Before you start freaking out on me:
Yes - this is regarding pig blood in cigarettes.
No - it's not like a bunch of blood was spilled in some factory and now packs may be tainted.
But the truth is somewhere in-between and it's rather disconcerting (and makes me glad I've only had one cigarette in my life).
University of Sydney Professor in Public Health Simon Chapman points to recent Dutch research which identified 185 different industrial uses of a pig - including the use of its haemoglobin in cigarette filters.
So it's not just pig blood - it's a specific part of the blood, and it's serving an industrial purpose. It turns out that pig haemoglobin can make cigarette filters more effective at trapping harmful chemicals before they can enter a smoker's lungs.
And it's not in ALL cigarettes - maybe. The fact is that we don't know and have no way of knowing. Some tobacco companies have voluntarily moved a list of product contents to public websites, but these lists can include undisclosed "processing aids ... that are not significantly present in, and do not functionally affect, the finished product." That means that cigarettes could contain "insignificant" amounts of pig haemoglobins.
Of course, that all depends on your definition of "insignificant" - devout Jews and Muslims, whose core beliefs specifically ban the consumption of pork in all its forms, will undoubtedly find any amount of pig in their cigarettes to be "significant". Likewise with vegetarians, who never would have suspected that behind the leafy safe tobacco filling could be lurking a meaty filter.
According to the article I read this news from, at least one cigarette brand sold in Greece was confirmed as using pig haemoglobin in its processes.
The fact remains - unless your cigarette company is willing to divulge this information, you will have no idea how much your smokes have in common with a smoky side of bacon.
What do you think? Are you a smoker and this knowledge may affect your smoking habits? Are you Jewish/Muslim/vegetarian and a smoker? Leave a comment!
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Read more!
Showing posts with label vegetarians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegetarians. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, August 29, 2008
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.)
Feel free to Digg it anyway!
Read more!
"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.)
Feel free to Digg it anyway!
Read more!
Sunday, January 06, 2008
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)
Read more!
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)
Read more!
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Meat-Eaters Deserve the Tax Breaks!
Everybody poops.
It's such a well-known fact, they actually made a book with that title. Well, the creation of the book is more for toilet-training purposes, but the fact remains. A corollary to that fact would have to be the statement that "everybody farts" as well. Which is where our story really focuses. It's a fact that you do have to keep in mind - not that everybody poops, mind you, but that everybody farts. The follow-up fact to that is that while everybody does indeed fart, NOT everybody's farts contain methane gas. You have to keep that fact in mind as well, because there's a big to-do about methane gas in the world today. It's apparently one of those huge factors in greenhouse effects and global warming - those things that everyone seems to be taking very seriously.
So seriously, in fact, that they got TAXES involved in it. And nothing could be more serious than taxes. So even though we're talking about farts, let's try to keep our serious faces on. I know mine is certainly on, because I am taking on my old nemesis, PETA, with these facts that I actually did research and had to use mathematics!
This whole ordeal started about a month ago, when I read a letter from Ingrid Newkirk addressed to Washington D.C. politicos saying that just as hybrid car-buyers are getting a tax break, vegetarians deserve a tax break as well.
That's how it all started. PETA's president decided to compare the ecological benefits of purchasing a hybrid car (as opposed to a "gas-guzzler") to the supposed ecological benefits of eating vegetables (or rather "not eating meat" - since I know vegetarians don't actually have to eat vegetables, they just don't eat meat). Newkirk got this particular bee in her bonnet after the U.N. released a study saying that the cattle industry (or rather the collective of "large ruminants", which are animals with four stomachs) is the biggest producer of methane gas in the United States.
That's what the study said. I'm not going to refute their research or their study. Not at all. The first stomach of four in ruminants is where a lot of methane gets created, and cows are known for releasing methane gas. Just keep in mind that everybody farts, and human farts can contain methane as well. Trust me, it'll come back up later, I promise. I believe the study said that the American cattle industry produces 5.5 million metric tons of methane gas. Okay, that's our number one producer of methane, we admit it. So where does Newkirk take this fact?
