Boeuf

This article on the NY Times is pretty interesting. It talks about some serious issues associated with mass production farming of livestock. My favorite part is that in the future we may be eating tissue culture beef. Yuuuuummmmmy!

For those of you that are of the vegetarian variety, let me thank you in advance for saving energy for all of us.

PS- if you find this stuff interesting Nat is reading the Omnivore's Dilemma and she loves it.

Of Mice and Men

Let me get started by saying that I am for animal research. Animal research, when done properly, is absolutely necessary to develop compounds before they reach human patients. It is just too hard to figure out how a compound will work in a whole living system by simply using tissue culture models, computer models, etc.

That said, I believe that the research establishment greatly abuses the use of animals. For starters, I can name several instances by several labs where experiments were badly planned and animals, mostly rodents here, had to be sacked. Rodent colonies are not always maintained thoroughly resulting in rodent offspring that needs to be sacked because of negligence.

Another aspect of animal research that I don't think receives enough attention is whether certain types of research should be doing animal research. An example of this is basic research on biologic agents that have no foreseeable use to improve the standard of life of humans or other living organisms. While scientists argue that basic research is necessary to fuel the therapies of tomorrow, and this is a fair argument, I find it that fairly often scientists rush to the rodent to determine if there is something of interest. It also drives me crazy when animal experiments are carried out to simply fill out a figure for a scientific paper.

While I do not advocate the stop of animal research and I am no fan of PETA, I do think that scientists need to do a better job at making sure that animals are treated as living organisms that can feel and sense pain rather than just as an assay that can be easily disposed of if something comes up.

It's all about the food

Next time you are trying to understand the sub-prime mortgage mess, just think in terms of Mexican food. At least that is what Hillary decided to do when talking to a group of Hispanics prior to the Vegas primary. Here's the quote:

"Clinton said unscrupulous lending leads to bad mortgages, which lead to foreclosures, which lead to people with nowhere to go and vacant neighborhoods that can go rapidly downhill.

"We treat these problems as if one is guacamole and one is chips, when ... they both go together," she said.""

D.R. Thornburg

Rest in Peace D.R. Thornburg.

I promise to take care, respect, and love your daughter with abandon.

twelve

12. Cowboys start the game missing tackles (Giants up 0-7).
11. Game tied up after a nice drive and Romo-TO TD (7-7).
10. 20 play-10+ minute drive has me relaxed and happy, maybe things are different this year (14-7).
9. Incredibly give up a TD before the half with the Giants scoring in about 30 s (14-14).
8. Stay positive, stay positive, stay positive.
7. First drive of the half stalls and settle for FG (17-14). Note: last points of season.
6. Giants score what will be game winning TD on a drive that started at midfield thanks to special teams (17-21) and right after Patrick Crayton drops a pass on 3rd down.
5. O-line falls apart and Romo start to look exasperated at the lack of protection.
4. D-stops Giants twice.
3. Cowboys offense can't get it done and game ends with INT.
2. Pain. Rejection. Another season.............flush!!!!!
1. 12 years without a playoff win

Who's your daddy?

I am not sure whether to laugh or shake my head at this clip. It helps if you know what PCR is.

And on a serious note, I found this piece on the Kenyan election mess very interesting, especially as if comes from a different point-of-view, which is refreshing in this day and age of oversaturation by the media.

Not all balls are for chewing

Our good friends Nate and Steph were kind enough to send our two dogs (a.k.a. The Girls) a pair of dog chew toys they felt were too large for their Porky-Yorky Riley. The toys were chocolate-flavored tennis balls. While I didn't think the girls would mind either way, they were both fairly interested in the toys and about 5 minutes after opening the package, Phoebe had already split one of them in half. What you can see in the picture above is the remaining piece of the tennis ball, appropriately labeled in case the dog may want to check halfway through the chew cycle what flavor tennis ball he/she had gotten.

Happy 2008 Everyone!

Best wishes to everyone for the year that started about 9 hours ago for us in the central time zone.