poor lawyers

[P.O. Box]

Hmm, looks like there's a server problem ... anyway, I wanted to post this article related to stem cell research and the like:

Opponents of Michigan's stem cell research initiative -- Proposal 2 -- launched an ad yesterday using the tragic and universally reprehensible Tuskegee Experiments

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762136.html

as a basis for comparison to stem cell research. This ad is replete with myths and misinformation. Distortions about the nature and regulatory environment for stem cell research are many, and it is important to set the facts straight. First, examine the Proposal 2 itself. The proposal explicitly states that "All stem cell research and all stem cell therapies and cures must be conducted and provided in accordance with state and local laws of general applicability, including but not limited to laws concerning scientific and medical practices and patient safety and privacy." Thus, the proposal itself provides for state regulation of this area. Opponents of Proposal 2 appear to have intentionally ignored and under-played this fact in an attempt to scare people. In addition to the potential for state regulation, there are also federal laws that would prevent unethical research in this potentially medically important arena.

First, there is federal law that would prevent unethical stem cell experiments from being performed on human subjects. Under it, Institutional Review Boards must approve any stem cell research involving human subjects, including clinical trials as well as the donation of embryos for the derivation of new embryonic stem cell lines. These review boards must approve patient consent documents and the research methods, to ensure that the scientific goals are ethical and beneficial. Secondly, there are Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight (ESCRO) Committees that have been set up under guidance from the National Academy of Sciences to oversee all aspects of embryonic stem cell research. This includes research conducted in laboratory dishes, in patients, and in animals, as well as providing an additional layer of oversight over the derivation of new stem cell lines. ESCRO committee approval is therefore required for all experiments performed with embryonic stem cells. These oversight committees (IRB and ESCRO) are composed of scientists, physicians, ethicists, lawyers, and members of the community.

Next, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates all research done at private companies toward the development and testing of any medical product, and imposes similar regulations to ensure that such research is performed ethically. The International Society for Stem Cell Research, an organization of the world's leading stem cell researchers, stands firmly for the belief that the use of stem cells will transform the lives of patients and offer new treatments for diseases that are currently incurable. Opponents of Proposal 2 have tainted that vision with claims that lead people to incorrectly conclude that such research is unregulated. This is simply not correct. "It is preposterous that opponents of Proposal 2 have tried to link stem cell research with the Tuskegee Experiments, one of the most despicable episodes in American medical history," said Dr. George Q. Daley, ISSCR past-president and associate director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston. "The ad distorts and misleads. The people of Michigan should reject this cynical misinformation. Michigan scientists have much to offer in this important area of biomedical research, and it is a shame that they would be kept out of the game if this proposal passes."

Proposal 2 offers other protections to ensure the ethical conduct of regulated research by putting in place numerous restrictions of its own, including the following:
   
- Prevent stem cells from being taken from embryos more than 14 days after cell division begins;
- Prohibit the purchase or sale of human embryos, and;
- Assurance that research conducted in Michigan follows all existing and future federal laws.

The proposal would involve only embryos that could not be used for fertility treatment, and that would otherwise be discarded if not donated for research. The embryos would also have to meet the following requirements:

- They were created for the purpose of fertility treatment;
- They were not suitable for implantation or surplus to the clinical need;
- They were donated with the informed consent of the patient;
- Planned to be discarded unless used for research.

Proposal 2 is about one thing. It is about accelerating medical research in Michigan to develop new treatments for currently incurable diseases. "People need accurate information to make responsible decisions," said Dr. Daley. "Voting in favor of Proposal 2 is to vote for reasonable, regulated research in hopes of curing illness and alleviating human suffering." The ISSCR believes that research must continue with all types of stem cells. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is an independent, nonprofit membership organization established to promote and foster the exchange and dissemination of information and ideas relating to stem cells, to encourage the general field of research involving stem cells and to promote professional and public education in all areas of stem cell research and application.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Anti-Stem-Cell-Research-Ad/story.aspx?guid=%7BA042B64E-D4BF-40BC-89C8-BDE3EA1C606A%7D

