'Dilbert' Becomes What He Mocks - The Boss

NY TIMES: The Tables Turn for Dilbert’s Creator
By BRAD STONE
Published: November 11, 2007
Photo by Thor Swift

THIS is yet another story about a clueless but obtrusive boss — the kind of meddlesome manager you might laugh at in the panels of “Dilbert,” the daily comic strip.

The boss in question operates an upscale restaurant serving California cuisine about an hour’s drive east of San Francisco. The restaurant, Stacey’s at Waterford, is in trouble — two decades of rapid population growth in the region has prompted an influx of national competitors like P. F. Chang’s China Bistro and the Cheesecake Factory.

While the chains have 30-minute waits for tables on weeknights, Stacey’s at Waterford has more jewel-tone microfiber chairs than diners, and is slowly but steadily losing money. To make matters worse, this befuddled manager has never run a restaurant before or even supervised another person’s work in more than 20 years. His greatest qualification for the job, one might say, is 17 years spent satirizing cubicle culture.

In other words, Scott Adams, the “Dilbert” creator and the progenitor of the multimillion-dollar Dilbert empire, is now a pointy-haired boss himself.

Mr. Adams had repeatedly vowed never to let it come to this, refusing for years even to hire a personal assistant to help with Dilbert-related projects. “I did a really good job not being a boss for a long time, and I was happy with that,” he said.

But never say never. A decade ago, flush with Dilbert riches, he and the restaurant veteran Stacey Belkin opened a restaurant called Stacey’s Cafe in downtown Pleasanton, Calif., a bedroom community of San Francisco. Five years later, they opened Stacey’s at Waterford in an unremarkable strip mall nearby, in Dublin, Calif.

Until this summer, Mr. Adams’s involvement consisted of signing checks, writing clever jokes for the menus and leaving big tips for the wait staff after his regular visits. Then a personal battle between Ms. Belkin and a former chef intensified just as the big feed chains began staking their claim on the booming exurbs — thrusting Dilbert’s creator into the middle of a managerial nightmare.

Stacey’s Cafe is smaller, in a better location and is regularly packed. But Stacey’s at Waterford, never profitable to begin with, was suddenly seeing a 10 percent decline in revenue. Ms. Belkin, who was running both restaurants, was overextended.

Mr. Adams, meanwhile, was dispatching his comic-strip responsibilities in just a few hours each morning. So, in July, he agreed to take over day-to-day operations of Stacey’s at Waterford, thus becoming what he has consistently ridiculed: a boss.

“I am highly experienced at making funny comics about managers,” he wrote at the time on his popular blog, dilbertblog.typepad.com. “How hard could it be to transition from mocking idiots to being one?”

Those in his 35-member staff at Stacey’s at Waterford can gladly answer that one. In interviews authorized by their generously self-deprecating boss, employees describe him as trusting and appreciative, full of off-the-wall ideas about how to turn around the business, and dramatically clueless about the harsh realities of the restaurant industry.

“I’ve been in this business 23 years, and I’ve seen a lot of things. He truly has no idea what he’s doing,” said Nathan Gillespie, the new, wise-cracking head chef, after discussing a recent dust-up with Mr. Adams over the grilled salmon filet. (Mr. Gillespie had experimented with what he called small changes to the dish; friends noticed them and told Mr. Adams, who admonished the chef that new dishes need to go through a formal review.)

Mr. Gillespie is still miffed. “He’s a really nice guy, but he relies on his friends’ opinions,” he said, lamenting that his boss’s friends probably think a chain restaurant has good pizza.

Emma Lewis, the lunch manager, describes Mr. Adams as someone who should be shielded from tough decisions the way a crawling infant needs to be protected from household hazards. “We laugh and say we’re not going to let him watch the Food Channel,” she said. “He’ll think he can run a restaurant.”

On the other hand, employees also say he knows his limitations and combines deep trust in them with an instinctive ability to motivate people. They understand that to survive in this age of dominant restaurant chains, they must embrace some of his more unusual ideas and obsessions — but more on those later.

No one is more critical of his management skills than the humorist himself. “I’m quite sure I’ve succumbed to the pigeon theory of management,” he said. “Flying in every so often and dumping on everything.”

“THE most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.”

