First human clone is ‘born’, or has the world been monstrously duped?

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

28 December 2002

A company affiliated to a cult whose followers believe that extraterrestrials created life on Earth claimed yesterday to have created the world’s first human clone.

The baby girl ­ nicknamed “Eve” ­ was born on Boxing Day in an unspecified country to a 31-year-old American woman whose skin and eggs were fused to create a viable human embryo that had not been fertilised by sperm, the company said.

Brigitte Boisselier, the French chemist who heads the Clonaid company, said the girl weighed 7lbs at birth, was healthy and normal, and would be going home from hospital within the next three days.

At a news conference yesterday in Hollywood, Florida, Ms Boisselier confidently predicted that DNA tests would confirm that the baby girl and her mother shared 100 per cent of their DNA ­ making the baby the first human clone to be born.

Ms Boisselier offered no proof of the girl’s existence or her genetic match with her mother. But she promised that DNA tests by independent scientists would be completed in about a week.

Smiling to the assembled journalists, Ms Boisselier said: “You can still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud. You have one week to do that.”

Ms Boisselier also announced that four other women were about to give birth to cloned babies. One was said to be a European woman in a lesbian relationship whose baby is due next week.

The independent tests will be done by world-class scientists who are not affiliated to Clonaid in any way and there will be no strings attached to the test procedures, said Michael Guillen, a former journalist for ABC television in the US who was chosen by Clonaid to organise the DNA tests.

Ms Boisselier refused to give any personal details of the parents or their child, saying only that the girl was delivered by Caesarean section and her mother had an older daughter by a previous relationship.

“I saw them becoming so happy with the birth coming and yesterday I can tell you it was the best day of their lives and I wish them a very happy life and I wish this baby girl a very happy life,” she said.

“The baby is very healthy. She is doing fine. [She is] not like a monster, like some results of something that is disgusting.”

The woman’s husband is infertile, which is why they chose to have a cloned baby rather than conceive through sperm donation, Ms Boisselier said.

The scientists who carried out the work have also asked to remain anonymous because of fears of being sacked from their research institutes, but they hope one day to write up their accomplishments and publish them in a scientific journal, she said.

Until hard evidence in the form of DNA tests on the girl and her mother are presented and peer reviewed by independent experts, the claims are unlikely to be treated seriously by established scientists, especially given Clonaid’s background.

The company was founded in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist who changed his name to “Rael” after claiming to have been abducted by aliens. Mr Vorilhon believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials using their own genetic material and has established a cult known as the Raelians. Ms Boisselier said Rael was her spiritual leader and thanked him for inspiring the work that led to the claimed cloning of Eve. She said: “I do believe that we have been created by scientists. I thank them for my life. If science created me, then science has done some good.”

Most scientists believe cloning humans is difficult, if not impossible. Dr Barry Zirkin, head of reproductive biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, said: “It would be a surprise to me if it were that simple to clone humans. Based on the experience with animals, one would imagine it would take many many shots to actually get a human baby.”

The White House said President George Bush found Clonaid’s claims “deeply troubling” and he wanted Congress to ban human cloning.

President Jacques Chirac of France said the practice was “contrary to the dignity of man”. He urged all nations to sign a convention presented to the United Nations by France and Germany that is aimed at the “universal prohibition of human reproductive cloning”.

———–

-Ian.

—- http://edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid9.htm

Fictoid #9: Plastic Knives and Box Cutters

Following the September 11th attack, government authorities declared that the weapons used to hijack the planes that crashed into World Trade Center were plastic knives and box cutters. The story about plastic knives and box cutters, implements which passengers then were not legally restricted from bring through security checkpoints at airports, was relentlessly drummed into the public’s mind by two of the highest officials in the government. John Ashcroft, the attorney general, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.

