This article is kinda interesting:

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists have revived a project to try to bring an extinct animal, the fabled Tasmanian tiger, back to life, the team leader said.

I'm not sure that's even possible, actually. A while ago I read What Does a Martian Look Like?, an excellent book on what extraterrestrial life might look like and how it might be adapted to its world. Near the beginning of the book (around page 40, if Amazon can be trusted), the authors begin railing against Jurassic Park's idea that we could clone dinosaurs just from having samples of their DNA. Again trusting Amazon, since I don't have a copy with me, I'll try to excerpt some of the key passages and hope that I don't get sued. After a brief summary of Jurassic Park's premise, they write:

The scientific errors, unfortunately, are gross. In order to make a dinosaur, even nature needs more than its DNA sequence. In particular, it needs a female dinosaur to set the developing egg off on the correct trajectory. This 'dinosaur-and-egg' problem implies that you can't make a dinosaur unless you've already got one, in which case (give or take a male as well) you don't need to sequence ancient DNA in amber.

After this they unabashedly "rid[e] one of [their] scientific hobbyhorses"--the myth that once you know a creature's genome, you understand everything about it. After ranting for the better part of a paragraph (they do that a lot), they turn back to Jurassic Park:

This is the belief that lies at the core of Jurassic Park: that the genetic 'blueprint' for the organism determines everything about it. However, organisms are far more complicated than just a 'message' written in DNA.

We don't want to rehearse the biological arguments at any length, because we've already discussed them in The Collapse of Chaos, Figments of Reality, and The Science of Discworld--but the list of things that affect how an organism develops, but aren't DNA, is enormous. Parents often supply 'privilege'--extra food, such as yolk in an egg or milk. The example of the anglerfish, already mentioned, is instructive: here the fish's DNA does not even tell it which sex it should be....

Let's take this point one step further. All vertebrates start much the same: the embryos are very similar at what is called the phylotypic stage (stage typical of the phylum): all annelid worms look similar at their phylotypic stage, as do all gastropod molluscs (snails). Very different eggs (think of chicken egg, mammal egg, frog-spawn, caviar among vertebrates) all converge on to the phylotypic stage, and the strange thing is that they don't need their genetic instructions to do it. The egg architecture, plus a suite of clever molecules called informosomes copied from the mother's genetics, guides the pre-phyletic embryo to its phylum-typical shape, with its nuclei in lots of different kinds of cells. These different cells call up a different developmental programme from each of their nuclei, so that different genes are expressed in liver, kidney, nervous system and skin. In a very real sense, vertebrates are vertebrate because their mothers were: they made eggs that developed into vertebrate phylotypic embryos, which then read out their genes in the characteristic vertebrate way.

Because of this two-stage development, it is much easier to have a well-controlled passage of information: think of the egg as the tape-player, the chromosomal DNA information as the tape, which has on it instructions for making the ovary that makes eggs--tape-players--of the appropriate kind. That rather destroys the background 'science' of Jurassic Park, because it suggests that the tape player evolves as well as the DNA type. Ostrich eggs, and a bit of frog DNA to fill in the tape, just won't work. Nature agrees: rat nuclei (complete good-condition nuclei, not DNA that's been through a mosquito gut and then been bombarded by cosmic rays for 70 million years [--does that mean we'd get dinosaurs that could turn invisible? or stretch?] ...) won't develop properly in mouse eggs, and vice versa. And rat and mouse are a lot closer together than ostriches and tyrannosaurs, or frogs and velociraptors.

Perhaps the people trying to clone the Thylacine know a way around this. Perhaps they don't know what they're trying to do is impossible. Perhaps Misters Cohen and Stewart are the ones that are wrong. I'm certainly not qualified to say.
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Scott McClellan Says Helen Thomas Opposes 'War on Terrorism'

(For those of you who don't follow the link, Helen Thomas is a White House reporter)

What exchange between the two of them drove Mr. McClellan to declare that Ms. Thomas opposes the war on terrorism? Here's an excerpt:

McCLELLAN: Well, Helen, the President recognizes that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. And when you're engaged in a war, it's not always pleasant, and it's certainly a last resort. But when you engage in a war, you take the fight to the enemy, you go on the offense. And that's exactly what we are doing. We are fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here. September 11th taught us --

THOMAS It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

McCLELLAN: Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism.