— Scott Adams

“The Dilbert Principle”

Mr. Adams, who turned 50 in June, has closely cropped, receding hair, spectacles and an unsurprising resemblance to his ink-drawn alter-ego. He is quick to recognize how the cynical cubicle-worker wisdom that propelled “The Dilbert Principle” onto best-seller lists is at work in his role as restaurant boss.

“Certainly I’m an example of the Dilbert Principle,” he said. “I can’t cook. I can’t remember customers’ orders. I can’t do most of the jobs I pay people to do.”

But restaurants, he says, are in his DNA. Before he was born, his family owned and operated a diner called the Blue Moon in Windham, N.Y., in the 1950s. In high school and college, he bused tables at resorts in the Catskills.

“I have no interest in ever stepping onto a sailboat,” he said. “But I walk into a restaurant and all my senses and interests are activated in a single moment.”

Enriched by the 1990s success of Dilbert, he indulged his obsession. After investing in Stacey’s Cafe, he started a company, Scott Adams Food, in 1999. Its first and last product was the Dilberito, a vitamin-packed meatless burrito with a wheat-based meat substitute intended to give workaholics a full day’s worth of nourishment.

The company placed the Dilberito in national supermarkets, but Mr. Adams now complains that rival food makers surreptitiously sent agents into stores to bury it on the back of shelves. He closed the venture in 2003, though he licensed the protein substitute to a food conglomerate and continues to draw small royalties.

Two years later, he curtailed speaking engagements after contracting spasmodic dysphonia, a rare brain disorder that robbed him of his voice for a year. Gradually, he learned tricks like altering his speech patterns or talking in rhymes, which let him regain some speaking ability, though his voice remains halting and wispy.

Today, he is married and a stepfather to two young children. He still awakes at 5 a.m., drawing his strip and producing books like “Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!” his most recent collection of entries from his blog. Cartooning now comes easily to Mr. Adams, who gets many ideas from readers via his Web site and draws strips in a few hours each morning on his computer. “I spend less time thinking about the strip than anything else I do,” he said.

So when the numbers on Stacey’s at Waterford started to go south, he had the free time to try to protect his investment. He declines to disclose exactly how much he has already spent or what the restaurant is losing. “The trajectory changed,” he said. “It was moving in the right direction and suddenly started moving rapidly in the wrong direction.”

“We needed a change in strategy.”

“THE purpose of a plan is to disguise the fact that you have no idea what you should be doing.”

— Scott Adams, “Dilbert’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life”

The linchpin of Mr. Adams’s strategy is the 50-person banquet room. “We are three banquets a week away from being on our way to riches and glory,” he said.

After taking over this summer, he hired an events coordinator who began attracting outings from local companies like Oracle, Chevron and Safeway, and introduced bonuses for employees who refer banquet business. He also turned to Dilbert fans for suggestions on how to use the party room, in a posting on his blog titled “Oh Great Blog Brain.”

The Dilbert faithful responded with more than 1,300 comments, mixing interesting ideas (interactive murder-mystery theater) with unlikely mischief (nude volleyball tournaments).

Mr. Adams asked his employees to read the comments and is now slowly trying some of them. The idea for Mommy Mojito Night, for example, originated on the blog and has met with initial enthusiasm from customers.

Along with such ideas, he also started indulging some odd, pointy-haired-boss-like obsessions.

He believes proper light is the primary factor in a restaurant’s success — not food, price, location, location or location. “With the right light, you look better and your date looks better,” he said. “That influences your impression of everything else.”

But when they designed their space, Mr. Adams and Ms. Belkin blundered by creating multiple, large floor-to-ceiling storefront windows that are now proving impossibly expensive to cover.

He always despised the light in the restaurant. So, skeptical employees in tow, he embarked on a surreal hunt for window coverings. One interior decorator after another suggested translucent curtains, or curtains that gather on the sides, or curtains designed to stay rolled up.

“Every meeting was the same conversation,” he said. “They couldn’t understand that the point was to have less light.” Roman shades would have done the trick, but they cost $50,000.

The project was temporarily shelved this fall, but not before it had become a source of comedy among the wait staff. “At this point, I’m sure he wouldn’t care if we put cardboard on windows,” said Kristina Jernigan, the bar manager.

