Scientists Breach Ethical Limits

Isabel Oakeshott and Chris Gourlay report in the Timesonline:

"Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans."

"The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes." [...]

"The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned."

"Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?” She said gay men and lesbians would be “deeply offended” by the social implications of the tests." (Emphasis mine)[...]

Wimbledum, Wimbledee.

(H.T. Dr. Sanity.)

Tips for 2007 Resolutions

R. Andrew Newman offers some tips on New Year's resolution making:

"The goal should be achievable."

"The goal should be significant."

"In other words, it might be too easy for a buoy whose favorite fruit is hops to resolve that his motto for the Year of Our Lord 2007 will be "Beer me PDQ!""

"Lastly, a goal should be measurable. Vague resolutions won't cut it. "I'm going to be a better person." Now, of course, this is nifty idea, but it needs to be quantified and scored. Think of it as a contest. Better: "When driving and I happen upon a less than skilled motorist, I'll refrain from questioning the honor of his mother or the legitimacy of his birth." The success and failure can be tracked on a weekly or even daily basis."

"What about "I want to stop eating so much"? For the horizontally challenged, this would be a healthy resolution, but again still too vague. Better: "I'll stop treating Cheez Whiz as a beverage." The intake of processed cheese in a semi-liquid state can be monitored."

R. Andrew Newman? Randrew Newman? Randy Newman?

"They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick 'em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
'Round here
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
'Round here"

Sounds like a resolution that Todd and Lance might have once made, but Lance blew it with MJ (who is only 5'11") and (some of) the rugrats.

For 2007, I resolve to post more than Grandpa John, Todd, and Lance on this blog. It is achievable and measurable.

Crack Staff

A local news story in the Columbus Dispatch:

"MINERAL RIDGE, Ohio — A nursing home resident started the fire that killed him by igniting a crack pipe with a butane lighter, authorities said.

Rickie Raver Sr., 49, of Lake Milton, was on oxygen therapy, which contributed to the Sept. 30 fire in his room at Briarfield At the Ridge, Weathersfield Township fire Chief Randy Pugh said yesterday."

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Fry if I want to, die if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you.
(With apologies to Dave Stewart)

(H.T. Commonsense and Wonder.)

"While the moral obligation should be obvious,
there is no scientific reason not to become an Iranian scientist"

Eric Cohen, editor of the New Atlantis and resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes an opinion piece in the November issue of First Things.

Here are a few paragraphs of Cohen's long article (This post title is also a quote from his essay.):

"Even while many scientists accuse religious believers of zealously imposing their values on everyone, some seem to have embraced a new fundamentalism of their own: the belief that Darwinism explains everything important about being human, combined with the passionate need to convert the unconverted and unsave the saved. Confronted by the aimless nature they so laboriously study, many scientists seem to need a universal, all-encompassing framework to explain their existence. Yet while orthodox Darwinists believe that the law of animal survival explains much of human behavior, they also believe that being a scientist is nobler than being simply a gene-spreading animal. The point of the scientific project is not simply to see ourselves clearly as the beasts we are but to imagine that we possess the cleverness and magnanimity of gods. It seeks not simply to understand the law of death (evolution as we find it) but to wield mastery over life (evolution as we make it)."

"Despite its inherent limits and frequent excesses, there is great dignity in the scientific vocation rightly understood—the dignity of confronting nature’s facts in all their beauty and ugliness, and the dignity of seeking to make human life a little less miserable. Science is, or can be, a noble vocation, a realm of human endeavor that invites human excellence, including moral excellence. Against the sin of despair, the scientist stands for action. Against the postmodern revolt against reality, the scientist seeks truth. Thrown into a world that is mysterious, the scientist seeks to bring into light what is so often shrouded in darkness."

