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Centaurs Against Bush

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Firenze the Centaur today denounced President Bush’s State of the Union Address, calling it a “blueprint for discrimination” and an “insult to all Centaur-Americans.”

According to a half-human spokeshorse, Firenze was referring to the passage in Tuesday’s State of the Union address in which Bush called for “legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.”

“Centaurs are majestic, even sacred creatures,” said Firenze, “and we are not to be trifled with.  Furthermore, none understand the portents of things to come so well as we, and we know that your ‘2006’ is going to be a most interesting year for this ‘President.’ These are not threats, but prophecy.  And if you want to see what happens to humans who go around calling us ‘hybrids,’ just look at what we did to that hateful Dolores Umbridge.”

Firenze’s remarks were endorsed by the Union of Concerned Merpeople, who pointed out that mermaids have long held a distinguished place in the imaginations of sailors and young boys.  “If there are ‘egregious abuses’ to be discussed,” said one merman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “let’s talk about your swarthy sailors in bandanas and horizontally-striped shirts kidnapping our wives, mothers, and daughters.  As Nicholas Kristof of your New York Times has repeatedly pointed out, it is a scandal that your women’s groups have been silent about this outrage.”

The Chimera Anti-Defamation League could not be reached for comment, not least because no one knows for sure how to pronounce “chimera.”

Posted by on 02/01 at 09:28 PM

  1. Is Firenze not a Centaur-Briton, rather than a Centaur-American? Or maybe even a Centaur-Englishhalf-man?

    Posted by AlanB.  on  02/01  at  09:51 PM

  2. The snark is rising.

    Posted by  on  02/01  at  10:11 PM

  3. Firenze became a naturalized American citizen in August 1998 thanks to Clinton’s liberalization of the INS regulations regarding centaurs, AlanB.  At the time, of course, House Republicans called this a “wag the centaur” maneuver designed to distract the nation’s attention from Monica Lewinsky.

    At last report, however, Roger Daltrey remained a Centaur-Briton.

    Posted by Michael  on  02/01  at  10:14 PM

  4. Ha!  I was waiting for someone to do this!

    Oh: kai-meh-rah

    Posted by coturnix  on  02/01  at  10:15 PM

  5. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/02/president_panders_to_antimanim.php

    Posted by Mark Earnest  on  02/01  at  10:15 PM

  6. So, he can pronounce egregious but not nuclear?

    Does the government really require legislation against patenting human embryos?  Couldn’t the patent office just say “we have evidence that there were red-headed children before your experiment, Victor, therefore you may not patent the red hair gene carrying embryo.”

    Posted by Heo Cwaeth  on  02/01  at  10:21 PM

  7. Mark—Thank you so much for that link.

    Posted by  on  02/01  at  10:26 PM

  8. [whistling, kicking a pebble...]

    Posted by Gavin M.  on  02/01  at  10:39 PM

  9. Apropos the PZ Myers link from Mr. Earnest:

    Narf!

    Posted by Dr. Drang  on  02/01  at  10:56 PM

  10. Looked at that illustration and thought it was another post about 70s music. So disappointed!

    Posted by Roxanne  on  02/01  at  11:19 PM

  11. Gavin, you’re just whistling and kicking a pebble because I gave my readers Daltrey’s cock-rock-meets-unicorn-poster “Ride a Rock Horse” and you subjected yours to yet another J-Pod pic.  Have you no sense of decency, sir?

    Or is it time for another blogswitch?  I’m willing to denounce Tobias Buckell as a human-animal hybrid if you are.

    Posted by  on  02/01  at  11:31 PM

  12. and you’d think Mr. Bush would be more sympathetic to the problems of the otherly sourced, being as he seems to believe he’s a compassionate conservative.

    not least because no one knows for sure how to pronounce “chimera.”

    Ah, clearly the rest of you don’t work in advertising, where the copyeditors were more than happy to point out the correct pronunciation long ago in the course of mocking the pronunciation I was using.

    Posted by julia  on  02/01  at  11:39 PM

  13. We should remember the earlier remark by W.B. Yeats, on the subject of hybrid cloning:

    “The Centaur cannot hold! Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world!”

    Thank you very much.

