US Horse Registry Forced To Accept Cloned Horses 164
kdryer39 writes "U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lou Robinson said she will sign an order requiring the American Quarter Horse Association to begin allowing cloned animals to be placed on its registry, according to the organization. A jury last month ruled that the horse association violated anti-monopoly laws by banning cloned animals. The quarter horse association issues and maintains a pedigree registry of American quarter horses, a popular breed associated with cowboys riding on the range in the 19th and early 20th centuries."
Ok, sure... (Score:2)
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I don't see it. Horse breeding is not Horse cloning. Bad idea. Very bad. I can't even fathom the idea that they can force them to take cloned animals.
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What I'd like to know is how are they creating a monopoly by banning cloned horses from being accepted in there registry?
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Re:Ok, sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a monopoly if the item is scarce. What if I built an exact replica of a vintage Bugatti and then insist on having it registered as an official Bugatti? What if I built a hackintosh and insist on apple putting a serial number and a logo on it? The proper answer is "No, f*ck you!".
Do the official registry prevent the creation of a cloned animals registry? Let the damn market choose which registry to consider.
In freedom, one could create the registry of ogm free stuff, male-only (or female-only, or white-only) clubs, and so on. As long as I don't hurt anybody, directly or with negative propaganda, nobody has any business interfering.
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It's not a monopoly if the item is scarce.
What? You're nuts. Completely nuts. That has nothing to do with anything. It's a monopoly if you are the sole source. The whole point of a patent or a trademark is to grant a monopoly for the purpose of creating artificial scarcity! And that's precisely what the situation is here; anyone with the technology could theoretically clone one of these horses from something they found in a turd.
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The main reasoning they have for this is to have a clone for a major producer under their own control (hint: Cloning a horse is rather expensive, really...quarter of a million) or if one were to die due to old age or accident to have a "backup" of something like Rocking Rodder or King so they can continue showing and breeding a prize stallion.
Honestly, I'd love to have a "backup" of my $500 gem (She took the first-ever Arabian Horse Association Youth Nationals in the Half-Arabian division and is 2012's Rese
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There is no artificial scarcity here, there is natural scarcity and artificial abundance due to possible cloning. The keeper of the register do not want to consider clones, fine. Somebody else will do it? fine. This has nothing to do with patents, they did not patent what was already there, nor invent and claim anything.
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So, we needed to force all hunter-gatherers to work in farms, to get the agriculture thing going? Do you get the point or what?
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Bad analogy.
A clone isn't a lesser replica, it's the same creature. The only reason to resist cloning is to provide an artificial barrier to entry.
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First, it was a CAR analogy, which can't possibly be bad, by definition.
Second, they do not resist cloning. They don't consider cloning as an equivalent to sexual reproduction. One could make a register with all the horses who actually were sons of couples who liked each other instead of being "forced" to copulate and not consider human assisted sexual reproduction as natural sexual reproduction. We would then be talking about a very conceptual barrier, so what? There is still no justification for third par
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SHHHHhhhhhhh, be quiet or the NFL will start getting into horses too...
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..they have a monopoly of horse registry, so they can decide what is a horse according to them.
a cloned horse is still a horse, so they'll need to register it.
Re:Ok, sure... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see it. Horse breeding is not Horse cloning. Bad idea. Very bad. I can't even fathom the idea that they can force them to take cloned animals.
The point of getting them registered is to allow them to breed, and their offspring to be on the registry, and to race. You don't necessarily have to race the clones for registration to be worthwhile, and given the premature senescence of clones such as Dolly, they likely are not very good for racing in any case.
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It's not just to race. There's quite a bit more to the Registries than that.
Let's see... It's to...
- Race.
- Show in Working Cow
- Show in Cutting
- Show in Ranch Sorting
- Looking for specific characteristics for a horse for the task you're looking at one for.
There's a whole host of things. Say, for example, you want to get a good-to-awesome Cutting horse to do real cattle work with. You're not going to just buy a horse and hope for the best (though some do...)- you're going to go look at who's won out of
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The copy will always suffer genome degradation over the span of many generations.
