One particularly egregious example is a decades-long series of highly invasive monkey experiments performed at universities across the country to study neural control of visual tracking. Luckless monkeys have coils implanted in both eyes, multiple craniotomies for electrode placements in their brains and head immobilization surgeries in which screws, bolts and plates are directly attached to their skulls. This is followed by water deprivation to produce a "work ethic" so they will visually track moving objects.
... before concluding
Because such monkey torture will not lead to improved human health, you don't need to be an animal rights advocate to wonder if an ethical cost-benefit analysis might conclude the ends just don't justify the means, especially since rapid advances in sophisticated high-resolution neuroimaging on humans will very soon obviate the need for such invasive techniques.... Most animal experiments on monkeys, dogs, cats and other animals are not related to human benefit, and describing such research as "humane" requires an Orwellian-newspeak definition of the word. "Humane" means to treat with kindness, consideration or mercy, and as long as words have meanings that cannot be twisted Humpty Dumpty-like into whatever we want them to mean, animal experimentation is not and can never be humane.
Based on my readings, many animal researchers simply believe in experimentation for the sake of experimentation. They enjoy the scientific process, and if animals are tortured in the process, so be it, as long as it's in the interest of the great god Science. Whether or not there is any actual relevance to the research seems to be besides the point.
From the great folks at Alley Cat Allies:
Lately Alley Cat Allies has heard from our supporters and seen more than one news item about people who should know better—elected leaders no less—suggesting that the best way to handle feral cats is to shoot them.To take action against this horrible practice, go here.
If only it were possible to arm the cats with little tiny firearms of their own...
In rough descending order:
1. Count Dracula: This BBC production is the best, most faithful version. Moody and atmospheric despite a low budget. Fantastic performance by Louis Jordan as the Count. Watching this on Halloween on PBS was a ritual of mine as a child.
2 (tie). Nosferatu: Both the silent original and the Herzog remake. Probably the weirdest, creepiest versions of the story. The "ship of doom" sequence in the original and the "feast with rats" scene in the remake are particularly memorable.
3. Dracula (1979): Takes a few liberties with the story, but Frank Langella is great as Dracula and the feel of the film is suitably dark and gothic.
4. Horror of Dracula: Takes way too many liberties with the Stoker novel, but must be mentioned due to the presence of Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as the best Van Helsing ever on screen. Greatest climax of any Dracula film.
5. Bram Stoker's Dracula: Really Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. I've got a love/hate relationship with this one. It is gorgeously filmed, and is probably the most faithful big screen version of the story. There are some great scenes. Yet some of the performances are a bit much, and the whole thing teeters on the edge of total camp.
The September 28, 2009 issue of New York has a good (if somewhat cursory) article about the nuttiness of some anti-Obama activists. A few pictures of the various cretins can be viewed here. (The chubby hick chick giving the middle finger pretty much sums up the class and intellect of these people.) Most of the things throwing the wingnuts into conniptions are lies and mistruths we've all heard countless times already: Obama is a Muslim/Nazi/Socialist/Communist, he wasn't born in the U.S., and so on.
One small item did catch my attention. One sign at a Scranton, PA teabagging party apparently read, THE ANSWER TO 2009 IS 1776. What, I wonder, was so great about 1776? In 1776, country was involved in a bloody war. Hundreds of thousands of blacks were held in slavery, while countless whites were locked into the virtual slavery of indentured servitude. Participation in politics was pretty much reserved for white, male property owners, leaving huge chunks of the population disenfranchised. Essentially, the U.S. in 1776 was a far more tyrannical place than the U.S. in 2009. Free, libertarian 1776 America never existed except in the fevered minds of some reactionaries, and is just as fanciful as the supposed Marxist dictatorship we live under now.
I've already given up meat and poultry, and am moving to greatly reduce my consumption of dairy products and eggs. This video from an undercover PETA investigation of a Land O'Lakes dairy supplier shows why:
Andrew Sullivan highlights an interesting aspect of the Sarah Palin phenomenon. While she has managed to excite the Far Right, often to a disturbing degree (see Rich Lowry's tent-pitching ode), she has managed to give some independents the creeps:
I was still giving McCain the benefit of the doubt up until the point he chose snowbilly Palin as his running-mate. Now I hope the GOP presidential campaign crashes and burns.