Automotive Apostasy

Monday, September 14, 2009

What they tell you you're getting... and what you actually get.

Have you ever rid yourself of a car that turned out to be a total lemon? Have you ever experienced the odd mixture of feelings that roil within you as you watch the clunker being towed away for the final time? You know, the simultaneous feelings of relief and happiness that you are finally rid of that worthless wreck, coupled with feelings of sadness and anger because you know how miserable that car made you and how badly you were ripped off over the years?

Well, I know exactly how you feel. A few weeks ago, I went through that very experience.

Some years ago, I didn't even own a car. I went through life having a very difficult time getting through my journeys. When you don't have a car, you can be made to feel that reaching your destination is such a formidable task that at times you just give up all hope of reaching it. You end up looking down at the sidewalk, rather than gazing far down the road.

Most of my relatives and friends had cars. Whatever the make and model, they seemed pretty happy with whatever they drove. Somewhat childishly, I used to silently resent them. Because they had cars, they seemed so in control, so confident. Their journeys seemed so much easier than mine. Their worlds seemed larger, and their burdens seemed smaller. "One day", I thought to myself, "I'm going to be like them".

I finally decided to get my very own car, but really didn't even know where to start. At that point in my life, I knew very little about all the different makes and models of cars that are available, and had no idea what I even wanted or needed in a vehicle. I didn't even know how to start a car, much less drive one.

So, as sometimes happens in life, solutions materialize to address problems you haven't even vocalized. People started telling me about their cars.  They told me why they liked their particular brand of car, and all the good it did for them in their daily journey. I learned about several different makes of cars, but most of the people I talked to told me about one specific car they had chosen - the Christler Salvation.

The Salvation, they told me, was a special car. It was, I was informed, different than any other automobile out there.  It was such a spectacular vehicle, in fact, that all other cars were deemed unworthy and false, and fit only for the scrapyard.

Skeptical but intrigued, I inquired further. What I found out was, quite frankly, amazing. The Christler Salvation, I learned, was the only absolutely perfect car in the whole world. It was the only model of car ever made that had never broken down, or run out of gas. As a matter of fact, it didn't even run on gasoline - it ran on something called "faithanol". Faithanol, I learned, is an invisible substance that one fills the fuel tank with simply by having confidence in the perfection of the vehicle. In other words, as long as you believe the car is perfect, it never runs out of fuel and you are guaranteed to get to your final destination safely.

So perfect was this car, that you were actively discouraged from looking under the hood. Why bother? After all, the car is perfect and never needs to be repaired. "You don't need to know exactly how the car runs", I was assured. "Just believe and your journey will be a joyous one". Therefore, the hood of the Salvation was tightly sealed with what I later found out were called "apologetics bolts".

Still a bit skeptical, but trusting in the words of my friends and relatives, I went to Paul Tarsus's Salvation Showroom on Damascus Road. You know the place I mean - it's the dealership with the fancy multicolored glass windows and the cool disco-era smoke-and-mirror machine hanging from the showroom ceiling. I never did speak to this Paul fellow, because he had apparently died many years before. However, I did meet and speak with several of the showroom's salespeople. Though I knew next to nothing about cars, I had of course heard of the somewhat slimy reputation of car salesmen. To be honest, the salesmen there lived up to the stereotype, although they were all unfailingly polite, friendly and courteous. Of course, they were trying to sell me something, so I expected that. I did appreciate the fact that unlike the car-salesman stereotype of a sleazy-looking hustler wearing loud, mismatched clothes, complete with a plaid sports jacket and checkered tie, these salespeople were neatly attired in the showroom's standard black and white uniforms, complete with white collars. They looked a bit odd in that attire, but I liked that they were making an attempt to look professional.

