Thanksgiving is here

Time to eat a bigger dead animal, that you had someone else kill for you so you can feel removed from the violence of it, than normal. It needn't be so.

Eat your dog

Do it. Five good reasons.

Peter Singer on California's Proposition 2

From Newsweek. Here's the original, if you want it. Proposition 2 is the ballot initiative that successfully banned factory farming, or at least as it's currently practiced.

The Rights Of Animals

California voters have put the animal-rights movement squarely in the mainstream. Will we all soon be vegans?

Peter Singer

NEWSWEEK

The notion that animals should have rights was widely ridiculed when it was first advocated in the 1970s. Now it is getting more respect. The movement has gained tens of millions of adherents and has already persuaded the European Union to require that all hens have room to stretch their wings, perch and lay their eggs in a nest box, and to phase out keeping pigs and veal calves in individual crates too narrow for them to walk or turn around. And earlier this month Californians voted 63 percent to 37 percent for a measure that, beginning in 2015, gives all farm animals the right to stand up, lie down, turn around and fully extend their limbs. The state's 45 major egg producers will have to rip out the cages that now hold 19 million hens, and either put in new and larger cages with fewer birds or, more likely, keep the birds on the floor in large sheds. California's sole large-scale pig-factory farm will also have to give all its pigs room to turn around.

Pressure on other states to grant the same basic freedoms may prove irresistible. Many people see this movement as a logical continuation of the fight against racism and sexism, and believe that the concept of animal rights will soon be as commonplace as equal pay and opportunities for women and minorities. If that happens—and I believe it will—the effects on the food we eat, how we produce it and the place of animals in our society will be profound.

If this sounds radical, so did suffrage and civil rights a few decades ago. The notion that we should recognize the rights of animals living among us rests on a firm ethical foundation. A sentient being is sentient regardless of which species it happens to belong to. Pain is pain, whether it is the pain of a cat, a dog, a pig or a child.

Consider how widely humans differ in their mental abilities. A typical adult can reason, make moral choices and do many things (like voting) that animals obviously cannot do. But not all human beings are capable of reason, not all are morally responsible and not all are capable of voting. And yet we go out of our way to claim that all humans have rights. What, then, justifies our withholding at least some rights from nonhuman animals? Defenders of the status quo have found that a difficult question to answer.

If animals do have rights, what rights would those be? The most basic right any sentient being can have is for his or her interests to be given equal consideration. After that, things get more complicated. Some advocates think that all animals have a right to life. Others give more weight to the lives of beings such as chimpanzees, which are capable of understanding that they have a life, and of having hopes and desires directed toward the future. The movement's supporters agree that the way we treat animals now, as test subjects and factory-farm products, is flagrantly wrong.

If society were gradually to accept animal rights, it would spell dramatic changes. Some people might accept humanely raised meat, eggs and dairy products, if the animals had good lives, living outdoors in social groups of a size natural to the particular species. But this would most likely prove to be an interim stage. As the demand for animal products dwindles, the meat industry would breed fewer chickens, turkeys, pigs and cattle. Eventually the only remaining beef cattle, sheep and pigs would be small herds preserved so that we can take the grandchildren to see what these once abundant animals look like. Factory farming—for meat, eggs or milk—would disappear. If we are to continue to eat meat, we'll have to rely on scientists who are now trying to grow meat in vats. When they succeed, it will be the real thing, grown from animal cells, not a soy-based substitute, and it might even be indistinguishable from the meat we eat now. But since it would involve no animals, and hence no suffering or killing, there will be no ethical objections.

Milk and cheese are no easier than meat to reconcile. Cows will not give milk unless they are made pregnant each year, and if the calves are left with their mothers, there won't be much milk for humans. The separation of the cow and her calf causes distress to both. Hens are not so concerned about the removal of their eggs, and genuinely free-range hens appear to have a good life, but male chicks have to be disposed of, and no commercial egg producer allows hens to live beyond the point at which their rate of laying declines. That's why animal-rights advocates today tend to be vegans.

Where animals are now used for research, we must find alternatives. In Europe, cell and tissue cultures have already replaced some product testing of live animals, and that will increase dramatically once harmful research on animals is put ethically out of bounds. Research using animals may not cease entirely, but in a nonspeciesist world it could continue only under the same strict ethical safeguards that we use for research on human subjects who can't give their consent.

