than the current accelerators. 2) The magnets in said storage ring would have to be 1 to 2 orders of magnitude stronger than those currently available. 3) It would cost over $100 billion. 4) It would consume 50 gigawatts. That's what the UK consumes. And number 5):

Finally there is the risk, the authors point out, that the interaction of the neutrino beam with the bomb "could lead to a full explosion" instead of eliminating it.

So it might not happen this year. Maybe next spring.

This post on Right-Wing News is a pretty good summary of the present conservative agenda. It is odd that conservatives propose reforms, considering that "conservativism" basically means preservation of the status-quo. Anyway, the common sentiment that I want to talk about is this one:

Abortion: I don't believe the rights of any mother should include the right to kill her child unless her own life is in danger. I'd like to see a Constitutional amendment banning abortion except when the mother's life is in danger.

I would like to go much farther than this. You see, I don't believe that the rights of any father should include the right to kill his potential children (i.e. sperm), nor should any mother have the right to neglect her eggs. Every haploid cell has as much right to life as any human. I'd like to see a Constitutional amendment outlawing menstruation and the wasting of sperm. I collect all of my sperm and keep it in cold storage so that all of my little guys have a fighting chance. Every one else should be required to do the same. And no woman should have the right to waste an egg without at least attempting conception, with the possible exception of mothers who choose to have their eggs harvested and donated to infertile couples. Also, since there is a lot more sperm out there than eggs, it is clear that we need to resume the draft for men and start a lot more wars. That is the only way to maintain a suitable sperm/egg ratio to make sure that no ejaculation or ovulation goes wasted. I defy anyone to provide me with a good reason why we should continue to permit the legal holocaust of innocent haploid cells in this country. This is America, dammit.