Falling Into 2008

I've made it into the new year with a cold, to match the genuinely cold weather we're having. And, we're still setting up the various teaching labs since school starts on Monday. The intro biology labs are just about ready; we found one weird thing in one of the labs today, that the wall jack for a computer is about 25 feet away from the projection screen so any lab instructor would have to stand a distance from the screen unless they're lucky enough to have a long (and expensive) VGA cord. Gack.

I also realize that we have enough cabinet space in these labs to put some of the preserved fish & herps collections away if we run out of space in the Vert. Zoology lab. My latent "funny" streak is to leave out a few big glass jars containing preserved rattlesnakes or cottonmouths because there are always a few students who get creeped out by seeing them, and even by being in the same room with them. But as much as I like to have serious snakes lying around, I'll restrain myself.

My current aquarium inventory is 6 10-gal. tanks, a 15-gal. tank, (maybe) 2 20-gal. tanks, 2 5-gal. tanks, 1 55-gal. tank and 1 130-gal. tank. The 10-gals. are enough, I hope, to carry out the 11-ketotestosterone experiment on scarlet shiners I mentioned earlier, and the water in these tanks is aging as I write. Now we just have to go catch the shiners for this shindig.

And my take on the current presidential primary craziness: no reputable candidate should support government subsidized ethanol production. It's inefficient with current technologies, since many of the necessary inputs for corn production are petroleum based including fertilizers; and this misguided effort is distorting the market for corn, not just nationally but internationally, and driving up the prices of other commodities. This effort also encourages the planting of land that has been removed from production since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s as conservation easements, which will further degrade water resources. John McCain is the only candidate who has had the nerve to oppose corn subsidies, and frankly I wouldn't vote for him even with that. Other candidates seem to be pandering to narrow Iowa interests (although maybe not Paul and Kucinich? I'm not sure). Anyway, I felt compelled to say this, thanks for reading it....