She says that because vegetarians DON'T eat meat, they're NOT contributing to this "number one problem" and therefore deserve a tax break. Never mind the fact that it would be impossible to prove for a fact that one is a vegetarian (she suggests sales receipts that show no meat, which could easily be the one shopping trip you take that DIDN'T involve beef galore) - that's the entire basis behind her "vegetarians deserve a tax break" argument.
Now it's time to prove how backwards her logic really is.
Okay, so all of these cows produce a lot of methane. According to PETA, they'd love to see all of these animals roam free, rather than be cooped up, bred, and then slaughtered for their delicious tasty meat (or their lovely skin, or precious tallow, or everything else you can do with a dead cow - and that's a lot, just ask a Native American, since I'm told they were able to find a use for every single part of what they killed). So thanks to PETA, now only are we not EATING the cows, but they're free to roam, have sex, and have baby cows, and thus we still have a helluva lot of cows, farting and producing their deadly methane.
Smooth move, Ingrid. You've killed us all. I'm pretty sure that "killing us all" was never tax-deductible.
Do you know what omnivores like myself and the rest of the meat-eating population do? We eat cows. Which means we make cows dead. Do you know what dead cows don't do? They don't fart or produce methane gas. They just provide us with tasty eats. You know what foods humans eat does NOT produce methane? Meats. In fact, the more meat you eat, the less methane you produce, and the less chance you have of producing methane at all whilst farting. Which everyone does. (Glad you remembered!)
Seems to ME that the one who's doing the most to bring down the level of cow-produced methane gas would be the people killing cows and eating them. That's US, the meat-eating omnivores. Not YOU, the vegetarians. Seems like WE're the ones who deserve the tax break, which we could easily prove with sales receipts because they'd SHOW we eat meat and are killing all those pesky methane-producing cows!
I eat cows - to save the planet. (I should really make a T-shirt that says that. Or maybe "EAT A STEAK - SAVE THE WORLD" or something.)
Now that I've thoroughly put down Ingrid Newkirk's plan to get PETA members tax breaks and stolen those ill-gotten tax breaks for the meat-eating crowd like myself, it's time we kept pressing forward. PETA thinks they're the only ones who can find research, twist it completely, and prove a horrible point for their cause. Well, Newkirk - TWO can play at that game! It took me a while, but I finally got a lot of questions answered about human flatulence and what levels of methane WE produce as non-ruminant mammals. It's true - we don't produce NEARLY the levels of methane as our four-stomached dinners, but I stumbled across some information that was VERY interesting.
Remember how I told you that while everybody farts, not everyone produces methane gas?
Good. Here's where the fun begins. It turns out that while fats and proteins produce very little gas and little chance of methane - the highest producers of gas are things like vegetables, fruits, beans, whole wheat, bran and diet foods that contain sorbitol. Things that vegetarians like to eat! There was a study I found that was about testing the isotopes of methane to see if human-produced methane had a "fingerprint" to discern it from environmental methane. The real interesting part of the experiment was the unintended result that the colonic methane gas of omnivores was on average 4,000 times less than the colonic methane gas of vegetarians.
Let me repeat: the average methane production in an omnivore was 15 parts-per-million, and in a vegetarian it was 60,000 parts-per-million.
Not only was the methane concentration higher, but a vegetarian diet, as I just mentioned, contains many more gas-producing foods. The average human produces between 0.5 and 1.5 liters of colonic gas every day, and farts between 10 and 20 times a day. Let's say that the average human with the average diet produces the average amount of gas each day, so about 1 liter. The average vegetarian produces gas on the higher end of the spectrum, so let's guess 1.5 liters per day.
Here's where the math comes in. I'll make it quick for you.
One liter of gas weighs about 1.3 grams, or 0.0013 grams.
One one-millionth of that (parts-per-million) is 0.0000000013 kilograms.
