Techno Hippies

Nine years ago today, on December 27thy 2002, the lovely Brigitte Boisselier (a Raëlian bishop and CEO of Clonaid) called a press conference in Hollywood Florida. She had died her usually platinum blond hair a light red for the press. The purpose of the conference was to announce that Clonaid had just successfully cloned the first human baby. The baby had been named Eve.

In March of 2001 Clonaid had announced that a woman would become pregnant with a cloned fetus in April, then the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations raided Clonaid's lab in Nitro, West Virginia. Shortly after the Announcement of the birth in December Korean prosecutors raided the offices of BioFusion Tech; Clonaid's Korean branch. Legislators began climbing overtop one another to outdo the severity of the other’s anti-cloning laws. Some began calling for Eve to be removed from her mother and placed with special guardians. Compliance agencies made it clear that they would be exploring the information Clonaid released for any illegality that might exist. It should have come as no surprise that Clonaid released no additional information; even refusing to identify the mother.

The Raëlian’s that Brigitte was a bishop of are often described as a UFO cult. They were interested in cloning because they saw it as a first step in human immortality. This idea is not inconsistent with their view that extraterrestrials called the Elohim created life on earth as a scientific experiment. From time to time the Elohim have returned to earth to guide the experiment. Most people know these extraterrestrial guiders by names like “Jesus” or “Buddha”.

The Raëlians are officially active on social issues. They support the use of GMO foods, as well as topless rights for women, and they are strongly anti-war.

If the cloning ever hits full output we might be overrun with lovely GMO-corn fed topless techno-hippies. Too bad the world is going to end so soon.

Christmas Leftovers

One hundred and sixty five years ago today, on December 26th 1846, a pioneer named Patrick Dolan stripped off his clothes and danced around naked in some fresh Sierra Nevada snow.  After running through the woods for an undocumented length of time he returned to his friends’ party and died.  His friends were hungry so they ate him.  In this way the most famous story of Christmas leftovers in the American West became legend.

  

Prelude to Civil War

One hundred and eighty-five years ago today, sometime after 10 pm on the Christmas Eve 1826, a group of nine cadets began drinking whiskey-laced eggnog in room 28 of the West Point United States Military Academy’s North Barracks. Before long the party expanded to room 5, and the two gallons of whiskey smuggled into the Academy were gone. Some of the cadets immediately left to procure more whiskey; a trip which would prove successful.

Dozens of drunken cadets on a campus where possession of alcohol could lead to expulsion eventually drew attention; even on Christmas Eve. At around 3am Christmas morning the superintendent of the North Barracks interrupted at least eight cadets in room 5 loudly singing, and very drunk. One of them was named Jefferson Davis.

Attempts to silence the Christmas party eventually sparked a small riot, which was fueled by the timely arrival of the third gallon of whiskey. Twenty people would be court-marshaled, but Jefferson Davis was not amongst them.

Thirty four years and a few months after the eggnog riots Davis would come to the forefront of another uprising against the US. On February 1st 1861 Jefferson Davis would be named president of the then month-old Confederate States of America.