The Clone Wars

I never fully understood the excitement that surrounds the idea of human cloning.

Right now we have way too many people on this planet, so the last thing society needs is a quick and easy way to dump millions of test-tube clones in the middle of human life. In fact unless those turkeys in England sneeze a little bit harder and start an avian bird flu epidemic, I think the world is doing just fine from a population standpoint.

Scientists have recently announced that they've come one step closer to being able to clone monkeys. Before that it was Dolly the sheep, and then a dog called Snuppy.

But where are the pandas in all this cloning action? If any species could do with a helping hand in the reproductive stakes, it's these black-and-white puffy eyed bamboo chompers. When you look at the panda's lack of ability to pro-create it's almost as if evolution is attempting to send us a message they we should just let them fade away gracefully. But nope, we ooo and ahh every time one of these bumbling beasts rolls-over in an obscure Chinese zoo and if a panda gets pregnant, it's bigger than the Superbowl.

So pandas might be a good candidate for cloning, if only to save the rest of the world from the sickly sweet "And finally, on a lighter note...." news stories.

But that brings us onto humans. We don't need cloning, because our ability to multiply is sadly far too effective. Take my hometown for example. Give a typical 16-year-old a crate of alco-pops and a 1 year free pass to a local nightclub (preferably with a name like "Panache" or "Krystals") and they'll reproduce faster than a pimple on Cameron Diaz's forehead. If there's one thing that people are good at it's making more people, and we don't need a gang of Gods in white coats to clog-up our buses and subways with more human DNA.

One of the loudest arguments that I've heard against human cloning is the idea that a crazed dictator - such as Hitler or Saddam Hussein - could get hold of the technology and decide to clone themselves. Imagine the anarchy that could ensue if the world was injected with thousands of one-testicled dictators with wonky moustaches and funny walks.

As horrendous as that sounds, there's a far greater fear that strikes me like a Deep Vein Thrombosis. Think about the slew of people you encounter every day. There's Dave the annoying co-worker who chews his food like a camel. Maybe the anonymous girl on the bus who thinks it's a good idea to clip her nails in public, dropping them all over your bag. Or what about Wesley the doorman who's constantly preaching about Jesus to you, the UPS man and anybody else who makes the mistake of coming within a three yard radius of him.

Now they're the people we need to worry about. Forget about dictators, if ordinary people start being cloned then I think it's time to be concerned. Maybe the pandas aren't so dumb after all...