We factor in the 1 liter for an omnivore, 1.5 liters for a vegetarian, and the respective methane gas parts-per-million, and we get:
Daily methane for an omnivore: 0.0000000195 kg
Daily methane for vegetarians: 0.000117 kg
Annual methane for an omnivore: 0.0000071175 kg
Annual methane for vegetarians: 0.042705 kg
Now then, we've got about 6.6 billion people living on the Earth nowadays (give or take a few million). Let's assume that a worst-case scenario is that PETA wins and everyone in the world is now a vegetarian. (That's right, Newkirk, that's the WORST-case scenario!) Or the best-case scenario is that everyone who reads this article winds up either convincing every vegetarian on the planet to eat meat (or just kills them). Either way, best-case scenario is 0% vegetarian, worst-case is 100% vegetarian. Let's see what happens to the precious planet now!
Annual methane production worldwide if all were omnivorous: 46,976 kg
Annual methane production worldwide if all were vegetarian: 281,853,000 kg
(This "metric ton" that the U.N. report uses is 1,000 kilograms, so:)
Annual methane production worldwide if all were omnivorous: 47 metric tons
Annual methane production worldwide if all were vegetarian: 281,853 metric tons
Smooth move, Ingrid. You've once again killed us all.
Okay, in reality even 281,853 metric tons can't compare to the 5.5 million metric tons produced by the cattle industry. That's why I made the previous point about how we omnivores are working to kill and eat those global-warming bovines. PETA would rather let them all roam free and never pay for their environment-destroying flatulence. I don't believe in "ruminant amnesty" programs. I say they all get rounded up and deported - to my stomach.
But doesn't that math prove the point that vegetarians are through and through more a danger on the methane scale? They produce more in parts-per-million, eat more foods that produce that deadlier colonic gas, and are doing everything to STOP killing the main cause of the United States's methane problem! I say it's meat-eaters who deserve the tax breaks! PETA and Newkirk can go suck a fart-inducing carrot!
EAT A STEAK - SAVE THE WORLD!
(Yea, THAT'S the T-shirt I need! Too bad it's hard to print all of the rest of this math on the shirt that proves the point. Oh well, at least you read it and if you buy the shirt, you could at least inform all those who question the logic.)
Here are some of my resources:
PETA's backwards-logic letter asking for vegetarian tax breaks
Vegetarian diets produce more gas
Vegetarians produce more methane
That lousy study attacking the cattle industry
Check back, because I may have a link to buy a T-shirt very soon!
In fact, Check out my store! I'll add more later, after some polling!
Read more!
It's such a well-known fact, they actually made a book with that title. Well, the creation of the book is more for toilet-training purposes, but the fact remains. A corollary to that fact would have to be the statement that "everybody farts" as well. Which is where our story really focuses. It's a fact that you do have to keep in mind - not that everybody poops, mind you, but that everybody farts. The follow-up fact to that is that while everybody does indeed fart, NOT everybody's farts contain methane gas. You have to keep that fact in mind as well, because there's a big to-do about methane gas in the world today. It's apparently one of those huge factors in greenhouse effects and global warming - those things that everyone seems to be taking very seriously.
So seriously, in fact, that they got TAXES involved in it. And nothing could be more serious than taxes. So even though we're talking about farts, let's try to keep our serious faces on. I know mine is certainly on, because I am taking on my old nemesis, PETA, with these facts that I actually did research and had to use mathematics!
This whole ordeal started about a month ago, when I read a letter from Ingrid Newkirk addressed to Washington D.C. politicos saying that just as hybrid car-buyers are getting a tax break, vegetarians deserve a tax break as well.
That's how it all started. PETA's president decided to compare the ecological benefits of purchasing a hybrid car (as opposed to a "gas-guzzler") to the supposed ecological benefits of eating vegetables (or rather "not eating meat" - since I know vegetarians don't actually have to eat vegetables, they just don't eat meat). Newkirk got this particular bee in her bonnet after the U.N. released a study saying that the cattle industry (or rather the collective of "large ruminants", which are animals with four stomachs) is the biggest producer of methane gas in the United States.
