Never be too askeared, Veto-man is somewhere nearby

My kingdom for photoshopping skills and free time to make a photo of Big Dub in a cape and tights with a big V on the chest. In his first veto of 5.5 years in office, Big Dub has saved the world from the scourge of medical research. Never met a spending plan or tax cut he didn't like, but at least those little possible humans will be destroyed and shit-canned rather than used for ... ANYTHING.

Now, Part-time Thinker is actually a religious person, in fact Big Dub and I both claim Jesus Christ as our G0d of choice, publicly at least. I am as baffled as anyone else when he does the things he does in the name of his "Faith & Values™". Not to step in where others have put it more succinctly, but we are speaking of embryos that are scientifically created off-site of any womb, and that are kept viable through artificial means, until such time that they might be medically inserted into a woman for gestation. Created by just such in vitro fertilization, the vast majority of these 'li'l people' will die an un-newsworthy death, destroyed once the owner's whim has been satisfied and their shelf life has been reached. Thousands of tiny possible future Bushies, allowed to perish for no reason, ... wait. Is that what this is all about? Tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of American soldiers have already died for nothing more than the appeasement of this man's massive ego/Messiah complex (depending on how you look at it), is that what he's aiming for with this veto? Is that the central theme of Big Dub's sociopathy that the only good death is one that is completely meaningless other than as an offering at his cloven feet?

If not, then why no bill proposal to insure the preservation and facilitate the implantation, gestation, and adoption of all these courageous little wads of DNA? Won't someone please think about the children? How is it not equally morally outrageous to allow them to become wormfood in a landfill rather than to be used for research that "hain't cured nuthin' yet"? Isn't research by definition a search for something that may not be there? If I had a little gob of baby batter frozed up that I didn't want for makin' babies with, I would surely rather there be a tiny chance that they were used for something worthwhile. The chance of a worm digesting discarded embryos and eventually curing disease are 1 in 0. The odds against embryonic stem-cell research ever leading to any medical advancement don't matter to me because I know the odds are at least better than none.

 Oh, it would certainly be a shame if one of these little 'potential person' clumps was destined to grow up and cure everything ever but got turned into research goo that did not cure everything ever. But Big Dub hasn't written (nor sponsored, endorsed, mentioned, considered, been made aware of) any legislation to save these cryogenic cutie-pies from anything but the laboratory. It seems he isn't concerned with their dying, he is only concerned with making sure they die a pointless death in the face of the very real danger that their existence just might amount to something other than worm trails. It would certainly be a shame if that future everything ever curer became a teeny tiny pile of worm droppings.

Again, why no flag-waving, Adopt-a-Wad™ campaign? According to Arlen Specter, 128 of the estimated 400,000 currently stored 'kid-sicles" have been adopted, as in; impregnated and already born or on their way towards being lung-breathing Americans. Thanks to Leisure Guy for doing the math and pointing out that's just over .03%. The rest, that is 99.96%, will likely become wormfood, hopefully the worms will be eaten by landfill seagulls, and hopefully, they will defecate only on SUVs with big Ws on the rear window. And hopefully also on the ones that have had the W scraped off over the last 5 years, they still deserve it.

The question is, is he really dead?

In a world where one company, with an admitted bias, is set to control most of the paperless voting machines in the next and all future elections, a world where O. J. Simpson and Michael Jackson roam free, a world where the Most Unpopular President in History* hasn't been impeached for his numerous constitution stompings/treasonous acts, should we even believe that Ken Lay is dead? What would it take to sequester his Bush-donating felonious ass to keep his mouth from running (or just to keep a pal out of the pokey)? It's certainly possible that he was taken to a private deposition of some sort and the rest of what happened is all imaginary, the real Lay being transported to Cheney's Undisclosed Location to subsist on catered meals and Cuban cigars for his remaining days. Air America radio pundit Randi Rhodes tastelessly suggested Big Dub may have 'arranged' the death, for the silence and such, but I think his not actually being dead is more plausible. Hey, in a world where 86% of Americans believe there was government collusion on 9/11, I among them, just about anything is possible.


*Nixon played the Al Gore role in 1960, although he did not contest the murky results, but he was by all accounts legitimately elected by a wide margin and went on to win 49 states (!) in his re-election. Bush the Younger has never been popular, not even at summer camp, with those supple yet firm pursing lips of his.