Our greatest difficulty in respecting other species may lie in our quest for land. The animal movement forces us to consider that land we do not use is the habitat of other sentient beings, and we must do what we can to allow them to continue to live on it, including limiting our own population growth. Even wilderness presents a problem. Are humans ethically bound to prevent animals from killing other animals? To contemplate interfering with the workings of ecosystems would be presumptuous, at least for now. We will do better to concentrate, first, on lessening our own harmful impact on our domestic animals.

Sarah Palin Pardons Turkey - While others killed behind her

Wonderful.

Baby turkeys

Sixty-six baby turkeys got pretty lucky recently. Someone rescued them from their torture death sentence in a factory farm and brought them instead to Farm Sanctuary, where they will be loved for the sentient beings they are, not their taste. They're just sixty-six of the 45 million who will be killed and eaten for Thanksgiving, and of the 270 million killed and eaten over the course of this year. How did they know they were from a factory farm? Easy.

When they arrived at Farm Sanctuary, Bubbles and the others had already been mutilated. Industry workers used a high-intensity infrared light to debeak the birds and microwave radiation to remove the ends of their toes. These techniques are used on today’s commercially-raised birds and delay amputation of the beak and toes until weeks later when the appendages erode and fall off. While some had already suffered the loss of these precious body parts, others still had their beaks and toes intact; however, they too fell off during the birds’ first days at the shelter, leaving wounds that caused terrible pain as they tried to eat and walk. To prevent infection, we cleansed the exposed areas daily, and thankfully, most of the poults have now begun to heal.

Killing whales with sound

The Supreme Court said it's fine for the United States Navy to maim and kill an untold number of whales on a permanent, recurring basis. The Navy does this, and has been doing this for over forty years, through sonar training exercises. Exercises. Yup.

The groups say that sonar can be as loud as 2,000 jet engines, causing marine mammals to suffer lasting physical trauma, strandings and changes in breeding and migration patterns. They contend that courts are perfectly capable of weighing the competing security and environmental concerns.

No matter though:

Chief Justice Roberts took a different view. Courts, he said, quoting a 1986 decision of the justices, must “give great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities” in making decisions about personnel, training and priorities.

He cited an observation, made by President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1907 message to Congress, that only “practice at sea, under all the conditions which would have to be met if war existed,” can guarantee a prepared Navy.

When you think about it, the court has a good point - they're just whales.

For the environmental groups that sought to limit the exercises, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe.”

People believe and live as though they can do whatever they want, that they have accountability to nothing. They can take and take, they can destroy, that if something is possible, then they should do it.

This isn't just about whales. We live, today, through annihilation. Our lives are predicated upon destruction. Destruction of life, both human and non-human, destruction of quality of life, both human and non-human, extinction of life, both human and non-human. This is one of the more glaring examples of totally wanton destruction. Fucking careless, deliberate. The people who run these programs would, and have, directly ruin people in the process if there weren't so many laws, and it hadn't become so expensive through lawsuits and bad publicity.

"An explanation is what we want. We want to know how things could get so fucked up, how things could get so out of hand. So many times we have waited on others to stand up for us and act on what we believe is so fucked and wrong with our generation. I know we are all so angry. I know I am so fucking angry..."

Love

A new president, new hate unleashed

Here are some hate crimes from around the country in the last four days, all directly in response to people electing Barack Obama as president. Please take note that none of them occurred in the traditional "South." Two in the Northeast, or Up South, and one in Texas, which is its own confusing mess.

Staten Island - a seventeen-year-old young Liberian man was beaten with bats by four white males, in a car, with concealed faces, yelling "Obama" at him.

Waco, Texas - among other things, some white people hung a noose from a tree at Baylor University in response to Barack Obama's win.

Hardwick, New Jersey - some white people burned a six foot cross on a Cuban/Indian family's front lawn, after stealing their homemade celebratory Obama victory banner.

I'm so much more eager and ready to burn this fucking country down than I was a week ago.

Dear gay people,

We hate you.


Sincerely,

America.

+++++++++

Who's moving forward again? Where's the unity? If there was a ballot initiative against gay people yesterday, it passed. Arizona - gay marriage banned. Arkansas - gay couples banned from adopting children. California - gay marriage banned. Florida - gay marriage banned.

Arizona and Arkansas collectively voted for John McCain. California and Florida collectively voted for Barack Obama. All four voted to enshrine anti-gay sentiments in their constitutions. Obama decidedly won in California, barely won in Florida, and McCain dominated him in Arkansas and Arizona.

Just as many people voted for a president in California as voted one way or the other on the gay marriage ban. Obama won California 61% to McCain's 37%, but the gay marriage ban passed by 52% to 48%. Yes to a black president, no to gay people enjoying their lives and having the same rights as others? What the fuck?

