Yee-Haw! it's Buffalo Mel's Wild Net Show!

All You Buckaroos!

E-mail Buffalo Mel! Read the interview with Buffalo Mel in Rebel Planet. Visit Buffalo Mel'sWild Web Corrals (entertaining and informative!): * WILD Web DESIGN * YOUR Friendly Staff(Warning, saccharine sweet! Not for weak stomachs!) * AMUSEMENTS

YOUR Friendly Staff

Buffalo MelSon Tory's pageSon Mickey's band's web page (612 Crew)Nephew Jacob's web pageNiece Eliza's web pageNiece Melissa's web pageSonnets For My SonsLearn means more thanyou can stand aboutBuffalo Mel's affectionfor her children.

AMUSEMENTS

Any good Wild Web Show needsamusements and entertainments. Buffalo Mel is proud to presentthese show-stopping hyperlinks, introducedfrom all around the known net universe: THE Food STAND: * GENWAY, the Supermarket forGenetically Engineered Foods * THE Fun House: (Fool with your mind's eye!) * Magic Eye Stereogram of the Week * * Find The Spam * Side Show ACTS: * Amuse-o-Matic 2000 * * Trendy Magic - Interactive Style * * Stare Down Sally * THE ANIMAL BARN * The Hamster Dance * * Furby Autopsy * * The Parktown Prawn * THE MIDWAY: * Crazy Joe's Internet Bungee Jump * THE STADIUM * Run the Los Angeles Marathon *(a shockwave sport) THE TUNNEL OF LOVE: * Mr. Showbiz Celebrity Love Match * AND To complete YOUR DAY OF Fun: * Fireworks * Who turned on the Infinite Improbability Drive?03/22/ninety nine Can anybody pinpoint for me the moment in time when our consensual reality turned right into a Douglas Adams novel? Not that I'm opposed to insanely foolish science fiction - it is simply that I'm reeling at present from the awareness that we not need to go to the films or take medication to expertise life within the quick lane of an alternate universe. Today is Monday. I nearly wrote an essay on Saturday, due to the plethora of bizarre guys-in-power stories in the brand new York Times: the president of Bolivia introduced that all authorities officials would be obligated to take drug tests, the Yeltsin authorities launched a videotape displaying Russia's Prosecutor General in mattress with two women, and President Clinton said that "when the final phrase was written on his legacy, he would have one strike in opposition to him -- for mendacity -- but 'a whole bunch and tons of and a whole lot' of pluses for the occasions that he was truthful." (Bill Clinton's epitaph: "More often than not, he advised the reality".) Okay, so Saturday's information confirmed us we were residing in a Kurt Vonnegut universe; not likely a big deal, since we have actually been residing there since Reagan was elected President (see Slaughterhouse Five). I believed for a while about writing an essay discussing the fact that our world's governments are clearly being run now by adolescent boys, however decided to shampoo my rugs as a substitute. And then in the present day I read the net papers and realized that we - you and that i - at the moment are characters in a narrative that might simply be mistaken for Book Six of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The primary trace that we might slid into this different dimension came once i read the story in regards to the 4-legged rooster, proudly Dr. Frankensteined by scientists at Harvard Medical School (The Electronic Telegraph). The scientists did this by taking part in switcheroo games with hen wing and leg genes ("To establish the genes that convey 'legness' is wonderful", stated one scientist). Holy Zaphod Beeblebrox! The next little twinges got here whereas perusing one of my favorite papers, The Sunday Times (London), where we make a type of Michael Crichtonesque facet trip into the world of reanimating extinct species, in this case, the dodo chicken. British researchers are recovering fragments of genetic materials from dodo body parts preserved at Oxford University's Natural History Museum, hoping to "pave the way in which for the species to be recreated some day", although the paucity of fabric makes it unlikely that they are going to have the ability to recreate a perfectly excellent dodo; they'll most likely must settle for a pseudo sorta dodo, using bits and pieces of semi-dodo wannabees. Hopefully they'll chorus from giving it extra legs. The Douglas Adams-like twist to this story? Ecologists are worried "that bringing again an animal resembling the dodo would possibly persuade the public that there is now not any want to guard endangered species, as any creatures wiped out by man could possibly be recreated" (sort of like Kleenex - use it up, throw it away, and belief that the manufacturing unit will keep cranking out replacements, hopefully new and improved). One scientist made an announcement I discovered kind of ominous: in discussing the troublesome of recreating a perfect dodo utilizing only the tiny fragments of material that survive, he said "You solely have to get somewhat bit fallacious to get a non-viable animal - a single mistake could be lethal". It appears to me that when you are messing with genes, "slightly bit unsuitable" might end in something way more important than a "non-viable animal" (the dodo is extinct, in any case; non-viability is one thing of a redundant problem); my query is: lethal for whom? Which ends up in our subsequent story, about the newest weapon in the British army arsenal, the Neostead shotgun. This is a handgun "so highly effective it could demolish walls or stop a mild tank in its tracks"; a weapon which "has by no means been seen outdoors Hollywood science-fiction epics"; it may well "scythe by way of armour or spray advancing troops with lots of of lethal ball bearings" and allow one man "to destroy a small convoy or kill dozens of advancing troops", but "is small sufficient to be carried in a shoulder holster and has a recoil system so sophisticated that it can be held and fired with one hand" (The Sunday Times). The South African-made gun is being bought initially for special forces, but "is also utilized by elite police squads". I read this, my paranoid American mind racing with ideas concerning the almost infinite abuses inherent in the existence of this weapon, wondering how many individuals (maybe even members of the criminal aspect!) are shopping for this thing on the internet right at this very second. You recognize me, always jumping to wild conclusions. However the wonderfully British Sunday Times could be very prosaic in regards to the inclusion of the Neostead within the British navy and police arsenal, providing just one remark about other possible uses of this shotgun: Graham Downing, the British Field Sports Society's shooting consultant, stated that using the Neostead on recreation shoots in Britain could be unlawful because it fires more than three cartridges: "It's not really on to turn up at a recreation shoot with a semi-computerized or pump-motion shotgun." Those Brits are very serious about being sportsmanlike whenever you hunt. So while you go searching 4-legged dodo birds in Britain, go away your anti-tank handgun at dwelling. This isn't your grandmother's actuality anymore.© 1999 Melanie Bacon All rights reserved.

