Brief Rant About a Sad Place

For those of you who don't know a lot about me yet, let me just state that I'm not really an animal lover.

I had a dog (Bichon Frise) growing up, and I did love her with all my heart, right up until that li'l girl passed away on February 13th, 2001. There will never be another like her, and I accept that. Every animal is different; not necessarily better nor worse. The next day, February 14th, 2001, I had all four wisdom teeth removed and then learned I'm allergic to penicillin. But that's a different story. This is a story about animals.

Later that year, I moved off to college. My experience with pets since then has been off-and-on; mostly off. I joined a fraternity and we had a community dog (American Bulldog) named Miller who was a decent creature. Others were more attached to him than I was; I accepted him for who he was and we had a few moments together but nothing that made me feel too attached to him.

I had a brief ownership of a newt, who I believe was suicidal. He refused to eat his food and instead ate one of his arms off. It was a short-lived experience and put me off of pet ownership for a while.

I moved out and into an apartment. It was several years later and I took in two red-ear slider turtles from Chinatown. I'm going to rationalize the decision with "I was young enough to be stupid enough to make such a decision." Their names were Tank and Tardy. Tank lasted a month. Tardy lasted a little over a year. That was the end of my pet ownership for a long time. I had enough friends to keep me socially occupied, although they all had CATS.

Eventually they had four cats, all female, living in their apartment. It was a big enough apartment, and a few of them stayed away from people (for the most part). I'm not a cat person. Never have been, probably never will be. Visiting their place and seeing the cats, it just reinforced my mindset that I'm not a cat person. I never had any malevolent thoughts about them (except for ONE time involving a window and what some could consider "dangling" but I still maintain was "prolonged rescuing"), but I knew I'd never really like them in any capacity.

It's about at that point I resigned myself to the belief that I was probably not a nice person because I really don't care for animals much.

And then we fast forward a few years. Those friends and I lost touch, I eventually wound up with a girlfriend, and she moved in with me. She made a decision that we were going to own rats as pets.

Now I have other friends who were also rat-owners. I knew a fair amount of stuff about it; I'd played with them on occasion, and I wasn't completely adverse to the idea.

So we got our first pair, Moose and Reese. When Reese passed away, we knew Moose shouldn't be alone, so we went with a rescue group and adopted Bubsy and Scampi. Moose passed away a while later (he was my favorite rattie and the one I've really connected with the most), and we planned on getting two more to join Bubsy and Scampi. An unfortunate situation arose and Scampi passed away recently. Our idea to adopt two more then became a decision to get three - and this time we went with a breeder so we'd hopefully have less random problems by not knowing their genetic history. So now Bubsy has three young'uns to play with (or get annoyed by): Michelob, Bailey and Guinness.

So now that you know the full story, and hopefully you understand that while I'm still the guy who'll propose that we eat all the overpopulation of dogs and cats to solve both the overpopulation and the world hunger problems at the same time; I'm not a completely heartless individual.

Except for cats. I still remain fairly heartless towards their kind.

And this brings me to The Sad Place. I live in the city of Chicago, and near the Orange Line, which is on the south side. I've done my exploring, and around the Pulaski station, I found this place called the "Super Mall". I was expecting to find something akin to a mall like in Los Angeles, but bigger. Instead, I found what can only be described as (and FourSquare has it labeled as) a "flea market". A mishmash of 4' by 6' stalls where an almost-entirely Spanish-speaking populous have set up their little shops full of overpriced trinkets, gewgaws and outrageous clothing. Also it contains at least TWO different tattoo parlors / piercing stations. And deep in the heart of this claustrophobic nightmare, there sits The Sad Place.

The Sad Place is a "pet store".

Now, the entrance to Super Mall clearly states "No Pets" are allowed, so it's curious to see a store selling pets inside. It would suggest that anyone buying a pet is in violation of Super Mall rules and needs to be punished. Well, the owner of this "pet store" needs to be punished more.

For starters, you know you're approaching The Sad Place because you can hear the unmistakable cacophony of about 200 parakeets trapped in about 5 different cages. And that's where you can feel your heart start to ache. I'm not ever going to agree with PETA on pretty much anything, but seeing a bird in a cage just makes me as angry as it makes me sad. Bird ownership just seems like a completely rotten thing to exist in the world, except in circumstances where it's allowed to exist outside of a cage. If a bird can't fly, you had better be fattening it up to eat, because keeping it in such a sad existence is just abhorrent to me. I'd rather EAT a parakeet than be responsible for having it live and die in a flightless caged existence.

Now I've been to The Sad Place a few times, and the only things he used to have there were the multitude of Pitiful Parakeets, and some tanks full of Doomed Fish, and maybe a cage of feeder mice and some snakes in terrariums. But today on our visit, it looks as though his business has expanded.

Well, it's still the same 4' by 6' space, but now there's a wider variety of animals suffering and waiting to be taken to a possibly-better life.

The first thing I saw (because I recognize them now from a distance) was the Rat Tank.

They were all black hooded (that I could tell, since there were about 8 to 10 in there, all huddled together on one side of the tank) and it took me a visit to the other tanks before I made some realizations. At first glance, it just looked pitiful, seeing them squished together and looking depressed. No activity, just a clump of animals banding together and possibly trying to sleep (don't know how anything can sleep near the incessant squawking of the Pitiful Parakeets). I moved on to see they now have a tank of gerbils, a cage of guinea pigs, and a cage of rabbits.

My girlfriend pointed out when she saw the rabbit cage that it's hovering over a pan that catches the droppings, and there was a ton of poop just sitting there, technically in the open air. That's when my eyes went to the water bottle hooked up to the rabbit cage: EMPTY. I saw one attached to the guinea pig cage: EMPTY. Then I went to see if the rats had water. Well, you can't strap a water bottle to a glass tank. And there was no water dish inside the tank, so I'm now under the assumption they had NO WATER. My girlfriend pointed out that it looked like the wood chips used for bedding/lining in the rat tank looked to be pine, which she knows better than I do is a not-good thing for rats. I was more concerned over the lack of water, the absence of food in ANY of the cages (though we're used to having free-fed rats and maybe I can give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that he might have feeding times for them - none of them looked particularly underfed/malnourished, but I'm not a vet), and the general inactivity of almost all of the creatures.

This is where we started whispering to each other about what constitutes as "animal cruelty" and if it would be better to contact the ASPCA or the BBB to make a report against The Sad Place.

Just to confirm one of my suspicions, I asked the guy running the place how much he was charging for the rats. Once he understood my English, he told me they are $7 apiece. I asked if they are all boys, and he replied that "It's a mix." I didn't need to ask if they were all spayed/neutered because I am 100% certain the answer is no.

I took another long look at the poor ratties, and saw one of them with its paw out on the glass. As if it were reaching out for someone to notice and rescue it from this existence... I couldn't stop myself from getting in one last photo...

It wasn't until I got home and took a closer look at the photo that I realized why I was subconsciously drawn to that paw, reaching out. Take a look at the fingers. You'll see that one of them is missing. I can't jump to any conclusions about how it happened or place any blame on anyone or anything for that particular circumstance. I just know that it affected me and has made me that more depressed to this about The Sad Place.

As we walked away from The Sad Place and off to try and find something less depressing to fill our Saturday, I told my girlfriend that if it weren't for the fact that I know there's nothing I could have done for those ratties, I would have bought them all and considered it a rescue. She reminded me that 1) it's not a rescue if it's just putting more money into that guy's pocket, 2) we don't know anything about them and don't have quarantine space for them to keep our current pet rats safe, and 3) maybe there's something else we can do to help.

She reached out on Facebook and got some suggestions to call 3-1-1 and make a report against them. She's already done so tonight, and I know her particular complaint includes a lot of more-specific things about The Sad Place, like the fact that they're keeping a bearded dragon in the same tank as iguanas or something and that they're non-cohabitable species.

(There's also a tiny tank with a scorpion and one with a tarantula. There's nothing reportable about it, I just don't care for either of those things.)

So I'm asking for some reader support and if you're in the Chicago area, please also call 3-1-1 and file a report about them and their deplorable conditions. The address of the Super Mall is 5220 S Pulaski Rd, Chicago, IL 60632. The phone number for the Super Mall is (773) 581-9200.

Maybe we can complain to the Super Mall, since these little spaces for vendors don't seem to have much by way of shop names or phone numbers or anything.

If you don't want to believe me, or call the city to address a problem you haven't seen for yourself, I suggest you go and see for yourself and maybe it will affect you the way it's affected me. I consider myself to be a fairly-heartless individual when it comes to animals, but even a monster like myself doesn't believe that animals deserve this kind of life. (Except maybe for cats, but that's something to address another time in more detail.)

So that's my story about The Sad Place. If you want to help, please do so and reach out to me and let me know we're not alone in this. If not, I don't really blame you. I've scoffed at my fair share of boo-hoo animal stories, especially the ones on TV where they show you the sad pictures and try to make you give money.

Well I'm not asking for money. Just maybe a call to 3-1-1. Or a comment of support. Or a comment that I'm a monster anyway - at least I'll know you read this.