More recently, Mr. Adams began plans to “Dilbertize” the restaurant. He hopes that adding more conspicuous references to his celebrity might create what marketers call a “purple cow” — that singular distinction that gets people talking.

The restaurant recently invited its bar patrons to draw on blank comic book panels; it will post the best efforts to its Web site, www.eatatstaceys.com. Mr. Adams also plans to add a flat-screen television to the bar and to run a constant loop of “Dilbert” strips on it. “For a fairly low investment, it becomes an automatic talking point,” he said.

But no one knows better than Dilbert’s creator that changes from above can stir fear and conspiracy among the troops. Converting the existing bar into a “Dilbar,” as employees called it, became the source of an uncomfortable rumor in the restaurant: that Mr. Adams would soon ask them to wear Dilbert-style white short-sleeved shirts and ties that curled upward.

“It is definitely not going to up our cool factor,” said a bartender, Brian Bundy, who believed that such a change was imminent.

Mr. Adams says he has no plans for such a requirement, and two employees deviously take credit for the starting the rumor. Still, many at the restaurant seem to think it’s a possibility.

“I bet you six months from now, you walk in here and see the ties,” said Ms. Lewis, the lunch manager.

Mr. Adams recognizes how such fears may have taken hold. “If you put that in context of my other bad ideas, it makes sense,” he said.

“LEADERSHIP is a flavor of evil. Obviously no one would need to lead you to do something you wanted to do anyway.”

— Scott Adams, “Dilbert’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life”

Mr. Adams tries to avoid the bad-boss stereotypes he mocks in ”Dilbert” and his best-selling books. Occasionally, he slips up. Trying to coordinate a conversation between a reporter and the dinner manager, Mr. Adams calls the employee on his off day and asks him to come in anyway. He agrees.

“I like to hire people with no life,” Mr. Adams said wickedly after the call.

That demanding streak is tempered by a more benevolent side: Mr. Adams generously tipped the entire staff after his 50th birthday party at the restaurant, though he’d spent part of the evening grousing that the lights were too bright.

In sizing up his own struggles as boss, he said: “The toughest thing is I have trouble being evil. I never punish mistakes, and it’s impossible for me to ask people to work harder. So my defense is to make sure people are happy about being here.”

Some employees, accustomed to hard-edged politics at other restaurants, think that this approach might further disadvantage Stacey’s in such a brutally competitive environment.

“He’s extremely loyal to people — in this business that can be deadly,” said Mr. Gillespie, the chef.

Mr. Adams shrugs off the possibility of failure at Stacey’s and said he has the money and willingness to keep trying new strategies until he finds one that works. “Any combination of things can help us,” he said. “If any of these new ideas take off, we’ll be fine, and if they won’t work, we can walk away from them and try something else.”

He adds that running a restaurant complements his life nicely. “It’s a source of stress, but it adds such richness and happiness to my life,” he says. “The problem with being a cartoonist is that if you don’t have someplace else to go, your life just gets so small.”

At the very least, Scott Adams is getting fresh insight into Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss.

When There Is No More Room In Hell

BUSINESS WIRE: Ground-Breaking Orville Redenbacher’s Ads Launch During Monday’s Golden Globe Award Ceremonies
January 12, 2007 10:23 AM Eastern Time
America’s Legendary Popcorn Icon Returns via Computer-generated Animation To Promote America’s Favorite Gourmet Snack

EDINA, Minn.--Thanks to a history-making leap in innovative advertising, Orville Redenbacher’s image returns to television this coming Monday in new commercials that promote his deliciously light and fluffy gourmet popcorn. Orville, who died in 1995 at age 88, would have turned 100 years old this year, making this a centenary cause for remembering him.

The ads, scheduled to premier during the 64th annual Golden Globe awards, employ computer-generated imaging that allows directors to create and use completely believable digitally created actors in live-action settings. While movie audiences may be familiar with animation of large crowds or stunts, such as the thousands of troops in “Flags of our Fathers,” or the character Gollum from “Lord of the Rings,” this new technology -- being used publicly for the first time -- advances current techniques tenfold to create an authentic digital human with detail, personality and close-up realism.