Jonathan Swift wrote a satirical piece just a few hundred years in the past called "A Modest Proposal," during which he suggested that since Irish children had been simply dying horribly anyway, they might as well be used like slaughter animals to learn the society. We haven't adopted all of his ideas, but as we speak's information reveals that trendy society definitely has embraced the spirit of his proposal. Children are a commodity, so much so that I've been occupied with writing a narrative through which youngsters futures are traded on the inventory exchange. I have a web page called Bedtime Stories, wherein I encapsulate unusual information items related to children, culled from the varied newspapers I read on the web. I found 5 tales at this time, from all around the world; no doubt I would have found more, but I'd already been on the web for 2 hours and wanted to get just a little work executed. Three of the tales bore the same theme: people figuring out methods to capitalize on kids. The primary is a unhappy story about how kids are the true victims in war; on this case, it's a civil war in the Sudan, where children are captured and enslaved by conquering forces. Outside companies face a catch-22: they can purchase the children and set them free, but in the event that they try this (1) they validate the concept of buying and promoting human beings by collaborating in it, (2) the youngsters return house to the struggle zone the place they might end up getting recaptured and re-enslaved, and (3) the profits from the slave trade go back into the warfare machine. What's an omniscient world physique to do? Too dangerous it is children who're being seized - if the conquering forces were stealing oil reserves, the UN solution could be apparent. And then there's that pesky unlawful drug drawback in the United States. Drugs, children, medication, children - mother and father face such troublesome selections nowadays. A Des Moines, Iowa lady figured out a solution: to settle a drug debt, she loaned her 11-yr-outdated daughter to her drug dealers, who took the lady to California with them on enterprise and then gave her a brand new pair of platform sneakers, omitting to inform her that her toes were getting used to ship product. Both of these stories have no less than the excuse of human desperation. There isn't any such excuse for my third and favourite story, a narrative about pure greed, intercourse and sensationalism: the race to provide and promote the first child born within the year 2000. This is an enormous deal right now, because if you are even going to be within the running you need to conceive the little bugger someday in the following few weeks. There are corporations right now, in the present day, having conceive-a-thons, sponsoring after which interviewing panting couples who hope that the final ejaculation was the fortunate one. But the large money will likely be in the delivery: people are scheduling cesarians, and reserving rooms at God's personal finish of the Earth (where the crack of dawn means literally that), and going to immense amounts of hassle to ensure that their child will be the very completely absolutely first one born within the yr 2000, which will garner them enormous pots of money and prizes which maybe they will even share with the child (who's guaranteed to be named something cutely terrible). But just one member of the category of 2018 goes be the 'winner'. What happens in the families where the child doesn't cooperate? Will Mommy and Daddy love Junior just as a lot if he's born half-a-second too late and so they lose tens of millions of dollars? What schemes will they provide you with to recoup their funding? Will they sue the kid for emotional trauma and loss of revenue? Or possibly promote him to drug dealers? I'm having this nightmare imaginative and prescient the place a pair makes use of fertility medicine to make sure that at the least one of their little darlings arrives at exactly the right moment (and you know, you simply KNOW there are folks out there right now planning to do this). This baby race business offers a complete new meaning to the phrase "family planning". I'm reminded of Hosea 13:13, wherein God is trying to offer beginning to Israel "but he's an unwise son; for now he does not current himself on the mouth of the womb." What's a Mother to do with this uncooperative child? "Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death?" No method, God the Mother says, "Compassion is hid from my eyes." And God did not even have thousands and thousands of bucks and a movie of the week deal at stake.© 1999 Melanie Bacon All rights reserved.