Oh, and if you are a person who 1) disagrees with my statements about bird ownership, 2) finds me to be a worthless shell of a human being for my loathing of cats, or 3) thinks that rats are disgusting and not actual pets, then let's agree to disagree for now and maybe we can address those issues in future posts.

Other types of comments are more than welcome. Please comment and let me know you've read this and also have an opinion about it. Read more!

PETA Wants A Lighthouse

Okay, so if you're an avid reader of my blog, you already know that when PETA is in the title, something stupid is going on and it usually involves a dumb media stunt by PETA or is making fun of a PETA press release. And this post is no different. Today's article is about PETA and their next attempt at obtaining a public landmark to convert into an insipid "activity center" to "raise awareness" of some "travesty" that is befalling the animals.

PETA is applying through a federal program to take over Grand Haven's Lake Michigan lighthouses and turn them into their anti-fishing headquarters where they will set up "education centers" for visitors to learn all about fish.

I'm personally shocked that nowhere in this PETA/fish article was it brought up that PETA prefers to call them "sea kittens".

It's been a while since PETA tried to pull off a "let's take over a building and come up with a crazy way of 'educating' the people about our cause" maneuver. The last was covered in "PETA and Lobsters" - detailing PETA attempting to take over an old prison and educating the masses in Maine (over 50 miles from the coast) about the plight of the lobsters, including putting rubberbands on visitors' fingers. So their latest attempt is to basically, well...

I'll let this quote from the article try and explain the plan:

"We want to renovate the Grand Haven lights as a memorial to the billions of fish killed annually by sport fishermen, as well as for their flesh (commercial fishing industry)," said Lindsey Rajt, manager of PETA's campaigns department. "We also want to make it a fun and educational place."

Tentative PETA plans call for an education center, where visitors would learn about fish. There also would be a cafe, offering vegetarian fare including "faux fish."

Signs would likely announce the lighthouse as home of PETA's Fish Empathy Center.

Okay - right off the bat I'd like to point out that "billions of fish" relates MORE to the commercial fishing industry (AKA: feeding humans) than the sport fishing aspect. And yes, we eat fish. But here's a logic puzzle for PETA:

Humans are animals, and anglers catch fish so they can eat.

Fish are animals, and anglerfish catch fish so they can eat.

Why is one animal angling fish for food acceptable, but not the other? Do we need to set up an undersea education station for anglerfish so they can learn that fish are people too and don't deserve to be eaten?

But PETA's never really understood the concept of "humans are animals" and refuses to comprehend that the things they say we should not allowed to do are things they say the other animals should remain allowed to do. Let's move on.

So PETA, you'd like the lighthouse to be:
1. A memorial to the billions of deceased fish.
2. A fun place to visit.

Error: does not compute. You wouldn't expect us to be okay with a "Hiroshima Waterpark" or "Auschwitz Activity Center" or "Six Flags over Darfur", right? So why should you be allowed to think for a second that death can also be fun? That would make you no better than the sport fisherman you're rallying against, who have fun thanks to dead fish.

I need to make one more point regarding the conflicting ideals PETA has regarding "fake options".

PETA is against fake fur because it perpetuates fur as a popular STYLE and therefore seems to condone wearing fur in general.

PETA is in favor of fake meat products ("faux fish", tofu, Unturkey, etc.) even though it perpetuates meat as a popular TASTE and therefore condones the eating of meat in general.

PETA - you don't make any goddamned sense in anything you do.

I wish that this article were able to poke as much fun at PETA as I get to do, but I do give them credit for a choice quote and running with it in the article.

Locals are dumbfounded by the proposal.

"It doesn't make any sense to me at all," Capt. Dan Tebo said Tuesday, a mile offshore in his Grand Haven-based fishing charter boat the D'Ann Marie. "We fish here for the fish. That's what God gave them to us for."

What do you think? Are you as dumbfounded as these people? Don't you agree that PETA is a collective of lunatics always trying to one-up itself in the insanity department? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

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Vegan Shoes?

In my constant search of things about which I can rant, one of my bookmarked sites is the PETA media page. It's fun to see what crazy letters they're sending to celebrities, which cities are hosting the circus (which means PETA urges them to ban bullhooks, cattle prods and also the circus), and where they plan to parade out their "Lettuce Ladies" who pander to men who are manly enough to enjoy ogling hot chicks in bikinis but pansy enough to enjoy that the bikinis are lettuce leaves and care about whatever message PETA paraded them out to send (this week it's Canadian KFCs to promote the fake-chicken sammiches). Today I stumbled upon a media center bulletin titled "PETA Names the 10 Best Stores for Vegan Shoes" and thought:

"I didn't know they made shoes that eat meat and dairy!"

Aside from that obvious joke, I really don't understand what "vegan shoes" really are, other than the subset of shoes NOT made out of an animal. Or made of dairy products or eggs? Do they really make shoes out of eggs or butter somewhere? Can you get a pair of extra sharp cheddar stilettos? Man - this really is just a nonsensical topic that brings out all sorts of jokes and ridicule, isn't it?

So my first thought is that these stores are all places where they only sell those kinds of non-animal-based shoes and don't test their shoes on animals and don't also sell cheeseburgers as well as shoes. That would kind of make sense; find 10 stores that don't sell leather shoes and call it a day, right?

Well apparently such is NOT the case. Because the first store on the list is:

Zappos.com: Now PETA seems to be flaunting this website for the fact that it carries "Stella McCartney's line of vegan shoes for Adidas", which I guess isn't sold everywhere? The problem is that Zappos.com is a freaking HUGE website. You know what else you can get at Zappos.com? BRUNO MAGLI Raggoso Alligator Loafers. Suck it, PETA!

Bourgeois Bohème: Okay, this site ONLY sells shoes and accessories that are "free from animal ingredients" and vegan-friendly. However, this site DOES sell faux-leather products - which I thought PETA was supposed to be against. After all, the activist group is known for throwing paint on ALL fur, whether it's real or fake, because even if it's fake it still PROMOTES the real stuff. That's why I haven't been able to figure much out with PETA lately. I can understand that fake-meat products are designed to satisfy a "meat craving" as you wean yourself off meat products or if you want to enjoy meat products because that's what your body naturally wants and you're an idiot and feel too guilty so you have to grab some fauxburger instead. But wearing fake leather? That's an IMAGE thing you're craving. You WANT people to think your shoes are made from 100% dead animal because that's what leather is and that's what you want it to look like (even if it's not). The real scariness about this company is this excerpt from their FAQ asking about the company really being vegan:

"We are a vegan owned and run company and make sure that everything we sell and use (including our office cookies and cakes!) are vegan and 100% cruelty free."

It must really suck to work there if you're a normal meat-and-cheese-eating human being.

Moo Shoes: I seriously don't understand the name of this company. I saw "Moo Shoes" on the list and all my brain could muster was COW + SHOE = LEATHER SHOES. I don't know how you can have the word 'Moo' in the title and not have any cow in the product list. If I were searching for a real authentic leather boot, I'd expect to find one at Moo Shoes. And I would be sorely mistaken and possibly homicidal with rage at the blatantly-false advertising. The website claims it's the the first cruelty-free store of its kind in New York City, but I'm guessing that if you walked in with a turkey leg in one hand and a "Fake Leather is for Fake People" sign in the other, you'd experience some cruelty from the high-strung vegan salespeople.

Payless Shoe Source: There's not much to say about Payless that I haven't already said about Zappos.com in the sense that "yes, they sell shoes not made from animal hides, but they also sell shoes that ARE made from animal hides." The proof is in the pudding, as I really ONLY buy my shoes from Payless and they happen to be these awesome leather ones that I'm wearing right now. Okay, I also buy a snazzy Velcro pair every now and then because my laziness knows no bounds. Well, it knows the specific bound of "not having to tie shoes" - but at least it's consistent!

Target: Yet another large store that HAPPENS to sell shoes that don't have leather (which makes PETA happy), yet also definitely sells many shoes that ARE made of leather (and possibly makes PETA cry). The bonus for me is that this isn't just a clothing/shoes store (despite it being on PETA's vegan shoes list) and you can also buy tasty non-vegan food items like an anti-vegan basket of Hickory Farms meat and cheese or something that promotes the meaty lifestyle, like a freakin' MEAT GRINDER! If you happen to buy some vegan shoes here because of PETA's awesome list, you should definitely thank them with a Hickory Farms gift basket.

Chinese Laundry: Okay, I'm not sure if this even is a shoe store based on name alone. It's only by daring to click the link provided by PETA that I found out that yes, they do sell vegan shoes. They have their own little category for all of them. Of course, since they want to be a REAL company, they also will sell you non-vegan shoes, like this leather shoe with an added snake skin print twist. I was afraid this would be another stupidly-named all-vegan company like Moo Shoes up there, but they reserved all their stupidity for their non-shoe-related borderline-racist name of Chinese Laundry and left out the all-vegan part.