Monday night viewers will experience an authentic Orville Redenbacher that recalls recent vintage commercials of him that consumers especially enjoyed. But the computer-generated Orville will be set in a modern world of MP3 players and plasma screens. The brand is reintroducing Orville’s likeness to all-new television spots this year after a 15-year hiatus. In addition, the brand will be reintroducing Orville’s likeness to its packaging for the first time since 1998.

“This is an exciting time for us,” said Stan Jacot, vice president of Marketing for the company’s popcorn business. “The Orville Redenbacher’s brand is bringing back the face of popcorn by reintroducing Orville Redenbacher and what he stood for across our brand’s marketing touch points. Our goal is to help reestablish people’s passion for popcorn as only Orville could.”

ConAgra Foods decided to reintroduce Orville via breakthrough computer-generated technology after watching consumers respond so enthusiastically to the vintage ads featuring Orville that aired on both broadcast and online media formats this past year.

To recreate Orville’s likeness digitally, ConAgra Foods, its advertising agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, and the Hollywood special-effects wizards of Digital Domain (known for their legendary work on such films as “Titanic,” “The Day after Tomorrow,” “iRobot,” “Cinderella Man” and “Flags of our Fathers,” among others), spent months poring over old photographs and advertisements featuring Orville. The entire process took months and required many phases of execution under acclaimed director David Fincher (“Seven,” “Fight Club” and “Panic Room”). In the end, not only is Orville’s likeness recreated in near- flawless detail, but his honest and passionate delivery also comes through.

“Our work with the Orville Redenbacher team allowed us to stretch the boundaries of what can be done with computer-generated actors to create extremely realistic, digitized personalities that look real, even in close-ups,” said Ed Ulbrich, president of the commercial division of Digital Domain. “This project was the first to benefit from advanced technology developed by Digital Domain for an upcoming feature film, and while the challenge presented in recreating Orville Redenbacher was one of the most difficult things we’ve ever undertaken, most viewers will be surprised when they realize that Orville is computer-generated.”

“People just love seeing Orville,” continued Jacot. “Seeing his image instantly reminds people of his quest for the perfect popping corn. We feel those seeing him for the first time will embrace his return as well.”

Orville the man

Orville Redenbacher was an agricultural genius who dedicated his life and talent to the art and science of popcorn. With an unflinching curiosity and drive for perfection, he sought to grow the perfect popcorn. He spent more than 40 years developing a corn hybrid unlike any other, and after creating and testing more than 40,000 varieties, he produced kernels that popped up lighter and fluffier than the world had ever seen. Finally, Orville found a taste that met his strict standards.

What did that give America? A new standard for America’s favorite snack and an icon who inspired the country with his determination and passion to complete his mission. Today, the Orville Redenbacher’s brand continues to evolve with new varieties and flavors that consumers enjoy.

Orville Redenbacher’s microwave popcorn is made with premium popcorn that is 100 percent whole grain, with zero grams of trans fat per serving. The brand has developed and markets more than 70 items – from lighter to organic to sweet kettle corn.

”Grandpa would have loved these new ads,” said Gary Redenbacher, Orville Redenbacher’s grandson who appeared in several of the vintage Redenbacher’s ads. “He always loved promoting and talking about his popcorn; it was his passion. And these ads capture the passion, sincerity, pride and commitment grandpa brought to television viewers night after night.”
The brand’s innovative future

The Orville Redenbacher’s brand is confident Orville’s return will help bring people back to popcorn as their snack of choice. While the ads employ new technology, the promise to deliver the best popcorn has remained the same. The exciting new ads will set the stage for the brand’s innovation as it continues to reestablish consumers’ connection to popcorn.
About ConAgra Foods

ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG), is one of North America's leading packaged food companies, serving grocery retailers, as well as restaurants and other foodservice establishments. Popular ConAgra Foods consumer brands include: Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt's, Marie Callender's, Orville Redenbacher's, PAM and many others. For more information, visit www.conagrafoods.com.
About Digital Domain

Founded in 1993, Digital Domain is an award-winning full-service digital studio and production company that creates special visual effects and other visual imagery for feature films, commercials and music videos. A pioneer in digital effects, Digital Domain’s business units have been recognized with awards from the top industry organizations. In its 13-year history, Digital Domain has won five Academy Awards®: two for Best Visual Effects (“Titanic,” “What Dreams May Come”); and three for Scientific and Technical Achievement for its proprietary imaging software. The company has also been nominated for three other Academy Awards® for Best Visual Effects (“Apollo 13,” “True Lies,” “I, Robot”).

