I'd like you to explain something in the context of your apparent belief that a zygote is a human.

Consider the phenomenon of monozygotic (a.k.a. "identical") twins. It is well-established that such twins are the result of a zygote that splits early in development. There is also the rare extreme case of partial splitting later in development that produces conjoined (a.k.a. "Siamese") twins.

My question to you is this: If a zygote *IS* a human being, where does the other human being come from if it happens split? Is one of the parts the "real" human, and the other some kind of fake?

What about conjoined twins? Are they one person or two? If they are one, does a surgeon who separates them "create" a new person?

TV's don't grow, humans do.

So what? A more accurate statement might be that humans self-assemble, and TV's do not.

There is nothing magical or mysterious about growth. It's fantastically complicated and we are barely beginning to understand how it works, but it appears that all of the steps happen according to the same physical laws that dictate the operation of everything else in the universe.

Complex things can be more than the sum of their parts. A Shakespeare play is much more that the letters and punctuation marks with which it was written. A human is much more than the molecules from which he or she is made. In both cases, it is development that is the act of creation, not the parts that were used.

I think you belittle humans when you say that embryos are human.

Aren't fetuses, embyros, and zygotes all also STAGES of a human being? No one gets to "senior citizen" without first passing through "embryo".

Doctors (or airline pilots, or politicians, or whatever) were all babies at one time, but none of the babies was a doctor.

The atoms and molecules that make up a fertilized embryo were all parts of other things at some time in the past, but most of those other things were not embryos.

A bunch of parts that are sufficient to build a T.V. set are not a T.V. set until they're assembled.

I think development is part of the process of making a human being. You don't have a human being until it gets to a fairly advanced stage.

Nathan Coker: why does God kill new born babies

Religious folks always have answers to questions like that, and they usually boil down to "We're only human, so we can't possibly understand God".

Then they turn around and tell you that they know exactly what God wants.

Not trying to stir up trouble, just would like rational debate.

You could start by trying to justify your statement that a clump of cells is the same as a human being.

What is it about this problem that Salon readers don't get?

I missed the part where you made constructive suggestions about alternate ways to solve the problem.

The nearly pure speculative market we've seen in recent decades IS a Ponzi scheme in the only way that matters: Everybody's payout consists entirely of someone else's new investment.

I've been wondering about something, and maybe you could help me out.

I've heard a lot of people say that cutting taxes for investors helps to create jobs.

However, I've also heard (before the current crisis) my employer's upper management explain that they *have* to outsource jobs because the investors were demanding more profits. When I look around, I see lots of good decent-paying jobs vanishing overseas for the same reason, and the only new jobs I see getting created are crappy minimum-wage jobs with little or no benefits.

Can you cite some examples of *good* jobs that have been created by recent (but before current crisis) investment activity? Can you provide any reliable statistics that show that cutting investor taxes has a positive net effect on decent job creation?

Rove Is Flattering Himself...

...if he thinks his flabby torso would make a great main course.

It would be an ornamental item, not something that is intended to be eaten.

I would be pleased to fly anywhere for the opportunity to light the fire.

And I'd be happy to provide the starting fluid, but I don't think I'd be allowed to bring it on an airplane.

So stop acting like some blowhard matters. He doesn't. There's war, death, economies crumbling, icebergs melting and countless tiny things that deserve attention before this.

I think he does matter. A lot of the problems you mention were caused, or at least exacerbated, by people who believe in jerks like Limbaugh. It's about time everybody realized that the media circus is nothing but a circus.

It's not a official Republican message until Limbaugh approves it.

Suppose a business, an investor, or a banker had taken out a long-term loan to buy an asset that later turned out to be vastly overpriced. The lender will end up owning the asset if the buyer defaults on the loan. Would the buyer:

1) Do the "honorable" thing and continue to pay principle and years of interest on the loan, even though the asset might never regain enough value to make it worthwhile, or

2) Default and let the lender deal with it.

Then maybe Rush Limbaugh is right, and they should all go out and commit seppuku.