Tell that to bacteria. Heck, your individual cells. No real limit. It occasionally goes wrong, but a bit of testing could easily keep that under control.
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The copy will always suffer genome degradation over the span of many generations.
Tell that to bacteria. Heck, your individual cells. No real limit.
Say, WHAT [wikipedia.org]?
It occasionally goes wrong, but a bit of testing could easily keep that under control.
You sound like most of the managers I met: their wording always used a bit and easily when it comes to testing and QA.
(not to mention the display of varying amount of ignorance about the actual process they are suppose to support and control).
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Cloned animals should not be allowed back in to the general population until either the scientific method is fixed and perfected
The scientific method [wikipedia.org] works just fine, why, thank you, and it has nothing to do with the minutiae of applied zootechnics, even if it happens in a lab.
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Fucking fairyland twat modding me down, LOOK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_the_sheep#Death [wikipedia.org]
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Nature sets the stage. Nurture turns it into the product they are trying to clone.
Unless the clone goes through the exact same process of growth, training, etc. it's not going to be the same horse. Genetically, it will be- but it won't show/race/etc. the same way as the original.
Stupid decision by clueless jury (Score:5, Informative)
Salient facts from TFA :-
What is more compelling is the statement from AQHA [equinechronicle.com] after the verdict :-
Seriously, now. If you don't like the rules of a voluntary association, work from within to change the rules. Or talk to them, negotiate to get them to accept you. Or leave, and form your own association with the rules you like. Going to court to force others to put up with you is so wrong.
And yes, I dont't see where is the monopoly. The plaintiffs can still whatever they want with their cloned horses, breed them, sell them, race them etc. They just can't be registered with the AQHA.
Re:Stupid decision by clueless jury (Score:4, Insightful)
One issue is that AQHA runs large commercial races that are open only to its members. They're excercising market control by excluding certain animals based on arbitrary criteria; whether that's a monopoly power or not depends on your view of what constitutes the market in this case (the courts ruled that it is).
For instance:
In 1993, AQHA launched Quarter Horse horse racing's first series of races with a championship-ending day, called The Bank of America Racing Challenge. It is a series of 60 races run throughout North and South America with the winners of each race earning a starting berth into a season-ending Championship Day. The Bank of America Racing Challenge currently offers nearly $6 million in purse and bonus awards.
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One issue is that AQHA runs large commercial races that are open only to its members. They're excercising market control by excluding certain animals based on arbitrary criteria...
And I don't really see what's wrong with that. It's their race, shouldn't they be allowed to set the rules?
To cite another example, it is well known that cars that race in F1 championships have to comply with technical regulations [formula1.com] such as their size and dimensions etc. Can an upstart car company demand to be allowed to race with a car that doesn't meet those rules?
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That's a complicated question. I want to first make it clear that I'm not saying whether I agree with this decision or not. I don't know enough about the market to judge.
But because the AQHA isn't just an informational list (it actually controls whether you're allowed to engage in certain commercial endeavors or not), it is subject to monopoly regulations. Monopolies are complex. If F1 were the only car-racing company of real size that existed, they would certainly be much more limited in what they coul
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This is immediately dangerous because it destroys the breeds genetic diversity, and what if 3 or 4 generations later they find that descendants of the clones are developing a terrible disease, or have far less longevity. The clones material could be spread throughout half the breed at that point and could cause the entire thing to collapse. I think they should be allow to protect their breed from the unknown effects at least until a mulch-generational study has been done on clone offspring.
Through insemination, we can already get a lot of offspring from one stud, endagering the genetic diversity. There was a case of this in cattle, where one bull that was extensively used turned out to have bad knees. As its sperm was used to inseminate a lot of cows, this lead to an insane amount of trouble down the line. We learned from that, and have become much better at keeping stock of which bulls are the fathers and grandfathers of which cattle. I don't see how cloning affects the situation significant
Re:Stupid decision by clueless jury (Score:4, Informative)
We learned from that, and have become much better at keeping stock of which bulls are the fathers and grandfathers of which cattle. I don't see how cloning affects the situation significantly.