Unfortunately, as the day wore on, the "inner used-car salesman" in my assigned salesman manifested itself. Like any car huckster worth his salt, he tended to avoid answering specifics about the car, like its history. I could not get the CarFax history on any of the vehicles on the lot, no matter how I asked. "No matter", he said. "The Christler Salvation is the perfect automobile, so there is of course absolutely no maintenance history on any of the vehicles on the lot."  I also could not pin him down on a refund guarantee if I was not satisfied with the car, nor a warranty, nor could he even explain how a car can run on the intangible substance of faithanol. When I asked him "If this car is so perfect, why isn't everyone driving it? Why wouldn't the Christler be the only car on the road?" I was told that the Salvation wasn't for everyone, and that only the elect few were wise enough to seek it out. I was flattered by that, although in the back of my mind I knew that flattery of the customer is part of any salesman's schtick.

Eventually, my doubts and skepticism faded - the salesman had won me over. I told him I was ready to purchase one. Beaming, he congratulated me on "the best decision you have ever made or will ever make". I asked him how much the final cost would be, and to my utter astonishment he replied "Oh, this car is absolutely free. All you had to do was ask for it, which you did. And now that car is yours forever". I couldn't believe it. I said "How on earth do the automaker and dealerships make any money if this miraculous car is free?" He told me "Don't worry about it. We're not in it for the money, we're here to help people. Oh, and by the way, we hold weekly meetings for Christler owners, on Sunday mornings, and we pass the basket for small donations towards dealership expenses at that time." Blinded by the magic word "free", I said "Sure thing!", and drove off the lot a new man - full of joy and hope for the future for perhaps the first time in my life. Finally, I had what (I thought) so many other people had - the perfect vehicle that would take me to that most glorious of destinations.

For a short time, all was seemingly rosy. I truly believed in my car, and received many congratulations and slaps on the back from friends and family for making such a wise "purchase". I started hanging out with other Christler owners and attending the weekly dealership meetings, joined online Christler discussion groups when the Internet came to pass, and felt like one of the "elect" that the salesman had assured me I was.

I say "seemingly" rosy, though, because after a few months I realized the nagging doubts about the wild claims and stated superiority of this car were gradually creeping back into my mind. The salesman had told me that was normal for new customers - that when I experienced these worries and doubts, I should just read the car's owner's manual for guidance. As a matter of fact, he told me to read at least some of the manual every day. He also advised me to call the CEO of Christler anytime I wanted to, and he would be available to talk to me any time of the day or night.  So I took his advice, and delved into the owner's manual. Of course, I had kinda sorta flipped through it when I first got the car, but this time I took my reading more seriously.

While I did receive some reassurance from reading the words of the automaker's CEO (mostly from the latter half of the manual), many things struck me as odd. First of all, the manual was huge, and divided into two main sections. There seemed to be a lot of things that didn't even relate to automobiles or the specific car in question - i.e. the Salvation. The first section of the manual, especially, was full of arcane history of the automobile industry and innumerable antiquated traffic laws. I also found out that the Christler CEO could be a downright cruel and nasty person at times, seemingly motivated to ruthlessly eliminate competition from other automakers as well as mercilessly punish those who violate seemingly trivial traffic laws (for example, driving with a pig in the passenger seat). I discovered in its pages a lot of history that did not jibe with the history outside the world of Christler, and many of the statements in the manual flat-out contradicted one another.

The second section of the manual did relate much information on the car I now owned. However, like Section One, it contained a lot of erroneous and contradictory statements. I also noticed that the astounding claims of the Salvation's miraculous abilities were mostly made by that Paul Tarsus guy, the man who had founded the dealership I got the car at. Interestingly, the CEO, who allegedly wrote or approved every word of the manual, wrote some of Section Two as if the car itself could "talk" (silly, I know - anthropomorphizing a car!). Reading the car's "words", which are in red ink for emphasis, I got the distinct impression that the car did not make such grandiose claims about itself, as dealership founder Paul Tarsus did.  The car "spoke" much more humbly about itself than that. Indeed, it spoke much more about the importance of being a responsible car owner, respecting the safety and rights of others on the road, and honoring the CEO of Christler, than about itself or its magical qualities. It all seemed so contradictory and confusing to me. I was left with many more questions than before I had cracked open the owner's manual.

So, per the salesman's advice, I decided to call Christler's CEO. No luck. To date, I have called him thousands of times, and I have yet to get anything but his voice mail. I have never received a call back, not even from his secretary.