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Noticed this article in USA Today. The opening paragraph is a pretty good summary of the entirety:

A newly released report published by the CIA rebukes the Bush administration for not paying enough attention to prewar intelligence that predicted the factional rivalries now threatening to split Iraq.

Which comes as no surprise. I'm no expert on Iraq, but even I knew enough about Arab cultures to predict that we certainly wouldn't be greeted with flowers. But this paragraph stuck out to me:

"In an ironic twist, the policy community was receptive to technical intelligence (the weapons program), where the analysis was wrong, but apparently paid little attention to intelligence on cultural and political issues (post-Saddam Iraq), where the analysis was right," they write.

This is apparently more of the white-washing premise that "The administration believed Iraq was a threat, so they couldn't take the chance." In effect, they're pinning this debacle (oh, that's such a fun word to say) on the lower-echelons of the intelligence community in a move that A Tiny Revolution has dubbed the reverse-Nuremberg defense:

It's obvious I had to order the extermination of six million Jews. My underlings had given me intelligence that they were subhumans scheming to destroy the master race.

He then goes on to explain how this 'fact'--that it was the intelligence that was wrong, not the policy--is utter nonsense.
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"Gays are trying to change the institution of marriage!"

Yeah.

About that....

In Roman society, only the upper one-third of the population had the legal right to marry. Christians thought marriage was a tainted institution and didn’t declare it a sacrament until the 13th century. The early Roman Catholic Church sanctioned same-sex unions from the fourth through the 14th centuries. From the 1690s through the 1870s it was common for men in rural England to sell their wives in the town square. Slaves were not permitted to marry as they were considered “property.” Interracial couples were not permitted to marry in some states until as late as 1967.

And then there's this.

And these too.
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Jason, they beat you to it.
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A while ago, I posted about people claiming that religious freedom allows them not to distribute contraceptives. When these stories were circulating in the blogs I read, I remember someone (possibly many someones) asking the hypothetical question "What if my religion involves discriminating against blacks? If I were a surgeon, could I refuse to operate on someone if I found out they were homosexual?"

Some people may dismiss that as a slippery-slope.

Others, however, think it eminently reasonable.
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I was in a truck stop recently; one of those gas station/restaurant combinations filled with all sorts of trinkets.

In one area, near the restrooms, they had a display of "Stylin' Ringz"--another item that someone thinks people will buy just because it has their name on it. Normally I wouldn't have paid any attention to this, but at a glance I noticed one ring that jumped out at me.

I had to get it.
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It occurred to me that Intelligent Design has got to be the laziest explanation for the origin of life anywhere. All it says is that "we were designed". Professor Myers had an opportunity to ask Michael Behe, a proponent of I.D., for a little more, and was expectedly disappointed:

What was his specific, testable hypothesis for the origin of the blood clotting system? His answer: "It was designed." I hammered a little harder, and said that was neither specific nor testable—when, where, how was it designed? How would I test it or find evidence for it? He mumbled something very peculiar..."That's about origins. We don't speculate about origins."

So they don't mention who designed us, how they did it, when they did it, why they did it. Every religion and mythology gives you some answer to any, if not all, of those questions, but I.D. won't even bother to do that.

Lazy.
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I used to visit the HonestReporting's weblog, MediaBackspin. Eventually I became disgusted with the rampant anti-Arab venom being spewed everywhere, the alacrity with which they would shrilly shriek "Anti-Semitism!" for reasons as stupid as a mural depicting Sharon with a kippa (along with their hypocritic demand that "Jews use the cry of anti-Semitism all the time" is a myth), their use of single incidents to slander entire countries and peoples, and their bizarre obsession with slipping insults against "the Left" into every rant they make, like some modern-day Cato.