Digital Domain’s Commercials division provides digital imagery and animation for television commercials, working with the top commercial directors. Serving Fortune 100 companies, the division has built a reputation as an innovator and industry leader in television commercial production and is the largest and most-awarded creator of digital imagery in its field. To date, it has been awarded 34 Clio Awards, 22 AICP awards, eight Cannes Lion Awards and numerous other advertising honors. For more information about Digital Domain, please see www.digitaldomain.com.

Contacts ConAgra Foods, Inc. Regina DeMars, 402-595-6727 regina.demars@conagrafoods.com or Mitch Delaplane, 312-228-6943 mitch.delaplane@ketchum.com

*************************************************************************************

You can see the spot here, as well as read plenty of reactions. Why hire an impersonator when you get an A-list director and drop goodness-knows-how-much cash into CG work that looks (at best) cold and unnatural?

Even if it worked, what do you do then? Make a series of hideously expensive commercials just to keep the Frankenbranding alive?

Oh, Shit

NY TIMES: F.D.A. Tentatively Declares Food From Cloned Animals to Be Safe
By ANDREW POLLACK and ANDREW MARTIN
Published: December 29, 2006

After years of delay, the Food and Drug Administration tentatively concluded yesterday that milk and meat from some cloned farm animals are safe to eat. That finding could make the United States the first country to allow products from cloned livestock to be sold in grocery stores.

Even if the agency’s assessment is formally approved next year, consumers will not see many steaks or pork chops from cloned animals because the technology is still too expensive to be used widely.

But the F.D.A.’s draft policy touched off an immediate storm of criticism from consumer groups, as well as some concerns from meat and dairy companies worried about consumer reaction.

“At the end of the day, F.D.A. is looking out for a few cloning companies and not for consumers or the dairy industry,” said Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group.

Mr. Mendelson and other consumer representatives argue that the science backing the F.D.A.’s decision is shaky and that consumer surveys show that most people are opposed to cloning animals, let alone eating them. Some also said that cloning causes harm to the animals involved and could pave the way for human cloning.

Opponents hope to bring Congressional pressure to bear to derail the policy before it becomes final or at least to require that such foods be labeled so consumers can choose to avoid them. F.D.A. officials said that it was unlikely that labeling would be required because food from cloned animals is indistinguishable from other food, although a final decision about labeling has not been made.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, yesterday called for a “careful, deliberative and open process” before cloned animals are approved for food.

The F.D.A.’s finding comes more than six years after the agency first decided to study the matter, after recognizing that the advent of cloned farm animals raised a food safety issue. After that study, the agency in 2003 gave a tentative approval to cloned animals for food. But the F.D.A. retreated after its own advisory panel found there was insufficient scientific backing for that conclusion.

This time, F.D.A. officials said they had substantial new data, which they presented yesterday in a nearly 700-page “draft risk assessment.”

The officials denied the contention from some critics that the policy was announced during a holiday week in order to reduce publicity, saying it had taken until now to analyze the data and obtain comment from other government agencies.

The assessment concluded that milk and meat from cloned cows, pigs and goats, and from their offspring, were “as safe to eat as the food we eat every day,” Stephen F. Sundlof, the F.D.A.’s chief of veterinary medicine, said in a telephone call with reporters.

Mr. Sundlof said that by law the agency could consider only the scientific issues, not consumer demand or the ethics of cloning.

While animal cloning has always been legal, since 2001 there has been a voluntary moratorium on the sales of milk or meat from such animals to give the F.D.A. time to study the matter. Some experts say that some products from clones or their offspring have probably nonetheless made their way into the food supply.

The moratorium will stay in place until the new policy is completed, after a 90-day period for public comment and additional time for the F.D.A. to review the comments. Mr. Sundlof said he could not say when the final policy would be ready, though it might be by the end of 2007.

Even then, the moratorium would remain for products from sheep, the F.D.A. said, because there was not enough evidence of their safety. No one has yet succeeded in cloning chickens or other poultry.

