Before I opened up the Dope today I was sure I had some shoe-in winners for Moron-of-the-Week. I even had a runner-up picked out, too.
Then this woman in London had to go and ruin all my calculations. Dammit. Stupid furriners stealing our American thunder.
Having admitted that my candidates do not match the arrogance and idiocy of the woman starring in her very own Pit thread, I still want to make sure that I vent some spleen on them anyways. And, as is often the case with my Pit threads, this is an equal opportunity Pitting since there are a few other idjits to be mocked, too.
Mark Your Calendars!
Loki has something postive to say about PeTA
First is this story, which was the one that I thought was the sure-fire winner. If you don’t care to click the link, it’s about a pair of teenaged girls who’d chosen to wrap their cat in plastic, then spend two minutes or so kicking the critter around the room. While making a video record of this.
Then the twits posted it to one of their MySpace pages.
Someone who saw the video notified PeTA of the video, and then PeTA notified the appropriate authorities. Now the girls are facing charges,and are going to be evaluated for their demonstrated sociopathic tendencies. All to the good. (Well, aside from me having to admit that even the proverbial stopped watch, PeTA, can do good from time to time. It’s galling, I tell you, to have to admit that. And before anyone can jump on me, I’ll admit my reaction to PeTA isn’t entirely rational. Has more to do with a roommate horror story than anything else, to be honest.)
But the comments in that story from the PeTA spokesperson both stick in my craw, and are being called in for some share of this Pitting, too.
Now, that ellipsis makes it possible that the reporter was editing to make the statement more provacative, but given that we are talking about PeTA, I think it’s fair to make the assumption that it’s an accurate quotation. While there are good reasons to believe that many seriel and thrill killers start with animals, there is, AIUI, no reason to make the claim that most people who abuse animals go on to abuse humans.
This isn’t to say that the girls shouldn’t be counseled, nor that it’s not an important indicator. But to say that most people who express that behavior will go on to abuse humans isn’t accurate. Considering that this is some of the better publicity that PeTA has gotten in a long time (At least from my point of view.) it would have gone down better if the spokesperson hadn’t pushed her argument from the concrete, and provable, into the normal wild, innaccurate and exaggerated claims that I, and many other people, have come to expect from PeTA.
Then there’s this story.
It’s possible, I’ll admit, that things happened exactly as described here. (Especially the ring of mocking firefighters - but that’s the claim I have the most trouble believing, to be honest. Not least of the reasons being that that sort of bullying rarely happens where outsiders {in this case the other victim volunteers} can witness the goings on.) In which case I’m being far too judgemental, and this girl has some reason for seeking compensation.
Having said that - I’m more than a little skeptical of a claim for damages that doesn’t detail the nature of the injuries. I’m especially skeptical of the sense of anyone who has volunteered to play ‘victim’ in this sort of training scenario without recognizing that you may get stepped upon, kicked or all the other incidental, accidental things that happen when rescue workers are working through a full-scale mess.
Shit happens. Grow up, kiddo.
) and I am wrong. I glossed over the first part of the quotation.