Ashcroft told ABC News on September 15th that “investigators believed that each of the commandeered planes had been hijacked by groups of three to six men armed with box cutters and plastic knives.” Donald Rumsfeld told Fox News on September 16th, that the hijackers used weapons that are distinctively different – – plastic knives.” On October 9th, he suggested to Dan Rather on CBS News “plastic knives and the use of a U.S. airliner filled with American people as a missile [were used] to destroy a World Trade Center.” On November 7th, he described to Jim Lehrer on PBS ” One of our planes is used as a missile to fly into our building and into the World Trade Center. It was beyond one’s imagination that plastic knives and our own commercial aircraft filled with our own people would be used as the implement of war.”

Actually, it was their imagination, not established facts, that informed the world that the hijackers had used plastic knives and box cutters to commandeer the two airliners that had destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Not a scintilla of evidence had been found then— or to date— that either plastic knives or box cutters were used by any of the ten hijackers who crashed United Airlines flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. No box cutters or plastic knives were found in the debris. Nor were the cockpit voice recorders ever found from Flight 11 and Flight 175. No witnesses, either passengers or crew members, on either flight 11 or flight 175 ever reported any hijacker having a box cutter or a plastic knife. Both United Airlines flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11 had departed from Boston. Once both Boeing 767s had reached their cruising altitudes, the hijackers took control of them by unknown means without any of the four pilots warning the ground controllers, even though they had open radios. Both airliners then turned off their transponders and disappeared from the computerized radar screens.

No message was ever received from flight 175 that mentioned any weapons. So, for all anyone knows, the hijackers may have used guns, grenades, poison gas or any other weapon

An executive summary of an unpublished FAA memo stated:

“At approximately 9:18 am, it was reported that two crew members in the cockpit were stabbed. The flight then descended with no communications from the flight crew members. The American Airlines FAA Principal Security Inspector (PFI) was notified by Suzanne Clark of American airlines Corporate Headquarters that an on board flight attendant contacted American Airlines Operation Center and informed that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in 9B at 9:20 am. The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin shot by Satam al-Suqama. One bullet was reported to have been fired.”

The information came from two cell phone calls made by flight attendants, Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney, to Americal Airlines ground controllers. Ong, who was in the first class compartment— and the only witness to the assault on the cockpit. She reported that she had seen four hijackers come from first-class seats, kill a passenger seated behind them, and use a chemical weapon which she described as “some sort of spray” that made her eyes burn and made it difficult for her to breathe.” Madeline Amy Sweeney, the flight attendant in the rear compartment, call was not recorded. According to the ground controller, she said that the pilots, another flight attendant and a passenger had been stabbed or killed.

The FAA subsequently said that the report of a gun shot was an error proceeding from a “miscommunication”. The ground controller did not recall a gun shot or a bullet being mentioned.

In any case, there were no box cutters or plastics knives on flight 11 were used.

Two other flights were hijacked that morning, American Airlines flight 77, a Boeing 757 departing from Virginia, and United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 departing from Newark. On flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, one single passenger, Barbara Olsen, reported on weapons that some of the five hijackers had in the back of the plane. She told her husband, Theodore Olsen, on a cell phone that the hijackers who herded her and other the passengers into the back of the plane had two kind of weapons: knives and cardboard cutters (presumably box cutters). She did not say anything about the other hijackers in the cockpit and she apparently did not even know that they were piloting the plane. Nor did any other passenger or crew member on Flight 77 describe the hijackers’ weapons. It cannot be assumed that all the hijackers on the plane had similar weapons. The hijackers assaulting the cockpit might have needed more sophisticated weaponry to rapidly stun or kill the pilots.

On flight 93, the Boeing 757 which crashed near Pittsburgh, the flight attendant reported over a cell phone that a hijacker in her plane had a “bomb strapped on.” Some unidentified person also said over the loud speaker that there was a “bomb” aboard the plane. A passenger, Todd Beamer, talked over a cell phone about the “terrorist with a bomb.” Another passenger, Tom Burnett, told his wife over a cell phone that he had heard that a pilot had been “knifed.” No passenger or crew member described either box cutters or plastic knives as weapons and, as far as is known, no box cutters of plastic knives been recovered from the wreckage.

