Links: 2008.11.23

• Vatican forgives Lennon for Jesus quip (Toronto Star): LOL, as if he'd give a whit; what did he say circa 1971 about religion?
  
• New Suspect in Sports Doping: Viagra (NYT): Viagara results in increased cardiac output and more efficient transport of oxygenated fuel to the muscles resulting in enhance endurance.
• Meteor lights up Canada's skies (BBC): Sweet video footage.
• Setting the Stage (Overcoming Bias): Robin Hanson summarizes his Singularity/SAI debate with Eliezer Yudkowsky (I find Hanson to be more persuasive).
• Anti-Conversion Bill in Sri Lanka (The Buddhist Blog): Forbidding citizens to convert to Christianity seems rather, uh, UnBuddhist.
  
• Animal experimentation: morally acceptable, or just the way things always have been? (Overcoming Bias): Rebecca Roache wants to bring more attention to the debate. From the article, "In the media, much effort seems to be devoted to discrediting concerns about animal suffering and reassuring people that animals used in science are well cared for, and relatively little effort is spent engaging with the ethical issues. However, it seems likely that no amount of reassurance about primate play areas and germ-controlled environments in Oxford’s new research lab will allay existing concerns about the acceptability of, for example, inducing heart failure in mice or inducing Parkinson’s disease in monkeys—particularly since scientists are not currently required to report exactly how much suffering their experiments cause to animals. Given the suffering involved, are we really sure that experimenting on animals is ethically justifiable?"