Anybody catch the news clip about that nutty PETA chick who stormed the podium with a pie aimed at the face of the government official?
Sheesh.
Do those PETA lunnies think that a cream pie in the face of a government official is somehow going to convince Uncle Sam and the general population that eating meat is bad?
Yeah right.
Who here is tired of the PETA rhetoric and just wishes that those idiots would live and let live?
…Think I’ll eat a cheesebrger for supper tonight…
Betcha it wasn’t a real cream pie!
::flees::
…probably shaving cream…tested of course on lab rats…
The problem with a policy of “attracting attention to problems” is it’s embraced almost solely by people who simply, well, want attention.
I despise PETA.
Heh, she’s probably related to the fool who was demanding that the mayors of Fishkill and Catskill, NY change the town names to something less evocative of violence against animals.
Psst, PETA babe… learn a little history, find out that the Dutch used to own this part of New York, realize “kill” is a Dutch word for a small waterway, put 2 and 2 together… Twit.
Krispy… You’re still alive! I’m amazed!
Amazed that the Cuban I paid $50k to whack your ass took the money & pussyed out…
Never hire a midget hit man named Elion…
Add me to the list of PETA despisers. What a bunch of fruitcakes! They should change their name to TIAA - Total Idiots About Animals.
Reminds me of a story I read somewhere:
A young lady became involved with the animal rights movement, joined PETA, and became an AR activists. After a long day of protesting and throwing paint on fur coats, she returned home and, as usual, let her cat out to romp in the back yard. Within a few minutes, the cat returned with a baby rabbit in its mouth! Horrified, the lady berates the cat - “You nasty, cruel creature! How could you do such a horrible thing!” - places the poor rabbit in a box, leaps in her car, and heads off towards the local Animal Rescue Center.
Frantic over the injured bunny, she is driving much too fast and before long, runs over a squirrel that darts out in the road. She stops and sees that the squirrel is still alive but in bad shape. Now desperately upset, she places the squirrel in the box with the rabbit and again sets off for the rescue center.
Finally she arrives and rushes in with her box full of injured animals, yelling “Here! Take them!” at the attendant. The attendant peeks in the box, grabs it and rushes into a back room. He returns after some time and tells her “Thank you very much for bringing in the squirrel and the rabbit. You got here just in the nick of time.”
Relieved, the lady gasps “You mean you were able to save them both?”
“Oh no,” the attendant said. “They were both much too badly injured. But our owl hasn’t eaten all day, and he prefers live meals.”
ok, maybe if you all knew anything about animal rights or PETA, you wouldn’t be so amazingly ignorant. Arathi Jayaram, the young lady who threw the tofu cream pie, did this not to change the entire US government’s policy on meat, but to get media attention and let other people no how stupid and immoral it is to eat meat. Obviously, mission accomplished, because you all seem to be paying a lot of attention to the issue, as well as CNN and the AP. Please know what you are talking about before posting moronic comments.
Cogitoergosum:
It’s called “terrorism.”
If it’s a pie in the face, fake blood on a mink coat, or a bomb at an abortion clinic, it still doesn’t matter. It’s wrong.
People who do such things are scum. People who support such actions are scum.
I will now eat a steak (fried nicely in butter I stole from a cow,) in protest of your ignorance. Tomorrow when I get home from work I will shoot groundhogs in my fields, and have chicken for dinner.
Cogitoergosum said:
Can you explain how eating meat is immoral? I respect the right for someone to not eat meat, but I didn’t see it as a matter of morality, but of preference. How is eating animals immoral? Animals in the wild use far more painful methods of killing their prey than man does, in fact many predators often begin eating before the prey is dead. It is one thing to raise awareness about ethical treatments of animals, it is another to condemn the eating of meat.
