Scientists to Congress: Pass the stem cell law...while you still can

"Scientists"??? Hardly. Rather, they are special interest prostitutes, acting under the guise of ‘science,’ demanding millions in grants, in order to use murdered babies for "research."

In a letter sent Friday to the leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the deans of American medical schools, chief executives of U.S. hospitals and heads of organizations with names like the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Society of Human Genetics said that federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research “is essential” if scientists are to succeed in turning the cells into usable treatments...

The sought for "cures" & "treatments" would be worth billions. If embryonic stem cells are as promising as these death peddlers suggest, then there wouldn't need to be ANY federal funding for this gruesome research. Where are the private investors for this scheme?

What these “scientists” desire is that the 'Culture of Death' be funded from the public treasury and accepted by the citizenry.

After wasting taxpayer money, playing "god" yields zilch

Embryonic Stem Cell Flop in California

Without so much as a press release, Embryonic Stem Cell research is being slowly defunded by the State of California. Remember Proposition 71, the California initiative that pledged $3 billion dollars of public funds to this dubious research? Back in 2004 voters in that state bet that embryonic stem cells held the key to untold cures and therapies.

Six years later, after destroying innumerable embryos and devaluing human life, they have nothing to show for their investment. Only adult stem cell research has shown any promise. By reprogramming adult stem cells, researchers have produced astounding results; curing everything from type 1 diabetes to spinal cord injuries....

Read more here.

Give to Darwin What Is Darwin's. But Creation is God's (chiesa)

A major conference sponsored by the Vatican has assembled scientists, philosophers, and theologians of various tendencies. All of them said yes to evolution. But the intelligent structure of creation also has its defenders. Beginning with the book of Genesis...

Dr Edward Peters: Copernicus-Motor terrae, solisque Stator

Dr Peters writes:

With your indulgence, I post a second item today, this time to make a lighter point: that ecclesiastical scholars are in the front ranks of those helping the world to better understand itself. News of the discovery of Copernicus’ grave in Poland, the canon lawyer who revolutionized astronomy, prompts my brief notice.

Read more here.

Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Mercy-Killing: Other Names for Murder

Keep in mind that this was written over 50 years ago:
============

Too much page one publicity was given several years ago to the case of a doctor in New Hampshire who deliberately used a treatment that could cause, if it did not actually cause, the death of a patient. The inci­dent gave promoters of so-called painless killing a lot of free propaganda.

On the other hand the story set all of us thinking. For one thing the event made us realize that there are many so-called healers of men's bodies, and unfortunately a large number of so-called healers of men's souls, rudderless preachers of the Gospel, who favor putting innocent people to death.

They call this form of murder mercy-killing, which means the ad­ministration of an easy, painless death to one who is suffering from an incurable and often agonizing ailment. Mercy-killing is also called euthanasia, which means easy and painless death.

Let us sweep aside the screen of sickly sentimentality which sur­rounds the subject. Then we can get down to sound reasoning. Mercy­-killing stands condemned on several counts, some of which are moral, some of which are material or physical. We mention both because often people who propose or favor this method of helping the diseased are influenced only by arguments rooted in the material.

1. Mercy-killing is outright murder on the part of the one who admin­isters the drug or other means that will bring about death.

2. Mercy-killing is suicide on the part of the patient who requests or consents to any means of shortening life or destroying life.

3. God and God alone has the direct right to dispose of human life. The Almighty has definitely condemned murder and suicide. In mercy kill­ing, a doctor or a group of doctors, the patient or his relatives, take to themselves this right of God. Here is the fundamental reason that euthanasia is wrong from the moral standpoint.
­
4. Mercy-killing not only fails to take into account man's supernatural life; it denies it. It disregards the value of pain and suffering; it rejects all idea of merit gained by suffering; it ignores entirely the word of Christ:

"If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." St. Luke, 9:23.

5. Mercy-killing helps no one and solves no problems. Rather it creates problems, a problem for the patient who is seriously sick. He will be in mortal fear that the doctor will shorten his life. It creates a problem for the doctor who has a conscience - he will be unwilling to grant the request of the patient or the relatives, should they desire euthanasia. It creates a problem for society and especially for our courts in the form of expensive, tax-paid prosecutions and investigations.

