Oligo

I once knew this fellow, who was totally into all of this mythology... thing (I was going to say crap, but let's keep an open mind). Anyway, he just loved to try all sorts of drugs, because the shamans and witch-doctors of old ages used various drugs to induce trance. I think this friend of mine genuinely believed that the shamans didn't just dream up stuff in their drug-haze but they actually experienced "alternate planes of being" or something (this friend wasn't exactly easy to understand you know). So, gradually with they years, this bloke became more and more weird and disconnected with the rest of humanity. Eventually he got committed to a mental institution. The funny part here is that to this day I don't know whether he just got plain old crazy or did he actually discover something in the end of that drug tunnel, which just got him labelled crazy by our society. Maybe I'll ask if I ever meet him again.

They're spreading Avalon Hill's Third Reich Computer Version as abandonware nowadays. It's pretty nice grand strategy, comprising the European theater of WWII. The game even models panzer breakthroughs and encirclements. I've had a few laughs playing that thing.

I made a new thread to continue this discussion. Quote from Aculaud: "As far as testing goes, this is really a whole other discussion. My argument is, although we may have gotten every bit of medical knoledge we have from the testing of medicine on animals, we're still enslaving and torturing them for it. I still think that if we want to know if something will work on a human, then thats what we should be testing on." You might not know this, but there IS extensive testing of new medicines on humans. The route for approval goes like this: -Extensive animal testing (required by law) to ascertain the functioning and safety of new drug -Phase I human testing with a small number of healthy volunteers to test the safety of the product. -Phase II human testing with a small number of sick volunteers to test the efficacy of the product. -Phase III human testing with a large number of sick and healthy volunteers to extensively evaluate the safety and efficacy of the product. -Approval for general use. -Animal testing of each manufacturing lot (required by law) to make sure there are no contaminations in the manufacturing process and that the lot is safe. So for every pill you take, animals have died. They don't just die for new medicines, they also die for each new lot of old medicines.

Ehh, like I said, the public is very misinformed on these matters. Cloning is a method to create an identical genetic copy of an animal or human specimen. If small mutations occur during cloning, it is an error rather than a goal (you have to remember that mutations also occur during normal reproduction). The genetic copy (a clone) must be reared in a womb, given birth to and so on just like any other child. The only difference is that the genome of the child is identical to an existing individual. Nature does cloning too, because most species reproduce by it (cell division reproduction of bacteria and single-celled eucaryotes). Identical twins are clones of each other and they don't turn our to be twisted in any way. With organ cloning you could create for example a liver, which is genetically identical to your old liver. That would make an ideal transplant. Crossing different species with each other (like horses with elephants) has actually been possible for 40 or so years and it has nothing to do with cloning. Nobody in normal science does it though, because it is considered unethical and unnecessary.

Does it hurt to kill yourself? Yes, it hurts, but it hurts even more to go on living. -Suicide Hotline-

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Albert Schweizer @ Aug. 21 2002,11:32)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Aculaud. I know that in Germany those Labelled are having a serious meaning. The stuff I buy is around 30-40% more expensive than ordinary products.<span id='postcolor'> "Not tested on animals" means the finished product. The raw materials have been tested on animals, I'm sorry to say. It's required by law, especially in E.U. where the product safety laws are very strict. In U.S. cosmetics do not have to be tested on animals, but then they have to be labelled: "Warning! Not tested for safety!" The 30-40% price increase is there, because people pay more for a good conscience.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Albert Schweizer @ Aug. 21 2002,10:35)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">This is pure assumption. You assume that animals (in contrast to humans) prefer the "golden cage" in contrast to their natural life-environment. That cloning has many useful purposes is absolutely right. But I think we are crossing one of the last moral bridges here. Cloning in my eyes is going too far. And while people are still preparing weapons of massdestruction and over 50% of our planet live below the povertyline I think we are not prepared nor moraly capable yet to do this step. Cloning means playing with life, you are actually experimenting with tools of life. I think that is pervert! The problem is that again some very capitalistic countries pressure forward (cause they got little moral values only good customers do count) and force all others to follow in order not to fall behind in a very lucrative and prgressive business idea. You know like me that the official kidney cloning is not the last step. I dont even want to know what is happening behind closed doors of some of the worlds national labs. Just accept that 70% of the people on this planet have no moral barrier and are willing to ignore all and everything to reach certain goals. The atomic bomb is a good example. How the hell can a scientist develop a weapon of mass-destruction without remources (please dont give me that "it ended the war". Whether yes or no, this no scientists could have forseen)<span id='postcolor'> From the behaviour of the mice I can pretty safely say that it surely seems like they don't mind being safe from predators and having all the food and drink they want plus a nice hiding place. I doubt they even understand they're in a cage. However, I as a human of course feel bad about locking them in the cage, because I have the basic human skill of empathy. Therefore I would never do this if I didn't believe it is absolutely necessary. We humans have been tampering life as you call it almost for the entire existence period of our species. Look at dogs. How much do they resemble wolves anymore? We have been experimenting with the tools of life like DNA for decades now. It's just that the public does not have a clue about what we do, so it is easy for the media to demonize news they do not understand. I wonder how Galileo felt, when the press called him a heretic for claiming the Earth orbits the sun? The same thing happens even today. Cloning as such does not form a moral bridge, since it is just a small step from what we have done previously, especially if we do not use it for reproduction purposes (the old way works like a dream for this and it's more fun). So cloning of stem cells or organs poses no moral dilemma whatsoever. Experimenting for biological and chemical warfare is a bad thing and I condemn it. I don't know anybody who would voluntarily work to achieve such sick goals. You have to remember that 99.9% of science is benign. And the 0.1% done in secret government supported labs (National Security you know) do not care what laws are in effect, so they cannot be regulated in any way. All you're doing is lashing out at the benign, well regulated, supervised and quite transparent science.