    Posted by  on  02/01  at  11:55 PM

  14. david ross mcirvine,

    I’m gonna send you a bill for a new keyboard to replace the one I just spit rye and ginger ale all over… wink Funniest comment I’ve read in a long while!

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  12:54 AM

  15. Thanks to you, Michael, I have had “Welcome to the camp, I guess you all know why you’re here” running through head for the last hour or so.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  02/02  at  12:58 AM

  16. Gavin, you’re just whistling and kicking a pebble because I gave my readers Daltrey’s cock-rock-meets-unicorn-poster “Ride a Rock Horse” and you subjected yours to yet another J-Pod pic.  Have you no sense of decency, sir?

    Ah, but I have the document, Mr. Bérubé.

    Animal-human hybrids? And some people still don’t believe that Bush has started drinking again. “Centaurs! The Centaurs are after me again!”

    Posted by: Major Woody | February 1, 2006 06:57 AM

    That’s our Major Woody, in comments. Borrow from us with impunity, if ever you wish, but borrow from our commenters and we must stand up for their honor.

    Well, not ‘honor,’ but you know what I mean.

    Posted by Gavin M.  on  02/02  at  01:03 AM

  17. Hmmph. Well, I know where I’m not wanted.

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  06:42 AM

  18. My take on it kicked off a lot of comments, among them the revelation that my hatred for Bush blinds me to the fact that his proposal is to protect the animals from the abuse of those callous scientists. George W. Bush, fan of PETA, friend to little frogs, vegan.

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  02/02  at  08:31 AM

  19. Does the government really require legislation against patenting human embryos?  Couldn’t the patent office just say “we have evidence that there were red-headed children before your experiment, Victor, therefore you may not patent the red hair gene carrying embryo.”

    Heo, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But then they have these people who patent the individual genes already, on the basis that they “discovered” them, so they get to control any medicine made based on that knowledge.

    I found a rock in my backyard; I think I’ll patent it.

    Don’t you know the Marie Curie Estate has the patent on X-Rays? You pay royalties every time you get one. (No, not really).

    I’m not saying President Doofus makes any sense. I’m just saying the whole world doesn’t make any more sense than Pres. Idiot.

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  09:54 AM

  20. George W. Bush, fan of PETA

    but of course. That’s why he opposes voluntary BSE testing. Because the little cowies really _like_ their diseased spinal tissue chow and he can’t bear to deny them.

    Posted by julia  on  02/02  at  09:59 AM

  21. After reading PZ Myers, I want to add that I trust the medical establishment to have ethical guidelines about this stuff. My post was really on a different issue.

    Bush’s rhetorical abilities really amaze me—no, I really mean it—his ability to say “kill all the scientists” and make it sound like “I’m all for science!”—to say “kill all the gays” and make it sound like “tolerance and compassion!” This is a profound, almost metaphysical level of dishonesty.

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  10:02 AM

  22. This is a profound, almost metaphysical level of dishonesty.

    Or it’s like the charity Aquinas extends to nonhuman animals (“we can love irrational creatures out of charity, if we regard them as the good things that we desire for others, in so far, to wit, as we wish for their preservation, to God’s honor and man’s use; thus too does God love them out of charity.”): we’ll be charitable to you in order to preserve you for the subjugation and eating for which God intended you. Some charity! Some tolerance!

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  10:24 AM

  23. Aren’t there all kinds of weird-assed creatures in Revelation? Seems to me that there must be some kind of humanoid thing in there.

    In other animal news, in Gobblers’ Nob…

    Posted by Bob in Pacifica  on  02/02  at  10:32 AM

  24. I hope you don’t mind I sent this to Stephanie Miller. She’ll crack up. smile

    Posted by The Witch  on  02/02  at  10:39 AM

  25. George W. Bush, fan of PETA, friend to little frogs, vegan. . . .

    And comrade of Jeremy Rifkin.

    Posted by Michael  on  02/02  at  11:07 AM

  26. Aren’t there all kinds of weird-assed creatures in Revelation? Seems to me that there must be some kind of humanoid thing in there.

