primate research debate

last night's debate on the ethics of non-human primate research at the uw was interesting but went nowhere. kinda like congress and health care reform, only more civil.

some highlights:
rick bogle of alliance for animals - "we are going to die. we can't fool ourselves into thinking that by experimenting on animals that we are going to find some magic bullet to make us immortal."

paul kaufman, uw chair of ophthalmics dept. - "if you're going to argue we're all equal, then this discussion is over. There's no reason to go on. but in fact there are differences. ... if you say an animal shares some characteristics with humans, that doesn't make them human beings."

in the end, we are monkeys, too. monkeys testing on monkeys. dance monkey dance.

nancy pelosi's rickroll

looks like our congresspeople are figuring out how to use their new government-based youtube channel for what it was really intended to be - a collection of wacky cat vids! while some are calling house speaker, nancy pelosi, to the carpet for her mis-use of the website we think it's pretty cute. if the former president's whitehouse can put out cheesy barney videos then the speaker can do it too. *warning - you are about to be rickrolled by third most powerful person in the country. lol!