It shouldn't come as any surprise that The New York Times editorial page writers use language in such a way that it becomes meaningless. Case in point is this editorial in last week's paper on a proposed cloning ban at the U.N. Seeing as how it is the U.N., any measure would be mainly meaningless -- no one listens to the U.N. General Assembly anyway.

The Times' lazy language comes near the end of the piece.

That is an extreme measure that seeks to snuff out all research on microscopic entities that religious conservatives consider potential babies but scientists consider mere clusters of cells in a laboratory dish.

Well, if we were to gather up all of the Times editorial writers and take a purely scientific look at them, they too could be coldly and soullessly seen as just "mere clusters of cells."

An old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode had an alien life form based on silicon (unlike humans who are based on carbon) described humans as "ugly bags of mostly water." If you look at the world, and at human beings, as the arrogant editorial writers at the Times do, then there is no morality, there is no value to human life -- after all, we're all just clumps of cells.