Ok, first up when you fertilise an egg you have no real control over what bits of genetic material comes from which parent in many cases. Sometimes it is predetermined by dominant / recessive genes but for other stuff there is a huge element of chance in there. Cloning completely removes this from the equation which is actually the whole point.
Secondly, if you start allowing clones you really need to keep a sample of genetic material from the donor as well to ensure it was not altered as part of the cloning process. Like maybe you want a horse to run faster and can find someway to tweak it's genetic makeup to make this possible.
Don't get me wrong, I am not personally against cloning, genetic modification or any other amazing new technology like this. I do think you have to be a little careful though at how it is applied when money is involved and horse racing is certainly in that category. It seems that if a bunch of a majority of trainers do not want to pit their animals that have been bred in a similar way for hundred of years against a horse that is grown in a lab that should be their prerogative just like most athletes don't want to compete against someone drugged up to eyeballs.
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Off the top of my head, it would drastically increase the magnitude of the popular sire effect [wikipedia.org]. Right now, that's limited by the lifespan of a stallion (or, more accurately, how much semen you can extract, store and disseminate over its lifetime), and for a mare it's even more restricted. Cloning effectively eliminates those constraints, and it takes generations to get
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I was thinking more about the popular sire effect and how it would work on the mare side of things. "Production" from mares is constrained by limited reproduction lifespans, gestation times, etc, so having a handful of clones of a popular mare could shakes things up a bit.
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Part of meiosis involve swapping segments between chromosomes to ensure that gametes are highly genetically diverse.
Cloning completely removes this from the equation which is actually the whole point.
Cloning dosn't remove all randomness. In fema
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The Jockey Club already prohibits artificial insemination.
That's perfectly allowable if you're simply a registry that says "X is a Horse Association branded Mustang; Y is not". But as soon as your organization goes beyond that and says "X is a Horse Association branded Mustang, and only our branded Mustangs are allowed to enter races A, B, and C" then you're impacting commerce and are subject to monopoly laws. If you're one of many options for the same kind of commerce, you're in the clear. If you exerci
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The monopoly is that if a horse is registered with them it and its offspring are more valuable. It has become a kind of de-facto monopoly because registration carries such weight and is required by many buyers and some other organizations.
It's a monopoly because there is no alternative registry, and getting a new one accepted would be extremely difficult.
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Not arguing, per se... But I assume you then feel the same way about the Boy Scouts allowing openly homosexual scouts and leaders?
Obvious flamebait post. The Boy Scout issue carries overtones of social stigma/acceptance and deals with human beings. OTOH not being able to race your horse will cause loss of opportunity to make money. Hardly the same.
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I have to side with the AQHA on this, if for no other reason than the lineage/pedigree 'family tree' would get unwieldy and chaotic fairly quickly.
IMHO, that would diminish the benefits of registering a horse with the AQHA, and cause major disruption.
Not to mention, after a certain point, many folks would start to speculate on what else was happening during the cloning process....as in genetic manipulation. That's just the nature of folks that aren't educated/knowledgeable in that area of science.
I remember
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You seem to be suggesting that genetic manipulation of the clones is not a reasonable concern. How do you know that?
Even if it isn't a realistic concern now, how do you know it will remain that way?
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They shouldn't comply and appeal it further. There are just some things the government needs to stay out of and things it needs to regulate from within, like the lawyer who made this about some farcical monopoly nonsense or the judge who let it stand. There needs to be a regulatory commission for the bench and the bar that watches for silly loophole misinterpretations and rectifies the situation with baseball bats and garden shears when violated. Hey, tomato plants produce better fruit when beaten and prune
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I don't see it. Horse breeding is not Horse cloning. Bad idea. Very bad. I can't even fathom the idea that they can force them to take cloned animals.
It's very simple:
The US has a great many companies involved in genetically modifying or cloning stuff. These companies donate substantial sums to the political parties that judges are appointed by. Any judge who allowed these companies to be put at any sort of commercial inconvenience would find themselves very unpopular with the people who ultimately have a large say in them getting a promotion.