Like a cow chewing her cud, I've been sitting here ruminating over three articles in at present's New York Times. In the first, "U.S. And 5 Allies Reject Global Treaty on Trade in Genetically Altered Goods", we study that "some 25 p.c to forty five % of main crops grown in the United States are genetically modified", and that "makes an attempt to forge the world's first world treaty to regulate commerce in genetically modified products failed Wednesday morning when the United States and five different massive agricultural exporters rejected a proposal that had the help of the remainder of the roughly 130 nations". Evidently, "proponents of the treaty, particularly European nations, have resisted genetically modified products, frightened that not sufficient is understood about the doable results on human well being and the environment". The aim of the treaty is to require exporters of genetically-altered merchandise to get permission before they export it to international locations who don't need it. The U.S. and its 5 big genetically-altering agricultural exporter buddies don't wish to should get advance approval from nations before exporting these items to them, as a result of they think that is too much purple tape. (An aside: the plight of the 130 nations in regulating the import of unwanted genetically-altered merchandise into their international locations reminded me of a story in at this time's Star Tribune, "My Mother Is A Sweepstakes Junkie", which talks in regards to the frustrations families feel when trying to get junk mailers to stop sending undesirable packages and solicitations to their elderly dad and mom). The second New York Times article, "Gene Therapy Passes Important Test, in Monkeys", starts out amusingly with "A colony of 54 rhesus monkeys on the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia was peacefully watching an episode of the second "Star Trek" series one latest afternoon when an alien-wanting squad of higher primates, decked out in masks and white disposable boiler suits and ridiculous bootees, marched into their quarters"; the aim of the aliens was to scarf some monkey blood to use of their newest gene therapy experiments. Developers of gene therapy (trying to cure folks by inserting good genes into their bodies to exchange or modify the unhealthy or absent genes) use modified viruses to infect the body with the nice genes. Their enemy has been the human immune system, which thinks a virus is a nasty thing and one thing to be gotten rid of (with greater or lesser success; my immune system has managed to destroy a lot of the flu virus that infected me for every week or two, however I'm still hacking away with a miserable cough.) (That was one other aside). These gene therapist folks (aka "the aliens") try to develop a virus shell which "doesn't greatly provoke the body's immune system", thereby tricking the human body into permitting these foreign genes to completely alter the genetic construction of not solely the person, however even "remedying a genetic disease within the affected person's descendants...making inheritable modifications in the human genome" (or "thy seed after thee of their generations", to quote Genesis). Their intentions, after all, are wholly benign and honorable; their aim is simply to learn humanity and the shareholders of the companies that fund them. By the way in which, this is similar munificent goal of the six countries that insist on exporting gene-altered agricultural products to the 130 countries that are too nervous or ignorant or jealous or god-is aware of-what to know what's really good for them. The third little story that caught my consideration, "On Germ Patrol, at the Kitchen Sink", is a human interest piece about scientist Dr. Charles Gerba, who studies germs. It appears our houses are infested with gazillions of the little critters; he seems to focus totally on microbes within the bathroom, kitchen and laundry. For instance, Dr. Gerba found that one-fifth of the washing machines in the houses of people in a single examine contained E. coli, whereas a quarter had been contaminated with fecal matter, and "that some salmonella and hepatitis A survive via laundry -- including the dry cycle -- and remain on clothes". He discovered that "in most houses, the bathroom is far cleaner than the kitchen", and that "due to contamination launched by meat and vegetables, sinks harbor probably the most harmful micro organism, and individuals who seem cleanest -- who wipe down counters frequently with their kitchen sponge -- are inclined to have that micro organism throughout their kitchen." Personally, he