[tandem2]

That's all fine and dandy, P.O., but did you read what the other poster (I believe it was injunction) said sperm banks routinely do with sperms

One possible research use of these stored stem cells might involve changing some of their genes. Another possible research use might be to study some of the stem cells by placing them into laboratory animals. In addition, the stored stem cells might be used in the future for new research related to human stem cell transplantation. These are just 3 common examples of what might happen to the stored stem cells. But there are many other future possible research uses that are simply unknown at this time. You will have no say as to which institutions or researchers may share the stem cells made from the embryos that were created using your sperm. If stem cell transplantation studies are developed in the future, you will have no say as to who may be a transplant recipient of the collected stem cells, except in the case of autologous transplantation after androgenesis.

Basically they're creating human embryos solely for research purposes.

[vögeln]

In regard to this thread's topic, I'd make these comments: While legal profession, traditionally has been elite-exclusion and lawyers as known to be "bottom feeders" because of their being relatively unproductive, charging exorbitant rates, and leaching off of the poor, it is also a fact that it is relatively easy to become an attorney in US With a ridiculously high bar passage rate, its not too elite-exclusive. In other countries the lawyers ARE elites. In US their prestige is relatively weak.

This is true of doctors too. Doctors are elites. They leach off the poor. So are CEOs and other high paying jobs. Look, the imperative that doctors and lawyers (the two professions that people think are special and that they are bound by extra moral duties) need to realize that there job is NOT that special. It's just a job. These jobs have a board and a strict rule of conduct but... they don't have a special moral duty that are unique to them. Just get your money, man!

[t h e r m o s]

People accumulate wealth because they Work, Save, Invest, Plan. 

Or

They respect those who Work, Save, Invest, Plan.

People who don't want to Work, Save, Invest, Plan must find other ways to obtain wealth.

Lazy People Steal, Lie, Accuse, Sue, Marry for Money. These Lazy People don't want to earn wealth.

These Lazy People prefer to take it from people like you. Through the US legal system. The US legal system is their leverage because it's based on conflict. This conflict costs money. Your money.

There are many people with a lottery mentality who prefer to use the legal system as a shortcut to manipulate, threaten, intimidate, accuse others.

These people are enabled by attorneys who are primarily interested in personal gain. They instigate conflict in Families, Business, Relationships to generate greater legal fees for themselves.

[pome]

That's all fine and dandy, P.O., but did you read what the other poster (I believe it was injunction) said sperm banks routinely do with sperms

One possible research use of these stored stem cells might involve changing some of their genes. Another possible research use might be to study some of the stem cells by placing them into laboratory animals. In addition, the stored stem cells might be used in the future for new research related to human stem cell transplantation. These are just 3 common examples of what might happen to the stored stem cells. But there are many other future possible research uses that are simply unknown at this time. You will have no say as to which institutions or researchers may share the stem cells made from the embryos that were created using your sperm. If stem cell transplantation studies are developed in the future, you will have no say as to who may be a transplant recipient of the collected stem cells, except in the case of autologous transplantation after androgenesis.

Basically they're creating human embryos solely for research purposes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A company that devised a way to make embryonic stem cells using a technique it said does not harm human embryos reported on Thursday it has grown 5 batches of cells using this method and urged President George W. Bush to endorse it. Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology has been working with a method sometimes used to test embryos for severe genetic diseases. Called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, it involves taking a single cell from an embryo when it contains only 8 or so cells. The method usually does not harm the embryo, which is frozen for possible future implantation into the mother's womb. The ACT team also froze the embryos and used the single cell that was removed as a source of human embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Robert Lanza, ACT's scientific director, said it provides a way to create mass quantities of embryonic stem cells without harming a human embryo. Current stem cell technologies require the embryo's destruction. "This is a working technology that exists here and now. It could be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available to federal researchers immediately," Lanza said by e-mail. "We could send these cells out to researchers tomorrow." What I want to know is when the embryo "contains only 8 or so cells" isn't it so that at that stage of development that each one of those 8 could still (at least in theory) become an octuplet? How would we ever know? I mean, just because the other 6 or 7might not separate into septuplets or sextuplets, can we really be sure? I'm sure that there are those who would consider the destruction of a possible octuplet to be the destruction of a human being. I think it only highlights the illogic of the argument. For, if you don't know how many people an "embryo" might in theory become, then who knows how many souls would have been lost? If we see potential souls as real souls, the possibilities are limited only by the imagination.