Life Stride: Okay, so based on PETA's description, I thought I'd be in for another challenge here. They describe Life Stride by saying that their "nearly 100 percent vegan line of business and casual shoes" can be bought at many major blah blah blah... Did you see the word NEARLY printed in there? I did. And sure enough, you can find, oh, at least 172 kinds of leather shoes on their website. I'm still starting to think that a "vegan shoe store" in PETA's eyes means that they don't ENTIRELY sell leather shoes. If you can find ONE pair of plastic shoes there, it can count as a vegan-friendly shoe store. Which is like saying that an all-beef hot dog stand is vegetarian friendly because they'll sell you an empty bun.

AlternativeOutfitters.com: Okay, I have to give this company credit - they're another 100% vegan-friendly store and all my efforts to find leather and fur and beef jerky have come up empty. However, there's a disgusting amount of usage of "PLEATHER" at this store. I can stand seeing the words "fake leather" or "faux-leather" or something that sounds sensible. But if you say the word "pleather" out loud, don't you get this nasty taste in your mouth and the irresistable urge to punch something to make the sadness go away? I know I do! So since I can't ridicule this site by pointing out any not-purely-veganness and I've already poked fun at crazy vegan company info and I can't claim the company's name is something stupid... I'll just have to point out that you can buy an IRREGULAR Tan Vegan Belt with "Rhinestone and Turquoise" Buckle. If you look at that product and would ever consider purchasing it - do humanity a favor and kill yourself.

T.U.K.: This website kind of looks like it was built by a gloomy 14-year-old gothic kid from MySpace. The link they give you takes you to a selection of vegan-leather heels all in pink and black "retro" styles. But don't worry. Just because you want to live in the darkness and torture that all those animals go through, doesn't mean you can't wear their tanned and flayed flesh on your feet - as is evident in the BLACK STUDDED LEATHER CREEPER SNEAKER WITH BONDAGE STRAP. I kind of giggled - and were it not for the fact that they cost $50 (+S&H), I'd consider getting them because they look so faux-awesome instead of being faux-leather.

Journeys: Just your run-of-the-mill store that happens to sell some fake-leather products (PETA's link takes you to the Girls section rather than a vegan section for some reason) but sells a lot of products with real leather. My favorite product that I randomly clicked on when I searched for "leather" is this belt buckle shaped like a pair of blue sunglasses. How would they show up in my search for leather? Description: To be used with leather belts only. I honestly don't know what kind of belt buckle can ONLY be used with leather, but I like to think that it would sit at the "cool buckle table" at the metaphorical belt buckle high school cafeteria.

So there you have it - a scathing endictment of PETA's 10 Best Stores for Vegan Shoes.

Let the comments commence!!

(Sorry for such a link-heavy post today.)

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PETA vs Illegal Immigration??

Every now and then, life likes to throw these little puzzles at me. I am anti-PETA. I am also anti-illegal-immigration. So when the two seem to be doing battle, it's really hard for me to choose a side. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter what I think, since the battle seems to be prematurely drawing to a close. It turns out that idiocy and propaganda are no match for criminals. I wouldn't say I'm giving a tip of my hat to PETA for their attempt to stop some illegal immigration, but I will admit that in this battle, my finger is wagging less furiously at them than it's waving at illegal immigrants. So what is this situation I'm referring to?

PETA attempted to rent billboard space on the border fence to post warnings to potential illegal immigrants that there's more to fear than the Border Patrol - they could also become obese by eating our meat and should go with veganism in Mexico.

I can't make this up.

The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will — Go Vegan."

"We think that Mexicans and other immigrants should be warned if they cross into the U.S. they are putting their health at risk by leaving behind a healthier, staple diet of corn tortillas, beans, rice, fruits and vegetables," said Lindsay Rajt, assistant manager of PETA's vegan campaigns.

I'm just so confused by the sheer idiocy of this "campaign" that I don't know where to begin.

First of all, they're trying to say that meat is as bad for illegal immigrants as the BORDER PATROL is bad for them? That makes as much sense as telling a robber holding you at gunpoint for your wallet, "You know, if the police don't catch you - old age certainly will." Because people WANT to grow old. Just like how Mexicans crossing the border WANT the luxurious lifestyle that Americans have and cheap meat is certainly one of those luxuries.

And wait a second - are they trying to insinuate that a Mexican diet is naturally a vegan one and that by abandoning their motherland, they'll be tempted into the seedy underbelly that is the meat-eating population? I haven't lived in Mexico or anything, but I'm pretty damned sure that just about all of their signature regional dishes tend to have meat and cheese in them along with the "staple diet of corn tortillas, beans, rice" and so on.

In fact, a comedian said it best that just about all Mexican dishes are a combination of tortillas, meat, cheese and some vegetables. In a taco, the meat and cheese goes on the tortilla and you fold it over (or fry the tortilla and put the meat and cheese inside). In a burrito, you put the meat and cheese on the tortilla and then roll it up. In taquitos/flautas, you put the meat and cheese on the tortilla, roll it up and then fry it. In enchiladas, you put the meat and cheese on the tortilla, roll it up and then put sauce on top. In quesadillas, you put the meat and cheese on the tortilla and then cover it with another tortilla. In tostadas, you fry the tortillas, then put meat and cheese on the fried tortilla and cover it with another fried tortilla. Hell, in nachos, you fry up the tortilla, break it into pieces, then add meat and cheese on top!

DO YOU GET THE POINT? THEY EAT TONS OF MEAT AND CHEESE, YOU IDIOTS!

At least when you're bitching at Americans to become vegans, you're speaking to a group of people who have absorbed so many different cuisines - they can hopefully find enough non-meat and non-dairy dishes in all of them to possibly sustain themselves.

If you tried to convince a Mexican that "arroz" is just as good as "arroz con pollo" - I doubt you're going to make any headway.

I'm also questioning why the proposed billboards from PETA were going to display Spanish and English. What illegal immigrant is going to pay attention to the English side if you're giving them the Spanish? Are there really that many non-Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants from Mexico who would need the English version to read the propaganda? Or are they suggesting there's a huge American tourist population near the border fences who can't read the Spanish?

Either way, I don't really give a shit how this turns out. I'm glad that PETA is trying to piss off a group of people who are not ME. I'm glad that PETA is making a very feeble, yet not-even-visible effort to fight illegal immigration. I'm glad that in the offchance that their ploy works, it means less illegal immigrants taking America's jobs and eating America's meat (leaving more for me to enjoy). It's more likely that they will still cross but maybe will only take America's jobs and eat less of America's meat.

Of course, the thing is really a moot point because a government spokesperson in Washington said the request will be denied because it would limit visibility through the fence - the way that Border Patrol agents can see illegals approaching.

What do you think? Are you on PETA's side or the side of illegal immigrants? Does your brain hurt trying to ponder that as well?

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PETA vs The Lobster Zone

Strangely enough, this has nothing to do with my previous article about PETA and Lobsters. A new "monster" has appeared before PETA and has once again yielded outrage from the organization. What demonic insult to animalkind is PETA rallying against this time?

Imagine putting money in a carnival claw game, except instead of a chance to win a fuzzy stuffed animal, it was a chance to win a delicious live lobster that would be cooked up for you if you won.

Congratulations, you're now thinking of "The Lobster Zone" - a game that actually exists in many fisheries and sports bars and restaurants and the machines are actually manufactured by a domestic company.

PETA is obviously not pleased. And yet, I think they should at least consider it better than the alternative.

"JD's Lobster Zone machine turns torture and death into a game, pure and simple," says PETA vice president Tracy Reiman. "Incarcerating lobsters in filthy tanks inside a boisterous club, making an abusive game out of their capture, and finally boiling them to death is every bit as reprehensible as tormenting cats, dogs, or any other animal."

PETA didn't even know that this one sports bar's machine was actually one of many machines that have been produced by The Lobster Zone and are available in more than 300 locations nationwide.

First off, I'd like to point out that dogs and cats aren't currently being bred/caught for eating here in the USA, despite my arguments that they might as well be. You can't compare lobsters with cats and dogs because we aren't eating cats and dogs. Also, cats and dogs have brains capable of feeling pain, and science can't even prove or disprove the same thing about lobsters.

Secondly, I have absolutely no clue why PETA is against this. Okay, I have SOME clue (mostly their gratuitous usage of the word "torture"). But when you think about it, isn't this game literally giving the lobsters a second chance?? I mean, they already had one shot at not being boiled alive - and they screwed it up by walking right into a lobster trap. At this point, we'd normally say "game over" and they get put into a tank, and patrons of the restaurant could point at one and say "feed me THAT one" and out it goes into the boiling water and served with a garlic butter sauce.

Now, we've given lobsters a second chance. A patron can point a claw at the lobster and say "feed me THAT one", but unless they're lucky or skilled, the lobster can get away! True, there's no REAL escape since they're trapped in a tank, but isn't giving them a chance to NOT be killed and eaten a step in the right direction? If this expanded, and every time you wanted a hamburger from McDonald's, you had to slip some coin in a machine and try and grab your cow with a backhoe-type claw contraption, wouldn't that mean less cow death?

I don't understand why PETA is so adamantly against this machine - their own logic should at least count this as progress in their favor.

