Guy Berger

Happy new years. I am going to a dinner & party at a friend's house in the city. Will try to behave responsibly. Guy

How about the top 5 top 5 lists you would like to be stranded with on a desert island? Guy

I think it was the Who's 30 Years of Maximum R&B. Guy

Warriors are getting clobbered by the Kings. (!!!) JRich's hand is fractured. Guy

I assume so. Why not? Because in some cases, like the infamous 'Terminator seeds', cloned plants do not produce seed, so you have to buy it for every harvest, that means that if you, for any reasons, don't have money to buy them, you'll not have any harvest. This is not the case with 'natural' agriculture. Don't seedless plants predate modern genetic engineering? Anyway, I assume that it will be harder to make "seedless" animals. Because nobody can foresee wich type of desease can occur to a cloned animal. AFIK cloned animals have a lack of immune defenses. I don't buy this. If the animals they are cloned from have immune defenses, then the cloned animals will as well. I'm not sure why this is relevant. Guy Is it relevant because, when most of the farming will be cloned, because it will be proved to be profitable in the short term, you'll have to pay some sort of hidden copyright to few big Corporation who have enough money to afford biotech. Most farming today is done on an industrial scale -- this will not change. If cloned animals are more expensive than uncloned animals, then farmers will stick with the uncloned. I neither agreed nor disagreed. Or maybe a little of each. Guy

Maybe 40% bad. Guy

I haven't seen the movie -- Sting is in it, right? Guy

I recently gave this one a listen for the first time in a long time. Much, much better than the overrated Tommy. (And with a less ridiculous story.) The instrumentals are actually pretty good. Guy

Both of them said they were. Sadat addressed the Black Caucus and affirmed this and even promised financial contributions to the caucus shortly before he was killed. Regardless of what they said, if they were black there are a whole lot of black people around the Mediterranean and Middle East. Guy I hate to do your research for you but some of this stuff is real easy to look up. This is from Wikipedia: Early life Sadat was born in Mit Abu Al-Kum, Al-Minufiyah, Egypt, to a poor Egyptian-Sudanese family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. His father was Egyptian, his mother was Sudanese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadat Now go look up the Sudan. His mother was a very dark-skinned African. I don't need to make sh!t up. Sudan is split into two halves -- a northern Arab half and a southern "black African" half. Which half was Sadat's mother from? However, I will concede that it is possible that Sadat had a black African heritage. FWIW, what about Nasser? Guy

I assume so. Why not? Again, why not? Yes. I'm not sure why this is relevant. Guy

The reason I find this premise so distasteful is the assumption of the author and, obviously, others by their lists, to associate fame and celebrity with importance. Maybe some people ought to find out about the contributions of people like Benjamin Banaker, Garrett Morgan, Louis Lattimer, Hannibal, Elijah McCoy, Madam Walker, Nefertiti and other great queens and kings of Egypt, Timbuktu and other African nations, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marcus Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Madam Walker, Marshall "Major" Taylor and too many more to list. I don't think Nasser and Sadat were black -- they were north African Arabs. Guy Both of them said they were. Sadat addressed the Black Caucus and affirmed this and even promised financial contributions to the caucus shortly before he was killed. Regardless of what they said, if they were black there are a whole lot of black people around the Mediterranean and Middle East. Guy

That's true, but completely tangential to cloning. Well, if certain animals have genetic traits that make them better suited for providing meat, then cloning is a more effective way of replicating those traits than breeding. Guy Discussing animal husbandry is not tangential whatsoever. Unless scientists are ready to grow steaks in the lab, they will be growing them on cows in an agricultural setting. This points to a more industrialized food chain with more potential for corruption on a number of levels, genetic, political, and otherwise. We have seen some of it already, with the reluctance to affix labels describing the products as such. I don't see many folks squeamish about the labels affixed to alcohol bottles. Groundskeeper Willie, I don't understand what you are arguing here. You can have cloned animals treated humanely; you can have non-cloned animals treated inhumanely. The too issues are not related. Guy

The reason I find this premise so distasteful is the assumption of the author and, obviously, others by their lists, to associate fame and celebrity with importance. Maybe some people ought to find out about the contributions of people like Benjamin Banaker, Garrett Morgan, Louis Lattimer, Hannibal, Elijah McCoy, Madam Walker, Nefertiti and other great queens and kings of Egypt, Timbuktu and other African nations, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marcus Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Madam Walker, Marshall "Major" Taylor and too many more to list. I don't think Nasser and Sadat were black -- they were north African Arabs. Guy

Let me guess, she took the Evan Parker? Guy

As far as I can tell, this album will feature Torn, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and Tom Rainey. I'm only familiar with Torn from his contributions to Bill Bruford and Tony Levin's Upper Extremities. Guy

I've been enjoying Suite Africaine, a recent acquisition. As John B says upthread, it's a very strong album. I think it's of about the same quality as Carnet de Routes, so I wouldn't recommend one over the other. (And you probably don't "need" more than one of these.) One exception: SA is about 12-15 minutes longer than CdR. Guy

I think it's interesting that "Paraphernalia" swings in a more traditional/conventional way than much of this group's regular material -- perhaps that's due to George Benson's presence. Live versions were much more free. Guy

That's true, but completely tangential to cloning. Well, if certain animals have genetic traits that make them better suited for providing meat, then cloning is a more effective way of replicating those traits than breeding. Guy

Noj and I were discussing the excellence of the Phoenix/Dallas game. Dirk pulls it out with a second left... Iverson had a GREAT game with the Nuggets! Guy

Happy birthday, Alexander. Guy

Yes. Though I must say I find "clone-ophobia" to be strange. Guy

<shrug> Cloned or not, it's just meat. Guy

I was really into them for a while in college. My favorites are The Sky Moves Sideways and Signify. I haven't heard anything later than Stupid Dream, which disappointed me. Guy

Here's one of mine.

I recently saw a really good episode from the 5th season -- "Darmok" -- I thought it was powerful. Guy Yeah, "Darmok" is a good one. Did you know that it's Paul Winfield playing the alien captain? I'd never heard of Paul Winfield before watching this episode. Guy