Well, I’m gonna take the short version of explaining how eating meat is immoral. The most important thing is that humans who have reason and judgment are causing unnecessary and needless pain. We can survive just as well and possibly better without eating meat and causing so much harm, so why inflict it. Secondly, the treatment of animals on factory farms (where nearly all of your meat comes from) is absolutely horrendous. For example, chicks have their beaks cut off; birds are often kept in cages where they can’t even open their wings; animals are injected with hormones and genetically engineered so they can barely walk at times; male animals are often thrown in a plastic bag or simply left to die; cows are kept constantly impregnated until they are worn out; calfs are taken away from their mothers which causes a devastating psychological effect; veal calfes are kept in crates so small that they cannot move; sows live in in tiny cages, so narrow they can’t even turn around; workers often beat the living shit out of animals with clubs and bricks. I could go on, but i think that I have made my point.
then just eat organic.
you can eat organic, and not deal with the hormones, the injections, the chemicals, and who died and mad you Cogitoergosum our new god almighty diety of morals and values???
eat organic, boycot eating anything non-organic, and you send the message that you hate the cruelty to animals, and that you want your body free of all that nasty stuff.
not eating meat won’t help at all actually, part of the natural cycle. Humans do have canines you know. we can eat vegetable, mineral, and meat, and digest it all, and don’t feed me any crap about our bodies not being meant to digest meat, it’s only been since the advent of genetically altering our crops and injecting our stock that our bodies are reacting to digesting the meat, and dairy, and other.
Cogitoergosum, perhaps you didn’t get the point of my little story. Owls and kittycats kill and eat other animals in order to survive - not because they are cruel and vicious creatures, but because that is the way nature works. You can sentimentalize and moralize at a cat all day, and it still won’t give up a mouse in exchange for a tofu bar.
The problem with the PETA group and other ARists is that they don’t understand a damn thing about animals - not how they live, how they think, how they feel - they are all wrapped up in some make-believe fantasy world where the lion lays down with the lamb instead of having it for lunch. They are so out of touch with nature and the animal world that they can only project their own human thoughts, emotions, and motivations onto other creatures.
It’s important to make a clear distinction between animal welfare and animal rights. Welfarists accept that animals experience fear, pain, pleasure, etc. and believe that they deserve respect as a living creature. Regardless of their eventual destiny, while they are alive they should be treated humanely, and their deaths should be as painless and stress-free as possible.
Get a clue, bozo - that cow out there grazing in the field? It’s not standing there worrying about going to the slaughterhouse next week - it’s thinking about how good the grass tastes. It doesn’t know what a slaughterhouse is, and you can stand there and explain it to the cow all day, and it still won’t know what a slaughterhouse is, and still won’t care.
Cogitoergosum:
I live on a farm. Everybody around me is a farmer.
You are basically full of shit. Chickens are kept in cages, becuase chickens are crueler to each other than humans could ever be. If you keep your chickens in a coop, or free-range, or other community, plan on losing 10% or more of your stock EACH MONTH to poutricide (they peck each other to death.)
FOr those that keep communities, trimming the beaks of young chicks tends to prevent this. It’s like trimming a fingernail and does not appear particularly painful to the chicks. If they trim too much the chick is unable to eat.
Besides, chickens are about as stupid as you can get and still be alive. I think their brains still run on DOS.
Both meat steers and milk cows are treated particularly well up until the time they are slaughtered. If they are not, they have no value. Being pregnant is what it’s all about if you are a cow, and there is nothing particularly cruel about it.
The veal situation is not particularly pretty I admit, But I have been inside several veal barns, and I will tell you that they were without exception some of the cleanest places I have ever been. This is necessary as veal stock is particularly susceptible to disease. A strong case has been made that there is no cruelty going on here, because these stock are maintained in extremely comfortable environments, and may not even be aware that they have been born. They certainly do not suffer. It merely seems distasteful. I was not aware of any documented cases of “psychological disorder” in any of the veal calfs I saw, and doubt you are.
The sow cages you refer to are used so that Momma pig does not crush her little piglets by rolling over on them when they nurse. That’s the only time they are used since it is a bitch and a half to get a couple of hundred pounds of unwilling sow into one of things.
Workers who beat their livestock are destroying or damaging a valuable commodity. This is universally unnaceptable at any farm or “factory farm.”
Dead animals are often collected and disposed of in plastic bags. This stops smell and chances of infection. Every farmer that I have witnesses will kill an obviously sick animal before disposing of it in such a bag. Ocasionally some of these animals are merely unconscious, and not yet dead. Unfortunately you will sometimes see movement in the bag.