Most of the time they will try to convince you that they are not, in fact, vile hate-mongers--it is rather you who are the bigot, because not agreeing with them completely means you are clearly opposed to the Jewish State which means you are clearly opposed to Jews which means you're a hateful anti-Semite. And they try to justify their bigotry by claiming that Islam is an oppressive, belligerent religion (consisting only, they seem to think, of a handful of quotes taken out of context).

And they completely ignore how oppressive all other religions, including their own, are.
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Iraq rebuilding slows as U.S. money for projects dries up

The U.S. government is running out of money. The higher than expected cost of protecting workers against insurgent attacks — about 25 cents of every reconstruction dollar now pays for security — has sent the cost of projects skyward.

The result: Some projects have been eliminated and others cut back.

"American money has dried up," says Brent Rose, chief of program/project management for the Army Corps of Engineers in southern Iraq.

And tracking the billions of dollars that flooded into a war zone in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion has proved difficult, too. Nearly $100 million in reconstruction money is unaccounted for.

...

But there are signs that some of the early momentum is gone, particularly for big infrastructure projects. The Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works initially planned to use U.S. funds for 81 much-needed water and sewage treatment projects across the country, says Humam Misconi, a ministry official. That list has dwindled to 13.

Canceled projects include the $50 million project that was supposed to provide potable water to the second-largest city in the Kurdish region, and a $60 million water treatment plant in Babil province, which would have served about 360,000 residents, Misconi says.

Some progress has been made. More than 2,800 projects have begun since the transfer of sovereignty last summer, and 1,700 of those have been completed, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. They include refurbished schools, new police stations, hospitals, bridges and new roads.

It is the larger, more expensive projects such as water treatment plants, sewage networks and power grids that are being cut back.

Congress appropriated $18.4 billion for Iraq reconstruction in November 2003, but last year nearly $5 billion of it was diverted to help train and equip Iraq's security forces as the insurgency grew in strength.

And the security costs keep increasing. Originally estimated at 9% of total project costs, security costs have risen to between 20% and 30%, says Brig. Gen. William McCoy Jr., commander of the Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq.

...

Nearly half of all of Iraqi households still don't have access to clean water, and only 8% of the country, excluding the capital, is connected to sewage networks.

And despite progress in fixing Iraq's antiquated oil production system, the country's oil wells produce about 1.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, lower than 2003 levels and well under the 3.5 million barrels Iraq was producing before the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraqi households still endure about 10 hours a day of power outages. In Baghdad, the power is out about 14 hours a day, according to the Electricity Ministry. Iraqi power plants are now generating nearly 4,800 megawatts, up from 4,400 before the U.S.-led invasion.

The increase hasn't been enough to keep up with demand. Since the end of the war, demand for electricity has increased by about 60% as Iraqis have bought new refrigerators, televisions, air conditioners and satellite dishes, says a Corps of Engineers spokesman.

...

Besides escalating security costs, reconstruction also has been dogged by allegations of fraud and mismanagement. Nearly $100 million in Iraqi funds distributed by the Coalition Provisional Authority for reconstruction was either spent without supporting receipts or vanished, according to an April audit by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq reconstruction.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation, says Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the office.

The White House said it hasn't decided whether to request additional funds from Congress. "It is too early to know what may be needed," McClellan said.

If President Bush does ask Congress for more money, there will probably be tough questions about oversight and rising security costs.

"Reconstruction in Iraq has been slower, more painful, more complex, more fragmented and more inefficient than anyone in Washington or Baghdad could have imagined," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, during a subcommittee meeting last month. [--only after you fired everyone who did imagine that]

To wit: reconstruction is going horribly, thanks in large part to the insurgency that's "in its last throes", as well as rampant corruption (gee, who would ever anticipate that from the Bush administration?).

On a semi-related note, in addition to the 100 million "missing" dollars mentioned in the article, another 1 billion dollars have been stolen in this ridiculous farce of a war.
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