Word: argumentative
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...Another argument of these neo-Leninist-hippie types is that this form of intellectual property infringement increases social awareness. Only through the free distribution of artists' work can we be educated in the immense diversity of music in its many incarnations around the world. The great Internet will allow us all to sing Kumbaya together if only we could light the Sterno flame under the melting pot with unlimited distribution of copyrighted materials...
...government's argument, curiously, is that it didn't learn anything through the thermal imaging. "Thermal imagers do not literally or figuratively penetrate the home and reveal private activities within," the U.S. Solicitor General's Office wrote in his brief. "Unlike a hypothetical sophisticated X-ray device or microphone that could perceive activity through solid walls - observations that would amount to searches - a thermal imaging device passively detects only heat gradients on exterior surfaces...
...Marc Rich, the oddest may have come on Jan. 10. That day, a Democratic socialite and fund raiser named Beth Dozoretz was on a ski trip in Aspen, Colo., when she got a call from the Leader of the Free World. Bill Clinton said he was impressed with the argument for forgiving tax-evasion and fraud charges against the fugitive tycoon, and wanted to grant the pardon...
Still, cloning is the kind of issue so confounding that you envy the purists at either end of the argument. For the Roman Catholic Church, the entire question is one of world view: whether life is a gift of love or just one more industrial product, a little more valuable than most. Those who believe that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception think it is fine for God to make clones; he does it about 4,000 times a day, when a fertilized egg splits into identical twins. But when it comes to massaging a human...
...other end of the argument are the libertarians who don't like politicians or clerics or ethics boards interfering with what they believe should be purely individual decisions. Reproduction is a most fateful lottery; in their view, cloning allows you to hedge your bet. While grieving parents may be confused about the technology--cloning, even if it works, is not resurrection--their motives are their own business. As for infertile couples, "we are interested in giving people the gift of life," Zavos, the aspiring cloner, told TIME this week. "Ethics is a wonderful word, but we need to look beyond...