Day: September 4, 2001

A number of people have sent me e-mail asking if I have a cached copy of Olive Garden’s H2NO pages. I don’t, but CommonDreams.Org has reproduced the H2NO pages in their entirety, along with some Coca-Cola promotional efforts to promote their brand of bottled water, Dasani.

According to an Associated Press report, a United Nations study found that Americans worked more hours in 2000 than any other industrial nation. The report, compiled by the International Labor Organization, found that the average American worked 1,978 hours last year — almost three months more than German workers did.

The AP notes that many European workers receive 6 week vacations, but they forget to add the other side of the equation. Americans might work more hours, but Europe pays for those vacations in the form of very high unemployment.

In Germany, for example, the June 2001 unemployment rate was 8.9 percent — almost double the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.5 percent for the same period. The same laws that require European businesses to give up to six weeks of vacation time to their workers also part of an overall regulatory burden that severely inhibits job creation.

German’s far lighter demands sound like great work — if you can get it.

Source:

U.N study: Americans work more. Associated Press, September 1, 2001.

The log file analysis for August was pretty impressive. Last month the server handled 254,236 page requests which was the best month yet for 2001 — and more requests in August than the previous four years combined.

September’s total should easily exceed 300,000, and I just might go over the 3 million page views/year mark which would be very cool.

Just a few weeks ago I saw Mary Tyler Moore on some news show testifying before Congress about the importance of continued federal funding for diabetes research, much of said research occurring in animal models. Now, though, I see Moore coming onboard as the Honorary Chair of Farm Sanctuary‘s Sentient Beings campaign, which has a web site at Sentient Beings.

At a Farm Sanctuary gala in May 2001, Moore told the audience,

To come face to face with a sheep, cow, pig, or goat and to look into their eyes is to see the depth of their souls…whether it’s fear and terror in the eyes of an animal traveling to slaughter or the joy and trust in the eyes of an animal safe and comfortable at a place like Farm Sanctuary. Animals look to us for compassion and protection, and it is our duty to relieve their suffering.

The front page of the SentientBeings.Org site clearly endorses an animal rights view saying, “Cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals commonly exploited by agribusiness are sentient beings — capable of awareness, feeling, and suffering — and humans have an ethical obligation to refrain from behaviors which inflict suffering upon these animals.”

Notice, it does not say people have an obligation to minimize these sufferings to the extent that can be done consistent with a given use of animals, but rather that people shouldn’t engage in any behavior that would inflict suffering on animals.

In an op-ed posted at SentientBeings.Org, Moore actually stops considerably short of this view, arguing that, “Farm animals, like all animals, have feelings, and should be protected from cruelty.”

Like many celebrity spokespersons, Moore does not seem to have thought through her position on animals, especially in relation to her activism on behalf of diabetes, and instead seems to simply allow her emotional reactions to different forms of animal use dictate what she finds acceptable and unacceptable.

Source:

Night in the Spotlight for Farm Animals. Farm Sanctuary, Press Release, May 2001.

It’s the sort of claim routinely made by animal rights activist: medical researcher Michael Stryker must be some sort of monster because he performed experiments that involve drilling into the brains of kittens and then sewing their eyelids shut. But Stryker, who was targeted by the COalation Against Vivisection as part of their protests against the 34th International Union of Physiological Sciences world congress, wasn’t having any of it and publicly defended the importance of his research.

Stryker’s research was designed to answer a basic question: does sleep deprivation affect the way the brain organizes its visual systems during the first few weeks after birth. Stryker told The Dominion that prior to his researcher, there was no definite evidence either way on this issue.

Stryker chose to study kittens because the brain structures that control site in cats are very similar to those of human beings. The study found that, in fact, there were several periods shortly before and after birth when parts of the brains re-assembled themselves. The brain, then, turned out to be extremely sensitive to changes during the first couple months of life.

This finding led to changes in the way that surgeries to correct congenital eye problems are scheduled. Previously such research was delayed until an infant was four to six months old. As a result of the new information about the sensitivity of the brain in the first couple months of life, such surgeries are now starting to be conducted in the first weeks after birth and proving to be more successful at correcting the problem.

Source:

Researcher defends experiments on kittens. The Dominion (Wellington), August 25, 2001.