Similar weapons thus were not reported in the different flights. A paralytic chemical spray was described in the front compartment of flight 11, knives and card cutters was described in the rear compartment of Flight 77 and a bomb was described on flight 93. Nor is there any reason to assume that different hijackers on different planes leaving from different airports would use the same weaponry. Atta and Alomari, for example, having made a detour to Portland, might have obtained weapons unavailable to the hijackers in Virginia and New Jersey.)

In any case, the Ashcroft’s story that the hijackers used box-cutters and plastic knives in the attack on the World Trade Center is a functional fictoid. In this case, the function was diversion. This fictoid serves to divert public attentions from the responsibility, and legal liability, of the government and airlines to prevent major weapons— such as guns, bombs, chemical sprays and hunting knives from being carried aboard airplanes. If such illegal devices had been smuggled aboard the planes, the liability could amount to billions of dollars. If, , on the other hand, it could be disseminated that the hijackers had only used plastic knives, such as those provided by the airlines for meals, or box cutters, which were allowed on planes, neither the airlines, the screeners at the airport, or the FAA, which regulates the safety of airports, could be held legally responsible. Paul Pillar, who had headed the CIA’s counter-terrorism, could thus explain that”the attack that killed almost 4,000 people used box cutters.” This press accepted it as established fact. The New York Times, for example, reported “the hijackers did not use firearms, which would probably have been detected, but apparently wielded box-cutter knives of the type that were then allowed on board but are now banned.”

What made the box cutter and and plastic knives fictoid particularly welcome was that the FAA had found massive failures of airport screeners to find weapons prior to the attacks. Such tests were conducted by FAA undercover “Red Teams.” In 1998, for example, one FAA Read team leader told the New York Times, “we were successful in getting major weapons— guns and bombs–aboard planes at least 85 percent the time.” The failure rate was as high as 97 percent at some airports. Nor was this vulnerability corrected before September 11th. FAA Special Agent Bogdan Dzakovic, according to USA TODAY, said that FAA officials had ignored security problems before the terrorist attacks.

The fictoid successfully deflected from this gaping hole in security.

———–

It is rare to see such a disturbing piece of isolationist fluff these days, mostly because I don’t usually take the time to read deeply conservative, revisionist rags like the “National Review”. It occurs to me that if I searched thru the archives of the American press in 1939 I might see similar rhetoric to this article.

One advantage of living in Canada (granted it’s not Victor Hanson’s hobby farm) is the exposure to a number of different media and a plethora of opinions and “facts”, rather than the CNN/CNBC/ABC/CBS unfiltered Bush/Cheney viewpoint. It’s clear, having watched the limited spectrum of information being spoon-fed to right-wing bastards like Hanson, that he wouldn’t have the foggiest clue what is really happening in the middle east, thus exonerating his banal inquiries.

Now granted, it’s 3:30 AM and these are simply my views, based upon an education in this field, an open mind, and no substantial bias in any direction, but they might help Hanson in his quest for answers. Someone had better forward them to him. I know he’ll be willing to listen to my arguments and reflect objectively on the issues.

>”Why does Mr. Mubarak lecture us to become intimately engaged in the
>Middle East Peace process, when Mr. Clinton, who was very recently
>intimately engaged, got the intifada for his efforts?”

Well, Sharon made the intifada by marginalizing the PLO by committing brutal, violent attacks on innocent Palestinians while Arafat was suing for peace. As a result the Palestinians lost faith in Arafat’s ability to win through peace what intifada promised to win through war. Mr. Clinton was a marginal player at best. The same ruthless, greedy bastards that supported Sharon’s campaign financially in the US voted for Bush. So Clinton doesn’t have much to do with it at all.

>”And why does Mr. Mubarak seek to advise us about our proper diplomatic
>role, rather than explain to us why an Egyptian masterminded the deaths
>of 3,000 of our citizens and others of his countrymen are top lieutenants
>of Mr. Bin Laden and are now killing Americans in Afghanistan?”