"The trouble is that most scientists—at least most modern biologists, whose work dominates the public imagination about science—do not seem to reflect much or deeply about the limits of their method, or about the moral significance of the ends they seek and the means they use. The recent book by human genome pioneer Francis Collins—a memoir of faith that might have been titled C.S. Lewis Goes to the Laboratory—is notable precisely because it is such a striking exception to the norm. In the public realm, most biologists seem, all too often, like scientific geniuses and moral simpletons, applying rational rigor to their investigations of nature but relying on feeling as their only moral compass. And for all its appreciation of nature’s complexity, the scientific mind seems no rival for the Bible or Aristotle or Machiavelli in understanding human complexity. Next to the philosopher, the neuroscientist still looks, all too often, like a fool."

"The scientist is especially foolish when he is optimistic without a dose of tragic reservation. For, despite Condorcet’s claims, science is perhaps most necessary precisely because of the permanence of human sin and human evil, not because scientific progress will be the tool of their eradication. We will continue to need vaccine makers because evil men will make and use biological weapons. We will need missile-defense makers because evil men will use ballistic missiles. We will need surveillance-system makers because evil men will always be plotting the destruction of the innocent. Not the inevitable perfection of man in nature but the permanent imperfection of the human soul makes modern science a moral necessity—including, at times, the kind of ruthless experiments that are justifiable only in moments of supreme emergency, when civilization itself lies in the balance."

The Captains of Your Souls

Thomas Sowell's concluding paragraph in an article titled 'A Dangerous Obsession, Part III':

"Progressives are in the business of complaining and denouncing -- as a prelude to seeking sweeping powers to control other people's lives, in the name of curing the ills of society. The last thing they want is to discover and discuss how millions of people rose out of poverty by entirely different methods, often by freeing economies from the control of people with sweeping power over other people's lives. Poverty and economic disparities are the raw materials from which the political left manufactures a sense of moral superiority, self-importance and political power. Against that background, it is understandable how they strive to keep poverty alive as an issue, even as they claim to want to end poverty, by playing lady bountiful to the poor. Even as they define deviancy downward, many of the progressive intelligentsia define poverty upward, so that people with amenities that even the middle class could only strive for, two generations ago, are still called "the poor" or the "have-nots." Except for people who can't work or won't work, there is very little real poverty in the United States today, except among people who come from poverty-stricken countries and bring their poverty with them. Talk about "the working poor" still resonates in politics, but most of the people in the bottom 20 percent of American households are not working full-time and year-round. There are more heads of household who work year-round and full-time among the top 5 percent of American heads of households than among the bottom 20 percent. The left has striven mightily to make working no longer necessary for having a claim to a share of what others have produced -- whether a share of "the nation's" wealth or "the world's" wealth. They have also striven mightily to inflate the number of people who look poor by counting young people with entry-level jobs, who are passing through lower income brackets at the beginning of their careers, among "the poor," even though most of these young people have incomes above the national average when they are older. The real obsession of the left is in gaining power or, at the very least, engaging in moral exhibitionism."

Viva La Raza Echerichia!

As if we didn't have enough to worry about already: Global warming, bird flu, credit card bills, the Packers playoff chances, global cooling, Democrats, and trans-fats/Rosie O'Donnell. Now something even more serious has raised its ugly head. The government has to do something to save this nation. We must erect booths along our entire border with Mexico and make all those entering the country wash their hands with anti-bacterial soap and/or Purex sanitizing lotion.

Written in a piece by the propaganda department of The People's Cube:

"Activists of several Latino advocacy groups hailed the recent E. coli outbreaks at Taco Bell restaurants as "the biggest success yet in reclaiming Aztlán culture on the territories occupied by the American invaders."" [...]

"Pedo Flojo of the East Brunswick Migrant Workers Center spoke for many of his compañeros as he wolfed down his third chicken chimichanga. "¡Buenísimo! It's just like back home in Durango. Now that Taco Bell added E. coli to the lettuce, I get a nice Montezuma-sized chorro blast. A pantload of hot re-fried beans after every meal."

""Once we are free of the debilitating hegemony of the materialistic American culture, we will fulfill our romantic goal of farming the land with wooden sticks under the benevolent rule of a true Aztec king, entertaining ourselves spiritually with human sacrifice, and eating as much E. coli as we can lay our hands on,"said [Erika] Ramirez," ...




