Random ramblings and ravings of Richy B
![[Cat Swearing]](https://blog.rac.me.uk/photos/catswear-thumb.jpg)
“Dear Dog,
I am sorry that you were sent to the pound for the broken lamp that you did not break, for the missing fish that you did not eat and for the wet carpet that you did not wet.Things at the house are a lot calmer now and to show you that I have no hard feelings, I am sending you this picture so that you’ll always remember me.
Your Friend,
The Cat
(if you don’t get it, click on the picture and look carefully)
![[ODP Forums]](https://blog.rac.me.uk/photos/odpforums.jpg)
It appears that Yet Another Forum has been started for discussion about ODP (the Open Directory Project – aka Dmoz.org) matters. This one is called Webmaster-Forum.net and is run by an ex-editor (who, I believe, was removed because of abuse or self-promotional reasons).
Already their board has five 5 threads: “dmoz versus yahoo” (which basically asks if you should pay to get into Yahoo or try and get into the ODP – answer: do both!), “dmoz editors test” (where someone asks if there is a test to be an ODP editor: the answer is yes – we do have an application process which people have to pass), “me & kctipton” (where the board administrator ‘John Scott’ states that he is an ex-editor and has a little rant) and “death of the open directory project” (where a member states that ODP will probably die because of bad spelling, grammatical errors, over-listing of sites and omission of sites) and finally “A Solution to the ODP problems” which is actually a good read. However, the solutions proposed aren’t quite workable (as I stated in my post on Resource-Zone).
The main question is: Do we really need yet another board/forum where editors are expected to contribute? We already have the “semi-official” Resource-Zone forum where a large number of editors help out (I help out quite a bit and I’m about the 4th most active poster there: currently with 424 posts to my name) – it’s run by editors, contributed by editors and semi-supported by the ODP staff (i.e. they occasionally read some threads, contribute sometimes but don’t “support” it in any official capacity).
![[ICQ Status: Away]](https://blog.rac.me.uk/photos/icqstatusaway.gif)
Taking after Neil again, here’s the results of my ICQuiz (by WannabeGirl).
It seems my ICQ status is ‘Away’: “I get distracted very easily. Even you can’t get my full attention.” I don’t quite agree with that statement, but I’m sure it’s not meant to be a scientific test… Oddly enough, that is the same result as Neil…
A few things about the quiz: “1. Do you have a long ICQ contact list?”. Define long :). “3. Are you avoiding any of them [people on your contact list]” – no, if I’m avoiding someone I block them and then remove them from my contact list. “11. Can people see your online status from your website” – not from this website, but some other websites that I contribute to have my ICQ status displayed.
![[Santa]](https://blog.rac.me.uk/photos/santa.jpg)
Yippee! I’ve just been sent a couple more Christmas jokes – “The 3 Stages of Man” and “Twas The Day After Christmas” (I also blogged about the Internet Night Before Christmas).
The 3 Stages of Man
He believes in Santa Claus.
He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus.
He is Santa Claus.
![[Clone]](https://blog.rac.me.uk/photos/clone.jpg)
Looking at various news sources (I first read about it via Tracy‘s blog, but it’s now been covered by CNN, the BBC, CTV.ca, ABC News, The Independent, MSNBC, Ananova and many other news services), it appears Clonaid has been the first organisation to clone a human being. They’ve named the little girl which was born on Boxing Day to a 31 year old American woman “Eve”.
Whilst there has yet to be any scientific evidence presented by Clonaid (they say DNA evidence will be available in 8 to 9 days time and according to the CNN article, there will be strict 3rd party evaluation of the evidence), there is a large amount of controversy about this claim. It goes further than the normal ‘Is cloning right?‘ moral issues… It appears the company has very strong links to a cult religious group called the “Raelians” (indeed, the scientific director of Clonaid – Brigitte Boisselier – is a “bishop” in the group).
The Raelians believe their spiritual leader is a direct descendant of the aliens that created life on Earth through genetic engineering. This spiritual leader is the former French journalist Claude Vorilhon (who now calls himself Rael) who also wrote the books “Messages given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials“, “Yes to Human Cloning: Immortality Thanks to Science“, “Lets Welcome the Extra Terrestrials” – may I just remind readers of a slightly similarity with the founder of Scientology – L. Ron Hubbard – who was also an author/writer (and, it appears, the Raelians also have ‘ties’ with the CoS).
Whilst I’m waiting for true scientific evidence to emerge before making a decision on this issue, I’ve already put the salt on standby (i.e. I’m taking this with a large pinch of salt/I have large doubts about this). Religious “cults” have not exactly had a good track record for telling the truth, plus the likely hood of the Raelian‘s coming from practically ‘nothing’ to producing a fully fledged human clone seems unlikely to me (considering a large number of other companies have been working on the same thing and have not yet achieved success)…