Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

Odd combination, eh? While doing some rounds I came across one of Hypercubed‘s Links of the Week which contained two links that jumped out at me.

The first was this awesome periodic table. Physics and astronomy may be my passion, but I have always really enjoyed chemistry as well. That periodic table I have always found extremely interesting (understand the nerdyness now?) and this flash version does it justice. In high school I got an awesome periodic table that had tons of information and I think I loaned it out in college and haven’t seen it since. Sad. While this isn’t a paper version, it has a HUGE amount of info as well as links to Wikipedia for even more info! So for all you students or chemsitry enthusiasts out there, check it out!

The second link is to this Penn and Teller clip about PETA (NOTE: to my more sensitive readers, there is a decent amount of swearing in the clip, so beware!). Of course Penn and Teller have their own biases and I am not saying they are necessarily 100% correct, but this clip just made me laugh and I thought was right on the money. I am all for humane treatement of animals (although I think that word is a poor choice, that everyone uses, because animals are not human) but PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) gows WAY too far. Not to mention how hypocritical they are. It seems like many PETA members value animal life over human life, which is extremely bizarre. If they had it their way, there would be NO pets and NO animal testing (among other things [like, no guide dogs for the blind]). Both of those stances are extremely lame. No pets? Aside from removing joy from families around the world, are they really saying we should let all cats and dogs roam free and breed as much as they want to? That seems safe, let’s let cats take over with huge population growth. Right. No animal testing? Again, that just doesn’t work. Yes, I think the animals should be treated well, but it comes down to human vs. animal worth. Simply put, medical science needs animal testing to exist. That is undeniable. Sure, don’t test perfumes on dogs or eyeliners on cats, but if a few dogs have to give their life to enable open heart surgery to be done, great, go for it. Sorry PETA, you are off the mark (and this is not even to mention ALF and all those nut jobs). Penn and Teller tell it like it is.

ADDENDUM: I also forgot to mention PETA’s repulsive “Holocaust on your Plate” campaign (which they have since abandoned). This campaign juxtaposed images of animal farms and Nazi concentration camps. How disgusting and insensitive is that? Equating poor treatment of animals in farms with the treatment of Jews in labor camps during the Holocaust is inexcusable and they should be ashamed. Oh, and by the way, they called of the campaign tour because they were advocating killing of chickens in large gas chambers instead of stunning and/or cutting of their heads and figured comparing the “horrors” of chicken death with the Holocaust wouldn’t fit well with the their gas chamber suggestion. Nice.