6. The practice of killing off the incurable, the insane, the crippled, and the defective, stands condemned by the science of medicine. Here is a telling point in any argument with the material-minded proponents of putting people to death. Who is to say that a disease is incurable? Within the last few generations medical science has made enormous strides forward in curing disease. Thousands upon thousands lie dead in our cemeteries from diseases which since their death have found a cure and a remedy. Kill off the so-called incurable, the so-called fatally diseased, the so-called criminally insane, and the research doctors, the explorers and discoverers in medical science will have no subjects to work with, no basis, no specimens for their observations and examination.

7. The public approval and practice of mercy-killing will gradually and eventually lead us into the horrible slaughter of the sickly and insane that shocked the world when we heard how it was carried on in Nazi concentration camps. Practically the same methods are stili carried on behind the Iron Curtain.

8. Life would become cheapened even more and civilization would be pushed back even farther to pagan times when undesirables were exposed to die, to the pagan practices of some in China and Aftica today who leave unwanted children to be devoured by wild beasts or to perish by starvation.

A few moments' reasoning proves that mercy-killing is against God's law and against nature's law. It is immoral and unscientific. I would also like to point out that it is un-American.

As a nation we believe in God [or at least, we used to]. We believe that all our blessings have come from the Creator. We repeat with conviction the words of our Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are the right to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The right to LIFE was given by God and can be taken away directly only by God.

In the New Hampshire case we do not know whether or not the patient asked the doctor to end her suffering. But our euthanasia socie­ties pound that point - if the patient insists, the physician must admin­ister the killing drug. Do they realize that a person wracked with pain is in no position to think clearly? He wants relief from pain at any price. He needs to be protected from himself.

You will encounter people who lean a little, or even strongly, to this pagan practice. A large number of doctors and even a group of clergy commended the murder. That proves we have all too many ministers who are miles from their moral moorings, and that we have too many doctors who are traitors to their Hippocratic Oath, namely:

"I solemnly swear that I will treat the sick only with a view to helping them and never in order to inflict injury. I will not give anyone a deadly poison, even if requested to do so, nor will I suggest such a way of acting."

Yes, it's murder - only with different names.
__________________
Adapted from Occasional Talks, Volume 2
by Fr. Arthur Tonne, OFM (©1954)

Oxford lab to revisit carbon dating of Shroud of Turin

Colorado Springs, May 23, 2008 / 05:01 am (CNA).- A physics professor has persuaded an Oxford laboratory to revisit the question of the age of the Shroud of Turin, the reputed burial shroud of Jesus Christ. The professor argues that carbon monoxide contaminating the shroud could have distorted its radiocarbon dating results by more than 1,000 years....

The Denver Post reports that John Jackson, a physics lecturer at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, has hypothesized that even minimal contamination of the shroud by environmental carbon monoxide could have skewed the dating by 1,300 years....

Junk Science...

Some of us are waiting for the eco-nuts to come down on our candles and incense...but, perhaps, there is hope. That is, if the media would ever begin to present the truth.

There’s a new global warming consensus in town....

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine this week announced that 31,072 U.S. scientists signed a petition stating that "...There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate..."

The OISM petition represents a direct challenge to the Al Gore-touted notion that a consensus of scientists has determined that catastrophic manmade global warming is real and that any debate over the science is pointless.

British Government OK's Creation of Human-animal Embryos

British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons tonight rejected a ban...

They pretend to be God and engage in monstrous acts.

Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, moving the amendment to ban all admixed embryos, said mingling animal and human DNA crossed an “ultimate boundary”. He said that exaggerated claims were giving patients false hope and that the dangers of the research were unknown.

Mad scientists care not a whit about boundaries, moral or otherwise.

He said: "In many ways we are like children playing with landmines without any concept of the dangers of the technology that we are handling.”

Where will the creation of chimeras lead us? Will some crackpot in the future unwittingly unleash some devastating plague upon civilization?

It seems as if those pushing for such grotesque experimentation and research are like little children playing with dangerous tools or weapons. What absurdity!

It seems that the more we think we learn, the more stupid we become. When we act absent basic norms of morality, we hurt not only ourselves, but others as well.