Dear Government,
Please save us before we all die-arrhea.

I've Learned by Experience-
Don't Piss Off a Nurse!

John Stossel writes on Townhall.com about the controversy concerning a themed restaurant in Tempe, Arizona.

"The motto at the popular Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Ariz., is: "Taste ... worth dying for!" That's because it serves only artery-clogging food like big hamburgers (the biggest is called the "Quadruple Bypass") and "Flatliner Fries," which are boiled in lard."

"And, oh, yes, the waitresses wear sexy costumes." [...]

"What upset the government was that the Heart Attack Grill waitresses call themselves "nurses."" [...]

"The Board of Nursing would not talk to me about this, but Sandy Summers of the Center for Nursing Advocacy was eager to explain what bothers many nurses. "It's not only the Heart Attack Grill. It's the whole 'naughty nurse' image," she said. Her group says that stereotype kills thousands of people, because it creates a nursing shortage by discouraging women from becoming nurses."

""It's a constant association of sex and nursing that we object to. And it creates an environment where people actually think that nurses are people you can have anonymous sex with, these, these brainless sluts.""

Stossel asks, "Should doctors be upset about Dr. Pepper?"

My question to Sandy is, "Are you calling these waitresses brainless sluts?"

Neither the National Waitress Association nor the International Brainless Slut Association could be reached for comment.

Authority

Dennis Prager posts a short article on Townhall.com explaining the basis for America's 'culture war'.

"If you want to predict on which side an American will line up in the Culture War wracking America, virtually all you have to do is get an answer to this question: Does the person believe in the divinity and authority of the Five Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah?" [...]

"Very often the dividing line in America is portrayed as between those who believe in God and those who don't. But the vast majority of Americans believe in God, and belief in God alone rarely affects people's values. Many liberals believe in God; many conservatives do. What matters is not whether people believe in God but what text, if any, they believe to be divine. Those who believe that He has spoken through a given text will generally think differently from those who believe that no text is divine. Such people will usually get their values from other texts, or more likely from their conscience and heart."

I am the Lord your God... you shall have no other gods before me.- God

-or-

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.- William Ernest Henley, 1875

With its expanded interpretation:

It matters not how grave your fates,
Or devastation wrought by fools,
We are the masters of your fates:
We are the captains of your souls.- Cain, way B.C.... Kim Jong-il, 2006, A.D.

Ethics- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, was executed by the Nazi regime in 1945. Compiled and published in 1949, his papers on ethics contain the following excerpt:

"Marriage involves acknowledgment of the right of life that is to come into being, a right which is not subject to the disposal of the married couple. Unless this right is acknowledged as a matter of principle, marriage ceases to be marriage and becomes a mere liaison. Acknowledgment of this right means making way for the free creative power of God which can cause new life to proceed from this marriage according to His will. Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder. A great many different motives may lead to an action of this kind; indeed in cases where it is an act of despair, performed in circumstances of extreme human or economic destitution and misery, the guilt may often lie rather with the community than with the individual. Precisely in this connection money may conceal many a wanton deed, while the poor man’s more reluctant lapse may far more easily be disclosed. All these considerations must no doubt have a quite decisive influence on our personal and pastoral attitude towards the person concerned, but they cannot in any way alter the fact of murder."

Bonhoeffer's writing was in opposition to the Nazi doctrine of Lebensunwertes Leben, life that is not worthy of life, and its usage to dictate life and death over the unborn as well as the 'unfit'.

In the 1930's and 1940's Germany, it was the regime controlling 'the guillotine'. In present America, it is between a woman and her doctor with the judicial regime in the background nodding in approval. Will it be long before forced euthanasia of various categories of the 'unfit' and those whose 'quality of life' do not meet arbitrary standards are similarly feted, fated, and fetid?

Charles Dickens: Perverter of Justice?

"You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute." (Ex 23:2-3, NASB)

In true Christmas spirit, Michael Levin writes an essay defending Ebenezer Scrooge from the proponents of 'social justice'.

(H.T. Bill Vallicella.)

