The author does fail to address a rather important topic in all this, which is those unfortunate individuals afflicted with an inherited disease, or the ability of such technology to predict who will contract diseases such as MS, ALS, etc. Given the probable development path for this technology, the ability to predict such things will come before the ability to cure them. And isn't that information that a life or medical insurance company would love to have so they can deny coverage based on the expense of future illness? I know of individuals in this position now, so this isn't an issue only for the future.

I suppose the optimist would think that this prospect will make insurance companies exit the health insurance field in droves, leaving nationalized medicine as the only choice (as it is in most western countries except the US). The pessimist would think that this just means more of the same but progressively worse: the affluent can afford care, the rest can live with medical care not unlike that available to the common man in the early 1990's. Given the ability of large, wealthy corporations to direct public policy for their profit, I suspect that the pessimist will unfortunately be correct in their assessment.

I'm related to one of these Christianist nutjobs, and she does not allow her kids to have anything to do with any sort of fantasy, from Smurfs when they were younger to a movie with the word "Witch" in the title. There are plenty like her who believe that all fantasy is the work of the devil, whether written by C. S. Lewis or not.

The Bush administration claims one thing and then does another on this topic. The National Renewable Energy Lab here in Colorado is an example of public/private partnerships for the purpose of developing renewable energy resources; it got a 20% cut in funding during the Christmas break to make sure congress wasn't around to react I suppose. NREL is where cutting edge, high tech renewable energy research is done, which is why its budget has been reduced by this administration. Does it make any sense to be cutting back research in this area while we are fighting over oil resources?

One can go on and on with this topic, there isn't an area of science funding that these guys haven't cut the budget for, unless it is defense related. The rest of the western world recognizes the value in public investment in basic research and science, and every Republican administration continues to cut these funds in the US. No wonder we are losing our technological position in the world.

I have found myself yelling at my radio at every "news" article about the supposed Iranian connection; NPR is being obtuse about the shakiness of the whole story and of course the rest of the media is dutifully "catapulting the propaganda". After all, that's apparently all they do anymore. Do none of these people have a memory that goes deeper than the last time an administration official patted them on the head and called them a "good boy"? Lapdogs indeed.

Listening to Tony Snow push the line that the US has no intention of attacking Iran while at the same time a second carrier battlegroup has been sent to the straits of Hormuz, with rumors that a third is soon to be on the way just doesn't fill me with any sense that I'm being less than thoroughly BS'd by these people. Again.

Let's see, how many US ships and service people can we cram into the seas around Iran until a Gulf of Tonkin incident occurs just by sheer proxity issues? Certainly the parroting of non-attributed, anonymous only briefings about suspected Iranian weapons is preparing the way nicely. Funny how they won't be more definitive than they have been so far, nor is there information from other sources to support their claims. This time I have to wonder if the slowly awakening average citizen is going to fall for it; I pray not.

And let's look at this logically, shall we? Iraq is in a state of war, in a region awash in arms from every major world supplier, with a long and difficult to control border between Iraq and Iran. I'd be willing to bet that weapons are crossing every border Iraq has and with every neighbor it has, after all, money talks and it does it especially well when your society is in a state of collapse and civil war. Since the Saudi's have made it clear that they will support (read:arm) the Sunni's if the Shiites gain too much of an upper hand, how can we be sure that the increase in successful attacks we are currently seeing is not from Saudi support (even if it is "merely" financial)? Well, I guess I'll never know since there isn't an MSM outlet in existence in this country that will even bother to read the amazingly well sourced articles available in the international press, much less do anything other than provide the administration with excellent stenography skills.

Keep hitting them hard Glenn, the punches are starting to have an effect. I appreciate all your hard and thoughful work, plus I like the new wide-body format!