The machine itself was developed with the help of a marine biologist and have been around for more than a decade. A competitor lobster-game-machine company (because The Lobster Zone doesn't hold a monopoly) even boasts that its machines can net $10,000 a year to a company. Of course, the machines themselves cost $15,950 - and I'm guessing it doesn't come with lobsters - but that's still an eventual profit.

The Lobster Zone's owner, Ernie Pappas, said that his games don't generate many complaints. "If a restaurant does 8,000 (customers) a week, we might get one person every other week who complains."

PETA's website, LobsterLib 'surprisingly' argues that since there's no humane way to kill lobsters (even though it's not scientifically agreed upon that they even feel pain) - they shouldn't be eaten. Oh, and also we should all be vegetarians as well. Too bad nobody told that to the lobsters; a lobster's favorite food is lobster.

The best part of this story is that despite PETA's letter and campaigning, the sports bar's owner still has his game up and running and we will probably keep it.

"I just hate like hell for somebody to tell me how to run my business," he said.

Denver restaurant consultant and vegetarian John Imbergamo said he doubts any controversy that PETA generates will turn people away from J.D.'s Bait Shop.

"It's not exactly a place that's sprout- and tofu-friendly," he said.

If anything, the kind of people who would be curious about this game might hear the publicity and go there, Imbergamo said.

Do you hear that, PETA? Humans are not yours to push around, and when you start spewing your propaganda and telling business owners what they should do, you make more enemies than friends and they will push even harder just to spite you.

You could have at least tried to claim a small victory in that lobsters could defend themselves from being boiled alive and eaten by escaping the crane - but instead you chose to stumble over your own two feet. Not only do you look like idiots (bigger ones than you were before this incident), you're rooted the owner further into disobeying your orders and probably given him and his bar and the game itself more publicity.

And after all, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Frankly, there's an even better argument against PETA's chastizing of these games. True, if a bar patron played and won, they could eat the lobster. But I'm willing to bet that if a PETA member played and won, they'd let the PETA member take the lobster with them and the lobster could be saved! PETA - they just gave you a chance to save the lobsters, on TOP of a chance for the lobsters to save themselves! Go grab your quarters and get to rescuin'!

(The Denver Post article)

(PETA's tirade and letter to the bar owner)


Read more!

PETA and Lobsters

PETA is just one step closer to complete insanity, judging by this latest little publicity stunt that will never take off.

The situation starts off with Skowhegan, Maine - a county that is currently building a new jail and is trying to sell off their outdated jail. That sounds sensible enough. And then PETA gets in the act. PETA has sent a proposal to the Somerset County commissioners to LEASE their jail to PETA so they can turn it into a "Lobster Empathy Center" (that's what they're calling it). The realtor handling the jail's sale has identified the proposal as "likely a publicity stunt."

Judge for yourself with this excerpt from the letter sent by PETA to the commissioners:

"A prison is the perfect setting to demonstrate how lobsters suffer when they are caught in traps or confined to cramped, filthy supermarket tanks. The center will teach visitors to have compassion for these interesting, sensitive animals while also commemorating the millions of lobsters who are ripped from their homes in the ocean off the coast of Maine each year before being boiled alive."

Luckily, unlike the Chicago City Council who were all taken in by PETA shock video and banned the sale of foie gras two years ago (and recently realized their mistake and repealed it), Commissioner Chairman Phil Roy isn't buying it and is willing to point out the many many issues regarding this letter.

1. Skowhegan isn't even part of coastal Maine.

This whole shenanigan is to make the public aware of the lobster catching going on at the coast of Maine. Stupidly, they chose a town about 53 MILES away from the coast of Maine (namely Rockland, home of the Maine Lobster Festival) to launch their futile efforts.

2. PETA complains about lobster jail, but never lifted a finger about the humans kept in those conditions.

Even this commissioner will point out that humans are animals too, and PETA couldn't care less about the humans who have to suffer with "objectionable" conditions - but if an animal has to go through something even remotely similar to those conditions? That's the only time PETA pretends to care and sends out these insane letters.

3. PETA wants to use the space for propaganda that lobsters feel pain.

Studies have frankly been done for a number of years with no factual conclusion on the subject. One famous study, however, sides with the "it is unlikely that they can feel pain" camp. Biologists have said for years that the lobster's primitive nervous system and underdeveloped brain are akin to an insect, and while lobsters react to stimuli (like boiling water), the reactions are escape mechanisms and NOT a conscious response or an indication of pain, they say.

"It's a semantic thing: No brain, no pain."

4. PETA wants to trap visitors and put rubber bands on their fingers.

That's just ridiculous. While I can understand that there's a parallel between rubber bands on claws - those rubber bands are there for the protection of those handling the lobsters, not to torture or be "mean" to the lobsters. If a vicious dog was threatening to bite people, you'd put a muzzle on it. If your cat is scratching the furniture or people - you get it declawed. It's a safety precaution and exploiting it under the guise of torturing a defenseless creature is insane. It's because the creature ISN'T defenseless! Plus, the whole notion of human-sized lobster traps and cramming people into a giant replica lobster tank with filthy glass walls? That's going a little too far. The place was going to be set in a JAIL and you're going further out of your way to remind people that they don't like being confined in dirty small spaces? Waste of time and bigger waste of props.

This whole thing is crazy from square one.

Nonetheless, even if it's (obviously) a publicity stunt, it's being forwarded to the realtor along with all other offers. The realty company has expressed that all offers would be considered, but admitted that the county has no interest in leasing the jail. The property needs to be sold, and the use of the property is the bigger issue being looked at. The county wants to provide jobs and "get the property back on the tax rolls." There are currently 22 leads already, including one proposal to purchase the jail for "a gristmill, artists colony, bakery and other cultural uses."

I'm hoping that seems like an infinitely better idea than leasing the building to a terrorist organization like PETA for the purpose of turning it into a "Lobster Empathy Center".

What do you think? Isn't lobster delicious? "No brain, no pain?"

(The article about PETA's indecent proposal)

(The study showing lobsters probably don't feel pain in the first place) Read more!

Chicago vs. PETA: Chicago Wins!

Before reading this, you might want to catch up by reading the previous parts of this Chicago vs. PETA series:

PART 1: Chicago Bans Food and PETA is to Blame
PART 2: Chicago vs. PETA: The Foie Gras Debate!
PART 3: Chicago vs. PETA: The Lawsuit!
PART 4: Chicago vs. PETA: The Uprising!
PART 5: Chicago vs. PETA: The First Offense!
PART 6: Chicago vs. PETA: A Step In The Right Direction?
PART 7: Chicago vs. PETA: Offenders on the Offense!

And join us in the eighth and hopefully final installment of a series of posts that (in the opinion of the writer) should never have come to be. And PETA is to blame; they shock-videoed the Chicago City Council into agreeing to sign a law banning foie gras from the city. In the second part, I discussed the studies and FACTS proving that the reasons BEHIND the law are unfounded and not based on any facts at all. In the third part I got to speak of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA) who believes so strongly in this cause that it's practically paying for both sides of the legal battle, based on the fact that it's unconstitutional to make a city law overturning something the federal government approves, let alone deciding what people can/cannot eat. In the fourth part I got to talk about the restaurants fighting back and how more were serving foie gras than ever once the law took effect. In the fifth part, we learned about the first victim of the law and how little the city even cared, other than the media. In part six, the mayor decided to reconsider his stance on the issue. Part seven revisits the restaurants, several months after the ban went into effect. In part eight, the ban has finally been repealed!

With Mayor Richard Daley running the vote, the Chicago City Council repealed its controversial ban on foie gras today, May 14th, 2008.

It's been a grueling two years that Chicago has been a laughingstock for enacting the "silliest law" (according to Mayor Daley) that banned the sale of foie gras here in Chicago. The council used a parliamentary procedure to call to vote a repeal of the ban.

Alderman Joe Moore was strongly against the vote, having sponsored the ban in the first place. The call to vote was started by Alderman Thomas Tunney, who actually owns a restaurant.

The vote was a clear 37-6 in favor of repealing the ban, more than enough to officially make it so.

(The official article from the Chicago Tribune who was on the scene of today's City Council meeting)

Hopefully this is the last of the Chicago vs. PETA series - a series we wouldn't have had in the first place if it weren't for PETA sticking its nose in YOUR dinner plate.


Read more!

Ethical Meat: Squirrel?

Maybe I'm "ahead of the times", but I recall spending many an hour on the APPLE II at school playing Oregon Trail and testing my hunting skills by shooting every moving critter - including the squirrels. Sure, it wasted some bullets, and sure, it only netted me 1 or 2 pounds of meat with each kill, but I knew that squirrel meat must have tasted yummy, and I like to think it led to my family staving off the cholera and dysentery until I slammed the wagon into a rock on the last river just to be a jerk. Then again, I'm he type of jerk who would name their family members after the various health problems just to see messages like "Cholera has a broken leg" and "Broken Leg has cholera" flashing on the screen.

I digress. As it turns out, squirrel meat isn't just a hilarious appetizer on an old-school computer game. It's turning up as a delicacy in England. That's right, I've been able to bring you stories of dogmeat in Korea, Aussies eating feral cats, rat buffets in China and now of Grey Squirrel Pasties in merry ol' England!

