Making Cigarettes Save for Pregnant Women

"Among the most horrifying things I witnessed were the times when baby monkeys were stolen away from their mothers. This was a chaotic, ugly, heart-wrenching scene. A worker wearing thick leather gloves would reach into the cage where the baby clung to her mother's breast, and snatch the baby by one shoulder and arm and rip her from her mother who was screaming and desperately fighting to keep her baby safe. Once the baby was removed, the entire room of monkeys would erupt into total pandemonium -- screaming, thrashing and crashing into the sides of their cages -- some reaching out through the bars in vain to get their babies back."

Eliot Spindel, a researcher at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).... implants nicotine pumps into pregnant monkeys, delivering daily doses of the addictive substance to the mothers so he can cut their babies out at various stages of development and dissect their lungs. Some of the babies are allowed to go full term, only to be ripped away from their mothers, causing severe depression in the adults and terror in the infants.

The hazards of smoking are common knowledge, yet Spindel continues to confine, cut up, and kill these helpless monkeys in a ludicrous quest to find a way for pregnant women to smoke without causing harm to their fetuses.

NIH has funded Spindel since 1992 to the tune of $7.6 million dollars, and this travesty is scheduled to continue though 2012. Money that would be better spent on human studies, smoking cessation education, and prevention programs.

More here

Colony Collapse Disorder & Ice Cream

Supposedly Einstein said that if something happened to the bees, people would die. Snopes hasn't verified if it's an accurate quote, but we might soon suffer. CNN reports that Haagen Dazs has warned that it might have to cut back on the flavors it offers due to the the decline in the population of bees needed to fertilize crops.

Haagen-Dazs, which is owned by General Mills, said bees are actually responsible for 40% of its 60 flavors - such as strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.

Human Animals and Friendship

Our subscription to CSA (community supported agriculture) is suspended until April because of winter, so we are buying produce at our local natural food store, Last weekend, I was selecting an onion when someone said, "Excuse me. Can you tell me how long a chicken casserole will last in the refrigerator?"

I couldn't answer the question because, I haven't cooked or eaten chickens for many years. I am the caretaker for two Rhode Island Red hens, each of whom has a distinctive personality, and each of whom trusts me. I wouldn't consider killing or eating them or other members of their species, just as I wouldn't consider eating human meat. (I don't eat cows or pigs or sheep or goats either.)

"Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. " - Samuel Butler quoted in NYTimes.com

The Dangers of Sugar Substitutes

Rats fed a diet of sugar substitutes gained more weight than rats that ate food sweetened with sugar according to a new study. This might explain why people who drink a lot of diet soda have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and other metabolic problems.

Perdue University fed sugar-filled and sugar-free yogurt to groups of rats and found that rats that ate artificially sweetened meals were still hungry afterward and continued to eat more food than did rats whose food was naturally sweetened.

It appears that artificial sweeteners confuse the body which associates sweet tastes with calories. When you eat sweet foods without the calories, you continue to feel hungry.

The rats who ate sugar substitutes didn't have the metabolic increase that typically follows a meal, so they burned fewer calories. The combination of a larger appetite with a slower metabolism results if severe weight gain.

McCain Loves Telecom Lobbyist too

I have come to realize that McCain loves Bushie, Bushie's war and has been converted to Bushie's love of waterboarding, and now we learn that McCain has a secret crush on a telecom lobbyist which might have resulted in that legislation that would immunize telecoms who participated in Bushie's illegal spying on us.

The Straight-Talk Express off the rails

Anyone notice that McCain's telecom lobbyist looks like a younger version of his trophy wife?

McCain's lobbying friend

Cindy McCain

Valentine's Day

John McCain loves his Republicans: Gee Dubya Bush, Joe Leiberman, etc.

Get your free News Corpse Widget here

Life in the "Best Country in the World"

Mitt Romney suggested that if we elect a Democratic president, we'll become the France of the 21st century.

An international survey found that the U.S. ranks dead last in a measure of how well the health-care systems of 19 countries deliver timely, effective care and prevent deaths.

France ranked first.

Uber right-wing-nuts will continue to claim that we're superior to France and everyone else. They have no evidence to support their claims, but hordes of slack-jawed mimics will continue the claims.

McCain - Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

Here are some of McCain's speeches put to song. Not quite as uplifting as Obama's. Well, okay, far from inspiring - downright scary.

A Pastafarian’s Delight

A visit to a Pastafarian’s delight in SV is the actual headline in a local newspaper, so if you love the Flying Spaghetti Monster come on down to the Pasta Factory in Scotts Valley, California (Santa Cruz County).

Darwin Day Festivities

Darwin Day (Charles Darwin's birthday) is a global celebration of science

Hundreds of groups across the United States and the globe will celebrate the date as "Darwin Day" in honor of the discoveries and life of the man who famously described biological evolution via natural selection.

"Darwin Day promotes understanding of evolution and the scientific method," said Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies. "This celebration expresses gratitude for the enormous benefit that scientific knowledge has contributed to the advancement of humanity."

The Darwin Day Celebration is a project of the Albany, N.Y.-based Institute for Humanist Studies, an international educational nonprofit that promotes reason and humanity.

Next year will mark both the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the 1859 publication of Darwin's "The Origin of Species", which presented the scientific theory that populations evolve over generations through natural selection.

The theory of evolution was controversial in Darwin's time and remains controversial in the United States today.

Recent Gallup polls show that 43 percent of Americans reject the theory of evolution and instead believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." And at least four 2008 presidential candidates have said they do not believe the theory of evolution.

"There is a continuous threat to evolutionary biology and to science in general that has been posed by fundamentalists who reject entirely a Darwinian worldview because they feel it threatens their religious beliefs," said Massimo Pigliucci, Ph.D., a professor of evolutionary biology at the State University of New York-Stony Brook.

Pigliucci uses Darwin Day to teach the public about how science works "so people aren't just hearing about science from their local preacher." His online course "Evolution, Creationism and the Nature of Science" is available for free through the Institute for Humanist Studies.

The Darwin Day Celebration started with one event in 1995. Last year there were more than 850 Darwin Day events world-wide. Darwin Day festivities can include debates, lectures, essay contests, film festivals, museum exhibits, art shows and even an "Evolution Banquet" with "Primordial Soup" followed by a "Darwin Fish Fry."

This year, hundreds of church congregations will celebrate Darwin Day by hosting an "Evolution Weekend" to explore the compatibility of science and religion.

For information, visit: www.DarwinDay.org

The Audacity of Hope