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Monday, May 22, 2006

You say tomato and I say ... well ... tomato too

An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel highlighted testing with adult stem cells that showed promise in combating urinary incontinence (I suppose one has to start somewhere).

Seth Zlotocha had a funny, but ultimately inaccurate piece, stating that F(at) James Sensenbrenner would be unhappy with this because his personal wealth comes from Kimberly-Clark, the makers of the product Depend.

James Wigderson pointed out at his site that Seth inaccurately portrayed the stem cells used. They were adult stems cells, Wigderson said, not stem cells obtained from the destruction of embryos.

James is right. I agree with James on everything except the misleading label he applies to Republicans who claim to be "pro-life." A more accurate label would be pro-adult stem cell Republicans.

Or, until Republicans (and conservatives, sorry, I forget you guys are two different entities) truly begin supporting life as in supporting getting our troops out of Iraq, as in defeating efforts to bring the death penalty to Wisconsin, as in defeating the so called defense of marriage initiative, then they should be known as the pro-expediency-anything-goes-because-we-ain't-got-no-stinking-morals-except-at election-time-when-we-need-to-get-out-the-vote Republicans.

6 Swings of the bat:

James Wigderson said...

I wasn't funny, too?

Other Side said...

All right. You were funny, too. What happened to Augustine? I think I need to change Marley.

Seth Zlotocha said...

Thanks for recognizing the post as an attempt at humor, as opposed to a serious commentary (and actually calling it funny was particularly kind).

But I feel it necessary to point out -- as I did on James' blog already -- that I did note the stem cells were from an adult. Specifically, I wrote: "In a recent study, patients who were injected with stem cells from their own muscle tissue no longer needed to wear protective pads one year after treatment."

Plus, I note that Sensenbrenner is likely the only Republican to be upset about this news -- and, in the end, I acknowledge that even Sensenbrenner probably doesn't care because he still has millions.

Hence, in my post I was saying that what would make Sensenbrenner upset about the research findings is the monetary loss he would feel, not a sense of moral loss that drives Republican outrage over embryonic stem cell research (my line: "At least one Republican just got another reason to dislike stem cell research").

All that said, how exactly was my post inaccurate?

Other Side said...

Put an orange in front of my face, and, apparently, I will still see a tomato.

I missed the nuance in that sentence, Seth.

My bad.

Seth Zlotocha said...

Not a problem at all. I probably should've been more clear in my post -- I just honestly didn't think anyone would pay much attention to it. It was really more of an after-thought on what was, to me, a pretty slow news day.

Anyway, I wonder if James will be so conciliatory.

Seth Zlotocha said...

I guess that's a "no" for James.