Once again, I have to state: I've always advocated the notion that things made of meat (other than humans) can be eaten. I will admittedly draw the line when it comes to humans - not out of any ethical or moral reasoning, but because that would mean that I could be eaten and that doesn't benefit me in the least. I'm also not that hugely in favor of eating things that could become extinct. However, I do believe that those animals should be bred in captivity like you would on any farm, just to keep the numbers up and set aside a nice fat percentage for consumption.

The grey squirrel - not to be confused with the red squirrel, an endangered British creature - is apparently low in fat and high in flavor. Since they're free-range and have low "food miles" (which I believe is a term describing the distance between the kill and the store), grey squirrel is being declared an "ethical meat". Butchers can't keep them on the shelves, either.

"We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go," said David Simpson, the director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall, whose game counter began selling grey squirrel meat two months ago.

There's no disagreement on whether or not the meat should be sold and consumed - since customers have been gobbling them up ever since they appeared in the shops - but there is some disagreement on the taste. Some say it's a taste like wild boar. Others would liken it to duck or lamb. All in all, everyone agrees that it's tasty - possibly because the squirrel's diet consists of nuts and berries which leave the meat tasting sweet and moist.

Butchers are even selling them as patriotism, that for every grey squirrel being killed and eaten, that's food and shelter that is now available for the endangered red squirrels. The motto is, of course, "'Eat a grey and save a red." Of course, it's pretty obvious that most British squirrel-buyers aren't really doing it to "be green" or patriotic or anything like that. It's probably purely the novelty of eating squirrel meat. And even though it's a niche market in the meat world, there's plenty of room to expand. After all, there's about five million grey squirrels in England and they've been selling at 3.50 Euro (about $5.25 USD) apiece.

The meat itself is akin to rabbit, with most of the meat coming from the rear legs. So far, the meat has been used to popularize recipes such as Southern-fried squirrel, tandoori-style squirrel and fricasseed squirrel with Cornish cream and walnuts. The most popular seems to be Cornish squirrel pasties. Thanks to Kevin Viner, former chef-proprietor of Pennypots who now runs Viners bar and restaurant at Summercourt, we have a recipe for this squirrely dish:

Squirrel Pasties

Ingredients:

140g squirrel meat cut into 1cm cubes;

100g sliced potato; 100g sliced swede; 50g diced onion; 30g smoked bacon;

15g chopped hazelnuts; 75g butter;

5g chopped parsley; a good pinch of salt and pepper

Method:

· Egg wash edges of pastry circles.

· Place the potato, swede, hazelnuts, parsley and seasoning on to each circle followed by the bacon, squirrel meat and, finally, the onion.

· Place butter in each pasty, then fold over the pastry and crimp the edges.

· Put the pasties on to a greaseproof baking tray, egg wash both pasties well, place in a pre-heated oven at 180C or gas mark 5.

· Bake for 45-50 minutes. The juices should start to boil and the pasties should be able to move on the tray with ease.

So we've now got yet another country willing to eat meat from animals that we in America still shun the idea of consuming.

When are we going to be able to eat horse, dog, cat, squirrel and rat meat? It's working in other countries! They're not riddled with such a huge hunger problem because they have all of these viable options for meat! Maybe it's because other countries don't have our problem of huge uprisings of uppity PETA members getting in our faces and shoving their noses on our dinner plates!

What do you think? Is it finally time for the U.S. to stop turning up our noses at the thought of other edible critters on our plate? Don't you just hate PETA?

(The squirrelly-tasty article from the UK)


Read more!

PETA Blames Clinton For Horse Death?

Okay, apparently during the Kentucky Derby (or rather AFTER the Derby), about a quarter-mile past the finish line, the horse Eight Belles broke both front ankles and collapsed on the track and had to be euthanized in front of thousands of spectators. It was handled as quickly as possible to end the pain as quickly as possible. And of course, PETA is in an uproar.

First, they call for the suspension of the jockey, Gabriel Saez. I can at the very least understand this branch of idiocy. The last one touching Eight Belles was obviously the rider, so PETA gets to blame him. After all, you know that jockeys use their little horsewhip to spur the horses faster down the straightaways. So I could totally agree with this statement - if the jockey were whipping the horse's ankles at the time of their shattering and collapse. This didn't even occur while the horse was straining to run fast - the race was already OVER. The horse was, if anything, slowing down with no aggressive actions by the rider. And then the tragedy struck.

"What we really want to know, did he feel anything along the way?" PETA spokeswoman Kathy Guillermo said. "If he didn't then we can probably blame the fact that they're allowed to whip the horses mercilessly."

Did he feel anything?? I'm pretty sure that if you're riding a horse and it shatters its ankles and had to be put down, you feel something. You may not necessarily feel GUILTY or RESPONSIBLE, but you would probably be SAD about the whole thing. Hell, even if you were in a street race and you're gunning it and a quarter-mile past the finish line the front wheels snap at the axle and your car is a goner - you FEEL SOMETHING. With the money that goes into street-racing cars, they might even feel MORE than this jockey, but that's not to say the jockey felt anything less.

But even if your car breaks after the finish line, you still win and you get your prize. PETA is calling for the 2nd-place prize money of $400,000 to be revoked if Saez is "found at fault." Which I'm pretty sure is not possible, since the horse was fine and happy until after the race when it happened that both front ankles got shattered.

The fucked-up part is that not only did they obviously write a letter to the Kentucky Horse Racing Association, but they wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton and BLAMED HER for the horse's death!

I won't print the entirety of the letter, but here's how it starts:

Dear Senator Clinton:

As a high profile political figure with the esteem of many women, I regret to say that your public support of horseracing — and specifically betting on Eight Belles — makes you culpable in her destruction.

Not only are they bat-shit crazy for this stunt, they've kind of screwed their case against Gabriel Saez, haven't they? How can you claim that TWO PEOPLE killed ONE HORSE? They just PUBLICLY told Hillary Clinton that she is culpable for the horse's death.

culpable: (adj) deserving blame or censure; blameworthy.
(Origin: culpare, Latin, "to hold liable")

What pissed me off (okay, the blame Clinton thing amused me more than pissed me off) was that later in the letter, after the scathing list of other horses who have had to be euthanized (also pissed me off that when PETA does it, it's "euthanized" or "put down", but when a medical professional does it, it's "destroyed") - PETA compares attending the Kentucky Derby to attending a dogfight.

Hey, Newkirk! Apparently you don't understand the fucking point of EITHER sport, or you wouldn't have made such a ridiculous comparison! Dogfighting is... FIGHTING DOGS. Two dogs enter, one dog leaves. Horse racing is... RACING HORSES. Many horses enter, and almost 100% of the time, they all leave. Once in a while, tragedies occur. Races go on many times every day, and the number of times it directly leads to a horse death as a result of a race is a small fraction. Dogfighting is illegal, as is attending one. Horse racing is legal, as is attending one and BETTING on one!

I still fail to see the logic of one woman betting on a horse who happens to die AFTER running the race, and that makes this woman responsible for the horse's death. Are they suggesting that maybe if Hillary Clinton didn't bet on Eight Belles, someone could have convinced the horse to not compete? I mean, she already probably feels bad for betting on a horse that didn't win - now she has to feel responsible because it also died after not winning?

It makes no sense. PETA makes no sense.

Of course, my first thought on hearing that PETA was writing a letter calling for certain sanctions of the horse-racing industry was, "wait, PETA's not outright calling for an end to horse-racing? It's just making demands for 'less-suffering' sanctions?" Turns out that the full letter sent to the KHRA makes the demands, then admits that the sport should be banned, but failing that, at least it should do these things.

I'm just surprised that PETA would threaten Hillary Clinton with the culpability of the horse's death and comparing her to a criminal attending a dogfight, but avoided the obvious threat of "we hope that you suffer the same fate as Eight Belles: come in second place in the election, break both your ankles, and get then killed by lethal injection."

What do you think? (I mean about PETA's craziness, not the whole "Hillary Clinton coming in second place" comment.)

(The article about Eight Belles)
(PETA's letter to Hillary Clinton)


Read more!

PETA and Tube Meat

If you're unfamiliar with the term "tube meat", which is short for "test tube meat", which is a layman's term for "in vitro meat" - here's the rundown on this scientific breakthrough which has been going on for about 100 years:

It all starts with one mad scientist named Dr. Alexi Carrel. Okay, maybe not "mad" as much as "Nobel laureate" - but the experiment that started the whole thing must have seemed crazy at the time, back in 1908. He took a piece of embryonic chicken heart and put it in a nutrient broth. That's it. The real craziness was that the heart cells didn't die - they multiplied. It doubled in size every day, never aging or dying off, just expanding and filling the container. When the container was full, Carrel would remove a small piece of the mass, place it in a new container, and the process would resume. It continued for 36 years, up until Carrel's death in 1944.

Unfortunately, after the doctor's death, the chicken heart tissue was improperly cared for by some lab assistant and it died. Attempts have been made to recreate the experiment, but to little success. Still, it has inspired many ideas about the potential of such a setup.

