Scopes, Only Without the Jury

Maybe you've never heard of John Scopes.

Not surprising. Most of us have heard of Clarence Darrow. William Jennings Bryant is another well known name. You may have even heard of the "Scopes 'Monkey Trial' of 1925". If you do remember John Scopes, you know he eventually married Elizabeth Montgomery and had a difficult boss named Larry Tate.

Such is the impact of Hollywood on modern thought.

I mention Scopes in the face of today's announcement that Oregon scientists have been able to clone, and extract stem cells from, monkey embryos.

Which explains Monday's press release from Oregon Health Sciences University.

"PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon Health & Science University today learned that PETA is planning a press conference on Tuesday, November 13 to make claims about OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center. The press conference is expected to include a former OHSU employee. This is the second time in the past seven years that OHSU's primate center has been targeted from by an animal activist group using this tactic. In the previous case, the employee who made claims of abuse was a longtime PETA employee who was charged with taking jobs in research labs with the goal of damaging the reputation of institutions that conduct animal studies.

PETA is expected to make claims about the care of animals at the Oregon National Primate Research Center during a press conference. OHSU will respond to all of the specific allegations when they become available, but it is important to know that the claims come on the heels of an outstanding evaluation report by the primate center's accrediting body, AAALAC (the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International).

Just one week ago today, AALAC announced full accreditation for the primate center, which followed an earlier commendation for well-maintained facilities and records, dedicated staff, and effective university animal care oversight. Accreditation involves an exhaustive inspection of animal care spaces and labs over a period of several days. With this latest announcement, the primate center has been accredited continuously by AAALAC for the past 32 years.

These allegations also come on the heels of an international media campaign by PETA earlier this year. In the winter of 2007, PETA made claims about research being conducted in sheep. As a result of work by OHSU researchers, these claims were later revealed to be false by reporters at the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Guardian (UK) and ABC News.

The new claims about the primate center are expected to follow a similar pattern to the animal activist campaign of 2000, when Matt Rossell, a current employee of the animal activist group In Defense of Animals-Portland and a longtime PETA investigator, made claims of abuse at the primate center after working there. A two month investigation by the United States Department of Agriculture cleared the primate center of any wrongdoing and no fines or penalties were issued.

"OHSU's primate center has an outstanding record of animal care," explained Dan Dorsa, Ph.D., vice-president of research. "Twice a year the federal government conducts unannounced inspections. These inspections repeatedly demonstrate the hard work and dedication of our animal care staff. Our employees truly care about these animals and the records show this year after year."

I'm a big fan of science. And a big fan of the Primate Center. I'm not a big fan of PETA. Do an AltaVista.com search of "PETA kills dogs". These are crazy people. So when Jim Newman, Communications Director for OHSU says, "the behavior of the monkeys seen in PETA's video footage is due to PETA’s “own infiltrator” entering into and creating an unfamiliar environment for the animals," I tend to believe Mr. Newman.

For lefties, the irrationality of their movement is a sign of robust and vigorous thought. They hit the "esc" button on rational thought and return to their home page. Always, dogma trumps thought. Why else a dogma? And when you're busy telling other people what to do, and how to run their lives, why stop and reflect on the correctness of your course? Dogma tells you what to think. Dogma tells you how to respond. Dogma removes the need for critical thinking.

Impact of Declining Dollar and Oil Prices

Ian Random gets it. In the comments section of Carpe Diem, he comments about the high price of crude oil:

"I'm surprised OPEC has let it go on this long. High oil prices are a direct market subsidy, without political favors, to competing technologies. At this price everything is possible from liquefaction(CTL) to biodiesel. My current favorite being butanol.com because it behaves like gas perfectly. I'd be losing sleep right now if I were a Saudi."

Why do I hate taxes but love high prices? Because nobody want to pay either one. High taxes stifle creativity. High prices engender creativity.

I hate politicians telling me how the government should invest in something. Especially energy. But let the price get high enough and plenty of Thomas Edisons will pop up.