Yes, children, welcome to the isles of Dr Moreau or the worldly laboratory of Dr Frankenstein. Enter! You will be safe here. We're here to help the human race!

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Surely everyone has seen this story already from yesterday....

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of "extraterrestrial brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility (of life on other planets) exists," said Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a 45-year-old Jesuit priest who is head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict....

In the interview headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," he said he saw no conflict between belief in such beings and faith in God....

Political Correctness vs. Science

University president halts campus blood drives over FDA prohibition on homosexual men giving blood; says it violates “non-discrimination policy”

San Jose State University has suspended all blood drives on campus to protest a federal regulation banning homosexual men from giving blood....

Another example of individuals who have been, as Fr John Corapi puts it, "educated into imbecility." It's no wonder so many young minds are corrupted in our educational system - it's an institution run by the patients and inmates, where facts and truth are deemed irrelevant.

Thoughts and Counsels - October 3

The example of the saints is proposed to every one, so that the great actions shown us may en­courage us to undertake smaller things.

-Ven. Louis de Granada
_________________________
From Mary, Help of Christians
Part VI, Thoughts and Counsels of the Saints for Every Day of the Year
Compiled by Fr. Bonaventure Hammer, OFM (© 1909, Benziger Brothers)

Nobel Prize for Al Gore - Praise for Paganism and Abortion?

From AsiaNews:

The former US president offers doomsday forecasts that scientists find “very improbable” but their purpose is to praise the Gaia Cult and the Earth whilst attacking Christianity. For him birth control, including abortion, is the solution to pollution.

Fr. Tom Euteneuer: The Vindication of Terri Schiavo

Fr. Tom’s Spirit & Life this week is on the Vindication of Terri Schiavo:

“The CDF responded to a question from the US Catholic bishops who asked whether it was morally obligatory to give food and water to a patient in such a state. The response was unambiguous: ‘Yes’.”

Read the entire article here: http://www.hli.org/sl_2007-09-20.html

I don't understand why it was even necessary to ask the question, yet again. The question had been answered so many times before.

The Priest at Prayer, June 19

The Priestly Ministry

Visitation and Care of the Sick

Second Meditation - Evils that arise from neglecting the Sick

I. One of the most pernicious sins committed by many Christian families is to allow a dying person to remain in ignorance of his real condition and actually to prevent him from realising it by using every effort and device at their command. They would see him pass into eternity without his suspecting it, until the rays of Divine Justice are focused on him and the Supreme Judge Himself imparts the first definite news.

What an immense calamity it would be for the priest to become an accomplice to, and, in a certain sense, a perpetrator of, this crime! That the priest, the dis­penser of Divine Clemency, should turn into a minister of God's Wrath: that Wrath most terrible, eternally implacable, solely hostile, which brings down upon a sinful soul the scourge of a sudden, unpremeditated and unprovided death, and with death, final impenitence and the irrevocable sentence of damnation! I, a priest, aiding and abetting the death of the sinner, the direst of mis­fortunes!

This infernal power is not conferred by any of the Sacred Orders! Shall we have to suspect that Satan too has his Orders and has conferred one of them on certain neglecful priests in order to propagate the unchristian and irreligious death: death without the Sacraments, without the priest, without God? A more terrible plague than the non-denominational school, civil-registry marriage, or the unhallowed grave; because it means the death of the devil's own children in the hands of their father.

II. And that this sort of death exists even among Catho­lics, more widespread than schools without catechism, than cemeteries without the crucifix, than homes without the Sacrament of Matrimony or any other Sacrament, is the conviction of not a few priests, who are ready to give information to anyone willing to listen to them. They will prove to you, with sorrow, that in such and such a parish or city there are neighborhoods where from fifty to ninety per cent of those baptised in the Church die without the priest, without the crucifix, without so much as hearing the Name of Jesus; just like their own domestic animals.

