"I just want to live a normal life, like other cats," said cc, the first domestic animal clone in a statement released Thursday. "When I play with a ball of yarn, I don't want people to say, 'Oh, look at the abomination, it's being so cute. It really was worth it for those scientists to play God!' I just want them to think of me as a regular cat." Cc was created by researchers in Texas who hope to enter the Clone-Your-Pet-for-Millions-of-Dollars market with their new technology. The process involves taking DNA from an animal, implanting it into the DNA-stripped egg of another animal, and then implanting that into yet another animal (or in this case, 87 more animals). The end result is one cute little kitten that might even live a few years before suffering and dying of some horrible genetic defect like Dolly the cloned sheep's premature arthritis.
Currently, researchers are working to reduce the amount of money and large number of donor animals necessary for the process. Scientists in Massachusetts have allegedly found a process which takes only two months, costs virtually no money, and necessitates the use of only two donor cats. Their working title for this new process is "sex."
Cc is less than receptive to all the media attention she has been getting lately. She says she just wants to be able to lead a normal life, going to cat school with all the other kitties, growing up and starting a family of potential genetic dead-ends, and so on. "In the end," she says, "I guess the value of the lives of cloned animals just depends on whether some filthy rich people think we are somehow the same as their beloved dead pet. In that respect, at least, cloned animals can be like everything else--controlled by the very rich."
Montezuma II, the centuries-dead leader of the Aztecs, finally got his revenge on an unsuspecting tourist of European descent earlier this week. Ian Vandewalker, a data-entry clerk from Lakeland, Florida, was struck by a pretty bad case of diarrhea on a five-day trip to Mexico. Vandewalker and some friends from college decided to take a bus to Mexico for a few days, staying in Guaymas and Alamos. Shortly before leaving Guaymas, the young travelers stopped at a restaurant. There, Vandewalker ordered "lo mismo" as a friend, which turned out to have lettuce on it. Unlike in the United States, people can't eat lettuce in Mexico because of a sinister plot on the part of the famous ruler of the Aztecs.
Montezuma II (or Moctezuma) was trained as a priest and rose to become leader of the Aztecs in 1502. At the time the Aztecs controlled most of what is now Mexico and Central America, their capital being at the great city of Tenotchitlan (Mexico City). When Hernan Cortes arrived in 1519, Montezuma thought the Spanish conquerors were descendants of the god Quetzalcoatl. Montezuma allowed the Spaniards to enter Tenotchitlan unopposed, and he was captured and held hostage by Cortes. Montezuma was stabbed by the Spaniards to death, presumably refuting his notion that they were descended from a god. The Spanish, who went on to conquer the whole area now known as Mexico, thought that they had beaten Montezuma pretty good. The dead ruler has proved them wrong however, by controlling the level of bacteria in the water of Mexico. From beyond the grave, Montezuma was able to put the same nasty level of bacteria in the water as in that of other third-world countries, a level of bacteria which residents of first-world countries are not used to. When exposed to these bacteria, Europeans and Americans can get violent diarrhea, nausea, even fever. Ian Vandewalker had all three for days. His diarrhea has lasted longer than a week so far.
How many more people of European descent must suffer before Montezuma's blood lust is satiated? This reign of gastro-intestinal terror has gone on for five centuries-isn't it time to say "enough?" Perhaps Anthony Zinni should be sent to the Aztec afterlife to enter into negotiations with Montezuma on the part of affluent people all over the world. Or maybe we should hunt down this vengeful maniac before more tourists have to spend their vacations in dirty Mexican stalls with no freaking toilet seats. The United States seems more than willing to spend a lot of time and money looking for this "Osama bin Laden" for whatever his offenses were against the obscure political agenda of some secret government agency-shouldn't we also spend some time on a terrorist who is affecting American citizens in a very, very real way? Or would President Bush rather see "Let's roll" turn into "Where's the toilet paper roll?"
Some people were found yesterday in town looking for some other people. They had already looked up that way, and (they think) over there, but had seen no sign of the other people. They weren't sure where the other people could have gone, and some thought maybe they weren't even in the area at all. Several of the people seemed worried that they couldn't find the other people, and expressed concern that they might never find them again. As of press time, the other people could not be reached for comment.