Bob Novak Did Not Take Science in College

Hurlbut is back again. The science is bad. The ability to 'prove' to a prolifer's complete satisfaction that a disabled embryo is truly disabled is non-existent (they do not believe that now about cloned human embryos or genetically defective embryos that can be identified today through PGD as incapable of development). But, still this sort of pseudoscience is receiving attention. Stranger still, note McCugh's absolutely bizarre argument against Hurlburt:

The only clear criticism on the council came from Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatry department chairman at Johns Hopkins University. He warned that Hurlbut could be making a "hybrid which would be super-human in some kind of way." Hurlbut responded: "You create an entity that never rises to the level of what can properly be called a living being." McHugh suggested Hurlbut was making "a doomed hybrid" that would not be permitted to become a human being. "Not doomed," responded Hurlbut, "Only doomed if it's alive first."

This whole discussion is straight out of a the Salem witch trials. - Arthur Caplan

They Learned it from Justice Thomas

The U.S. House of Representatives (note to foreign readers: this is where the really conservative Americans go to learn to run the government) has taken the smart path out of its past few years of ethics scandals, which, after all, only involved marginal political figures like Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Nothing drastic planned, just a simple reform intended to prevent America from hearing over and over again about corruption in the House. Ethics classes? No. Try "new rules."

The proposal being circulated among House Republicans would end a general rule against any behavior that might bring "discredit" on the chamber, according to House Republican and Democratic leadership aides. House members would be held to a narrower standard of behavior in keeping with the law, the House's rules and its ethics guidelines.

Don't ask. Don't tell.

Male Homosexuality Described as Heritable...Again

An article in the Royal Society's Biological Sciences Journal makes the argument that a "gay trait" is passed in the context of higher fertility. It is a peculiar argument indeed.