Now deeply concerned, I drove back to the dealership and confronted the salesman with all I had gleaned from the owner's manual. "No problem, son", he said. "Let me give you these." He reached upon a bookshelf and handed me a stack of books written by various people. "Take these books and read them. They will tell you how to read the manual, and understand what it is saying". I asked him "If the Christler is such a great car, and so easy to drive and maintain, why is the owner's manual so damned complicated that other people have to tell me how to read and understand it? Shouldn't the owner's manual be as simple and straightforward as the car itself? Why do I need user manuals for a user manual?" The salesman, now visibly flustered, just told me to read the automotive apologetics he had given me and to keep the tank full of faithanol by just believing.

So I started reading the books he had given me. Sure enough, they were basically step-by-step instructions on how to read and understand the owner's manual. However, I noticed that the authors' interpretations often differed not only from mine, but from each others'. This wasn't helping at all.

To make things worse, the more I found out about my fellow Christler owners, the less I liked most of them. Many of them showed up at meetings mainly to prattle on about things other than their cars. When they did bother to talk about their Christlers, they tended to expound arrogantly and proudly on how special the car made them, not how special the car was itself. And all too often they spoke badly of people who owned other, non-Christler cars. It was as if many of these people acquired Christlers for the sole purpose of running other drivers off the road. This un-Christler-like behavior was most obvious in online discussion rooms. Cloaked in the anonymity of the internet, Christler devotees could unleash their unbridled contempt (and often, outright hatred) of anyone who dared to drive a "false" brand of car. People who drove cars fueled with petroleum by-products were routinely condemned to the "gasoline section" of automotive hell, and many Christler owners gleefully and openly salivated at that prospect. This behavior originated mainly from the most militant "true owner" Christler owners, who are often referred to as "minivangelicals". These people believe that the CEO of Christler speaks to them from within, and allows them to unerringly divine his owner's manual.

However, that is a blatantly false (and narcissistic and egomaniacal) notion, as I soon learned.  When two minivangelicals find out that they each have even minuscule differences of interpretation of the owner's manual, they will more often than not get into vicious fights and tell the other that their beliefs are straight from the pits of The Yugo Factory Of The Damned. It became obvious rather quickly that either a different Christler CEO speaks to each owner, or, much more likely, that each person reads and interprets the owner's manual through the filters and perceptions of his or her upbringing and past experiences.

So, more confused than ever, I went on with my life, not holding my car in nearly as high esteem as I did before. And then the damned thing started breaking down. The more I learned about the car, its owners, the manual and the CEO, the more trouble it would have starting in the morning. Of course, it started running out of fuel as well - I guess I didn't have enough faithanol to move a mustard seed, much less a car.

During this time, I encountered online a diverse group of people who were former Christler owners. They welcomed me warmly and treated me as a friend, even though I still referred to myself as an owner. This warm reception was in sharp contrast to many of my fellow Christler owners, who due to the fact I was having problems with my car were all too often contemptuously dismissive of me as "not a true Christler owner". These former owners had all gone through all the things I was currently going through, and knew how painful and nerve-wracking it is. They taught me the difference between apologetics and actual scholarly research, and encouraged me to read up on the true (historically accurate) origins of Christler and its CEO.

I did just that, and found out that the owner's manual was not written by the CEO, but instead was a hodgepodge of overly imaginative and historically inaccurate musings contributed by many different anonymous authors. I found out that what was included and what was left out of the manual was decided by committees who were more concerned about the bottom line of the various dealerships than they were the satisfaction of their customers. I found out that the CEO, at least as described in the manual, doesn't even exist - he is a fictitious amalgamation of several CEO's of car companies that existed before Christler Corporation was formed (in retrospect, it's little wonder he never called me back). I even found out that the Christler Salvation itself was built from designs "borrowed" from other, earlier cars - notably the Mazda Mithra.

