Opinion: Buy brain cells!

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OK, you’re not exactly buying brain cells, but beginning today you can place your order for stem cell research bonds. The actual sale starts Thursday with an initial offering of $250 million. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer is allowing individual investors to place their orders ahead of the big institutional investors, so Californians can buy bonds without paying a broker commission. Minimum purchase is $5,000. If you want to buy more than $1 million worth, you need to clear it first with Lockyer’s office. I’m pretty sure they don’t take PayPal.

In 2004 voters here approved what will be $3 billion in bonds, sold over 10 years. Proposition 71 was in part a response to the Bush Administration’s policy on stem cell research.