That's what the study said. I'm not going to refute their research or their study. Not at all. The first stomach of four in ruminants is where a lot of methane gets created, and cows are known for releasing methane gas. Just keep in mind that everybody farts, and human farts can contain methane as well. Trust me, it'll come back up later, I promise. I believe the study said that the American cattle industry produces 5.5 million metric tons of methane gas. Okay, that's our number one producer of methane, we admit it. So where does Newkirk take this fact?
She says that because vegetarians DON'T eat meat, they're NOT contributing to this "number one problem" and therefore deserve a tax break. Never mind the fact that it would be impossible to prove for a fact that one is a vegetarian (she suggests sales receipts that show no meat, which could easily be the one shopping trip you take that DIDN'T involve beef galore) - that's the entire basis behind her "vegetarians deserve a tax break" argument.
Now it's time to prove how backwards her logic really is.
Okay, so all of these cows produce a lot of methane. According to PETA, they'd love to see all of these animals roam free, rather than be cooped up, bred, and then slaughtered for their delicious tasty meat (or their lovely skin, or precious tallow, or everything else you can do with a dead cow - and that's a lot, just ask a Native American, since I'm told they were able to find a use for every single part of what they killed). So thanks to PETA, now only are we not EATING the cows, but they're free to roam, have sex, and have baby cows, and thus we still have a helluva lot of cows, farting and producing their deadly methane.
Smooth move, Ingrid. You've killed us all. I'm pretty sure that "killing us all" was never tax-deductible.
Do you know what omnivores like myself and the rest of the meat-eating population do? We eat cows. Which means we make cows dead. Do you know what dead cows don't do? They don't fart or produce methane gas. They just provide us with tasty eats. You know what foods humans eat does NOT produce methane? Meats. In fact, the more meat you eat, the less methane you produce, and the less chance you have of producing methane at all whilst farting. Which everyone does. (Glad you remembered!)
Seems to ME that the one who's doing the most to bring down the level of cow-produced methane gas would be the people killing cows and eating them. That's US, the meat-eating omnivores. Not YOU, the vegetarians. Seems like WE're the ones who deserve the tax break, which we could easily prove with sales receipts because they'd SHOW we eat meat and are killing all those pesky methane-producing cows!
I eat cows - to save the planet. (I should really make a T-shirt that says that. Or maybe "EAT A STEAK - SAVE THE WORLD" or something.)
Now that I've thoroughly put down Ingrid Newkirk's plan to get PETA members tax breaks and stolen those ill-gotten tax breaks for the meat-eating crowd like myself, it's time we kept pressing forward. PETA thinks they're the only ones who can find research, twist it completely, and prove a horrible point for their cause. Well, Newkirk - TWO can play at that game! It took me a while, but I finally got a lot of questions answered about human flatulence and what levels of methane WE produce as non-ruminant mammals. It's true - we don't produce NEARLY the levels of methane as our four-stomached dinners, but I stumbled across some information that was VERY interesting.
Remember how I told you that while everybody farts, not everyone produces methane gas?
Good. Here's where the fun begins. It turns out that while fats and proteins produce very little gas and little chance of methane - the highest producers of gas are things like vegetables, fruits, beans, whole wheat, bran and diet foods that contain sorbitol. Things that vegetarians like to eat! There was a study I found that was about testing the isotopes of methane to see if human-produced methane had a "fingerprint" to discern it from environmental methane. The real interesting part of the experiment was the unintended result that the colonic methane gas of omnivores was on average 4,000 times less than the colonic methane gas of vegetarians.
Let me repeat: the average methane production in an omnivore was 15 parts-per-million, and in a vegetarian it was 60,000 parts-per-million.
Not only was the methane concentration higher, but a vegetarian diet, as I just mentioned, contains many more gas-producing foods. The average human produces between 0.5 and 1.5 liters of colonic gas every day, and farts between 10 and 20 times a day. Let's say that the average human with the average diet produces the average amount of gas each day, so about 1 liter. The average vegetarian produces gas on the higher end of the spectrum, so let's guess 1.5 liters per day.