Some judges might hold firm on matters of principle safe in the knowledge that they cannot be easily removed from
What if it were Microsoft? (Score:3)
If this registry were Microsoft, I wonder how the tone of the comments would change. Apparently, they have a monopoly on the registry. That opens them up for regulation. The cloned horses are legal, but their owners can't register them without creating a whole new register and trying to compete, which is too steep a hurdle because... it's a monopoly. So. As long as the registry is allowed to mark the horses as clones, I don't see a problem with this ruling. That way, the clone owners get to register their animals, and people who don't want clones in a bloodline can look it up and exclude it.
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That's because it is their own registry. Doesn't every organization have a "monopoly" on their own registry? Doesn't every club have a "monopoly" on determining who is a member, and who isn't?
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From a legal viewpoint, I don't believe that all this talk of monopoly matters one iota unless the organization has been legally declared one in a court of law. IANAL, so maybe someone can confirm/deny that.
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Now that I think about it, the question of concealing the clone is moot. I know virtually nothing about animal registries, but I'm willing to wager that registered animal's records include the parents. If it's a clone, it has only one parent. If they work around that by claiming that the clone has two parents (the parents of the original animal) that would likely create several animals born within an unnatural timeframe. I don't know how common it is to use surrogates with livestock. If they do, is tha
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One of these Clones is not like the other. (Score:4, Informative)
So, as I understand it, a cloned horse is where you take the DNA from a horse and put it into a donor egg to fertilize it with a complete chromosomal genome. Right, so, as we all know, the cell has other genetic material (mitochondrial DNA, for example). So, it's a fact that the initial cloned animal cell does not have ALL the same DNA that the initial fertilized egg had. If only the clone's chromosomal DNA is the same as the donor, then the cloned animal fertilized with nuclear DNA is not completely identical to the parent, and the clone WILL NOT produce the exact same genetic lineage that the host did -- Unless in the case of a female cloned via its own eggs? Registering studs means they of course do not produce their own eggs for cloning...
Mitochondria are key to the ATP energy cycle of cells; Thus the cloned animal and its offspring may not perform the same athletically as the parent.
In other words: It means that the Cloned Horses should be marked as such in the registry, and the Mother cell donor should be listed -- It's a whole other connectivity graph whereby instead of mixing the nucleic genomes, we are preserving the nucleic genome of the father and mixing it with the non-nucleic genome provided by the egg donor...
And you thought re-engineering a database to allow more sexes than just M or F was a pain? Yeah, I can see why the other registries would put off accepting clones.
Note: I work with artificial cybernetic genomes. I'm not a geneticist, but I felt this needed to be stated since I didn't see such posted above.
Today's cloning is not like calling Object.clone(); It's more like overriding most of the inherited object's methods having to do with appearance and structure, etc. but not all of them. Oh fine, it's like copying a complete car, but modifying the fuel injectors... Normal folks won't care but if you're racing them it might make a big difference.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
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People talk of producing artificial clones that are exact genetic copies of the original organism, but this has never been done. The cloning process is rife with transcription errors.
These so-called clones may look the same as the original, but there are always differences. That's why these "clones" nearly always have significantly shorter life spans than the original organism.
, can accept cloned ... (Score:2)
How are they defining a horse? (Score:2)
Are we still limiting the registry to horses with only four legs?
This is a good thing for rare breeds... (Score:2)
I don't understand why you would go to the effort and expense to clone a common quarter horse, but some of the more rarer breeds, particularly those with closed stud books, have to resort to in-breading on occasion to maintain the breed. this is a good thing for them.
Re:This is a good thing for rare breeds... (Score:4, Informative)
You wouldn't clone a common Quarter Horse. You would clone an exceptionally valuable Quarter Horse. Some of them are worth millions of dollars.
Why (Score:2)
The horses are already registered, just bump the version number by 1.
Hopefully they can at least flag the cloned ones (Score:2)
That way people who care can filter the cloned horses from the list.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Hamburger filler, corn starch, mono-sodium glutimate, red dye # 7,...
Just read the label, dude.
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It takes 4 of them to make an entire horse.