At some point in October of 1953, a sperm cell from my father managed to penetrate one of my mom's eggs, and a blastomere was formed. That blastomere divided repeatedly, soon becoming group of cells called a morula, then a blastocyst and eventually these cells united into the fetus that became the infant me. Here's what "I" looked like when I was a morula:



For reasons of honesty, I had to put the word "I" in quotes, because "I" was not yet me, and "I" might have been more than one me. Suppose some scientist had stolen one of "my" cells and left the rest to continue to divide and unite (yeah, I know that's a mouthful of contradictions, but this is a contradictory process). I'd still be me, right? When scientists bisect blastocysts, they can theoretically create as many as they want:

The blastocysts were bisected symmetrically so as to leave a cellular bridge between the sister half-embryos after the softening of zonae followed by or without the trypsin/EDTA treatment. Transfer of 47 monozygotic (MZ) pairs of half-blastocysts to nine recipients resulted in four pregnancies. A litter of nine fetuses was obtained from seven MZ pairs of half-blastocysts, demonstrating that at least two pairs of MZ twin fetuses were produced. It is thought that the procedure for bisecting blastocysts developed in this study is one of the potential methods of producing porcine MZ twins.

Fertility specialists who implant human blastocysts are well aware of the potential for unwanted twinning, tripletting, or quadrupletting, and take pains to guard against it. But how do we know that because of some quirky sort of hegemonic behavior at the cellular level, some of my cells at the morula or blastocyst stage stopped what would have been my twin (or even triplets) from developing? Might "I" have been complicit in this murder of one of my "cell" mates before I was born? Might I have even cannibalized my potential brothers, and forced them to become part of that human monster that I call me?

Perhaps original sin starts before birth after all.

[m e t a n o i a]

"The Visit of the Old Lady" is a 1956 tragicomedy by the Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The location of the drama is Gúllen, a once flourishing small town that lost its ancient bloom when its industrial plants closed down and business took a plunge. The forgotten, poverty-stricken inhabitants of Gúllen are by now used to a modest life, spending the major part of their days reminiscing about better times, until one day the arrival of the "Old Lady" alters the Gúlleners' existence at a stroke. Claire Zachanassian, a native of Gúllen whose profitable marriages to oil magnates, artists and industrialists have made her extremely rich, and her strange court consisting of two blind servants, two former gangsters, a butler and Husband Number 7, are met with sincere enthusiasm by the citizens of Gúllen at the railway station. And they are not disappointed. Claire promises to donate a billion to the township on one condition - Ill, a merchant of Gúllen, must be killed. In years gone by, Ill had a love affair with Claire. Claire became pregnant and claimed that Ill was the father. But with the help of two friends - now her two blind servants - Ill was able to escape responsibility.



Claire had to leave Gúllen and live as a prostitute, until she met her first rich husband. The stipulated murder is a planned revenge against Ill and the Gúllen inhabitants. In the course of time, Claire has acquired the industrial plants and the entire town, in order to ruin them. The first reaction of the Gúllen citizens is water-tight solidarity with Ill, but gradually it begins to spring leaks. Their opinions change from "poor soul, guilty of a childhood misdemeanor" to "irresponsible, immoral evil-doer". At the same time, the people of Gúllen indulge in new, luxury goods — on credit — represented by new, yellow shoes, which are soon worn by all citizens, including even police officers and the mayor. Even his own family are not spared the attraction of increasing lucre. His wife buys a fur coat, his son a car, and his daughter takes lessons in tennis. Only the teacher evokes the humanist tradition, and attempts, at first timidly, to interpose himself before the death sentence that has, by now, come to be seen as immutable. In the end, even Ill accepts his fate. In a climactic town gathering, Ill receives his sentence, which is immediately carried out by the people of Gúllen.