Winston Churchill once said in 1932, "We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."

The 1953 sci-fi novel "The Space Merchants" features the idea that most of the world's meat supply comes from a giant chicken heart named Chicken Little that gets harvested every day as it grows and fills its concrete vault.

As we fast-forward to the present and our more-advanced technology, we are getting more advanced with our methods of harvesting meat without the rest of the animal. Scientists are figuring out more about the harvesting of meat tissue, the conditions for growing it, and tons of speculation about whether or not it can become commercially available at competitive prices. Also, there is much speculation regarding the taste and how the experiment can be modified to create "new flavors" and such.

So with all of this prospect of meat-eating and processed flesh, why is it that the animal-rights group PETA is ENDORSING the Tube Meat program and offering $1 MILLION to anyone who can make it commercially available?

That's right. A million dollars is the prize money up for grabs directly from the "Animals Are Not Ours to Eat" gestapo just for making this in vitro meat product commercially available. The whole situation completely baffles me, because from every standpoint, PETA should be against tube meat. After hitting myself on the head with a blunt object for a few minutes, I was able to see things from PETA's often-insane perspective and there are no reasons I can find why they would be on-board with this scientific breakthrough.

1) First of all, harvesting tissue for the tube meat processing requires the death of an animal. It's possible to use fertilized embryos for this process, which would only require cages animals being forced to mate and produce the fertilized embryos - but that's still outside of PETA's realm of acceptance. However, scientists say that it's much more difficult to get embryonic samples to produce only the meaty muscle tissue and limit the amount of bone and other non-edible tissues that are cultivated. The optimal tissue for this process is straight-up muscle tissue, which can only be collected by killing the animal. I was pretty sure that PETA is against that kind of thing.

2) By "that kind of thing", I also mean that PETA is adamantly against any scientific research that takes place at the expense of animal's lives or comfort. They don't want you testing lipstick on bunnies. They don't approve of using laboratory mice, even if it's to try and cure cancer or AIDS. Why would they be totally cool and in favor of science that is being tested with these farm critters as we cage, manipulate and/or kill in our attempts to cultivate their organ and muscle tissues? PETA - where in your doctrine is this acceptable to you?

3) I understand that PETA is trying to promote a type of meat that doesn't kill animals (except for the ones used to grow the initial meat source, as previously mentioned). They apparently want to eat meat without the guilt of killing animals. But doesn't this logic completely contradict their war against fur and FAKE FUR? They are opposed to FAKE fur because it promotes the "allure" of real fur, which means that it's somehow making it acceptable to enjoy fur-like things which means more killing of critters. How can they by okay with "non-kill meat" when it promotes the "allure" of tasty real meat, which means that meat itself is acceptable and and will result in the killing of more delicious critters. You can argue that "non-kill meat" will mean an alternative to "real meat" and less animals will die, but can't you make the same argument about fake fur? And isn't that what all those crappy tofu-burgers and veggie-patties are supposed to be for?

So with all of the above craziness going on that is boggling my mind about PETA's decision to sponsor a prize for creating this tube meat, my mind practically exploded upon reading the following criterion for how the prize money will be awarded:

"A team of 10 PETA jurors will taste the entries to make sure they match the texture and flavor of chicken, and they must score at least 80 out of 100 points to win the prize."

THE TASTE OF THE MEAT IS BEING JUDGED BY PETA???

PETA isn't supposed to eat real meat!! So how can they be a proper judge for the taste comparison of the tube meat and its real counterpart?? There's no way that an un-biased comparison can be made, let alone the fact that I wouldn't trust them to know what REAL meat tastes like!

To create a random horrible analogy to describe my horror of this scenario - that's like having a U.S. Senator test-play GTA IV and judge if it feels as awesome as REALLY KILLING A HOOKER!

I'm not using that analogy to suggest that eating meat is as bad as killing a hooker - I'm saying that senators aren't supposed to know the delight of actually killing hookers, just like PETA members aren't supposed to know the delight of actually eating meat.

*takes a breath*

With all of that said, I am totally in favor of tube meat and all of these scientific advances. I just needed that long diatribe to illustrate why it is wrong that I'm agreeing with something being promoted by PETA - the reason being that PETA shouldn't be promoting it in the first place. Of course, it follows right along with their protests to save the lives of puppies and yet they drive around in a puppy-kill-mobile.

My only qualms with the idea of test tube meats is going to be that fact that it won't taste the same. There's a certain flavor in meat that comes from what the animal is fed. The amount of activity or lack thereof is what determines the fat content and stringiness of cuts of meat. I believe that the optimum that science will create between resulting product and cost to create it will be a uniform slab of meat with no marbling of fat or anything like that. It will likely be ground up, as ground meats are the most cost-efficient and the texture problem will be solved thusly. Also, science will be able to easily ALTER the tastes of meats cultivated in this manner - wouldn't we not be far off from cultivating human flesh for consumption since it'd be just as easy of a process as chicken or beef? The case WILL be argued, and someone WILL do it once the technology is made available to corporations and citizens start creating tube meat "microbrews" to their hearts' content.

Imagine the legendary Thanksgiving tur-duc-ken (turkey, duck and chicken) now available in one combined meat slab! How about infusing some pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes into the nutrient broth used to cultivate turkey meat tissue and creating Thanksgiving Meat? The possibilities are endless. Maybe that's what worries me.

I frankly still think that there's still too much untapped meat flesh out there that's NOT being consumed when it really should be. I'd rather start eating the available cats and dogs and horses and rats that other countries will eat, to which we in the U.S. have turned up our noses, before I worry about speeding up the process to make extra meat just for the additional benefit of not having to slaughter the animal or deal with bones in the buffalo wings.

What do you think? Is PETA contradicting itself on the meat front? Would you eat test-tube meat products? Would you eat a dog? Would you like to taste human flesh without all those pesky first-degree murder trials?

(The history of Tube Meat)
(PETA's million-dollar contest)
(One whackjob who actually points out why PETA shouldn't be okay with Tube Meat)


Read more!

PETA Not Versus Britney?

If there's ever been an organization that could be known for backhanded compliments, backhanded complaints and just plain backhanded EVERYTHING - it would almost definitely be PETA. Sometimes it even backhands its own logic just to get more public attention. For example, Ingrid Newkirk (the evil dictator of the evil empire) has it in her PETA mission statement that animals are not ours to own and should be free, which means NO PETS. So every time PETA gets in a tizzy about dogs and cats, I keep wondering why their stance isn't "no pets" every time.

Eventually I learned that PETA apparently just wants them all dead so nobody can own any. They want all the breeders shut down, they want all current pets spayed or neutered, and they routinely go around "rescuing" animals from shelters (when not protesting shelters) and kill them all in puppy-killing deathmobiles and dump the carcasses in dumpsters. Which means you can't breed them, nobody else can breed them, and they'll kill any of them not currently owned. All dogs and cats would be dead after this generation. Thanks, PETA. If that's not a backhanded slap in the face to all your members who think you're trying to HELP animals when in reality you want SPECIES GENOCIDE, I don't know what is.

But I digress, this is about Britney Spears. Seriously, it is. The problem is that PETA seems to want to excuse Britney while still calling her inexcusable. They want to give her leniency by shining a spotlight on her and berating her. It all begins with the "PETA Worst-Dressed-List" - a crock of shit that's basically a list of celebrities who wear fur or perhaps have a clothing line that uses fur, and uppity PETA members vote for which one they'd like to assassinate most. Britney was on their initial list this year and, despite being the front-runner in the first few days of voting, PETA recently decided to remove her from the list. Here's what PETA said about the decision (and watch for all the backhandedness):

Given her recent trip to the psych ward, it's becoming more and more clear that she's not entirely accountable for her actions — and that includes her poor fashion choices just as much as it does her bad parenting decisions.

With that in mind, we've decided to give Britney a bit of a break this year, and take her off the Worst-Dressed-List poll, despite the fact that she had established herself as a strong front-runner in the first two days of voting. Here's what PETA Vice President Dan Mathews had to say about the decision:

"People with l'il kids shouldn't dress like L'il Kim. But at this point, Britney needs a break — from everybody. Maybe when her head is clear, she'll have a change of heart about wearing fur. If not, we'll be back biting at her heels."

So there you have it, but the question is, did we make the right choice in giving Brit a break this year despite her unfortunate penchant for, um, flaunting her fur in public?

Okay, so they want to give her a break - but had to at the same time call her out for wearing fur anyway, insult her parenting, make an offhand remark about the public exposure incident and basically call her insane? That's just plain stupid and backhanded. Especially when you finish up your "let's leave Britney alone" message with a "we will not leave Britney alone" message.

I still can't tell if they seriously want to attempt leaving Britney alone, despite their jackassedly-persistent tendencies of insulting everything that doesn't fit into their collective mindview. Of course, once you remember that their collective mindview is more psychotic and insane than the ramblings of most mental patients - who's really the insane one here, PETA? For once, maybe it's not Britney Spears.

Besides, something tells me that this incident of backhandedly excusing Britney from the Worst-Dressed-List is going to get MORE publicity than the actual results of a PETA Worst-Dressed-List anyway. Which means you really haven't given her a break at all.