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It's a quarter horse? What are the other 3/4?
It's a metric hating faster horse, designed to run a quarter mile faster than other type of horses.
Re:Remember when Dolly and CC were big news? (Score:5, Funny)
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WTF do they have a monopoly on? A list?
If the Boy Scouts can keep gays out since they're a private organization, someone should be able to make a horse list according to their criteria.
a better question is, why do so many gays (and others) want so very badly to be in a place where they are so clearly not wanted and appreciated? reminds me of shannon faulkner suing to get into VMI (and dropping out soon after btw). why would you sue to get into someplace instead of finding a place where you are wanted and appreciated? course VMI accepted public money so faulkner won that suit. but really i just don't understand this desire.
another question: we would not allow a straight man to sleep
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I'm not gay, but I'm not welcome in the Boy Scouts for odious discriminatory reasons. So why do I hang around?
Because I feel that, other than the discrimination they engage in (and that they will be hugely embarassed about 20 years from now), they have an excellent program for my son. Rather than dropping him off at the door, and picking him up later, or sending him on campouts, I participate. I have explained to the scoutmaster why I can never be an adult leader in the BSA program, and he understands.
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I'm not gay, but I'm not welcome in the Boy Scouts for odious discriminatory reasons. So why do I hang around?
May I ask why? Feel free to give a list of other discrimination they practice if you'd rather not be specific, as I ask so I can be better informed, rather than trying to poke my nose into your personal life.
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Wow, it must be something really creepy.
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I'm not gay, but I'm not welcome in the Boy Scouts for odious discriminatory reasons. So why do I hang around?
May I ask why? Feel free to give a list of other discrimination they practice if you'd rather not be specific, as I ask so I can be better informed, rather than trying to poke my nose into your personal life.
I'm not the GP, but one possibility is that the poster is an avowed atheist. Though there is no particularly mandated religion in Boy Scouts (e.g. Hindus are welcome), atheism is not allowed.
The poster could also be a Quaker, as Boy Scouts have a Scout Oath that must be repeated and Quakers adhere to the biblical command from Jesus not to swear oaths.
These are just off the top of my head, so there may be others.
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Quakers adhere to the biblical command from Jesus not to swear oaths.
So they say. What reason have we got for believing them? ;)
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No need to be an "avowed atheist", whatever that is. You simply have to be unable to agree to their "Statement of Religious principle" on your application, and/or be unable to agree with the Scout Oath: "On my honor I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country". You don't have to be in active opposition to religion to be unwelcome - you simply have to be a man of principles who won't swear to something you don't believe in. Agnostic, Atheist, violent anti-religious nutcase, all are equally unwel
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Someday, the blatant discrimination of "The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God" will be recognized as the brain-dead bigotry it is. Frankly, I find this statement to be as offensive as anything said of homosexuals - it states clearly and unambiguously that I cannot the "best kind of citizen", that I am somehow lesser than someone who recognizes "an obligation to God". Not being the "best kind of citizen", am I to be
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I expect that my honorable service will help change the opinion the organization holds against me and move it in a more inclusive direction.
But that's not how it works. Helping to develop a competing scouting organization would do that. Supporting the bigots only justifies their bigotry. "Obviously," they'll say, "people want us to carry on as we have been carrying on, even if they say otherwise; their actions tell us the truth." You're working against your stated goal, and helping to sell out the future (open scouting for everyone) in exchange for short-term gain today (your child in scouting.)
If you have any questions about human nature that
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It doesn't? The gay scouts who were proud members of the organization might feel differently - their work from within brought about the changes that now allow them to be accepted in the organization.
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Gay doesn't equate to pedophile. Say that again: Gay doesn't imply Pedophile.
So, back to the parents question regarding allowing straight males to sleep in tents with young females, then the same rule should apply. But it doesn't.
Re:Is there no governmental limits anymore? (Score:4, Informative)
a better question is, why do so many gays (and others) want so very badly to be in a place where they are so clearly not wanted and appreciated?