Because Mr. Mubarak can no longer appeal to the UN because it is a benign bureaucracy, usurped by the US. The fact that several culprits were Egyptian is simply not relevant. Several were also British and American (Walker), so does that mean we should blame those countries because of the fact that 1 person out of tens of millions decided to fly a fucking 767 into the World Trade Center?

>”And why, instead of warning about rising anti-Americanism in his
>country ‹ itself the dividend of the virulent propaganda of his own
>state-run presses ‹ does he not ponder another recent poll, one showing
>that 76 percent of Americans themselves have an unfavorable view of the
>Arab world?”

First of all, show me that there’s any difference between the State-Run media in Egypt and the free press in the US right now (in terms of their unrepentant affirmation of government policy) and I will buy you a beer. Second, those people living in the third world have every reason to be hateful of the US, given their exploitation by US multinationals, the pervasiveness (particularly in Egypt) of rude US tourists, and the cultural imperialism which imprints a Leo DiCaprio/Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys aura upon every society in the world. Thirdly, American isolationism is not a new concept. That 76% of Americans don’t trust the Arab world is surprisingly low, given historical statistics.

>”Why do Middle Easterners become excited and haughty as they gloat to
>you that Americans are unpopular in their countries, but suddenly grow
>shocked, silent, and hurt when you politely and calmly explain why the
>feeling is becoming ‹ and perhaps should be ‹ mutual?”

The fact is that America, as a first world nation and our world’s only true superpower, can and must be held to a higher standard. As PLATO once said, the best form of government is a Benevolent Despot. As the governor of the planet earth in this decade, America must display convicted benevolence. Americans (and anyone) have an innate distrust of that which is unknown to them. The US media have done almost nothing to bridge that gap in helping Americans to understand that which opposes them.

>”Why do so many from the Middle East come here to find freedom, security,
>and safety ‹ and then criticize the country that they would never lea
>as they praise the country that they would never return to?”

As a Canadian who lived in the US for three years only to return home to Vancouver I must wonder aloud what could possibly be wrong with trying to amend a society’s behaviour to include that which you think is morally correct. That is how American Democracy was founded in the first place, and that is a fundamental tenet of a democratic society. America offers opportunities which are obvious however one need not ascribe to the entire ideology to benefit from its stronger points.

>”Why did we incur only anger from Eastern Europeans and Orthodox Christians
>for saving the Muslims of the former Yugoslavia from Milosevic, but no
>praise at all from the Islamic world itself?”

You incurred anger from those few who were displaced from their homes in Bosnia — their anger had little to do with religion. And the Islamic world, I certainly shouldn’t need to point our, is as fractious as Christianty and so one shouldn’t expect tacit support for every small deed. Frankly, I wasn’t aware that America’s participation in such events was strategically designed to win praise.

>”If the West Bank is the linchpin of the current Middle East crisis,
>what were wars #1, #2, and #3 there about, when it was entirely in Arab
>hands?”

The Middle East hasn’t been “entirely in Arab hands” for more than two centuries. In fact, in World Wars #1 and #2, the Arabs and Palestinians as well as other Muslims were promised self-rule and the withdrawal of imperialism in exchange for helping us with our war efforts in Europe. Go rent “Lawrence of Arabia”, dumbass.

>”Is there a difference between Palestinians preferring to kill
>Israeli civilians rather than soldiers, and Israelis preferring to
>kill Palestinian fighters rather than civilians?”

I know that I will get an emotional reaction to this statement in the wake of 9/11 but Terrorism is a tool of war for those who cannot fight wars. Israel must be held to a higher standard because they are clearly an army of occupation. Despite that, Isreali forces have shown no qualms, especially under Sharon’s leadership throughout the years, regarding the targeting of civilians. In the 1950s, then General Sharon burned entire villages and towns to rubble to make a highway safe for the passage of Israeli tanks, thus leading to his current legal troubles battling a Belgian war crimes tribunal.