Here's where the math comes in. I'll make it quick for you.
One liter of gas weighs about 1.3 grams, or 0.0013 grams.
One one-millionth of that (parts-per-million) is 0.0000000013 kilograms.
We factor in the 1 liter for an omnivore, 1.5 liters for a vegetarian, and the respective methane gas parts-per-million, and we get:
Daily methane for an omnivore: 0.0000000195 kg
Daily methane for vegetarians: 0.000117 kg
Annual methane for an omnivore: 0.0000071175 kg
Annual methane for vegetarians: 0.042705 kg
Now then, we've got about 6.6 billion people living on the Earth nowadays (give or take a few million). Let's assume that a worst-case scenario is that PETA wins and everyone in the world is now a vegetarian. (That's right, Newkirk, that's the WORST-case scenario!) Or the best-case scenario is that everyone who reads this article winds up either convincing every vegetarian on the planet to eat meat (or just kills them). Either way, best-case scenario is 0% vegetarian, worst-case is 100% vegetarian. Let's see what happens to the precious planet now!
Annual methane production worldwide if all were omnivorous: 46,976 kg
Annual methane production worldwide if all were vegetarian: 281,853,000 kg
(This "metric ton" that the U.N. report uses is 1,000 kilograms, so:)
Annual methane production worldwide if all were omnivorous: 47 metric tons
Annual methane production worldwide if all were vegetarian: 281,853 metric tons
Smooth move, Ingrid. You've once again killed us all.
Okay, in reality even 281,853 metric tons can't compare to the 5.5 million metric tons produced by the cattle industry. That's why I made the previous point about how we omnivores are working to kill and eat those global-warming bovines. PETA would rather let them all roam free and never pay for their environment-destroying flatulence. I don't believe in "ruminant amnesty" programs. I say they all get rounded up and deported - to my stomach.
But doesn't that math prove the point that vegetarians are through and through more a danger on the methane scale? They produce more in parts-per-million, eat more foods that produce that deadlier colonic gas, and are doing everything to STOP killing the main cause of the United States's methane problem! I say it's meat-eaters who deserve the tax breaks! PETA and Newkirk can go suck a fart-inducing carrot!
EAT A STEAK - SAVE THE WORLD!
(Yea, THAT'S the T-shirt I need! Too bad it's hard to print all of the rest of this math on the shirt that proves the point. Oh well, at least you read it and if you buy the shirt, you could at least inform all those who question the logic.)
Here are some of my resources:
PETA's backwards-logic letter asking for vegetarian tax breaks
Vegetarian diets produce more gas
Vegetarians produce more methane
That lousy study attacking the cattle industry
Check back, because I may have a link to buy a T-shirt very soon!
In fact, Check out my store! I'll add more later, after some polling!
Read more!
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
PETA vs Michael Moore?
Is there anyone who is safe from the bony wagging finger of Ingrid Newkirk?
One would think that PeTA will not even resort to befriending liberal groups and personalities. Or rather, PeTA just doesn't make friends easily. Their idea of "making friends" is screaming: "HEY POOPYFACE! STINKY POOPYFACE IS ICKY BECAUSE HE HAS POOP ON HIS FACE! WIPE SOME POOP OFF YOUR FACE AND MAYBE I'LL LOVE YOU AND ENDORSE YOU NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!" So who's under attack today? Well well well, if it isn't liberal pompous windbag Michael Moore!
Since PeTA apparently doesn't believe in the statement "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", their president has decided to follow in her hate-filled footsteps and take on the shock-umentarian himself with a scathing letter accusing him of being unhealthy because he eats meat.
"There’s an elephant in the room, and it is you," PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a letter to Moore.
Newkirk decided to go with a classic weight joke because Moore's new documentary about healthcare, titled "Sicko," is what's making him a hypocrite. He's making a movie titled "Sicko", but HE'S the Sicko because he eats meat! Fatty fatty meat-eater; that's the message the head of PeTA is trying to get across.