Rave Review

Although he didn't mention Grandpa John's by name, I believe Iowahawk has been reading our blog:

... "Every conceivable -- and inconceivable -- belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; a cacaphonous miasma of perfunctory langorous bellicosity; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; cascading, tremulous arpeggios of useless prosaicity; complexity and complication are eschewed; directivity and candor and perspicacity belied; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence, which, when one thinks about it, is in itself ironic, creating an infinite, unintended laff-riot loop of ironic non-irony; arguments are totally solipsistic; their obviously drunk and/or crack-addled writers traffic only in pronouncement, and are loathe to employ professional-grade opinion tools like Roget's Thesaurus, or the dramatic sentence-ending ellipsis . . ."

Yo, yo... Word up, Homey!

Subscription, Anyone?

(H.T. Tigerhawk.)

Crimes That Shook the World

Last night I tuned into the A&E Channel after the start of a program titled, 'Crimes That Shook the World'.

I tuned in just as the narrator stated, "... in Austria, a 7th prostitute was found murdered. The police had to inform her husband."

The husband stated, "I had to tell our 9 year old son. He cried and cried while screaming that he wanted his mother."

The narration moved on without missing a beat as the police tracked a serial killer throughout Europe and the U.S.

In this case, The Crime That Shook the World were the serial murders. However, if it is a regular occurrence for wives and mothers to be prostitutes, the World is already shaken.

The Lord of the Rigs

Over the past two weeks I have taken the opportunity to watch 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy another time. Although my viewing experience was as gratifying as ever, I was somewhat amazed at the increase of growth and analytical maturity that I have undergone since my first viewing. This exponential personal growth has enabled me to deconstruct Tolkien's story to tease out its true meaning and relevance for the 21st Century.

The fundamental basis for the story is that the Ring of Power was ethically and legally the property of Sauron and was taken from him through legerdemain and ruthless violence by men of the West. The Ring, a thinly veiled reference to oil, was the coveted prize and sought by all. The men of the West, in their lust for it, were transformed from Smeagol into Gollum.

The Western civilization of Middle-earth spared no effort in marginalizing the rich, dignified, and ancient Orc culture. These oppressors from the West forced the Orcs to the far reaches of desperation by spurning diversity and multiculturalism. Orc self esteem was irreparably damaged by the Western imperialists, but they reached into the depths of their collective soul and determined to take a morally superior stand against oppressions of their economy, culture, and religion.

The actions of the men of the West created the violent activities among the Orcs and the greater the oppression the greater in number became the Orc insurgents. Even many highly educated Westerners, like Saruman, saw the evil for what it was and joined in the Orc's just cause.

I hope the depth of message in this brilliant literature cuts to the heart of modern Western man and that he repents of his oppressive, imperialistic, and evil ways to turn again to true compassion and diversity.

Person of the Year

I would like to thank Time Magazine for selecting me Person of the Year. I would also like to thank all the little people that I stepped on and otherwise used to achieve this well deserved honor.

Dietrich von Hildebrand

Since I don't have a subscription to 'First Things', I lifted this straight from Keith Burgess-Jackson:

"I just mentioned Nietzsche. There is one important point on which Hildebrand is in accord with Nietzsche. The Enlightenment had thought that one could eliminate the Christian God, and indeed eliminate God altogether, and still have morality, the same morality that Christians had upheld. Nietzsche was one of the first to see through this incoherence of thought. He pointed out that even so elementary a moral norm as respect for truth can no longer hold its ground once God is dead. What Nietzsche said about morality, Hildebrand says about man: Cut off from God and debunked by the reductionist philosophies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, man no longer occupies any special place in the world. For a time, man might retain a sense of some special dignity, but this is the last light cast by a setting sun. If God is dead, then the Hitlers and Stalins of the world are just treating human beings according to what they really are. It follows for Hildebrand that if we are going to take a principled stand against the totalitarians, we should not waste our time trying to restore Enlightenment civility, which is an ideal lacking in inner coherence; we have to go further back and do a much more radical work of retrieval and renewal in our thinking about man. “All of Western Christian civilization,” Hildebrand wrote in his review, “stands and falls with the words of Genesis, ‘God made man in His image.’”"