But I guess it just holds true that you can't believe a single word coming from an organization that considers "rescue" to take the form of a puppy-killing deathmobile.

(PETA's statement about Britney)
(PetaKillsAnimals.com)


Read more!

PETA Loves Jail?

Okay, so in one of my random visits to the PETA website, looking for fuel for my anti-PETA fire, I had initially stumbled onto a link to GoVeg.com and their "Top Ten Reasons to go Vegetarian in 2008" article, which enraged me horribly. For starters, three of their Top Ten reasons were about being healthy and happy. I know plenty of fat and miserable vegetarians. I'll have to save that rant for another day, because I later stumbled onto a PETA Top Ten list that dumbfounded me.

I'd heard about their list of the top ten vegetarian-friendly colleges. I guess if we shovel all of the college-age liberal hippies into select locations, the sane people will know which ones to avoid. I've got little problem with shining a light on college hippie liberalism and all that jazz. And then there was a reference to the top ten vegetarian-friendly ballparks. This started worrying me, because I didn't think people went to ballparks to enjoy anything other than beer, peanuts, crackerjack, and um that sport. I think it's called "baseball" or something. So apparently baseball isn't a sport that has pissed PETA off yet (unlike basketball and football) and PETA is rewarding those ballparks offering attendees some vegetarian options (because apparently nachos, beer and peanuts aren't good enough for some people). Fine. Promote tourism and try and suck up enough to maybe get ballparks to return the favor somehow. I can stomach that quid-pro-quo of sleazy business.

That's when this article came up: "Top 10 Vegetarian-Friendly Prisons!"

Words fail me.

Okay, now words are passing once again and I can rant about this. PETA has run out of venues that lots of people wind up at and might be interested in a vegetarian cuisine, so they offered up a list of PRISONS that cater to the herbivores among the captives. Somehow they bothered to catch on that people would think "um, so they're trying to convince people to go to jail?" and offered this statement: "I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if this latest top 10 list gets you all amped about the prospect of going to one of these prisons, you may want to set some slightly more ambitious goals for yourself … but for the people who—through bad luck or poor planning—are on their way there, this will come as some very good news."

So then they go into a shpiel about prisoners who want to better themselves, or possibly punish their taste buds as much as their prison-raped anuses, and eventually go into the list of vegetarian-friendly prisons and the menu items they offer which got them on the list. Some of these items just sound incredibly terrible...

Vegan hot cakes (I hope this is talking about pancakes and not something else), meatless chicken macaroni casserole (which most of us would call "macaroni casserole", but they apparently put fake chicken in it), soy Salisbury steak (as if regular Salisbury steak served at a prison weren't bad enough), baked macaroni crumble (it shouldn't count on the list if it doesn't say "vegetarian or vegan" since that's just a regular item! That's like saying they're vegetarian-friendly because they serve Diet Coke!) and possibly one of the grossest menu items I've heard of: vegetarian shepherd’s pie with texturized vegetable protein. I don't know where to begin with insulting this dish. I eat Slim Jims, which contain on their ingrediant list "mechanically separated chicken" - and you know what? That still sounds more appetizing than "texturized vegetable protein" ever will!

It gets better, though. They thought that naming these prisons would bring some kind of glory to them in some way - that they'd be thanked for bringing this vegetarian-friendliness to light - and that's just not the case. North Dakota (#10 on the list) offered these responses:

Wade Moser, executive director of the North Dakota Stockmen's Association in Bismarck, wouldn't bite. "It's just one of the tactics PETA uses to get attention," he said. "It doesn't deserve comment."

Tim Schuetzle, warden of the North Dakota pen and director of the state prison system, said the inclusion of vegetarian meals on his menu "really was in response to religious diets" required by some prisoners.

"It's a tenet of their religion that they don't eat meat," he said. "There are some who have special diets for medical reasons, too. It's not like the prison is promoting vegetarianism or coddling prisoners with a fancy dining experience, he said. "We're not saying, 'Here's our salad bar, and would you like tofu with that?'"

Even more luckily, the non-vegan egg on PETA's face gets even stickier when I found out that one of PETA's biggest and most-popular current enemies might not be in jail for as long as they thought!

That's right - Michael Vick might not be in jail quite as long as originally planned. PETA advocates were practically dancing when the judge ruled a 23-month sentence was in order, which is typically a longer sentence considering the crime. Yahoo! Sports is reporting, though, that it's possible he might be able to shave 12 months off that sentence. It's all because of marijuana, too. The same failed drug test that could possibly have led to the increased prison sentence might prove to be the reason for a reduced sentence.

Apparently the drug treatment program he was able to enter into thanks to the positive test for marijuana, which is only in place at the Leavenworth federal penitentiary, allows inmates to wipe off up to a year of their sentence if they complete the drug treatment program. Thing is, in order to get the time cut off his sentence, he'd have to be in the program for a year. And since he hasn't started yet, he's still looking at a good chunk of his sentence. Even so, he might only have to serve 12 or 13 months of the 23-month sentence because of it, and Yahoo! Sports said (possibly jokingly) that he could be back for the 2009 football season.

I mean provided he gets his indefinite suspension lifted, passes various drug tests, and finds a team that would sign him after all of this negative press surrounding him that would certainly taint any team that hires him.

But hey, stranger things have happened. And I'd just love to see PETA get all ruffled about their victory becoming a disgraceful defeat in the end...

(The PETA article about veggie-friendly prisons)
(The response from North Dakota)
(The article about Michael Vick)


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PETA vs CraigsList

Apparently not satisfied with targets as large as Michael Moore, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or even the NBA, PETA has decided to take a blind stab at something possibly bigger than all of them combined:

PETA is going after CraigsList.

For those of you unfamiliar to the series of tubes we call "the internets" - CraigsList.com is a huge internet site known for classified ads of all varieties. While it's most popular for personal ads, selling an eBay's worth of items and job offers - we're already aware of the darker side of anything large and internet-based.

The spam, porn site links and scams are one thing. You're pretty much going to encounter those anywhere. Recently, CraigsList has hit big in the media spotlight regarding "erotic services" ads and linking them directly to prostitution rings. But I digress, because PETA doesn't give a damn about PEOPLE being treated ethically, just ANIMALS (and maybe one of these days, they'll realize that human beings are animals as well).

PETA is attacking the website for their allowing of "free to good home" ads for people who wish to give their pets to others.

You know, those "cruel individuals" who'd rather spend the effort to find a new home for their pets instead of tossing them into the street or dumping them at an animal shelter.

PETA is claiming that the practice of giving away pets online should be banned from CraigsList because of one incident of an animal-abuser who admitted that at least one of the three cats he tortured and mutilated was obtained through CraigsList.

While I'm sure that this is NOT an isolated incident and that more than one animal-abuser has probably acquired an animal from CraigsList - I'm willing to venture a safe bet that it's a very small percentage when compared to those who acquire a pet thanks to CraigsList and DON'T wind up torturing or abusing the animal. That's like saying that if ONE serial rapist/killer targeted his potential victims through speed-dating events, we should ban all speed-dating because it enables serial rapists/killers. The logic itself doesn't even make sense.

You know what logic DOES seem probable in this scenario?

PETA just doesn't want you to own pets. PETA would rather kill them.

No, seriously. All of these people who want to give their pet to a good home, for free, obviously do not want their pet or can no longer own their pet. If they're banned from trying to advertise and give away their pet, odds are it will wind up on the streets or in a shelter. And we all know what PETA does to animals on the streets and in shelters.

PETA "rescues" them. By which I mean PETA takes the animals in, and over 90% of them are killed by PETA members.

Heck, they've even admitted to owning puppy-killing deathmobiles! Vans driven by PETA employees who go to shelters, pick up a few puppies and kitties, euthanise them with lethal injections IN THE VAN, and then dump the dead bodies in nearby DUMPSTERS.

Oh, but let's not allow people to give their pets to good homes and avoid the shelters! That would lead to crazy things like happy people with new pets and fewer animals for PETA to kill!

Now that I'm done with my logic-process of PETA preferring to kill animals than have them find good homes, I'll go back to the issue at hand - PETA thinking that CraigsList banning the use of their site to give away pets would mean less ability for animal-abusers to have access to animals. The way I see it, people (generally) CARE about their pets. That's why they put "good home" in their ads - because they don't want their pet to go to a person who might BE an animal-abuser. What's really causing the problem is when people post all of that, but don't really care about who their pet goes to. They don't bother meeting or talking to the person who wants to adopt their pet until the switch is made. The question is: if these non-caring people weren't allowed to post on CraigsList to give away their animal, wouldn't the animal just wind up on the street or in a shelter, where there's both little chance of it finding a good home and just as much chance of it winding up the victim of an animal-abuser? I mean, animal-abusers get their animals from SOMEWHERE - and I'm pretty sure most of them get pets through shelters. Or animals they find on the street.

Which all means that no matter what, animal-abusers are going to find animals. So it makes no sense whatsoever to try and limit one of those possible pathways, especially when it does so much more benefit than potential harm to the animals. I personally have friends who have found pets thanks to CraigsList - and they did so from caring people who interviewed them and talked to them before making the official switch.