>”Would the world be angry if a Jewish terrorist forced a captured
>Muslim to admit to his race and faith as he executed and beheaded
>him on film?”

Sadly this is the type of incident that has frequently occurred on both sides of the 50 years war. No one’s hands are clean here. I remind you that war is a brutal, savage thing and atrocities are committed on both sides. The correct question is: if an American special forces colonel captured an Al Quaeda soldier and tortured him, would we even hear about it on CNN?

>”Why do not Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, who overtly and
>stealthily war along side the Palestinians, simply all join with
>the former to gang up and declare war openly on Israel and then
>settle the issue on the battlefield?”

Because they themselves cannot get along with each other. Just like in Catholicism there are many sects within the Islamic faith, differing widely on cultural and political issues. The US has had a policy over the last 50 years of maintaining a delicate balance between the Sunnis, Shi’ites, and other more moderate groups in order to prevent Pan-Arabism from threatening not only Israel, but also the worldwide oil supply.

>”If we remove the fascist regime in Iraq and help institute
>consensual government there, why would we need troops any
>longer next door in Saudi Arabia? What and from whom would we
>then be there to protect?”

Since Saddam Hussein represents the Sunni minority in Iraq, if you removed him and held an election you would install a Shi’ite government which, when it aligned with the Iranian Shi’ites, would threaten the region in ways never before conceived of. The result would be a permanent and massively mechanized US presence in Saudi Arabia.

>”Has any American in any live broadcast on television ever
>asked a Saudi prince, the king of Jordan, the President of
>Egypt, or the royalty of Kuwait, whether they plan on allowing
>a free press or democratic government? If not, why not?”

American foreign policy is not focused on the global acceptance of democracy. American foreign policy seeks to support those governments which are favourable to US interests, and that will maintain a free-flowing supply of oil.

>”If 19 Americans incinerated 3,000 Muslims in Mecca or Medina,
>and blew up 20 acres in either of those cities with a two-kiloton
>explosion, would the Saudis or the Egyptians a few weeks later
>politely listen to admonitions from the American government about
>their incorrect Islamic policies in the Middle East?”

In 1991, American B-52s carpet bombed and killed somewhere between 125,000 – 200,000 Shi’ite conscripts who were herded out into the Kuwaiti desert by the Iraqi Republican Guard and were essentially starving to death and running out of ammunition and who were effectively waiting to surrender. At issue here is the fact that the incident was the most under-reported atrocity of the war, estimates of the numbers of dead varying so widely because not a single Western journalist chased down the story.

>”If the Eiffel Tower had been wrecked by an al Qaeda hijacked
>airliner, would the French have gone into Afghanistan after the
>terrorists? And if so, how and why? And would they have asked our
>help? And would we have given it?”

Since the French cannot effectively project power into the region, they would have sought the support of NATO. America would have used this as an excuse to do exactly what they’re doing today. If you think that the US is in the region solely to fight a war on terrorism then I have a bridge to sell you. It would have been much more difficult of course to sell the war to the American public, which traditionally turns a blind eye to deaths in foreign countries. Most Americans, including Joe Kennedy, thought that Hitler was a progressive leader while he was slaughtering jews by the tens of thousands in 1939.

>”Why in the last decade have we seen a succession of Israeli prime
>ministers and opposition figures but only Mr. Arafat alone?”

Last time I checked, Palestine isn’t even a country and the PLO isn’t a government. How can one have a democracy without borders?

>”Why do Middle Easterners become far more enraged at Israelis for
>shooting hundreds of Muslims than at Iranians, Iraqis, Jordanians,
>Syrians, Indians, Algerians, Russians, Somalis, and Serbians for
>liquidating tens of thousands?”

Israeli jeeps regularly pull up to taunt the inhabitants of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, where Muslims live in poverty without running water, plagued by disease, and walled in by the lack of education. Understandably, the occupants of the camps (young boys mostly) vent their frustration by throwing rocks at these jeeps. The Isrealis return fire with rockets. Does that not deserve criticism? All murder is worthy of examination and analysis — for instance, how many times more people have the US killed in Afghanistan than were killed at the WTC?