(John F. Crosby, “The Witness of Dietrich von Hildebrand,” First Things [December 2006]: 7-9, at 9)

I think it was C.S. Lewis that stated something along the lines of Western culture 'still living in the shadow of the faith, although no longer having the faith.'

There are other competing 'penumbrae' as well, working to eradicate all vestiges of the Christian shadow while denying any responsibility for the resultant barbarity.

The Other White Meat

A Jeff Jacoby column on Townhall.com entitled 'The Atheists' Bleak Alternative' concludes:

"What is at stake in all this isn't just angels on Christmas cards. What society loses when it discards Judeo-Christian faith and belief in God is something far more difficult to replace: the value system most likely to promote ethical behavior and sustain a decent society. That is because without God, the difference between good and evil becomes purely subjective. What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong,but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord."

Obviously this doesn't mean that religious people are always good, or that religion itself cannot lead to cruelty. Nor does it mean that atheists cannot be beautiful, ethical human beings. Belief in God alone does not guarantee goodness. But belief tethered to clear ethical values -- Judeo-Christian monotheism -- is society's best bet for restraining our worst moral impulses and encouraging our best ones.

The atheist alternative is a world in which right and wrong are ultimately matters of opinion, and in which we are finally accountable to no one but ourselves. That is anything but a tiding of comfort and joy."

Actually, these days, Jacoby falls short on one alternative. He didn't mention an alternative reality possible with an Islamic America.

Naval History
From the U.S.S. Yorktown to
the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan to
the U.S.S. Bill Clinton

Rossputin outlines the most recent changes in the modern U.S. Navy--
'Accelerate Your Life.'

U.S.S. Yorktown
Grandpa Jerry's Ship (I think he was the Admiral)


The Yorktown picking up Apollo 8



U.S.S. Ronald Reagan

Capability

* Top speed exceeds 30 knots, powered by two nuclear reactors that can operate for more than 20 years without refueling
* Expected to operate in the fleet for about 50 years
* Carries over 80 combat aircraft
* Three arresting cables can stop a 28-ton aircraft going 150 miles per hour in less than 400 feet


U.S.S. Bill Clinton

"The ship is the first of its kind in the Navy and is a standing legacy to President Bill Clinton "for his foresight in military budget cuts" and his conduct while president. The ship is constructed nearly entirely from recycled aluminum and is completely solar powered with a top speed of 5 knots. It boasts an arsenal comprised of one (unarmed) F14 Tomcat or one (unarmed) F18 Hornet aircraft which although they cannot be launched or captured on the 100 foot flight deck, but form a very menacing presence.

As a standing order there are no firearms allowed on board. The 20 person crew is completely diversifi ed, including members of all races, creeds, sex, and sexual orientation. This crew, like the crew aboard the USS Jimmy Carter, is specially trained to avoid conflicts and appease any and all enemies of the United States at all costs.

An onboard Type O ne DNC Universal Translator can send out messages of apology in any language to anyone who may find America offensive. The number of apologies are limitless and though some may sound hollow and disingenuous, the Navy advises all apologies will sound very sincere.

The ship's purpose is not defined so much as a unit of national defense, but instead in times of conflict the USS Clinton has orders to seek refuge in Canada. The ship may be positioned near the Democratic National Party Headquarters for photo-ops and can be used extensively for social experimentation and whatever other worthless jobs, the ex-commander-in-chief and his wife can think of.

It is largely rumored that the ship will also be the set for the upcoming season of MTV's "The Real World."

The ship was renamed and commissioned USS William J Clinton when someone realized the USS Blowfish was already taken."

European, Middle East, and Democrat Party leaders are hailing this naval development as 'progressive'.

One leader was quoted as asserting, "Now the United States can get a good report on 'Gets along well with others'."

Kofi Klatch

Kofi Annan delivered his farewell speech at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.