So CraigsList - keep up the great work! Keep allowing pet owners to find new homes for their pets and letting them have the ability to choose who gets to adopt them.

And PETA - go find another target for your terrorist organization! Every animal given a good home by CraigsList is another animal that never has to see the inside of a shelter and run the risk of getting picked up by your puppy-killing deathmobile!

(PETA's press release about CraigsList)
(Petakillsanimals.org)







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PETA vs Vick: The Numbers Don't Lie

I'll agree with PETA on one thing (waits for the *gasp*s to cease): dogfighting and the preparations for dogfighting are cruelty to the animals. Few animals on the planet enjoy being electrocuted (notice how I said "few" - I know some twisted individuals out there). But with that in mind, PETA has gotten so worked up over the fact that Michael Vick participated (or stood by and allowed it) in the deaths of eight dogs.

Eight. Keep that number in mind.

I get it. Vick killed animals. Or rather, let them die. No, I'll go as far as to say he killed them, and I'm sure there are legal terms for criminally-neglegent homocide, except homocide is for killing people - is it "canuside"? "Canucide"? "Dogicide"?

Anyway, the point is that the ones who are pointing fingers and calling him out are the members of PETA. If there were ever a case of pots calling kettles black, these pots in particular would be black holes - so dark that no amount of light could ever escape the darkness that dwells in these pots. Because PETA certainly kills animals. "How many? More than eight?" - I hear you cry.

Try 14,400 since 1998.

It's a number that the Center for Consumer Freedom is trying to get out to the public, going to the point of taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times to illustrate the hypocrisy of this "humane" organization. The text of the ad reads as such:

Who’s killed more animals? Vick (8) or PETA (14,400):

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) loves to point the finger at others, when they should be looking at their own record of killing more than 90% of the animals left in their care. According to government records PETA has killed more than 14,400 animals since 1998.

In fact, PETA has been using the Michael Vick incident to sell shirts, gain subscribers, and otherwise profit from someone who's killed a mere fraction of the animals they've killed in the past year alone.

"PETA has shamelessly used the horrific Michael Vick case to pad their group’s coffers, even though their track record of slaughtering thousands of helpless, adoptable animals is far more damning," said CCF Director of Research David Martosko. "Americans need to be aware of how PETA treats animals in their care and reject the group’s overt hypocrisy."

I mean for crying out loud - two employees of PETA in North Carolina admitted personally killing dozens of dogs and cats in what was literally a "death van" and then tossing the lifeless bodies of the critters into a nearby trash dumpster.

Again, dogfighting and those who torture the dogs to prepare them for the fights are fine examples of cruelty to animals. I'm not saying that isn't the case. My point is that you can't take it seriously when the screams of cruelty are coming from those responsible for puppy-killing deathmoblies. You wouldn't listen to a serial killer speaking out against a man who committed second-degree manslaughter, so why would you listen to an organization responsible for killing over 14,000 animals speaking out against a man who killed 8? The math doesn't add up. The logic doesn't add up.

Yes, Michael Vick killed animals.
But PETA killed thousands more this year alone.

And they're still out there, killing more dogs and cats every day, all the while yelling how killing animals is wrong and cruel.

At least they locked up Vick. When are we finally going to arrest every member of PETA?

And don't even get me started on the other animal-rights terrorist groups...

(www.PETAkillsanimals.com)
(Their press release about the PETA versus Vick advertisement)







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Vick's Dogs Dying Anyway?

Yes, dogfighting is cruel. Yes, Vick and his cronies buying dogs, "training" them and then fighting them to the death is cruelty. You're not going to hear me say otherwise - it's a vicious thing to do and he deserves jail time for his misdeeds.

But at the end of the day - aren't they just going to die anyway?

Welcome to the life of pit bulls - a breed of dogs that has been bred over many years to be an aggressive animal used for guarding and attacking. Just as golden retrievers have been bred to be best at helping the blind get through their day as seeing-eye dogs, and just as border collies have been bred to herd sheep for their owners, and just as chihuahuas have been bred to shake nervously and pee - pit bulls were bred for vicious action.

No, I'm not blaming the dogs for the cruelty they were put through - I'm saying that they're the most likely candidates to fall victim to this bloodsport in the seedy underbelly of society. You're not going to train a poodle to kill in the ring - you'd want a dog that has the look and the potential to be a killing machine. Enter the pit bull. Then enter Michael Vick.

This guy and his friends admittedly purchased a location and owned a kennel specifically for these dogs. They trained them and put them through the wringers to hone in on their killing skills, and that does suck. But when you get right down to it, where do you draw the line between Michael Vick's dastardly ploy that winds up with winners and losers and potential death for any of these pit bulls - and the government's seizing of the pit bulls after locking up Vick and the others, creating a ticking clock for all of these animals to be simply put to death.

That's right - they're all destined to die.

Truth of the matter is, there's nothing anyone can do. They've tried notifying anyone they can of people who left their dogs at the kennel or sold their dogs to Vick and his cohorts. The dogs are sitting in shelters right now. The window to claim them was over a few days ago, 30 days after their initial seizure in late July. They're now currently owned by the federal government, and it's going to be a federal judge's decision that deems whether these animals live or die. Well, I mean live longer than if the judge demands euthanasia. Which is highly likely.

Even PETA - those douchebags who always pray for animal peace and welfare and then perform terrorist acts against businesses to "make a point" - says they're going to die. And PETA should know - over 90% of the animals "rescued" by this organization are killed and their carcasses are thrown into a walk-in freezer until they can be disposed of.

Says Daphna Nachminovitch, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "There's no dispute over who owns the dogs. Obviously this is not going to be a process where someone steps forward and says, 'This is my dog, can I have her back, please?' These dogs are a ticking time bomb. Rehabilitating fighting dogs is not in the cards. It's widely accepted that euthanasia is the most humane thing for them."

And that's PETA talking!

The damage has been done. The dogs are now "damaged goods" and nobody's going to be able to take care of them. They're too aggressive (beyond the aggressive nature of the breed in general) to be taken in as pets. It's bad enough to watch a family adopt a pit bull, knowing their violent tendencies, but to adopt one that's already been TRAINED TO KILL? I don't think so.

So they're going to die anyway. Whether they stayed at Bad Newz Kennels and fought to the death as valiantly as possible until the bitter loss of defeat ended their career and life - or were kept in a fenced cell for 30 days until a judge banged a gavel and they were injected with a lethal cocktail and died quickly and without a fight - they will be dying soon.

So what's the lesson in this? Do we regulate the breeding of these animals so there are less of this aggressive breed around to have people train them and fight them in the underground dogfights that simply cannot be stopped? (Let's face it, even the police have no idea how to stop the dogfights from going on because they almost ALWAYS find out AFTER the fights and the damage has been done and nobody is arrested because it's too late to find anyone.) Do we try and up the ante and make the penalties harsher for these crimes that so rarely get caught - just to satiate the public when a rare arrest is actually made? Do we just kill all the members of PETA? (Sorry, that's just for my benefit, so one of these rhetorical questions rings out as "yes" for me.)

Truth is - I have no idea. Which isn't that horrible of a thing. But it's the fact that the government has no idea either. And we still can't even decide if it should BE the government's decision to make. After all, we are the humans and they are the beasts - that gives us the right to own them and eat them, so why not let us fight them? And why not let us eat them, no matter what the beast? When you look at the delicacies of THIS country, let alone those of other countries (rat buffet, anyone?) - don't you get the impression that if it's made of meat, we can eat it?

That's my solution, anyway. I've heard the saying, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out." Well, mine's more of an "Eat 'em all and let the Intestines sort 'em out!" kind of plan.

Bob Barker led an amazing career of telling us to spay or neuter our pets to help control the pet overpopulation problem. I say that it's a lot more humane to kill 'em and grill 'em than it is to chop off their testicles and let 'em STILL wander the streets. We solve the pet overpopulation problem, and we provide meat to the impoverished, at home and overseas. We've already domesticated them and learned to breed them as well - isn't it a matter of time before they join the rest of the domesticated/bred animal kingdom like cows and pigs and sheep?

Now, before you go painting me as Cruella de Ville with a lovely Dalmation coat, it's just an idea. A crazy and seemingly insensitive one, true - but can you really argue that it's worse than rescuing over 50 dogs from a cruel underground dogfighting circuit and telling us that the only thing we can do for these dogs is to KILL THEM? At least in my version, a poor family can have Pit Bull Fajitas or something...

I'm open to hear other ideas - go for it. Tell me how YOU think we should stop what cannot be stopped - and then at the end of the day find something positive to do about it in the end. Because you can't stop the dogfighting. And you can barely attempt to stop the breeding of the dogs themselves. And you can't stop the killing of animals that can't be adopted even though you "rescued" them.

So what do we do? Leave a comment. Let me know YOUR ideas. Together, maybe we can do something...

(The article with the deadline and PETA bitch)
(A website with a friendly reminder that animal cruelty is bad - in case somehow we forget that)







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