I had taken the wrench of history and loosened the Christler's apologetics bolts mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had looked under the hood and beheld a jumbled mass of apologetics tubing and wiring of Rube Goldberg proportions, all of which were connected to a smaller version of the smoke-and-mirror machine that hung from the dealership ceiling. But there was no motor, no drivetrain, no transmission. These Christlers, I found out, never actually go anywhere. They are totally dependent on the imaginary fuel faithanol to give its owners some imagined sense of movement, as there is nothing factual or real to provide any substance to the vehicle.

I'm tempted to say the car never ran again after I opened the hood and peered into the engine compartment to see what was really in there. But in actuality, it never ran at all. Not once, since I first got it. The delusion that I had been driving down the road in the ultimate luxury car had been replaced by the realization that I had actually been bouncing around on one of those spring-borne coin operated toy car rides found outside many supermarkets. It's not just my particular Christler that was a lemon - it's every single one ever manufactured.

I found that I had done everything right, contrary to the minivangelicals' smug and judgmental proclamations that I hadn't. I was just as much of a "true owner" as any other Christler driver. The one difference? I committed the blasphemy of straying from the owner's manual and approved automotive apologetics reading list, thereby learning the actual history of the car. I had finally obtained the CarFax report the salesman wouldn't provide, and the report wasn't pretty.

The anonymous authors and conjurers of the fictitious CEO lied, the late dealership owner Paul Tarsus lied, the salesman lied, and too many Christler owners are so enslaved by the car's mythology that they are both too terrified and too proud to look under the hood and see for themselves the automotive fraud that has been perpetrated on them. The car itself may have cost nothing, but the contributions at the weekly dealership meetings over the course of a lifetime, combined with the fear-based enslavement to an empty lie, are a terrible price to pay for the delusion that you have something you actually don't.

What these dealerships are actually "giving away" - at such a terribly high emotional and intellectual cost to the customer - is  the "Observer Effect" of quantum auto mechanics: a car that exists in a very vague and fuzzy state until the state of its existence is changed by the mere act of looking at it.

The people who believe that they, because they own a wacky magic car, are on the "one true path" to the "one true destination", are instead being driven down a dead-end street. And all the while, the car manufacturer, dealers and salesmen are laughing all the way to the bank, knowing that the customers don't actually own the cars... the cars, and by extension the dealerships, own the customers.

Many customers don't care. They are very happy with their Christlers, and deliberately drive hundreds of miles out of their way to avoid learning that they are driving a massively defective vehicle. If they feel the car makes them a better person than they were before they got it, and they do no harm to others as they merrily motor along, then more power to them, I say. However, that way is no longer for me. I just can't drive that thing anymore.

I recently, within the last few weeks, ditched that worthless car. I called Sheol's Towing Service and had it hauled to Gehenna's Scrap Yard, where it belongs. And I felt that relief, happiness, sadness and anger that I mentioned at the very beginning of this post. Still do, as a matter of fact.

Does that mean I have given up my journey? Not at all. I just won't be traveling by car. Liberated from the artificial construct of a false and manmade "journey fullfillment machine", and no longer forced to hurtle headlong down a one-way interstate to nowhere, I am now free to meander on the highways, byways, winding country roads and avenues of my choice. I have a feeling that the right destination will be waiting for me, no matter which path I take or which non-automotive mode of transportation I choose to employ.

Susan Boyle Teaches Us A Lesson

Saturday, April 18, 2009

 You go, girl.

I am no fan of "reality" television. Especially the talent competitions. These shows make millions of dollars by making fools out of everyday people, and specialize in selecting the most "marketable" singin' bimbo or himbo. American Idol specializes in making people out to be fools. They go out of their way to do that, by showing "audition episodes" to start out each season. In these episodes, the public is treated to wave after wave of people who are perfectly willing to be humiliated for the sake of ratings for Fox.

In Western culture, superficial things such as physical appearance are valued above all else. The entertainment industry is no exception, and is indeed one of the prime culprits in our transformation into a shallow culture. Plasticized bimbos with little vocal talent dominate the music charts. Most of the yodeling bimbos who are successful these days owe their success to careful attention to marketing and even more careful attention to electronic altering of the bimbo's voice so that it is passable on CD or onstage.