And yet those same families often appear to be Christian, they may even frequent the Sacraments, they seem to live in perfect tranquillity of conscience, and perhaps are zealous for and actively promoting pious and social works for souls; but when questioned, they will show the most callous unconcern about the prevailing tragedy. And we priests, distracted as we are by a thousand other incidents of the struggle against evil and error and spiritual dangers, are liable to dismiss the whole problem with almost the same criminal indifference. (*)

For a soul that has lived far away from the Sacra­ments and the commandments of God, and even for a pious soul, can you imagine a greater danger to salva­tion than to die without the last rites, without any notion of dying, without a thought about God? Is there any problem, therefore, more serious and acute and more pregnant with disaster?

III. If my indolence as a priest served to aggravate the problem, have I not every reason to fear a like punish­ment when my hour comes?

Lord, when are Thy threats going to be fulfilled?

With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matt. vii, 2)

Judgement without mercy to him that hath not done mercy. (James ii, 13)

I don't know how far it is true, but I've heard it said that many priests die without the Sacraments. A certain diocesan legal authority of my acquaintance drew up statistics of priests who died without the Sacraments, and he found them in the majority. No one has entered into the Mind of God; no one can probe Its workings; but may we not surmise that more than one priest among those who ended their days in this manner were there­by made to suffer for their neglect of duty towards the sick?

IV. Now let me see, by way of a practical conclusion to the foregoing considerations, what the Roman Ritual says in the tenth paragraph prefacing Chapter IV of the Titulus V:

When danger is imminent, the parish priest will advise the sick person not to allow himself in any way to be deceived by the cunning of the devils or the false promises of physicians or the flattery of relatives, which might hinder him from procur­ing in good time those things pertaining to the soul's salvation; but religiously to receive the holy Sacraments while his mind is still clear and his senses are unimpaired, and to receive them with becoming devotion and promptness, guarding against that fallacious and pernicious procrastination which in the past has thrust a great many into the eternal torments, and which, by the devil's persuasion, continues to thrust them day by day.

And canon 468 [1917 Code] says:

The parish priest should assist with constant care and manifest loving-kindness the sick of his parish, especially at the approach of death, by fortifying them with the Sacraments solicitously and recommending their souls to God.

And in order to understand that as long as there is breath in the body the soul is not entirely out of my hands, and can still be equipped for the journey, the same canon continues:

The parish priest, or any other priest attending the sick, has the faculty to bestow the apostolic blessing with a plenary Indulgence for the moment of death; a blessing he should not omit to give.

So it is the Church's wish that I should not abandon the dying person until I have left him at the Judgement-­Seat of God.

Such is my longing request for myself; won't others have the same desire and the same right?

Resolutions
1. I shall hold this all-important ministerial task in higher esteem. I shall perform it with full accuracy. No one shall die, if I can help it, without God's Kiss upon his soul.

2. Although I may not be appointed to it, for the love of God and of souls I shall not refuse this work; on the contrary, I shall give full vent to my zeal, either by giving a helping hand to those who are in charge, or by finding out who are sick among those living in my street or neighborhood, or by visiting the hospitals, after the example of so many good priests.

O agonising Jesus! I wish to appear before Thy Judgement-Seat gloriously arrayed as a minister of the happy death - if only to benefit by the same mercy.

3. I shall place on the list of my customary pious practices the beautiful work of mercy of visiting the sick, even though the latter may not be near to death. Who knows but that the restoration of this practice among priests may serve to abolish or diminish those prejudices which often confront us at a sick person's bedside or keep the door slammed against our entry!

(*) This, unfortunately, applies to Catholic countries in Europe; but what about our own "lapsed" in English ­speaking countries? And what about non-Catholics? (Trans.)
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

###
Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!

Scientists certify Our Lady of Guadalupe tilma

In 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to Mexican peasant Juan Diego. To prove to all that the apparitions were real, the Virgin imprinted an image of herself on Juan Diego's tilma, a thin cloth made of cactus fibres.

This type of tilma normally decays in 30 to 40 years. But Juan Diego's tilma is still miraculously intact and the same as it was when he wore it.

Over the centuries, many have expressed doubts about the divinity of the image, but Prof. Victor Campa Mendoza has no doubt whatsoever.

"This is not a human act but an act of God," he says in Spanish, adding he has accumulated enough evidence to prove it.