>”Will Palestinians cheer when Saddam Hussein launches chemical-laden
>missiles against Israel when we invade his country?”

Yes. Why shouldn’t they? I keep getting this feeling they’re at war… Oh yes, that’s right! THEY ARE.

>”If someone blew up another 3,000 Americans, would the EU do anything?”

Did America declare a war on Terrorism after the hostage disaster at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where the Isreali athletes were held hostage and subsequently killed by Palestinian terrorists? Did they declare a war on Terrorism when the US-supported IRA bombed a hotel during a wedding at Enneskillen in 1981?

>”Has anyone made an inventory of the all the goods, services, and
>equipment that France has sold to Iraq since 1991?”

Has anyone inventoried the military hardware sold by the US over the last 30 years to Iran, one of the most prominent members of Bush’s “Axis of Evil”?

The point of my selective responses to this profoundly disturbing article is to illustrate that hypocrisy is everywhere and that America, as imperialists, are necessarily held to a higher standard than third world countries. America is plagued by the difficulty of being “reluctant imperialists”, wherein American foreign policy requires the projection of power and influence worldwide to keep the economy moving but the citizens of the US are largely isolationists.

-Ian.

On 3/16/02 7:20 PM, “John Hall” wrote:

> http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson031502.shtml
>
>
>
> Some of the better ones:
>
>
>
> If the West Bank is the linchpin of the current Middle East crisis, what were
> wars #1, #2, and #3 there about, when it was entirely in Arab hands?
>
>
>
> Is there a difference between Palestinians preferring to kill Israeli
> civilians rather than soldiers, and Israelis preferring to kill Palestinian
> fighters rather than civilians?
>
>
>
> If the Eiffel Tower had been wrecked by an al Qaeda hijacked airliner, would
> the French have gone into Afghanistan after the terrorists? And if so, how and
> why? And would they have asked our help? And would we have given it?
>
>
>
> What would the world think if Mr. Sharon displayed a revolver and then
> attempted to strike one of his ministers at a Cabinet meeting?
>
>
>
> Why do Palestinians shoot machine-guns up into the air at funerals and
> Israelis do not?
>
>
>
> If nearly two-thirds of the Arabic world believe that Arabs were not involved
> in September 11, why should any American believe anything that two out of
> three people from that region say?
>
>
>
> Has anyone heard a Muslim in the United States condemn September 11 without
> employing the word “but?”
>
>
>
>
>

– Carlyle, Historian, 1905

The Fourth Estate has failed.

Whether you’re Socialist, Liberal, or Conservative you’ve got to be alarmed by the lack of substance in our media diet which follows from the 1990s. Long criticized for being too “Left Wing” the American media have become irresponsible and unintentional (we hope) tools of the prevailing authority.

Whereas Clinton could have bombed Moscow while the press focused on the size of Linda Tripp’s nose and the exact detail of what his definition of “sex” really is, Bush could be and is in fact conducting a war at the behest of his corporate sponsors while the press focuses on the next Special Forces photo op.

Below is yet another example of a complicit media attempting to positively affirm an “audience” that only they perceive to be a seething mass of milquetoasts.

Question: What’s the difference between a media that is focused on squashing messages of dissent in order to preserve its bottom line (Bushism) and one which is directly controlled by the governing powers (Stalinism)?

Where we are failed by the Free Market economy folks such as Michael Moore (with his book “Stupid White Men”), Drew Carey, et al become unwitting combatants in a battle to establish a voice which is TRULY reflective of the populous.

We are intelligent people, but we are also busy people. For the most part, we eat what we are fed. Only when the people are given CHOICE does the real discourse of Democracy begin, and that is supposed to be the role of the Fourth Estate.