Hey bitch! Did you know that there are plenty of unhealthy VEGETARIAN foods, too? Did you know that Cheesy Poofs and Snacky Cakes and a variety of fattening foods are free of animal products and waiting to dole out some extra chins? No animals were harmed in the making of delicious sodas and chocolates, were they?
Just because you label your food intake in some "diet" category, like vegetarian or Atkins or South Beach, that doesn't mean the foods you consume will make you any healthier. You can always find new ways and varieties of foods to make you or keep you fat. I should know. I'm fat.
I'm fat, and I eat meat. I'm not fat BECAUSE I eat meat. I'm fat because I make poor decisions, am lazy and don't do things in moderation. My becoming a vegetarian wouldn't make me thin. It also wouldn't prevent any animals from being killed. Vegetarianism does nothing to the meat industry. The more vegetarians there are, the lower the prices go on meat to make up for the market flux. Same number of animals get killed, and better prices for meat-eaters! It's almost as if there were some kind of capitalist conspiracy behind it!
Maybe you could get Michael Moore to do some claptrap documentary about the capitalist meat conspiracy!!
Oh wait, you called him fat and made fun of him. I highly doubt he'll make that movie and change the world in favor of vegetarianism and all things PETA now...
Too fucking bad, Ingrid Newkirk. Who's the poopyface now??
"Read more about Ingrid's 'love-letter' to Moore)
Read more!
One would think that PeTA will not even resort to befriending liberal groups and personalities. Or rather, PeTA just doesn't make friends easily. Their idea of "making friends" is screaming: "HEY POOPYFACE! STINKY POOPYFACE IS ICKY BECAUSE HE HAS POOP ON HIS FACE! WIPE SOME POOP OFF YOUR FACE AND MAYBE I'LL LOVE YOU AND ENDORSE YOU NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!" So who's under attack today? Well well well, if it isn't liberal pompous windbag Michael Moore!
Since PeTA apparently doesn't believe in the statement "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", their president has decided to follow in her hate-filled footsteps and take on the shock-umentarian himself with a scathing letter accusing him of being unhealthy because he eats meat.
"There’s an elephant in the room, and it is you," PETA president Ingrid Newkirk wrote in a letter to Moore.
Newkirk decided to go with a classic weight joke because Moore's new documentary about healthcare, titled "Sicko," is what's making him a hypocrite. He's making a movie titled "Sicko", but HE'S the Sicko because he eats meat! Fatty fatty meat-eater; that's the message the head of PeTA is trying to get across.
Hey bitch! Did you know that there are plenty of unhealthy VEGETARIAN foods, too? Did you know that Cheesy Poofs and Snacky Cakes and a variety of fattening foods are free of animal products and waiting to dole out some extra chins? No animals were harmed in the making of delicious sodas and chocolates, were they?
Just because you label your food intake in some "diet" category, like vegetarian or Atkins or South Beach, that doesn't mean the foods you consume will make you any healthier. You can always find new ways and varieties of foods to make you or keep you fat. I should know. I'm fat.
I'm fat, and I eat meat. I'm not fat BECAUSE I eat meat. I'm fat because I make poor decisions, am lazy and don't do things in moderation. My becoming a vegetarian wouldn't make me thin. It also wouldn't prevent any animals from being killed. Vegetarianism does nothing to the meat industry. The more vegetarians there are, the lower the prices go on meat to make up for the market flux. Same number of animals get killed, and better prices for meat-eaters! It's almost as if there were some kind of capitalist conspiracy behind it!
Maybe you could get Michael Moore to do some claptrap documentary about the capitalist meat conspiracy!!
Oh wait, you called him fat and made fun of him. I highly doubt he'll make that movie and change the world in favor of vegetarianism and all things PETA now...
Too fucking bad, Ingrid Newkirk. Who's the poopyface now??
"Read more about Ingrid's 'love-letter' to Moore)
Read more!
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