It could be due to the fact that they were Scouts when they were younger and want to carry on the tradition. In many areas the Boy Scouts are the only organization that offers outdoor activities. Many gay fathers would like to be a Scout Master in the troops of their children.
we would not allow a straight man to sleep in a tent in close proximity to young girls who are not his offspring because he might be a sick fuck
At coed camps adults of the opposite gender sleep near children all the time. There are female Scout Masters [nytimes.com] who are allowed to sleep in a tent in close proximity to boys; why not gay men? You are also incorrect as the Girl scouts allow male volunteers [girlscouts.org].
Q: Who can volunteer?
A: Membership is open to women and men 18 and over who accept the Girl Scout Promise and Law.
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What is your point?
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a better question is, why do so many gays (and others) want so very badly to be in a place where they are so clearly not wanted and appreciated?
Why do gay people want to get married, an institution to which (until relatively recently) they were never welcome? Why did black people want to sit at the front of the bus where they weren't welcome?
Why do Anonymous Cowards keep posting stupid shit on a site when everybody thinks they're idiots?
Re:Greed knows no bounds (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm with the Quarter Horse Association on this one. They're not the government. They have no "fairness" obligation to everyone. I don't see how they can be accused of holding a monopoly when "no other horse breeding registry allows cloned animals ..." indicates that they ain't the only game in town. Start your own damned registry if you don't like the current offerings. If the incumbents run you out of Dodge on a rail, then you have an actionable claim based on anti-competitive business practices. But I don't see how you can claim "monopoly" simply because you don't like a private organization's rules.
Hey, I just started the "No Clones Alllowed Horse Registry." Can these two horse breeders sue me and force my no-clones registry to accept their cloned animals?
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If you want to argue that horses are people, I'll agree with you, but you've got a hard row to hoe. In the meantime, this is basically equivalent to saying that NASCAR can't ban vehicles based on their characteristics.
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My Formula 1 Race car appreciates this new rule change
Screw that, I am entering a tank. Lets see how many laps you manage before you get crushed.
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There is a basic human right not to be discriminated on te basis of skin colour. Horses are not human and there is no right with respect to cloning or not cloning. You are comparing apples to oranges.
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There is a basic human right not to be discriminated on te basis of skin colour. Horses are not human and there is no right with respect to cloning or not cloning. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Congratulations on your utter lack of reading comprehension; you have got me entirely wrong. I am pointing out that horses are not legally considered people, and therefore they have no right to protection from discrimination. You are comparing bananas to rutabagas.
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It's a good thing he didn't post that in reply to you, but to the same post you replied to. Congratulations on your utter lack of threaded discussion system comprehension.
Whoops! You're right. I take it all back. I guess I failed to click "parent". I will wear the ass hat today.
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Uh... Horses aren't people (Though I understand that some are confused on that score...). Your analogy goes straight to Hell in a handbasket at that point.
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I am currently an officer of the ""He-Man Women Hater's Club [wikipedia.org]." As a private club, I may deny you and anyone else admittance to said club, for pretty much any reason - I don't like your hair; you have the wrong color eyes; it's Tuesday. My behavio
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Unlike people, horses do not have civil rights.
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But they are a business and as such, they are subject to business regulations.
To be a monopoly, you don't have to have 100% of the market - just like Windows does not have 100% of the desktop OS market and there are quite a few other desktop OSes, yet it definitel
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If the government didn't break down monopolies, you'd be paying everything you made for basic survival items from the company store which was your only option.
Airline tickets would be double or triple what they are now.
Monopolies make things more expensive.
There is a barrier to entry around expensive or very old businesses.
Breaking up monopolies is in the government's responsibilities since we had the trust busters.
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Can these two horse breeders sue me and force my no-clones registry to accept their cloned animals?
Apparently so. :p
Re:Greed knows no bounds (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is not greed. The problem is government dictating how people should run their lives.
Greed for money or goods is a material form of avarice. The lust to have and perpetually expand power at every opportunity is just a non-material form of greed. The latter is more dangerous by far because it is backed by the police power of government and there is no counter-force causing it to retreat. There is only incremental advancement.