Laury, I think you listened too keenly to the officers, when you served...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Aculaud @ Aug. 20 2002,21:59)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Hence, i'm pretty sure my stick of botanical deoderant is fairly safe to believe as cruelty free.<span id='postcolor'> It's very easy to check whether your deodorant is cruelty free. If it has a label: "Warning: Not tested for safety" or something similar, it is cruelty free. If you check the material I quoted, you'll notice that all untested products have to be labelled like that as per orders by your FDA.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (WKK Gimbal @ Aug. 20 2002,15:41)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">How about using terrorists and murderers for medical tests instead of animals? 1: The cuddly little beasts gets to live. 2: The nasty terrorists gets to die. 3: Testing on humans is much more effective than testing on animals.<span id='postcolor'> First of all, there aren't enough terrorists for all the experiments. Secondly, I at least would have a problem injecting humans with experimental substances, when I already feel quite awful doing it to mice.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Albert Schweizer @ Aug. 20 2002,14:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I accept the necessity of animal testing. But then again let them have a real life as well. Damn, allways in those sterile environments, fully ignored, fully isolated and then dying. Wow, great! Â Furtermore I dont think that cloning or viral research for military purposes has any use! None at all! Often we have to deal with real animal-experiments than animal-testing. Often experiments are made without the realy knowing what aim the whole thing has.<span id='postcolor'> What do you mean with a "real life"? You're judging the conditions of the lab animals with human terms. The mice, for example, in their lab boxes have toilet paper to play with and to hide in. They have food to eat and water to drink. For a mouse, this is what it wants to do. It definitely does not want to interact with any big scary humans or fight for territory with other mice. They're not free, but they have a very cozy environment from a mouse's point of view. Cloning has many useful applications aside from reproduction. Cloning of organs for example is a very nice example of this. If you drink your liver to oblivion, they could just clone you a new one. Cloning of stem cells is also a very promising application, which could cure countless ailments. This is why cloning research should not be banned. Experiments or tests with animals are never done without knowing what the aim of the whole thing is. Before doing anything, you have to apply for a permit, in which you have to present a research plan among other things. The panel which reviews the applications has not only scientist members, but philosophers as well among others. This crap about no aims in research is just an animal activist lie.

Kurtz, like it or not, most animals get born just to end up somebody's dinner even without human intervention. Predators like to prey on young animals, because they're easy to catch. That's why most animal offspring get eaten before they reach the age of reproduction. And that's why animals produce so much offspring (so that some would survive). Being eaten is quite natural. Now consider the farm animals. Their numbers are so high merely because we feed them and take care of them. Some of them even get to reproduce. Their species will never face extinction. How many cows do you think there would be in the world if we did not produce them in farms? For any species, getting domesticated by man is the best insurance of success as a species and assured survival. If we stopped eating cow meat, the species might become extinct eventually. This is already happening to the horse. There are way fewer horses in the world now when less people ride them anymore. This is bad for the horses as a species.

You can be damn sure that the plastics used for the manufacture of the "real dolls" have been tested for safety on (or maybe even in) animals.

Ok, it's hard to find any references to legislation, but I'll try. I seem to remember that you live in U.S. Aculaud, so here is what your FDA has to say about cosmetics and animal testing. FDA and cosmetics safety testing Basically what it says is that you don't have to test your cosmetics product safety (=animal testing), but then you have to label them: "WARNING--The safety of this product has not been determined." So in U.S., you can buy cosmetics labelled like that, if you dare, and be fairly certain that they haven't been tested on animals. When it comes to medicines, though, I'm sure you have to test them always. In E.U. I'm pretty sure the laws are more tighter (as usual), making it mandatory to test anything in contact with people before selling it.

