Australia votes to clone human embryos

What if the United States is the last nation on Earth to allow this or to embrace this? I admit that I haven't kept up on this issue. Maybe we already do clone stem cells? I don't think we do, and frankly, I don't have the time today to "get intelligent" about this topic.

So, what do you all know about this? Are we ahead, behind, or right there in the middle of it all?

I know we don't do stem cell research...at least on a broad basis, only using certain kinds for experimentation. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we cannot clone those cells that already exist (and then not use them. Kinda like farmers getting paid not to grow corn). It seems that most of the flak heard 'round here is about "killing" stem cells that already exist, and, by definition I suppose, doing lab tests on cells kills them. The scrotums -- by that I mean nutsacks -- that believe using these stem cells for research or other purposes is tantamount to killing a human being are a little too nutty for my tastes. After all, humankind would not be as advanced is it is if doctors, scientists, and biologists hadn't experimented with "unnatural" phenomena.

These same people who think we could not evolve from the murky depths of the oceans think that these very basic cells could evolve into human beings. Not sure how that would work. Put a stem cell out on the lab table and it would probably die in a few short minutes. Just guessing. I guess the same could be said for a 3-month-old fetus. (Maybe there's something there?)

But I digress.

What will the US be like if we're the only major country (not to mention all the minor ones that might be ahead of us on this front already) that doesn't do this kind of experimentation? I mean, we, as the human species, didn't need atomic weapons, but that didn't stop us from finding out, before the Germans and the Japanese, how to make the technology work. We beat Hitler to the punch. If we hadn't taken it upon ourselves to figure out nuclear tech, we might all be blond-haired, blue-eyed, German-speaking folk.

It seems that we're falling behind in scientific endeavors. Is it because the current administration doesn't believe in science? They'd rather place their bets on God and faith rather than science and ingenuity. Or is it because our educational and business systems don't value nor do they encourage such pursuits? We live in such a short-sighted society that perhaps looking for cures for AIDS is too far-reaching? Can't make a dollar today if we have to expend $2 today on R&D.

It saddens me that we're falling behind the rest of the world on a lot of things. We have much too much potential to squander it. It's really a shame.