Talk about a poor choice in appointments. Bush put together a council on bioethics to advise him in making policy on cutting edge biotechnology that could go into morally questionable areas. One specific area is the use of stem cells as research.

So, hmm, I’m going to pick a council to advise the leader of one of the largest, wealthiest, most technologically advanced nations to set powerful policy on biotechnology and potentially influence the health and lives of millions. I need intelligent people who have a strong sense of ethics and understand how to apply good ethics to our modern way of living.

Let’s see, for my first choice, I’ll pick as chairman a guy who thinks eating and yawning in public is crude and animal-like, yes, yes, he’s got an EXCELLENT eye for modern mores, morals,and ethics. (Leon Kass).

From Salon.com (ad viewing torture required):

he [Leon Kass] wrote in his book “Toward a More Natural Science.” In “The Hungry Soul,” a philosophical meditation on eating, he expressed his dissatisfaction with “uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone — a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive,”

Phone call for Mr. Kass. It’s the Victorian era, they want their outdated sensibilities back!