The fundamental underlying point of the play is that money can allure people's minds, especially those weakly determined. It also notices how money creates the power to control the world around. As the arrival of Claire Zachanassian shows, the promise of money can lead people to hate and even murder. It can pervert the course of justice, and even turn the local teacher, who is one of the few who manage to warn Alfred Ill of his impending doom. The teacher is a self-declared humanist, and his moral collapse, as well as that of the priest, demonstrates the power of money to overcome both religious and secular morality. It suggests that greed can turn anyone.The usage of this theme also develops around the main idea of "money-hungry".

[Four,Christmases]

"The Visit of the Old Lady" is a 1956 tragicomedy by the Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The location of the drama is Gúllen, a once flourishing small town that lost its ancient bloom when its industrial plants closed down and business took a plunge. The forgotten, poverty-stricken inhabitants of Gúllen are by now used to a modest life, spending the major part of their days reminiscing about better times, until one day the arrival of the "Old Lady" alters the Gúlleners' existence at a stroke. Claire Zachanassian, a native of Gúllen whose profitable marriages to oil magnates, artists and industrialists have made her extremely rich, and her strange court consisting of two blind servants, two former gangsters, a butler and Husband Number 7, are met with sincere enthusiasm by the citizens of Gúllen at the railway station. And they are not disappointed. Claire promises to donate a billion to the township on one condition - Ill, a merchant of Gúllen, must be killed. In years gone by, Ill had a love affair with Claire. Claire became pregnant and claimed that Ill was the father. But with the help of two friends - now her two blind servants - Ill was able to escape responsibility.



Claire had to leave Gúllen and live as a prostitute, until she met her first rich husband. The stipulated murder is a planned revenge against Ill and the Gúllen inhabitants. In the course of time, Claire has acquired the industrial plants and the entire town, in order to ruin them. The first reaction of the Gúllen citizens is water-tight solidarity with Ill, but gradually it begins to spring leaks. Their opinions change from "poor soul, guilty of a childhood misdemeanor" to "irresponsible, immoral evil-doer". At the same time, the people of Gúllen indulge in new, luxury goods — on credit — represented by new, yellow shoes, which are soon worn by all citizens, including even police officers and the mayor. Even his own family are not spared the attraction of increasing lucre. His wife buys a fur coat, his son a car, and his daughter takes lessons in tennis. Only the teacher evokes the humanist tradition, and attempts, at first timidly, to interpose himself before the death sentence that has, by now, come to be seen as immutable. In the end, even Ill accepts his fate. In a climactic town gathering, Ill receives his sentence, which is immediately carried out by the people of Gúllen.

The fundamental underlying point of the play is that money can allure people's minds, especially those weakly determined. It also notices how money creates the power to control the world around. As the arrival of Claire Zachanassian shows, the promise of money can lead people to hate and even murder. It can pervert the course of justice, and even turn the local teacher, who is one of the few who manage to warn Alfred Ill of his impending doom. The teacher is a self-declared humanist, and his moral collapse, as well as that of the priest, demonstrates the power of money to overcome both religious and secular morality. It suggests that greed can turn anyone.The usage of this theme also develops around the main idea of "money-hungry".

Interesting play this one of Durrenmatt, meta!

[latitude]

A common saying is that "money is the root of evil." My people-experience has proven otherwise. Money can't cripple confidence, can't snuff creativity, and can't kill love near as efficiently or quickly as reticence can. If such a money v. reticence race were run, I would place every spare nickel on that "dark horse" and be confident of winning. What's not said destroys more people than money does, I've found.

Hahaha - you're so funny, Savvy! I know what ya mean

many, I guess the question appears to be: what do you do when what's "not said" when being said turns out to destroy way, way more people than money does?