Cardinal Pell: Human life is the issue at hand

It's all about human life: the real message in the stem cell debate


Cardinal George Pell ... "serious anti-lifers and publicity seekers have been trying to shoot the messenger".
Photo: Rob Homer

MPs may have voted for stem cell research, but it is unethical and a scientific dead end, writes Cardinal George Pell.

IS ALL human life equally precious? We should not be distracted from the elephant in the corner of the room. A huge diversionary tactic has been mounted to focus attention on hypothetical punishments for Catholic politicians by authoritarian bishops, and away from the destruction of human life.

Human life is the issue at hand. Serious anti-lifers and publicity seekers have been trying to shoot the messenger, while they work to bury the message.
. . .
After more than 25 years of experiments with embryonic stem cells in animal models, researchers have yet to develop one successful treatment in mice for any disease that could be used as a model to undertake the first steps for a clinical trial with human patients.
. . .
Certainly a Catholic church without sinners would be like a hospital without patients. That is why the blunt instrument of excommunication has hardly ever been used in Australia, as we are a church of the imperfect, not a sect for the elite. [my emphasis]

But all of us who wish to remain Catholics have to be measured against Catholic teaching.

To be a disciple of Christ means accepting discipline because the Catholic church has never followed today's fashionable notion of the primacy of conscience, which is, of course secular relativism with a religious face. [my emphasis]

Will Cardinal Pell impose interdict on those Catholic politicians who publicly repudiated the the teachings of the Church, the bishops, and of course, Christ?

Polish Man Wakes from 19-Year “Coma”....

...And he makes quite an astute observation:

He told the media that people complain now as much as they did under communism: “These people walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning.” But he told his wife that the world is “prettier” now than it was under then and he’s happy to be “back”.

Some things never change...

Polish Man Wakes from 19-Year “Coma”, Talks and Expected to Walk Soon
Wife “would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanized”
By Hilary White

DZIALDOWO, Poland, June 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Polish railway worker has astonished his doctors by waking spontaneously after 19 years and talking about memories of his time in a “coma”, the Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday. Jan Grzewski was injured at work and while he was hospitalized, his doctors found cancer in his brain and predicted he would not recover.
. . .
Cases such as Mr. Grzewski’s are being used around the western world as arguments for euthanasia by dehydration or withholding of nutrition for those in what is often called a “permanent vegetative state”.
. . .
After regaining his ability to speak, Mr. Grzewski told his relatives that he has memories of family gatherings while he was supposedly ‘comatose,’ at which they spoke to him, trying to elicit a response.

Praise be to God! And may God continue to bless the man's wonderful wife who dedicated her life caring for him - such dedication seems quite rare these days. Perhaps, this wonderful miracle is one of God's gifts for such love, perseverance, and commitment?

The Priest at Prayer, May 25

Second Part
The Priestly Ministry

The Ministry in General

First Meditation - The Priest's Chief Occupation

I.
St. Paul writes to Timothy:

"So much I tell thee by letter. . . . that thou mayest be in no doubt over the conduct that is expected of thee in God's household. By that I mean the Church of the living God. . . .(1 Tim. iii, 15)

The Church is God's Household, a House built by Him, arranged by Him, with a wisdom immeasurably superior to the wisdom which Solomon revealed in the construction and furnishing of his royal palaces, and which so amazed and overwhelmed the Queen of Sheba.

But can you conceive of a house well ordered and wisely ruled where there is a large redundant staff of servants and stewards who have nothing to do but to kill time and vegetate in idleness under the shade of their master's protection?

So it stands to reason, Lord, that I, as steward and Minister of Thy Household, have a task allotted to me, and if I do not carry it out I am a disgrace to Thy holy dwellings. Thou couldst repeat for my benefit the words of reproach Thou didst speak through the lips of the Prophet to Sobna, the prefect of the Temple: What dost thou here, or as if thou were somebody here? . . . the shame of the house Of thy Lord. {Is. xxii, 15-18)

II.
At our ordination we received the four Minor Orders and the three Major Orders, and each Order was instituted and conferred upon us for a specific purpose; each is but the Divine Power communicated to us for the exercise of a spiritual ministerial duty. This presupposes an office, an obligation, and a life-long one as far as our strength allows, because the "Character" of the Sacrament of Holy Orders is indelible. We are in priestly harness for life.