Am I the only one among us who is deeply disturbed by the >LACK< of actual reflective, investigative journalism that is occurring during this war? In Vietnam we saw the brutality of war: American teenagers being mortally wounded, innocent civilians being executed in the streets, villages burning while napalm-covered children fled. This made war appear to be what it is -- utterly abhorrent -- and it ultimately brought that war to a stop. The Fourth Estate played its hand in the political poker game. Camera crews were welcomed on the battle front and offered protection by the military, and us such they got to stories that compelled them-- and us-- to stop. In Desert Storm, the US government began to manage the media, no longer allowing them to move freely among the combatants. They were not offered any sort of amnesty and were promised that, if they lurked into the battle zone, that they would likely become the object of "Friendly Fire". Instead the US Government provided pool footage. The logo "cleared by US Military" appeared over every piece of video and every photo from the event. Now we have moved a step further. There is NOTHING. No information, no footage, no actual reporting -- just news releases from the Pentagon. The Fourth Estate has been muted. We see satellite trucks in Kabul doing remote hits featuring reporters wearing flak vests; who are reading press releases that have been faxed to them from Washington-based correspondents. We have a media desperate for ratings attempting to maintain the perception of reality, but it's less real than ever. So where does it stop? This is where the clash of two worlds -- the Western, electronic world, and the Eastern, developing world -- brings one or the other to a humiliating defeat. The West is dependent upon its control of the media to continue the war, and the East is dependent upon its ability to channel religious fervor into resistance. Time will tell which grasp is stronger. Admittedly this rant only has a little bit to do with Drew Carey, but the article below documents the tip of the iceberg for a much more sinister form of Censorship. It's an example where the media is censoring itself in an effort to conform to a nethery concept called "popular opinion". I don¹t think that in our history the media has been so far out of touch with what people really think out there. The media have a responsibility to raise dissent and to stimulate discourse, and that responsibility is not being met. -Ian. ---- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/eo/20020306/en_tv_eo/drew__wh ose_show_is_it_anyway_&cidy7

Drew: Whose Show Is It Anyway? Wed Mar 6, 1:29 PM ET

Just to clear things up: Cleveland rocks. Network censorship does not rock.

That about sums up Drew Carey’s feelings, after the sitcom star says he had a run-in with network censors regarding an episode of The Drew Carey Show making fun of airport security.

Carey is peeved at ABC (join the club) after he says the network threatened to halt production on his show unless he made changes to the episode. The installment, set to be taped Thursday and air next month, features Carey’s goofball buddies Lewis (Ryan Stiles) and Oswald (Diedrich Bader) scoring jobs as airport security.

ABC, however, was purportedly concerned that the script didn’t feature anyone “competent” on the airport security staff. Carey claims the censors then threatened to toss the entire episode if producers didn’t make changes.

“I’ve never had a threat like that from the network…Everybody was kind of in shock,” Carey tells the Los Angeles Times. “If you can’t satirize authority institutions, what’s the point?”

ABC couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. But a network source told the Times that censors were concerned it might be irresponsible to make all airport security look incompetent. (After all, where would the writers get such a bizarre idea in the first place?)

Producers for the Warner Bros. Television production ultimately agreed to change some jokes in time for the show’s taping.

It’s not like airport security guards haven’t already endured their share of ribbing over the past few months. Security has replaced airline food humor as the gripe du jour on the stand-up comedy circuit. And just last week, Daily Show host Jon Stewart opened the Grammy Awards with a sketch poking fun at security, as he was groped by guards and stripped of his clothing.

But as anyone who watches Drew Carey can attest, presenting “competent” characters isn’t exactly the show’s strong point. “I think we have a pretty good track record of not being serious on the show,” Carey said.

ABC, meanwhile, is having one heck of a time keeping its dirty laundry out of the press. Carey’s public ranting comes just a day after Ted Koppel took to the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times, lambasting ABC executives who said his news show Nightline was not “relevant.” The Disney-owned network also has had very public run-ins over the past year with Regis Philbin and Barbara Walters over Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (news – web sites) and 20/20, respectively.