No more fetuses in our food, but we still have dial up.

When I first saw the headline I thought that it was a gag from The Onion. Honestly, these local republican elected officials are setting this country back hundreds of years with their myopic form of thinking.

"An Oklahoma bill that would ban the sale of food containing aborted human fetuses has some people wondering: What food currently contains aborted human fetuses?
The bill, introduced Jan. 18 by State Sen. Ralph Shortey, prohibits the manufacture or sale of “food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”

Shortey declined to give specific examples but said some food manufacturers used stem cells in the research and development process.
“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” he told KRMG Radio. “I don’t know if it is happening in Oklahoma, it may be, it may not be. What I am saying is that if it does happen then we are not going to allow it to manufacture here.”

Shortey may be acting on claims that the San Diego-based company Semonyx used proteins derived from human embryonic kidney cells to test artificial sweeteners, NPR reported. The cell line, known as HEK 293, was created from a human embryo in 1970 and has become a staple in biochemistry labs around the world.

Some people are calling the bill a back-door attempt to ban embryonic stem cell research — a ban Shortey said he would support, KRMG reported." [Source]

Now, to be fair, most folks in this country believe that this wingnut has lost his  mind. But we have to wonder how this fellow got elected in the first place. And who are the people voting people like this into public office?

Finally, I have been at this minority telecom conference in DC for the past couple of days, and the scariest thing I have learned is that we are running out of broadband spectrum. A "spectrum crunch" they call it. Some of you folks with these smart phones with all these fancy aps. are using up all the space.

There were a lot of big shots here from a lot of big companies: At&T, Verizon, Comcast. And they are all getting in line to buy up all the available broadband. The government is going to have some kind of auction, and if you have the loot you can get a seat at the table. If not....oh well. 

Anywhoo, I also learned that  you Negroes are not into media ownership. Eight full time television stations just isn't going to cut it. I met some dude who owns a a bunch of radio stations, but they are all low powered stations with limited reach, so he was there to cry a river to the powers that be from the government about the inequity in how this stuff is given out.

I also met some poor lady from rural North Carolina, (shout out to Dr.Donna Sullivan for putting in the work to try and get her people into the 21st century)who spoke of the people in some communities still using dial- up to try and get on the information super highway. Apparently they were on their way when the big wigs from Time Warner stepped in and paid off lobbied the politricksters in their state to set up shop the way that they wanted it done.

But never fear, I heard from the FCC Commissioner today that the federal government is going to try and free up 500 megahertz worth of spectrum. Hopefully that will ease the "crunch", and the poor folks in places like rural North Carolina can join the rest of us while we speed on down the information superhighway.

*Pic courtesy of "Pulling to the Left".