However, once in a while someone comes along who reminds us not to judge the proverbial book by its cover (I'm as guilty as anyone else, so don't think I'm preachin' to anyone here). In this case, the "someone" is Susan Boyle, a 47 year-old unmarried woman from Scotland. As many of you probably already know, she recently appeared on the British talent competition Britain's Got Talent. This show is another one of Simon Cowell's endeavors.

Those of you who count themselves among the over 25 million people who have seen the Youtube video of Susan's performance (in just one week!) will agree that she, while a lovely and sweet person, in no way fits the Western ideal of physical beauty. Her teeth are a mess, her hair is wild and unruly, she's overweight and all in all she could easily be the dictionary definition of the word "frumpy". She came off as a bit scatterbrained, and had trouble at one point putting her words together coherently. The show introduced her in the way these shows introduce all the abject failures presented for the audience's entertainment - with scenes of her wolfing down a sandwich, of her doing a goofy interview with that show's versions of Ryan Seacrest, all the while never taking her in the least seriously.

So, when she walked out on stage, the audience was already primed for amusement at her expense. The judges were no better, with smirks and eye-rolls galore. Simon, as he does on American Idol, asked her where she was from, how old she was (his eyes almost rolled out of his head when she said she was 47), and the real laugh came when he asked her who she wanted to be as famous as. "Elaine Paige", Susan replied. That got the audience going, with shots of the audience showing smirks and laughter. Simon asked her what song she was going to sing, and she replied "I Dreamed the Dream" from Les Miserables. So the music was cued, and she began to sing.

Oh, my.

She had barely finished the first ten words to the song and the audience went wild in shock, approval and utter disbelief. The standing ovation she received lasted through almost the entirety of her performance, with two of the three judges joining in at times (Simon did not stand up, although he did sit there with an amazed grin on his face much of the time).

After Boyle's transcendent performance, she walked off the stage, forgetting that she still had to speak to the judges. A delightfully humorous moment, actually - one that bespoke of her childlike naivete. When the judges did speak to her, two of them were pretty cruel while they were lavishing praise on her. Piers Morgan said  "When you stood there with that cheeky grin and said, 'I want to be like Elaine Paige', everyone was laughing at you. No one is laughing now." Amanda Holden told her "I am so thrilled, because I know that everybody was against you." Talk about backhanded compliments. The implication of course, is that since Ms. Boyle is not physically a supermodel, that no one had any expectations of her doing a worthwhile singing job. Somehow, we have gotten it into our heads that being beautiful somehow lends to one's singing voice. We have put ourselves in a wretched place where we tell ourselves that physically unattractive people are beneath our serious consideration because they can't possibly be good at anything.

As I stated in the beginning of this post, I dislike reality TV. However, I got wind of this performance on a discussion forum, and mainly out of boredom I clicked on the Youtube link with absolutely zero expectations. I'm very cynical and not given to undue displays of emotion, but after seeing the whole sequence my eyes were welling up with tears. I rarely have seen a moment like this in all my life. I can only think of a couple of comparable triumphs of the human spirit that have gained notoriety in the last few years. One was when a high school basketball team let their severely autistic team member come off the bench and actually play - to which he responded by nailing a multitude of three-pointers that played a huge role in his team's victory. The other was a youth baseball team that, with the game on the line, put in a teammate severely disabled with Down syndrome. The opposing team voluntarily let them win by allowing the disabled child to get a hit - as I recall they basically let him have an inside the park home run.

So, I have to wonder... if moments like these are so special, why aren't we as a society doing more to encourage them? I am confident that while Susan Boyle's performance temporarily touched millions of people's hearts, in short order most of us will probably return to laughing at those who aren't considered pinnacles of beauty. We will continue to laugh at them and not expect anything from them, in order to allow us to overlook our own myriad imperfections and feel better about ourselves in the process.

We should be exalting the Susan Boyles of this world, not denigrating them. The fact that we don't says a hell of a lot more about us than it does Susan Boyle.

