Greetings and welcome to another thrilling indoctrination of Blather, brought to you by Dublin’s premier cloning facility.
I’ll take two clones to go. . . and a coffee
Fancy having offspring who are exact clones of yourself? Reckon backing up your kids in case of a system crash is a good idea? Now you *can*. . . Just contact Valiant Venture Ltd.
Valiant Venture Ltd. is a Bahamas-based company, owned by the Raelian Movement, which claims that ‘life on earth was created scientifically in laboratories by extraterrestrials whose name (Elohim) is found in the Hebrew Bible and was mistranslated by the word “God”, and which also claims that Jesus’ resurrection was, in fact, a cloning performed by the Elohim’.
The Raelian movement has about 35,000 followers worldwide and was founded by ‘Rael’, who claims that his mother was abducted (on December 25th 1945), taken inside a ‘UFO’ – not a flying saucer, but a ‘UFO’ – inseminated by these extraterrestrials, and that he is the result. Mrs. Rael’s abduction was rather handily wiped from her memory ‘so as not to psychologically unbalance her’. The Raelian Movement website doesn’t explain how Rael knows that his mother identified an Unidentified Flying Object as an Unidentified Flying Object, considering she had her memory wiped.
Rael issued a press release on March 10th 1997 offering cloning services from Valiant Ventures Ltd., under two services: ‘Clonaid’ and ‘Insuraclone’. Clonaid charges 200,000 US Dollars to would-be parents willing to have a child cloned from one of them and also to parents with fertility problems or homosexual couples who wish to have a child cloned from one of them. So why the Bahamas? Because cloning isn’t an issue there. . . yet.
Rael – They Took Me to Their PlanetA statement from Rael reads, ‘Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life. The next step, like the ELOHIM with their 25,000 years of scientific advance, will be to directly clone an adult person without having to go through the growth process and to transfer memory and personality in this person. Then, we wake up after death in a brand new body just like after a good night sleep!’
Funnily enough, I can’t find any mention of whether or not they *can* clone yet. Doubtful, as they issued the press release only two weeks after the scientists at the Roslin Institute announced their ability to clone sheep through nuclear transfer from somatic cells, resulting in the world’s most famous sheep, Dolly.
Dead Letter Office
Investigators in San Francisco are still searching for Allan Vieira, a pilot who allegedly stored 3,500 boxes of human ashes in a public lockup rather than spread them over the oceans and countryside – which is what various funeral companies had paid him to do. Some deceased were cremated in 1950s. Authorities said the boxes would be returned to the families of the deceased.
But I Followed the Manual. . .
On May 30th, 1997, in Douai, France, a Muslim Cleric, Imam Mohamed Kerzazi, 33, was jailed for seven years having been found guilty of ‘acts of torture and barbarism’ which led to the death of 19 year old Louisa Lardjoune during an exorcism ceremony. Kerzazi, apparently a well known exorcist, was called in by Lardoune’s brother to cure her fits of hysteria.
Kerzazi read from the Koran and beat Lardjoune with bamboo, pushed her head under water, and made her swallow several litres of salt water. After five hours, Lardjoune became unconscious, and died the following morning. The autopsy found that she had been strangled, but died from drowning. Kerazzi was condemned by several Islamic theologists, but claimed that he had only followed his clerical training.
Gowan outa that, sure you’ll have another. . .
The Irish Independent on Monday June 9th, 1997 reported the death of a cow in Spain after it was forced to drink four bottles of whiskey. After an outcry from animal lovers the police launched an investigation of the incident, which took place during a village festival. Before anyone asks, the cow appears to have been terrestrial in origin.
Kavanagh the Critic
For those of you you might have heard about the Fortean Times UnConvention in London in April, and were wondering what all the fuss was about, Barry Kavanagh has reviewed many of the speakers, and the reviews can be found at http://www.hellshaw.com/barry There’s more to be added, and I’ll mention them as they appear.
Dave (daev) Walsh
12 June 1997
