Portrait Mosaic Progress

This photo was taken with a flash and the colors are a bit truer...

There's a bit of flash bounce-back from the layer of plastic below the mesh, and there's a little bit of a pink cast to the image, but for the most part this shows the glass fairly well.

Endangered Species Act - Part II

A few days ago I posted a link to a NY Times article about the Endangered Species Act and some upcoming changes the Bush administration wants to push through. I also included the link to the information on public comments.

The proposed changes are on the government website where you can submit comments. This evening I plan to read through the change document and make some comments.

Endangered Species Act

Normally I do not regurgitate content from other websites. However this is something I think needs to be passed along:

NY Times Editorial - An Endangered Act
Published: August 13, 2008
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s latest assault on the Endangered Species Act deserves to be struck down.

Information on commenting during the 30-day Public Comment period.

I would suggest that we all think about commenting after the proposed changes have been posted (sometime tomorrow - 8/15/2008).

• Online, at Regulations.gov
• By mail, to:
  

  Public Comment Processing,
  Attention: 1018-AT50
  Division of Policy and Directives Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service
  4401 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 222,
  Arlington, VA 22203

When the proposed rule changes get posted I will try to put them up here - it is confusing to find them on the gov site.

Hot chicks - cold night

The person or persons that stole the chicks from the biology lab did a awful thing with them. They left them, on a night where the temperatures were just above freezing (yes we are still having night time temperatures in the low 30s) along side the road, in the rain. I can sort of understand rescuing chicks from experiments (although after asking those who would know, I found out that the experiments did no lasting damage to the chicks and were relatively pain-free). What pisses me off is that someone would take the chicks and then risk their lives by abandoning them aside the road at 10 p.m.

Anyway, someone saw them and called the police. The the police and a couple bystanders rounded them up and took them to the Humane Society. Abelisto & I wondered if the caller was the thief. If so the chicks were not really in a great deal of danger, as long as the caller made sure that the police came to get the chicks. However one chick died of exposure, and several lost toes. We also wondered if the bystanders mentioned in the story were in fact the perpetrators of the deed.

Winona Daily News Story (with video) - written before it was known the chicks were from our lab. Ecosheba - one of the comment posters - is daughter #3. She broke the story that the chicks came from the biology lab.

The Winona Post story

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Missing Chicks

Someone took some chicks from our biology labs over the weekend. The chicks were to be used in an experiment determining the effects of hormone injections. I am not certain what all the experiment entails, but I am sort of glad the chicks have escaped the experience.

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