Around the Blogs

New (roughly) weekly feature for the blog: a round-up of great posts. Just a few for this first time...

21 April
Jeff Jones at the Abort73.com blog comments on the death of embryonic stem-cell research (ESC),

Dr. Yamanaka, the man who discovered how to make adult skin cells act like embryonic stem cells, said the following in a NY Times article: "When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters. I thought, we can't keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way."...
...Dr. Oz said: "The stem cell debate is dead." He went onto explain that embryonic stem cell research has not been successful at curing diseases, but adult stem research has. He believed we could see cures for diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, etc. within 10 years.

24 April
Whaleoil suggests a novel new security measure on aeroplanes.

Issue every passenger with a Glock with one bullet. You can't hijack a plane with one bullet and if you try the other 20 people will shoot you dead faster than fly on sh**.
After the successful end of the flight you simply hand in the Glocks to the flight attendent and exit the plane.

28 April
Labour considers David Shearer as their candidate for the seat of Mt. Albert. To Labour's distress, the VRWC bloggers are delighted, as Shearer has previously advocated private armies. David Farrar comments,

Shearer has an even better idea:

"The prospect that private military companies might gain some degree of legitimacy within the international community begs the question as to whether these firms could take on UN peacekeeping functions and improve on UN effort."

An excellent idea. I am sure the new UNDP Administator would whole heartedly agree that UN peace keeping forces should be replaced by Executive Outcomes and Sandline. I do hope someone asks her her view.

"There is no denying that they are cheaper than UN operations. EO cost Sierra Leone’s governmen$t35 million for the 22 months it was there, versus a planned UN operation budgeted at $47 million for eight months."