Thus the great Apostle exhorted his chosen pupil Timothy:

"A special grace has been entrusted to thee; prophecy awarded it, and the imposition of the presbyters' hands went with it; do not let it suffer from neglect." (l Tim. iv, 14)

Woe to the unfaithful servant who, having received the talent to trade with and multiply, through indolence or cowardice buries it underground! It was not precisely the wicked servant but the unprofitable one that the order was given to cast out into exterior darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Cfr. Matt. xxv, 30)

Is it possible, O Lord, that I am that unprofitable servant who has wasted and squandered Thy riches and lawful gains?

III.
We became priests in answer to a calling. Which of us will swear that when he mounted the altar steps he had no vocation, and that instead of entering the sanctuary by the proper door he sneaked in from the back? Who among us would patiently bear to be called a "sneak" by the manner of our entry into the priesthood, or a "gate-crasher" into the sanctuary?

No, dear Jesus, I was really convinced that I heard Thy call, and those who numbered me among Thy Household staff were also convinced, and the Prelate who laid his hands on me was convinced; otherwise they would all have rejected me as an intruder.

I had a vocation. And what is this vocation? A special calling from God to consecrate myself to the priesthood. But would God have called me to a life of idleness, to the mere enjoyment of honor and benefice? Or did Jesus Christ institute a sort of honorary priesthood? Did He allow His Heart to be pierced by a lance on Calvary that there might issue forth a Sacrament destined to confirm me in sloth? That certainly is not His idea:

You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and appointed you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain. (John xv, 16.)

Resolution
To live more contented each day with my state, and to esteem its occupations higher than those of any other walk of life, as being more useful to the neighbor, holier for myself, nobler in themselves and more ennobling to those who exercise them. These priestly occupations shall therefore take pride of place in my life, in my preferences, in my appreciations, in the intensity and time I give to them. Any other occupation, however congenial to me, I shall subordinate to those of my priesthood, and, if they prove a handicap, I shall forgo them entirely. Can I affirm, hand on heart, that, so far, I have lived up to this wise maxim?

My ministry is loftier and worthier than the exercise of any art or craft or profession, and yet so many people sacrifice to these their pleasure, time and very life. Shame on me if I account as little less than wasted the time I have to spend on my priestly duties!
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

###
Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!

It's the "End of the line for embryos" in California

California Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal in case challenging the state’s stem cell research institute.

State bond money for embryonic stem cell research may now flow unhindered into the coffers of research institutions. On May 17, the California Supreme Court rejected an appeal from opponents of the Citizens Oversight Committee, which, under the 2004 ballot initiative, Proposition 71, is tasked with disbursing funds from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for research requiring the killing of embryos.
* * *
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, saying it “reaffirms voters’ will to keep California on the forefront of embryonic stem cell research.”

It appears that "mob rule," coupled with the complete absence of common sense and right reason is sufficient grounds for keeping California on the forefront of creating and exterminating innocent human life - for the sole purpose of "research" and financial gain. How sick and demented can society really become?

Embryonic stem cells can repair eyes, company says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stem cells made from human embryos can home in on damaged eyes, hearts and arteries of mice and rats, and appear to start repairs, a U.S. company said on Monday.

Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology said it had devised a straightforward way to make blood vessel precursor cells out of the stem cells and plans to test them in humans.

"We figured out how to produce literally billions of so-called 'hemangioblasts'...," Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at ACT, said in an e-mail.

After reading the article, I'm almost convincd that Lanza and his company hold the keys to "everlasting life" (this is sarcasm, folks):

"...they have incredible reparative potential."

Embryonic stem cells are the ultimate master cell of the body...

They directed the stem cells into becoming what they believe are hemangioblasts...

"The cells are really smart, and amazingly, knew not to do anything in uninjured eyes."

"...showed remarkable reparative capacity in animals..."

"If the same thing works in humans ..."

...the company wanted to test the cells in people...

"We also have studies underway indicating that the cells can also considerably accelerate wound healing, repair lung damage, and can even generate unlimited amounts of red blood cells for transfusion."

Science gone mad...They hope to have permission for human test subjects by year's end...