makes use of a lot of bleach. This is the sentence that sort of tied this story in with the others for me: "He predicts that infectious disease, or microbe-precipitated illness will change into extra prevalent, explaining that antibiotic resistance, our aging drinking water infrastructure, and emerging pathogens will give microbes the leverage they need in the subsequent century". Okay, so here's the mixed story as my thoughts sits here distorting it: Creating wealth helping people is an efficient thing. It is sweet - and profitable - to supply food to folks. It is sweet - and worthwhile - to cure individuals's diseases. Altering the genes of agricultural products ends in a greater yield of "good" products. It might also result in larger yield of "unhealthy" products ("some scientists worry, as an illustration, that a gene conferring insect resistance or drought tolerance on a crop could unfold to weedy kinfolk of that crop through cross-pollination, creating superweeds"), but the mixture of fast income and rapid humanitarian profit will inevitably win the argument. Creating a virus shell that may bypass the human immune system to put "good" genes into an individual and their descendants is a "good" factor. Presumably using that same virus shell to deliver "bad" genes can be a "bad" thing, however nobody seems to be too concerned about it, probably as a result of no one's but discovered tips on how to make cash on it (it might be a problem if the acquisition of land and/or power had been nonetheless predominant human motivators, but we'll go away dialogue of "Corporation As King" for another essay). So we're gene splicing and gene modifying this meals product and that animal and this human being, and so they in flip alter different animals, plants and people by way of contagion and reproduction; and in the meantime we're having this explosion in germs and microbe-precipitated illnesses, which presumably we'll try to "handle" by means of further gene therapy and genetic manipulation; and hopefully there'll never be a geneticist Hitler who'll want to make use of these instruments in his nefarious schemes as a result of, in spite of everything, the place's the money in that? I watched a program on The History Channel last evening, known as "Ancient Aliens". This program explored the thesis that human beings are ourselves the result of genetic manipulations by aliens over a time period from millions of years ago to a couple thousand years in the past (and folks who ascribe to the "alien abduction" idea would say it's still occurring). Let's presume for a second that the thesis is true: that we're the results of genetic manipulation. The ensuing genetically-altered species (aka "us") might be seen as both a "good" thing for Earth, and a "unhealthy" thing: good because our evolving consciousness is contributing to the evolving consciousness of the universe (if you don't understand that, don't be concerned about it); dangerous because we are hell-bent on destroying every little thing of value in our setting - our water, our air, our bio-chemical balance, the other species we share house with, blah, blah, blah, you understand all that stuff already. Once i weigh it out, I have to say, regardless of all our greatest intentions, the "dangerous" outweighs the "good". I think the Earth can be means higher off if there weren't any folks infecting her. You will have a unique opinion. I think the aliens made a mistake messing with our genes. And I feel we're making a mistake in furthering the experiment. The greatest argument towards genetic manipulation is: us. Oh, by the way in which, one other little piece in as we speak's World Briefing section of the new York Times grabbed my attention: "Mexico: Drug Use on Rise"; this is the piece in its entirety: Mexicans' unlawful drug consumption has elevated by 56 percent in 5 years, although consumption stays far decrease than in the U.S., a authorities survey found. In 1993, 1.6 million Mexicans consumed some type of unlawful medication; in 1998 the figure was 2.5 million. Last yr 4.7 % of Mexicans smoked marijuana, in contrast with 33 p.c in the U.S. Sam Dillon (NYT) 33% of individuals within the U.S. smoked marijuana final yr?! If this is not a typo, then there are extra marijuana smokers within the United States than there are cigarette smokers. I am not a marijuana smoker (nor a cigarette smoker), and till I read that sentence I had by no means purchased the argument that marijuana ought to be legalized in this nation. But if this share is true, then clearly U.S.

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