"He ended with an appeal for a shift in US policy, saying "In order to function effectively, the system still cries out for far-sighted leadership in the Truman tradition.""

""I hope and pray that American leaders of today and tomorrow will provide it.""

I didn't hear the speech, but it sounds like outgoing Secretary Annan is asking the U.S. to deal with Iran and Syria in...





The Truman Tradition

Happy Hanukkah, Burt!

I appreciate Burt Prelutsky's thoughts on Christmas:

"...This is a Christian nation, my friends. And all of us are fortunate it is one, and that so many millions of Americans have seen fit to live up to the highest precepts of their religion. It should never be forgotten that, in the main, it was Christian soldiers who fought and died to defeat Nazi Germany and who liberated the concentration camps."

"Speaking as a member of a minority group – and one of the smaller ones at that – I say it behooves those of us who don’t accept Jesus Christ as our savior to show some gratitude to those who do, and to start respecting the values and traditions of the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens, just as we keep insisting that they respect ours."

"Merry Christmas, my friends."

Thank you, Burt.

D'oh!

Dr. Mike Adams, a professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, was out in California to give a speech at Pepperdine University. Early the following morning:

"As I stood in front of the campus hotel at five in the morning looking out over the ocean and waiting for the sun to rise, I was hit by a sudden realization: The sun doesn’t rise in the West so there really wasn’t any need to get up at five in the morning."

How To Be a Dad

James Lileks is my hero:

Gnat has a big spelling test tomorrow, and asked what would happen if she didn't get all the answers right...

...and I said she'd go to her room for nine days. I said it with mock seriousness, of course. "No you wouldn't," she said. Oh, but I would. "What else?" You'd be in there with . . . snakes! "And what else?" Spiders. A room full of spiders. "Tarantulas?" Dozens. "We don't have any tarantulas." Well, I'll have to order them. "So order them." I will.

I picked up the phone.

"Really call," she said. So I pushed buttons. I faked a very good conversation with a tarantula supply house, if I may say so.

"Order two," Gnat said. I waved her off: not now, hon, I'm on the phone.

"Credit card," I said. "American Express." I took out my wallet and read the numbers, complete with expiration date.

In retrospect, it was the expiration date that did it. Her shoulders shook and she got that look: what if it's true?

He goes wishy-washy after that, but whaddayawant? He's from Minnesota.

Overwhelming Proof

Marvin Olasky quotes an irrefutable authority on the subject of global warming:

"Ice Age: The Meltdown": "Think global warming isn't real? Ask Manny the Mammoth, Diego the Tiger or Sid the Sloth.""- Gene Shalit

I am convinced. I can't hold my ground against such heavyweights any longer. The reasoning is too sound and the data too impeccable to deny this reality any further. Al Gore is a genius. Who knew?

Newly Debunked!
The Sun Shines Where the Sun Don't Shine!

The paparazzi take a lot of flak for intruding into the private lives of the rich and famous. It seems that no place is safe from these verminous invaders.

Recently there have been several photographs of famous starlets, including Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and now Britney Spears, getting out of limos. Apparently, the girls have also been wearing mini-skirts and have forgotten to don underwear in their haste to attend the next appointment in their hectic schedules. These poor girls, regular people just like you and me, were pictured with external genitalia exposed. Innocence has been stolen by these intrusive creeps-with-camera.

Ali Bubba of Alabama Liberation Front took the latest overexposed photo of Britney and sent it to a friend in the NSA to check for Photoshopping or other kinds of forgery. Here is the NSA report: (Uses the euphemism, nookie.)

"Yep, it's real nookie, and it's really Britney's. Also (a) our analysts agree the nookie was shaved very recently, possibly within four hours of the photo; (b) that's definitely a C-section scar, not an appendectomy; (c) there appears to be some kind of rash near the vulvular introitus, which may be caused by the tinea fungus, commonly known as ringworm or "jock itch"; and (d) other than that, it's extremely boring."

Well, maybe there are places where the sun don't shine, but there are definitely no places where photographic flash don't shine with countless experts to give analyses.