The article in Carpe Diem gets around to the value of the dollar, something I've been recently posting about. And talking about the dollar, Newsbusters reports on what one television show recently had to say about the value of the dollar. There's a link to a video there. The author at Newsbusters may not entirely understand what he's writing about, so his narrative style slips a little bit. But he does get in a couple of good quotes from Larry Kudlow:

“The dollar’s slump, particularly in the last six to 12 months, is because these currency markets think that the U.S. economy is crumbling,” Kudlow said on the October 12 “Hugh Hewitt Radio Show.” “They actually believe the crap that they read in The Financial Times and The New York Times – and I hate to say, but sometimes on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.”

Great quote. If you hadn't noticed, I used it, too.

Money is tough. Everybody knows what it is...but few people know what it does and how it does it. You're going to be hearing a lot more about the dollar as the squeeze continues. Be on the lookout for stories from China. And ask yourself, how could China suffer with a lower-valued dollar when their currency is pegged to the dollar? The Federal Reserve Bank has a nice article on its website about the history of currencies' exchange rates, and the international agreements that have gotten us to where we are today. It's worth the read. I even went and found it for you. Now you've gotta read it. (Don't be a pussy. Once you get there, click on the links and look around. If you have any questions, ask me.)

Economic Ju Jitsu

Somebody asked me after this posting, why I was so optimistic about America's economic outlook. I wanted to tell him "because I'm selfish". But I wasn't sure if he'd understand.

If you've never been in business, you've never been forced to make decisions on how to make money. The Bible for business is Peter Drucker's Management: Tasks and Responsibilites. The neatest thing about the book is that it clearly states that having great ideas isn't enough. I've boiled it down into my own little caveat, "The difference between creativity and innovation is doing it." When your job is related to sales, it often comes down to communicating the need to sell a good product rather than selling a bad product. Sitting in a room with six salesmen--each of whom knows that his time would be spent better elsewhere--is a challenge for the boss. How do you get across the idea that what you're selling is better than the competitions product?

Drucker talks about this directly. He talks about an appliance salesman who sells freezers to Eskimos, essentially. How did the salesman do this? Isn't this counter-intuitive? Why would you need to sell freezers to Eskimos?

But the part I really loved about Drucker was the role profit plays in work. Profit is the report card of a business. A healthy business has a healthy profit. Money follows success. But, there are people who feel that they have a better Vision thingy than stodgey old businessmen. People who are only interested in making money.

As Drucker points out, people who are only interested in making money, don't. Healthy businesses exist for different reasons than to simply make money. Jack Welch understands this. A lot of businesses don't get this. "Smart" people don't get it.

But people who love their businesses do, even if they never give it a second thought. That's why I love it when Lefties take on the business community as being driven solely by greed. They take a High Moral Stance. While taking dollars from the men and women who create wealth. They're theives for the Common Good. But what have they done with their power to take your wealth? Built bigger and bigger welfare states. Paid people to do nothing. Under the banner of compassion and caring.

BS. Would you rather give a man a fish, or teach him to fish?

"But wouldn't fishing for himself simply be a form of greed?" Heh. Sure is. And any extra fish he caught he could sell. And keep the money. Or, spend it. But rather than welfare, we'd be creating wealth. When I'm asked why I'm a Republican I tell people it's because I think people are better off creating wealth than consuming welfare. This is not popular with teachers or union members. Oh, wait, teachers are union members.

Here's a classic takedown of one of America's leading bleeding hearts, Phil Donohue. Milton Friedman was not only a great economist. He was a great teacher. Enjoy the teaching moment.

Happy Veterans Day!

What do they mean by "smug indifference?"

Don't Tell the Democrats!

Caught this from Devil's Excrement:

"And in its infinite wisdom, the Government sprung a new automotive policy on car companies starting on Jan. 1st. Only companies with manufacturing capability will be allowed to import, which makes some sense, but every car sold after that date will have to have LNG capability. Look for cars to be scare (sic) now, but that will be good for traffic."

Portland Metro planners have got to be green with envy. Here's a Global Warming Initiative with impact.