I am not aware of any animals that are bred so that they cannot walk as you claim.
Certainly abuse do exist, and cruelty occurs. My personal experience which is direct and quite large indicates that this is the exception not the rule, and that you are spewing forth ill-informed propaganda.
Lime most people, farmers and farm workers are pretty decent . I would go as far to say that most are more decent than your average person in another industry. They genuinely like animals and enjoy working with them, and do not enjoy inflicting suffering. The health and well-being of the animals that they tend is a source of pride.
Humans are omnivores. We are predators. We have eyes in front of our head and see in binocular vision. This allows us to judge distances and be better hunters. Most herbivores have their eyes on the sides of their head. They have parallax vision. Which enables them to watch for predators over a greater range of vision (some nearly 180 degrees.) They don’t judge distances as well.
Of course you can survive without meat. You can substitute legumes for protein, but this is not what you were designed for.
Besides, have you seen how cruely they treat Soybean plants at the evil Ag-industrial complexes?
That’s why I’m a strict carnivore, I can’t support the cruelty against plants.
slight hijack here…
b]Scylla**, i love you for this line. It made my day, i can sleep easy now, thanx.
Cogita-whatever: The SDMB’s first eco-troll! The “Soy Bomb” of the SDMB!
I’m gonna think of you and smile when that fat juicy steak and those chicken breasts hit the barbecue grill this weekend.
As for the pie thrower at U.S. Ag Secretary Dan Glickman: She goes rushing at the podium, full-speed, with a look and general demeanor of depravity. She should be falling to her knees and thanking the Good Lord (or Mother Earth, or whatever she’s into) that security personnel at that event didn’t put a few bullets in her wacky ass.
I can just see it now if they’d shot and killed her - the far left trying to make her out some Kent State-style martyr.
(shudder)
That’s why I’m a strict carnivore, I can’t support the cruelty against plants.
**
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. Don’t get me started on battered plant syndrome.
Hey, someone pass the A1, eh?
Scylla, you fucking idiot–you eat your steaks FRIED??? Everyone knows GRILLING is the only way to go! 
Coosa–I am with you on the animal rights/welfare issue. A receptionist I used to work with was a card carrying PETA member. She would bring in their newlsetters and magazines. Some of the things I read in them were OK, but other times all I could do was shake my head. (especially about issues relating to veterinary care). Still, not all PETA members are wackos. I don’t think they all go around freeing lab animals and destroying fur. Or in this case, throwing pies.
And as for the farming issue, well, there are places where animals are treated decently, as it seems they are where Scylla lives, but there are a lot of places that don’t treat the animals so great either. I think most of us agree the whole veal issue is disturbing. FTR, I don’t eat veal, but I cnnot give up my steak, pork, or chicken. I will admit though, that if I had to kill the animal myself I might go veggie. As an animal lover/carnivore, meat eating can be problematic for me at times…
I have nothing good to say about PETA. There is little so pathetic as ignorant people who don’t even realize how misguided they are.
As someone who knows quite a bit about ecology, it amazes me the idealized world that PETA people live in. They are in a lot of denial over how the real world works. No matter how much one might hate the thought, humans are a part of this planet’s ecology. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can ignore the concepts of welfare and good stewardship.
A PETA chick once tried to convince me that Jesus was a vegetarian, and that He fed the masses with loaves and fishweed. At least that was amusing. Getting blood or paint thrown on you is not.
Scylla says,
Well, when I was a kid, my parents kept a rotating stock of 15-20 chickens for years for eggs and meat. In the 10 or so years we kept them, both free-range and in a coop (beaks untrimmed), maybe two or three might have been pecked to death. I say “might” because these were the weakest chickens, and ill-health probably played a more important role in their demise than their fellow chickens did.
I’m curious where your “10% or more” per month figure comes from. Not only does that come nowhere near matching my experience, I find it hard to believe that farmers back in the olden days would bother with animals that kill each other off at a rate of 70+ percent a year. So what gives? Are you specifically referring to large, crowded populations? Or perhaps a particular breed that tends to be more agressive?