Would would you get if you combined an emotional vagabond, a dyed-in-the-wool non-conformist and a genius? An outspoken employee garbed in the latest fringe fashion... hoot couture they'd call it, who insults the company president on principle and cares not one whit; who keeps the office in stitches with his barbed wit and comedic brilliance; and who could, given the right inspiration and the VP's corner office (and a midi studio), come up with an idea that could place your company on the stock exchange by noon tomorrow. That's the kind of person they're talking about, I guess. He will do things, say things, and wear things others wouldn't, for fear of ridicule or reprisal. His outrageous actions and sensuous being affords others an opportunity to experience uninhibited and unabashed freedom, vicariously.

Meaning?

search engine? Anyone? 

[M_Cool]

It could be worse.  At least as a lawyer you are pretty much guaranteed work and at least 50k a year out of school.  From that 5 years out you will probably be making at least 100k.  That's really not that bad despite the debt for the lowest in the profession.  There's a lot of other professions/students who wind up with debt and struggle to even find employment in their field .. like PhD's in philosophy/history etc. 

[opinion]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A company that devised a way to make embryonic stem cells using a technique it said does not harm human embryos reported on Thursday it has grown 5 batches of cells using this method and urged President George W. Bush to endorse it. Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology has been working with a method sometimes used to test embryos for severe genetic diseases. Called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, it involves taking a single cell from an embryo when it contains only 8 or so cells. The method usually does not harm the embryo, which is frozen for possible future implantation into the mother's womb. The ACT team also froze the embryos and used the single cell that was removed as a source of human embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Robert Lanza, ACT's scientific director, said it provides a way to create mass quantities of embryonic stem cells without harming a human embryo. Current stem cell technologies require the embryo's destruction. "This is a working technology that exists here and now. It could be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available to federal researchers immediately," Lanza said by e-mail. "We could send these cells out to researchers tomorrow." What I want to know is when the embryo "contains only 8 or so cells" isn't it so that at that stage of development that each one of those 8 could still (at least in theory) become an octuplet? How would we ever know? I mean, just because the other 6 or 7might not separate into septuplets or sextuplets, can we really be sure? I'm sure that there are those who would consider the destruction of a possible octuplet to be the destruction of a human being. I think it only highlights the illogic of the argument. For, if you don't know how many people an "embryo" might in theory become, then who knows how many souls would have been lost? If we see potential souls as real souls, the possibilities are limited only by the imagination.

At some point in October of 1953, a sperm cell from my father managed to penetrate one of my mom's eggs, and a blastomere was formed. That blastomere divided repeatedly, soon becoming group of cells called a morula, then a blastocyst and eventually these cells united into the fetus that became the infant me. Here's what "I" looked like when I was a morula:



For reasons of honesty, I had to put the word "I" in quotes, because "I" was not yet me, and "I" might have been more than one me. Suppose some scientist had stolen one of "my" cells and left the rest to continue to divide and unite (yeah, I know that's a mouthful of contradictions, but this is a contradictory process). I'd still be me, right? When scientists bisect blastocysts, they can theoretically create as many as they want:

The blastocysts were bisected symmetrically so as to leave a cellular bridge between the sister half-embryos after the softening of zonae followed by or without the trypsin/EDTA treatment. Transfer of 47 monozygotic (MZ) pairs of half-blastocysts to nine recipients resulted in four pregnancies. A litter of nine fetuses was obtained from seven MZ pairs of half-blastocysts, demonstrating that at least two pairs of MZ twin fetuses were produced. It is thought that the procedure for bisecting blastocysts developed in this study is one of the potential methods of producing porcine MZ twins.

Fertility specialists who implant human blastocysts are well aware of the potential for unwanted twinning, tripletting, or quadrupletting, and take pains to guard against it. But how do we know that because of some quirky sort of hegemonic behavior at the cellular level, some of my cells at the morula or blastocyst stage stopped what would have been my twin (or even triplets) from developing? Might "I" have been complicit in this murder of one of my "cell" mates before I was born? Might I have even cannibalized my potential brothers, and forced them to become part of that human monster that I call me?

Perhaps original sin starts before birth after all.

Could you expand a bit, pome?