This isn't a road or an essential utility or a national security issue. There is no real public interest here. Ergo, the correct solution would have been to dismiss the suit and tell the plaintiffs that they are free to form their own clone registry. The fact that the current registry is a monopoly would be immaterial because said monopoly excludes clones and thus wouldn't compete with a clone registry. The clone registry would probably find itself entirely without competition. Then those who are interested in cloned horses know where to look while those wanting horses bred the old-fashioned way also know where to look.
Apparently that's just not as fun as forcing people to do what they explicitly don't want to do.
Re:Greed knows no bounds (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem usually comes not because of the registry, but because there may be other organizations which only "recognize" horses from that registry for their purposes. For example, if a race organization requires that a horse be "pure bred", and only accepts AQHA pedigree, then things start getting messy. And very likely, AQHA rules don't allow AQHA-registered horses to breed out-of-registry, which massively restricts the breeding pool for any competing registry.
In other words, sometimes these sorts of registries act as gatekeepers for a whole host of things, and it makes more sense to change the registry than the change the practices of everything "downstream". Particularly if the registry isn't keeping up with industry practices, or the rules start to introduce health issues with pedigree animals (i.e. reduces the breeding pool excessively).
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The problem usually comes not because of the registry, but because there may be other organizations which only "recognize" horses from that registry for their purposes.
Great. File a suit against those organizations, seeking to force them to recognize horses from other registries. That makes sense. Forcing a registry for bred horses to accept cloned horses is unacceptable.
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Yeah, that's always an option. But if you have to force those organizations to recognize other registries, you've pretty much nailed the argument that the one existing registry is a monopoly, haven't you?
And that's assuming those organizations even exist (I haven't looked to closely) and the entire quarter horse industry isn't basically operating under the thumb of the one registry. Which makes an even s
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that's always an option. But if you have to force those organizations to recognize other registries, you've pretty much nailed the argument that the one existing registry is a monopoly, haven't you?
But is it an illegal monopoly? They're not preventing anyone else from racing horses, or registering horses.
Re: (Score:2)
From what I've read about it, there are other registries. However, if you want to race or do rodeo events, it sounds like they are effectively a monopoly, and the cost of starting up a competing ecosystem of events outside the registry is likely going to be quite high.
They likely aren't an "illegal" monopoly, but being a legal monopoly is more than enough to makes things like this happen.
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Actually, they allow it- you just can't register the foal in the AQHA registry at that point.
You'll see part-bred Arabians all the time and the AHA allows them to be registered as Partbred-Arabians in a seperate segment of the whole registry.
Why would you want to do this? Simple. You very often get the best of both worlds when you do it. It's just not a breed unto itself and won't "breed true".
Re: (Score:2)
That's not quite so bad, then, although for a foal of a clone of a registered horse it strikes me as silly if it wasn't allowed registration.
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Anybody could make their own rail company. If I ran Standard Oil, I would not like the railroad companies to ship the products of my competitors.
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And I will go to court to force you to also allow horses cloned by ants.
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There are plenty of perfectly enforceable laws, and occasions where they are enforced, no problem there. The problem is some people and entities are apparently above or outside the law.
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For anyone to state with a straight face that there are enforceable anti-monopoly laws in 2013 America needs to blah, blah, blah...
Yeah, you're right
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2013/08/13/justice-american-us-airways/2647545/ [usatoday.com]
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/06/21/apple-ebook-antitrust-summations-2/ [cnn.com]
http://www.vedderprice.com/US-Supreme-Court-Decides-Pay-for-Delay-Patent-Antitrust-Case-Briefed-by-Vedder-Price-2013-06-18/ [vedderprice.com]
Re:Will they find a way to make the clones fail dr (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had ten clones of a proven track horse you could increase your winnings by driving the horse harder, at the risk of damaging them because you have backup copies. For the welfare of the animals, this should be banned from horse racing... or any other sport that involves animals being commanded by people.
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Not advocating any animal abuse, but how many of these horses would even exist if there was no demand from racing, or other "commanded by people" activities? I suspect that they'd be on the endangered species list without a lot of free space for wild horses.
Re: (Score:2)
Willllllbur! Is that you?