The Weekend Starts Here #3

Actors Donnelly Rhodes and Ian Tracey discussing cloning

or perhaps just remembering the good times.

So La Weekend has arrived and here I lie in a loose foetal position with no plans and no coherent thoughts. Let, me share them with you, Zeitgesiters.

White Christmas

As you know, Mr Trivia’s Tract is 100% behind Prince Edward Island (PEI), the Canadian Province famed for its natural beauty and for being the home of the fictional Ann of Green Gables. And although some seem to think I am a covert Canadophile, I have never been there, my knowledge is limited to seeing the occasional episode of DaVINCI’s INQUEST, and that has Donnelly Rhodes in it, so case closed, people.

One of the RSS feeds over to the RHS of this page brings us headlines from PEI. I scan it regularly and was alarmed to see this SNOWMOBILE PERMIT SALES DOWN. Turns out that “A lack of snow this year and last is leading to financial troubles for the P.E.I. Snowmobile Association.”

Two words. Global Freakin’ Warming. Okay, it might not be that. But even the extremely conservative Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, has acknowledged that there just might be something going on with the climate. His solution to the problem of greenhouse gases is to ramp up Australian investment in Nuclear Energy. Thank God! What genius! But I digress. John Howard and I hope our Canadian friends get their much needed frozen precip, soon.

Let it snow!


Deep-Fried Clone

Also I see from a headline on the science feed that the human dream of eating cloned animal flesh is now one step closer to being.

Health officials in the United States have declared that food from cloned animals is safe to eat.A five-year study by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found that by the time cloned livestock reach six to 18 months old, they are virtually indistinguishable from conventional livestock.

The FDA says the meat and milk from the clones is as safe as the food we eat every day, and that special labels probably will not be needed, although that has not been finalised.

Surely, the incredible power of cloning was discovered by us, Man, Master of the Universe, in order to create human life that will supply us with vast mindless armies to fight interplanetary wars or banks of disembodied, harvestable organs for human transplant?

And yet we’re considering using this fantastic knowledge and staggering technological power because Bossy yields a particularly delectable rump steak; and so, rather like having a great recipe, we now need Bossy’s DNA cloned every time we have a hankering for boeuf.

If we’re going to play God, shouldn’t we take this more seriously?

Elevate the Insignificant,
Mr Trivia