    There’s that part about the appearance of the Cyclops Kitten, and how everything gets really bad right afterwards…

    Posted by Gavin M.  on  02/02  at  12:25 PM

  27. I just recently read a rather disturbing science fiction story about a worm that was grown in a lab with a human brain.  The story was first-person, from the worm’s PoV. He(?) falls in love with the scientist who grew him.  Bush’s remark really hit a nerve for me.

    I’ve seen reports about progress with growing chicken and cow muscle tissue in a vat, as a possible future major food source. Of course the BEST tissue to grow, because it so closely matches our nutritional needs, is human.  Wonder what the Bush science tribunal will think of that.

    It gets worse.  The VERY BEST tissue is ... your own.  Then the vat is kind of an external stomach, converting biomass into MeSteak. Yumm.

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  12:28 PM

  28. I still want to know who taught him how to use the word egregarious, let alone what it means.  I doubt he learned it while living in the dorms at Yale.

    P.S. In a weird irony, my word to submit below is “human"…

    Posted by AdorableGirlfriend  on  02/02  at  12:29 PM

  29. (No, the scientist who grew the human/worm was female.  The story isn’t that weird.)

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  12:38 PM

  30. What’s most stunning about this post is that you are admitting you are aware of the Daltry album that featured that amazing cover...thekeez

    Posted by Jeff Keezel  on  02/02  at  12:40 PM

  31. I think he learned to pronounce ‘egregious’ from watching Bill and Ted movies [plays air guitar, makes high-pitched shimmery guitar sound].

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  12:50 PM

  32. No same-sex, worm-human marriage! Must be outlawed toot sweet, to preserve the values of right thinkin’ folks.

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  12:54 PM

  33. What’s most stunning about this post is that you are admitting you are aware of the Daltry album that featured that amazing cover...

    Daltry IS McVicar.

    Michael, I’m going through our video cache for tomorrow’s Vid Friday feature, and here’s a…

    http://www.youtube.com/?v=ZPuNIk0zkL4

    Posted by Gavin M.  on  02/02  at  01:21 PM

  34. Very interesting quandary, this “human-animal hybrid” thing.  See, my understanding of the debate is that this is yet another jousting match between the President and Congress.  Congress insists that the creation of human-animal hybrids would be tantamount to the executive power “playing God,” a role to which they claim the president is not entitled.  Alberto Gonzales, however, noted today that by virtue of the Executive’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution, President Bush in fact “is God” and therefore requires no additional statutory intervention by Congress to grant him these fabulous powers.

    So, you see, the president is willing to place a ban on human-animal hybrids but reserves his right to authorize the creation of such hybrids in the interest of national security.

    Yes, yes, the 2001 AOUF did not explicitly give Bush the power to create hybrids—and Congress rejected such a request outright—but as the president said the other night, it’s HIS job to worry about how to protect the nation.  And if that involves centaurs, mermaids, or whatever, we must vigorously support the president.

    I’ll be interested to see how this plays out.

    Posted by Axis of Evel Knievel  on  02/02  at  02:18 PM

  35. Surely the right date to consider all the bother foisted on us by your other man’s humano-earwig mashup, though. One hundred and twenty four years old today, had things worked out differently.

    (Gavin M.[#33]: Nice play on the Run Through the Jungle riff, that)

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  02:21 PM

  36. I think chimera is pronounced something like Chanukah (or however it’s spelled).

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  03:54 PM

  37. Maybe Bush has been channelling Gregor Samsa?

    Here’s a new conservative Christian conundrum: a centaur with satyriasis. The wingers wouldn’t know where to start.

    Posted by Ereshkigal  on  02/02  at  04:26 PM

  38. 1. John Barth knows how to pronounce “chimera,” but watching Bush, I usually think “Lost in the Funhouse.”

    2. Somebody pointed out that we’re already putting human genes in bacteria so that they’ll produce insulin. Think that counts?

    Posted by  on  02/02  at  06:46 PM

  39. My sources tell me that Spiderman and MJ are now having to consider the adoption alternative.

    Posted by saltydog  on  02/02  at  08:43 PM

  40. and this just breaking....half man half biscuit to split up.

    Posted by saltydog  on  02/02  at  08:48 PM

  41. It’s a disaster. Cable reruns of Manimal cancelled.

    Posted by saltydog  on  02/02  at  09:47 PM

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