In reality, in all the ways that matter, Susan Boyle is extraordinarily beautiful. Not in the shallow physical sense, but in the human sense. An unassuming, friendly, loving person who stays at home to take care of her elderly, ailing mother. A person full of love who freely, if sadly, admits she's "never been kissed". A person who delighted in telling the world she has a cat named Pebbles. A person who, from what I can see, takes the taunts of a mean-spirited world in stride, and instead of going tit-for-tat, gives nothing back but sweetness and modesty (and a marvelous voice) in return.

In a world where "success" is personified by talentless human wreckage like Britney Spears, Susan Boyle is a reminder of what real success is all about. Success and beauty do not come from external sources, they come from the strength within us. Ms. Boyle taught the world an important lesson last week, and we all owe her a debt of gratitude for causing us to at least temporarily look in the mirror she presented us with.

For those of you who have not seen this remarkable video, go here (Youtube is not allowing embedding of this video for some reason). I also found a recording of her singing "Cry Me A River" from a 1999 charity CD, which you can listen to here.

Will she achieve her dream of being a renowned professional singer in the long run? I would imagine she has a very good shot, especially with Simon Cowell now firmly in her corner, reportedly putting together a recording deal for her. I have seen some critiques of her performance on the Internet that put aside the human drama aspect and call her singing mediocre by professional standards. That may be true; I'm certainly no expert on the subject. However, if that stunning performance is indicative of an untrained singing voice, I would imagine professional vocal training would greatly enhance the huge vocal advantage she already has over the vast majority of the world.

Internet cynics have been out in force, claiming that this entire drama has been a contrivance by the show's producers to make millions of dollars off of suckers like us, while Susan herself gets used up and cast out after she is no longer of any use. Well, there is probably some nugget of truth in what they say. After all, the producers did know her singing voice before she went out on stage that night, so they purposely cast her as the ultimate underdog in order to elicit the desired response. Shows like that exist to make money for their networks, and no one should be so naive as to think that show business is not a calculating enterprise that is based on the bottom line like any other business. However, I believe that in this case, the cynics are being petty, narrow-minded, and are missing the greater point.

Whatever Ms. Boyle's singing future has in store for her, she has, in the space of a few short minutes, already had a more profound impact on the world than many musical performers could ever hope to achieve simply by singing one song. God bless you, Susan Boyle. You uplifted us, and you gave us all a lot to reflect on by showing us what real beauty is all about.

Happy Birthday To Me...

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog, so I thought I'd post a quickie.

It's hard to believe it's been a year already!

My new painting business routine is incredibly busy, but has settled to the point where I can confidently state that I'll be back posting on a regular basis soon, although maybe not on a daily basis as I tried to do in the past. I'm thinking about changing the format slightly and making this blog more of a general outlet, as opposed to the religion and science themes that have been the main focus thus far. We'll see what happens.

In any case, I thank all my millions of adoring fans *cough cough* for being so patient, and hopefully I'll see y'all again real soon.

Blog Update

Friday, January 23, 2009

Sorry about the lack of posting lately, folks... I have been too busy to mess with the blog lately. This trend will continue indefinitely, unfortunately.

I recently acquired a new customer for my painting business - a 200-unit townhouse complex. I have more work than I can handle every single day now, which is a good thing seeing as I was basically just sitting around for the last few months waiting for programming or painting work to come my way. I was selected out of a group of over 40 subcontractor applicants for this gig, so I feel very blessed. Given that the economy is in such bad shape, this opportunity is something of a minor miracle.

Unfortunately, this means that I can no longer post on a near-daily basis as I have done these last seven months or so. I love my little corner of the blogoverse, have worked very hard on it, and hate to neglect it. But, neglect it I must. By the time I get home I'm usually too tired to do anything but check my email and go to bed. So, not much time for researching and composing blog entries anymore.

I'll try to post a few times a month, but it seems that overall, the blog is pretty much shelved.

It was fun while it lasted, and maybe I'll get that motivation back someday. In the meantime, thanks to all who regularly visit me and leave thoughtful comments. Hopefully, I'll be posting regularly again some day.