Maybe you should hint to your husband that he should be cooking from now on Avon...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Aculaud @ Aug. 20 2002,09:26)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Your concience is as cloudy as the skies of Seatte, because you, sir, are a hypocrite pure and simple. The only factor that lets you believe your concience is clear is because that friendly industry is there to kill animals for you. What if it wasn't?<span id='postcolor'> Actually, I at least would feel better if I could hunt and kill my food instead of buying it from a supermarket. That at least would be completely natural and then my conscience would be totally clean.

A couple of things I have to clarify for you all: -No stray dogs or cats or kidnapped pets are ever used for medical animal testing, because there is no telling what diseases/parasites/genetic illnesses/others they might have. Experiments performed with these animals would be worthless. Therefore only special strains of animals carefully bred for experimental purposes are ever used. These animals are fed standardized food, they're raised in standardized environments and they're kept free of diseases and parasites. These animals have no names, because they're not ever tamed. These animals never know any other environment than the shelters they're raised in. In a way, a dog raised in a lab animal shelter lives a more natural life than Fido the tame pooch, because the lab dog lives in a pack of dogs and not in a pack of humans. -Humans are not the only polluters of environment, we're just the most capable. There have been global environmental catastrophes and mass extinction in the past of Earth caused by the emergence of oxygen generating organisms for example. -All cosmetics are animal tested, otherwise they could not be sold, since animal testing of raw materials is required by law.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Aug. 20 2002,09:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We are predators. Yes. I think that a human life is infinitely more worth then the life of an animal. As far as I am concerned animals are food.<span id='postcolor'> I agree with the conclusion, but not with the reasoning. We are predators, yes, but we are also animals and therefore no better in any way than other animals. Nevertheless, since it is common in nature to further the cause of yourself and your own species, I think we have a right to eat other animals and to use them in other ways to further our survival as long as we don't unnecessarily kill or torture other animals (which is waste and unnecessarily cruelty). Having said this, I hope more developed aliens don't ever throw this back at our faces.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Aug. 20 2002,08:51)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The simple thing reality is: If you don't want your armpits to smell then fluffy bunny gets it.<span id='postcolor'> There is even peer pressure for the use of cosmetics. Try not using deodorants and see what you colleagues and co-workers think. Â Peer pressure = Fluffy bunny WILL get it or else...

The official said it was the administration's view that even though the facility is not under Saddam's control, it is within Iraq's borders and covered by the cease-fire agreement signed at the end of the Gulf War prohibiting such facilities within Iraq. Oh, yes. I must have supernatural prediction abilities...

By the way, the odds for the attack happening on 9/11, the date that forms the U.S. emergency number 911 is only 365 to 1! They must have chosen it on purpose, it must be a conspiracy!

Animal testing is definitely not a nice thing, but it has to be done in order to save human lives. And believe me, it really sucks if you're the person who has to do it, if you have one bit of empathy in you. The only way then is to repeat to yourself: "This will save lives..." Cosmetics testing is stupid. Animals are dying for our vanity. It's just like hunting and not eating what you have killed. By the way, all those cosmetics that say "not tested on animals" are telling a nice little lie. See, the finished product is maybe not tested on animals, but the raw materials are. Otherwise they could not sell the product, because testing of raw materials on animals is required by law.

But since we cannot see inside the box, there is no way of telling which text is true or is any.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (RalphWiggum @ Aug. 20 2002,08:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">hhmm...so i guess videos that had BinLaden claiming he sponsored 911 were fabricated....very nice ....and all the info about AQ is controlled by US, even Al-Zazeera.<span id='postcolor'> Did I claim this? Nope. I just said that essentially we have no way of knowing whether ANYTHING shown to us in telly or newspapers is bullshit or the truth. A useful thing to remember.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Aculaud @ Aug. 20 2002,08:05)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I just cant stand things being tested on animals is all. If people want to know how something behaves on human subjects, than test them on human subjects.<span id='postcolor'> Most of us owe our existence to suffering and death of animals. Before development of medicine, most children died before becoming adults. Development of medicine has essentially been bought with deaths and suffering of animals. I won't say anything about testing of cosmetics or weapons, because most animal testing is still made to test medicines. But we can make a choice: Either our children die or animals die. Maybe in the future animal testing can be replaced with alternate methods (which are usually cheaper), but not yet.