New Blog Discovery

The Red Kitchen

I am always looking for new blogs to waste my time on. I found this one today and I think it's pretty cool. I haven't had a chance to dig through it, but anytime people want to take time to post their favorite recipes I presume they must know what they're talking about and these will be pretty good.

Human Cloned?

A group called Clonaid is claiming that they have successfully cloned a human. The cloned human is reportedly a baby, named Eve, born in an undisclosed location (hopefully a different UNDL than the one that Dick Cheney hangs out in.) No immediate proof of the claim was available to the media, but the scientific director of Clonaid, Brigitte Boisselier, did arrange for a physicist named Michael Guillen, former science correspondent for ABC News, to independently verify the claim. To read the complete story visit CNN here.

I am not sure whether or not to believe the claim of the cloning. To me, it seems like Clonaid is made up of, for lack of a better term, a bunch of quacks. Clonaid is a division of a group known as The Raelian Movement. The Raelian Movement is basically a cult founded in 1973 on the premise that life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials. The Raelian's created Clonaid because, according to Claude Vorilhon, who founded the Raelians, the long-term goal for human cloning is to live forever. According to CNN, Vorilhon says "cloning a baby is only the first step: Eventually the group wants to learn how to clone an adult, then "transfer the brain to the clone."

Regardless of whether or not the baby is truly a human clone, I HONESTLY BELIEVE THIS IS THE MOST TERRIFYING NEWS I HAVE READ IN A LONG TIME! I am so angry I'm not sure I can form it into words.

I am 100% against human cloning. The idea that a cult who believes that we are all descendents of ET could be the first people to successfully clone a human makes me almost physically ill. I believe that there are certain things in nature that God never intended us to mess with, cloning humans is one of them. The beauty of humanity is that we are all different and that in the great "Choose Your Own Adventure Book" of life we don't know what is going to happen to us next and that we can make mistakes, get sick with diseases, and die eventually. The idea of cloning myself so that I can live forever, or so that I would be able to improve my life because I'd have "back-up" parts in the case of a medical emergency is not even remotely appealing to me and frankly frightens me for the future of humanity.

I believe that we need to stop meddling with the process of life. Science is one thing when we are using it to improve life, but when we start using it to make duplicate human beings, we have some serious problems.

Christmas Recap

So here I am, I'm working my second day this week, and the second of three days that I work in a period of two weeks. So I suppose that I should spend less time blogging and more time working, but we'll see.

I did want to make a few notes about the holidays:

I hope that everyone had a good Christmas. I absolutely love this holiday, spending time with my family is always more special on Christmas and the quick trip to Chicago was fantastic! There was tons of good food, some snow, a few major announcements and happy memories made....it was everything I wanted Christmas to be. The Christmas spririt amazes me every year, the warmth I feel doing things for other people. I vow every Christmas to try to carry this spirit with me all year, I do my best, and this year will be no different.

One of the major announcements that was made is that Jeff's youngest brother asked his girlfriend to marry him. Aside of the "It's about freaking time" comments I can honestly say that Jeff and I couldn't be happier for Doug and Alberta. We first met Alberta at our wedding in March of 2001. They had recently started dating and Doug called us a few weeks before the wedding to tell us that he was bringing his new girlfriend. I have to admit, we were skeptical. Doug did not have the best track record with the girls that he brought to family events. When we met Alberta we were amazed. She was wonderful, beautiful and seemed to really care for Doug. Over the last 18 months it has been a joy for us to see their relationship mature, through their moving in together process and now their working together process. And it has been a joy to get to know Alberta herself. The Utech family is a better group of people because Alberta is going to be a member of it. It is going to be an honor to have her in our family.

The other major announcement from the holiday weekend is that my cousin Doug and his finace Michelle are pregnant. They are expecting a baby in late May/early June. And on top of that they are talking about moving up their wedding plans to this February. Yes...6 weeks from now! Doug and Michelle granted the extreme honor of Godparenting to Jeff and I. I just about fell off the couch when they asked us, I was so stunned....but I am truely honored and I am very excited for them. I know that this baby was not exactly planned by Doug and Michelle, but they are truely excited about their little one and I believe that they will be good parents.

It's going to be an exciting year for my family....it looks like on the Patterson side we'll have two weddings, a birth, two baptisms, a baby shower and at least two bridal showers. In the Utech family we'll have wedding plans and the first Anniversary of Art's 59th birthday to celebrate. For Jeff and I the year is even more exciting as we look forward to all of the events in our families and to the wedding of two of our best friends in November!

FRIDAY FIVE!!!!
Friday Five is Alive! I have a lot to blog about the holidays today, but I will go ahead and start my Friday blog in traditional style with this weeks installment of the Friday Five! Enjoy!!!!

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?
Wow...my biggst accomplishment, hard to choose one when there are so many to choose from!! HA! Seriously, I think my biggest accomplishment this year was the healthcare consulting work that I do. It's a broad accomplishment, but I am very proud of myself for the strides that I have made.

2. What was your biggest disappointment?
Personally, I don't have any disappointments that I can think of. It's been a good year. I'm disappointed I didn't win Powerball, but I didn't really think I was going to. If I think of anything, I will amend this post.

3. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions?
Yes. Will I be keeping them? The jury is still out.

4. Where will you be at midnight? Do you wish you could be somewhere else?
It sounds like I will be at Walt Disney World at Midnight with my husband and my family. I could think of worse places to be. But, I can also think of someplace I'd rather be....PASADENA.....

5. Aside from (possibly) staying up late, do you have any other New Year's traditions?
I don't have any formal New Year's traditions, celebrating with Friends is the extent for me. We could be starting a tradition of always celebrating the New Year at an Iowa Bowl game, since that's where we were last year and this year...but that tradition is really out of our control!

A Few More Friends

It was announced today that NBC and the Cast of their wildly successful sitcom Friends have struck a deal to bring the show back for a 10th season in the fall of 2003. NBC is so desperate to keep the show on the air that this deal will cost them $10 million for each 30-minute episode, and they are going to lose money on every episode. Reportedly the cast will not get pay raises as part of the deal, currently they make $1 million each, per episode. NBC also compromised on the number of shows they will order so as to accomdate Jennifer Aniston's wishes to start a family with her husband Brad Pitt. The 10th (and final?) season will include 18 new shows, rather than the standard 22.

My question to NBC..."WHY?" Dont get me wrong, I am as big of a Friends fan as the next gal, and I will happily watch the 10th season next fall, but I am not sure that I understand the necessity for NBC to go to these extremes to keep Friends on the air. Obviously they are doing it because the show is the lifeline of their sagging "Must-See-TV" lineup, but shouldn't they be pouring a little of this money into developing a new show to replace Friends? Otherwise before you know it we'll be watching the Ross use his AARP discount at Central Perk, see Rachel at her Denture fitting and there will certainly be an episode about Chandler's need for Viagra. Seriously, if your network is in such dire straits that your only hope to win ratings is to lose money on a show, that is a problem. Friends is the number one TV show on the airwaves for a reason, it's a good show, but at some point it's going to over stay it's welcome. I hope that NBC doesn't let that happen.