PETA and hypocrisy?

On their web page, PETA asks:" Why Animal Rights?
Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?"

Yet when PETA runs out of options, they kill their animals.

San Diego Zoo

Spent some time today at the San Diego Zoo. This zoo has a tremendous reputation which is well deserved. The hippos were spending much of their time underwater, and appeared to be interested in the people watching them. They kept coming right up to the glass (or plexiglass) and seemed to be observing the observers.







The orangutan was apparently bored with the whole thing, but I found the burlap hat amusing.













Pandas were out doing what they appear to spend all of their non-sleeping time doing -- eating. Sorry, Fran, I could not find the Red Pandas.










The dominant gorilla appeared pensive, or perhaps he was just wondering when dinner would arrive.







The tigers were not on display. Apparently their fence was only 1 foot higher than the fence enclosing the tiger display in San Francisco.

Plant & Animal Genome Meeting

Poultry Workshop -- Saturday Afternoon, 12 January 2008 --- 9:00 am -6:20 pm
& Sunday, 13 January 2007 8:00 am - 3:30 pm

Comparative Genomics Sunday--Morning, 13 January 2008 --- 8:00 am - 10:10 am

NRSP-8 -- Sunday - Late Afternoon, 13 January 2008 --- 3:35 pm - 5:45 pm

Microarray Analysis -- Monday - Late Afternoon, 14 January 2008 --- 5:40 pm - 7:50 pm

Roche Applied Science Workshop, #1 -- Monday Afternoon, 14 January 2008 --- 12:50 pm - 3:00 pm
Nicole Quinn, Simon Frasier University- Shotgun and paired-end sequencing of 1MB of the Atlantic salmon genome using the 454 technology

Applied Biosystems Workshop #2 -- Tuesday Afternoon, 15 January 2008 --- 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Roche Nimblegen -- Tuesday Afternoon and Evening, 15 January, 2008 ---- 6:10 pm - 8:20 pm

Bioinformatics -- Wednesday Morning, 16 January 2008 --- 10:20 am - 12:30 pm

Computer Demonstrations
:Sunday - Late Afternoon, January 13, 2008 -- 3:35 pm - 5:45 pm
:Monday - Early Afternoon, January 14, 2008 -- 12:50 pm - 3:00 pm
:Wednesday - Mid Afternoon, January 16, 2008 -- 2:20 pm - 4:30 pm

The Generic Genome Browser: A Hands on Workshop for Installing, Configuring and Using Your Own GBrowse -Sunday Afternoon, January 15, 2007 -- 1:15 pm - 3:25 pm

San Diego Museum of Natural History -apparently has an extensive collection of transitional forms of the Walrus

San Diego Zoo

Town and Country

Iowa and Republicans

As a science teacher who covers evolution in my genetics class, the Iowa caucuses provided little hope in me for the Republican party. Huckabee's depressing ignorance of reality combined with his pathetic political legacy (advocating concentration camps for AIDs patients, his fundamentalist support of torture by the United States) make it difficult to see him as a realistic future president. On the other hand, George W. Bush won.