The finding was hailed by cloning companies, which have been struggling to build a business. It also drew praise from some farmers and breeders who have already made clones of their prized livestock but have had to pour milk down the drain and keep their meat off the market.

They say that cloning is just another breeding technique, like artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization.

“This just sort of lifts the stigma of the clones,” said Bob Schauf, a Holstein breeder and dairy farmer in Barron, Wis., who had two of his prized cows cloned. He said his family and the families of his employees have been drinking the milk from those clones rather than see it go to waste. But dairy marketers have expressed concern.

A survey conducted last summer by the International Dairy Foods Association, an industry trade group, found that 14 percent of women would turn away from all dairy products if milk from clones were introduced into the food supply. The association surveyed women because its research has found them to be the main household decision makers on dairy products.

The American Meat Institute, while saying yesterday that cloning was safe, also urged the F.D.A. to be cautious about approval “if most consumers are unwilling to accept the technology.”

A poll this month from the nonprofit Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that while most consumers knew little about animal cloning, 64 percent said they were uncomfortable with it, with 46 percent saying they were “strongly uncomfortable.”

F.D.A. officials said no other country had yet approved food from cloned livestock, although some are considering it. That raised the prospect that American exports of milk or meat could be blocked by certain countries if they contain products from cloned animals. An official in the Washington delegation of the European Union said politicians and consumers in Europe would no doubt debate the issue.

Carol Tucker Foreman, director for food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said consumer groups would ask food companies, retailers and restaurant chains to shun products from cloned livestock.

That raises the possibility that some food companies will label their products “clone free,” just as some now label milk as not coming from cows injected with growth hormone.

Cloning involves putting an animal’s DNA into an egg thats own DNA has been removed. The resulting embryo, after being implanted into a surrogate mother, makes a genetically identical copy of the original animal.

But even if two animals have identical genes, they can turn out differently if those genes are turned on or off at different times. And studies have shown that patterns of gene activity are different in embryos created by cloning compared with embryos created by the fusing of sperm and egg.

These differences are presumed to account in large measure for the low success rate of cloning. Fetuses can grow unusually large, posing a risk to the surrogate mother. Many clones die during gestation or shortly after birth. Some are born with deformed heads or limbs or problems with their hearts, lungs or other organs.

But the F.D.A. said that obviously sick and deformed animals were already barred from the food supply. It added that clones that survived past the first few days “appear to grow and develop normally” and that healthy adult clones were “virtually indistinguishable” from noncloned livestock, making their meat or milk safe.

The draft assessment based its conclusions on an extensive review of scientific literature on cloning as well as on studies, some done by cloning companies, comparing the composition of the milk, meat and blood of cloned animals and conventional animals.

Mr. Sundlof said the agency also found that cloning “poses no unique risks to the health of animals” beyond those seen with other forms of assisted reproduction such as in-vitro fertilization. The frequency of problems is higher with cloning, however, perhaps because it is a newer technology. The first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, was born in 1996.

The F.D.A.’s announcement, by paving the way for the end of the moratorium, could make it easier to persuade farmers and breeders to pay $15,000 to copy a prized bull or dairy cow.

“I think that this draft is going to provide the industry the comfort it needs,” said Mark Walton, president of ViaGen, a cloning company based in Austin, Tex., that has yet to turn a profit after five years.

Industry officials estimate there are now only about 500 or 600 cloned cows in the United States, out of tens of millions of beef and dairy cows. There are roughly 200 cloned pigs.

Experts say that cloning is too expensive to be used to make animals only to then grind them into hamburger or even to milk them. Rather, farmers and breeders are cloning prized livestock so they can then be used for breeding using more conventional means of reproduction.

That means that most food from cloning would come from the sexually produced offspring of the cloned animals. The F.D.A. said milk and meat from such offspring were safe, because any abnormalities in clones do not carry into the next generation.

The agency’s assessment did not include genetically modified animals, in which a foreign gene is introduced. The agency is still deciding whether to allow the first of those, a fast-growing fish, into the food supply.

*************************************************************************************

As you can tell, I'm not all that excited by this news. Like some of the critics in the article are saying, I don't see any clear gain in cloning cited by anyone - except the folks trying to make money from it.