Ruth Gledhill's
The Roman Catholic Church has called for women to be allowed to give birth to human-animal hybrids created in the laboratory.
Embryos injected with animal cells, or chimeras, should be treated as human beings where they have a preponderance of human genes, the bishops say in a sumbission to a Government committee.
And there should be no ban on implanting such hybrid embryos in the womb of the woman who supplied the original egg, they say in their submission on the Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill.
“Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so,” the bishops say.
The Bill proposes overhauling the regulation for embryo research and fertility treatment.
At present it is illegal in Britain to create embryos using a mix of human and animal genetic material, but the government is proposing to allow scientists to create human-animal embryos for research as long as they are destroyed within two weeks.
In their submission, the bishops say that most of the procedures covered by the bill should not be licensed ...   more »

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, America needs a recession. Bernanke and Paulson won't admit it. And investors hate them. We're all trapped in outdated 1990s wishful thinking about a "new economy" and "perpetual growth."
But the truth is, not only is a recession coming, America needs a recession. So think positive: Let's focus on 17 benefits from this recession.   
To begin with, recession may be an understatement. Jeremy Grantham's GMO firm manages $150 billion. In his midyear report before the credit crisis hit he predicted: "In 5 years I expect that at least one major 'bank' (broadly defined) will have failed and that up to half the hedge funds and a substantial percentage of the private-equity firms in existence today will have simply ceased to exist."
He was "watching a very slow motion train wreck." By October, it was accelerating: "Train hits end of track at full speed."
Also back in August, The Economist took a hard look at the then emerging subprime/credit crisis: "The policy dilemma facing the Fed may not be a choice of recession or no recession. It may be between a mild recession now, and a nastier one later."
However, the publication did admit ...   more »

Naomi Wolf Thinks It Could Happen
By Don Hazen, AlterNet
If you think we are living in scary times, your worst fears may be confirmed by reading Naomi Wolf's newest book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. In it, Wolf proves the old axiom that history does repeat itself. Or more accurately, history occurs in patterns, and in order to understand where our country is today and where it is headed, we need to read the history books.
Wolf began by diving into the early years leading up to fascist regimes, like the ones led by Hitler and Mussolini. And the patterns that she found in those, and others all over the world, made her hair stand on end. In "The End of America," she lays out the 10 steps that dictators (or aspiring dictators) take in order to shut down an open society. "Each of those ten steps is now under way in the United States today," she writes.
If we want an open society, she warns, we must pay attention and we must fight to protect democracy.
I met with Wolf to discuss what she learned while researching this book, how the American ...   more »

By Bruce Sterling
CASPIAN RELEASES MICROCHIP CANCER REPORT
Sets record straight after misleading claims by HomeAgain and VeriChip implant manufacturers
A new paper titled "Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990–2006" has been released today by CASPIAN. The full, 48-page paper provides a definitive review of the academic literature showing a causal link between implanted radio-frequency (RFID) microchip transponders and cancer in laboratory rodents and dogs. In addition, a brief, four-page synopsis of the full report is being made available.
Eleven articles previously published in toxicology and pathology journals are evaluated in the report. In six of the articles, between 0.8% and 10.2% of laboratory mice and rats developed malignant tumors around or adjacent to the microchips, and several researchers suggested the actual tumor rate may have been higher. Two additional articles reported microchip-related cancer in dogs.
In almost all cases, the malignant tumors, typically sarcomas, arose at the site of the implants and grew to surround and fully encase the devices. In several cases the tumors also metastasized or spread to other parts of the animals.
Public revelation of a causal link between microchipping and cancer in animals has prompted widespread public concern ...   more »