Gumby

Trading Spouses, Lunatic Edition

Thursday, January 15, 2009

This is one of the most disturbing videos I have ever seen. I guess this is a couple years old but it's the first time I've seen it. This is what fundamentalism can do to people, and what it can do to a fundamentalist's family. It's from the Fox show Trading Spouses. Watch how happy the family is until Mama comes home. I feel so sorry for her husband and children, especially the youngest daughter. She looked terrified, as well she should.



It just boggles my mind.

My So-Called Life

Sunday, January 11, 2009

 

It's alive... IT'S ALIIIIIVE!!!

Abiogenesis, or the scientific study of  the origin of life, is a field in its infancy. Much research has been conducted, but many of the results are inconclusive and at best hypothetical. That is understandable. The distinction between life and non-life is so drastic, yet the boundary is vague - not every scientist agrees when an assemblage of replicating molecules can be defined as "alive".  The general consensus is that the first life forms were single-celled prokaryotes, which are (generally unicellular) organisms that lack a nucleus. Common bacteria are examples of prokaryotes. They are thought to have existed as long as 4 billion years ago, or only 500 million years after the initial formation of our planet.

It is generally agreed upon that life first arose when ordinary chemical reactions produced chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of life. In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids. The question of the origin of life is therefore a question of how the first nucleic acids came into existence.

Scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened. It's not life, they stress, but it shares some of the characteristics of life. The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete. Specifically, what they did was get RNA to replicate itself in a lab without the help of any proteins or other cellular machinery.

To clarify this a bit, let's take a very quick look at DNA and RNA. DNA is the "blueprint" of life, the molecules that pack all the genetic information of a cell. DNA and the genes within it are where mutations occur, enabling changes that create new species.  RNA is the close cousin to DNA. More accurately, RNA is thought to be a primitive ancestor of DNA. RNA can't run a life form on its own, but 4 billion years ago it might have been on the verge of creating life, just needing some chemical fix to make the leap. In today's world, RNA is dependent on DNA for performing its roles, which include coding for proteins.

Back to the experiment.

The researchers synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely. "Immortalized" RNA, they call it, at least within the limited conditions of a laboratory.More significantly, the scientists then mixed different RNA enzymes that had replicated, along with some of the raw material they were working with, and let them compete.

What happened? They bred. And now and then, one of these survivors would screw up, binding with some other bit of raw material it hadn't been using - just as life forms do.

When these mutations occurred, "the resulting recombinant enzymes also were capable of sustained replication, with the most fit replicators growing in number to dominate the mixture," the scientists report.In other words, the RNA that was most able to adapt to its environment was the RNA that propagated most effectively... evolution by natural selection.

The scientists were careful to reiterate that while the self-replicating RNA enzyme systems share certain characteristics of life, they are not life as we know it. However, the day will come when science indeed creates life from scratch.

Source: LiveScience

Here, Kitty, Kitty!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Awwww.... he's adowwwable!

More proof that PETA has lost its collective mind, courtesy of the Associated Press:

SPEARFISH, S.D. – The activist animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked school officials to change the name of Spearfish High School to "Sea Kitten High School." The new name would "reflect the gentle nature of its current marine namesake," the organization said in a letter to Steve Morford, Spearfish High School principal.

PETA said the letter is part of a new Sea Kitten campaign aimed at children.

If children were taught to refer to fish as "sea kittens," reflecting that fish, like cats and dogs, are "individuals" that "do have friendships," fewer fish might be killed for food or sport, said Pulin Modi, a PETA spokesman.
"We want people to realize that more fish are killed each year than all animals combined," he said. "They don't have the sympathy of more popular animals like cats and dogs."

Morford said he did not want to share his feelings about PETA. "Obviously, it's nothing we're taking seriously," he said.

Good Lord. Of course, I do not wish to see any creature come to unnecessary harm.  But PETA is doing nothing but exacerbating their public image as a bunch of kooks with crap like this.

And who says kittens are cute and cuddly? This "innocent" little guy below terrifies me, quite frankly.