New York Police sodomize a 24 year old Brooklyn man

for smoking weed. Weed that he didn't even have when they caught him and brutalized him, ripping his asshole with a nightstick or whatever they used. And then they didn't arrest him, releasing him with a summons. He promptly went to the hospital, and now the Brooklyn District Attorney's office is investigating after internal affairs, of course, cleared all four offending pigs.

A quote from Ian Mackaye:

"I’d eat a piece of meat just as soon as I’d eat a piece of shit."

Right on, sir.

I found this two-part interview in Satya while looking for a picture of the man for the previous post.
He always makes for an interesting read.

Records from Ian Mackaye

I had this dream the other night that I was in Washington, DC and Ian Mackaye decided, in what I assume was a move of anti-materialism, that he was going to be giving away his record collection. I went over to his house, locked up my bike and went inside. There was a long line outside and he was only letting a few people in at a time. First come, first serve. In an effort to be fair, he was only letting people take eight records or so and was watching us. The floor of his house was nothing but records. Crates and boxes of records, almost all LPs. Luckily, where I dug in housed the Wipers discography and right next to it, I found most of the Propagandhi records, including several that do not exist (it was a dream, you know?). Ian got pretty upset in the midst of all of this and had to leave, but held strong with his commitment to rid himself of his records.

John McCain's daughter is a "punk"

"The only way to be punk rock anymore is to be conservative." The Ramones are her favorite band.

FUCKING
KILL
YOURSELF

Here is the interview in its entirety.

The whole thing is horseshit. Fucking hell. Some highlights - the National Organization for Women endorses Sarah Palin (which is not true) and Sarah Palin "represents feminism at its finest level."

Oh, and here's the traitor woman dumbfuck support-women-vying-for-positions-of-power-no-matter-what Los Angeles NOW chapter president making her endorsement:



"America, this is what a feminist looks like." Yeah, wow.

The idiot robots to whom she's speaking jeer her for mentioning that she's a Democrat, despite the fact that she is there solely to talk up Sarah Palin and is STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO HER. They are such reactionary trained seals that they can't even listen to her finish her endorsement for their symbol puppet woman. "Democrat." "BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" Fuck all of you.

Scary Halloween stories by Corona

I've been hearing this advertisement on the radio recently for Corona beer, in which the announcer delivers "scary Halloween stories" or something of that kind, where it's supposed to be light-hearted and funny. Here's a common one I don't think they'll be sharing:

"This guy got drunk and raped me."

Enjoy.

Genoa, Italy: July 21st, 2001

I found a lengthy, profoundly disturbing article the Guardian published a few months back detailing how vicious Italian pigs are. In this case, we are talking about how they behaved at the anti-G8 protests in July of 2001. This is obviously not a case of a few bad apples, as so many would like to believe. This goes from the streets to the prisons to the infirmary up to the high government. It's fucked. These pigs are so out of control and so violent that a bunch of them got brought up on federal charges. Seven years later, fifteen of them got convicted, but as it usually goes, they will not be doing a day in jail.

It's strange to see different arms of the state at war with one another like this. That doesn't really happen in this country. Pigs do what they want and never pay. Maybe they aren't as vicious, at least not on a wholesale basis. I know the police are totally fucked here. I know they kill, torture and maim. It's just that I'm not aware of so many of them being so violent for so long in one place at one time. I mean, for fuck's sake, they shot a protester in the face and killed him, ran him over several times, leaving him to die in the street. I don't think there has been mass police violence like this in America since the late 60s, early 70s, when they were going after Black Panthers and other Black Liberation groups. Maybe MOVE in the 80s. Whatever the case, it's fucked.

The pictures above are from someone's flickr account I found randomly.

White people, who preface statements with assurances of not being racist, actually are racist

From a piece on the NPR website about the presidential race in York, Pennsylvania:

"I don't want to sound racist, and I'm not racist," Moreland says. "But I feel if we put Obama in the White House, there will be chaos. I feel a lot of black people are going to feel it's payback time. And I made the statement, I said, 'You know, at one time the black man had to step off the sidewalk when a white person came down the sidewalk.' And I feel it's going to be somewhat reversed. I really feel it's going to get somewhat nasty."

Moreland says she doesn't think all black people will "want payback." "I'm not talking about you, and I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the people that are out on the street looking for trouble. Putting a black man in the White House — and if he gets there, he gets there; I'm going to live under his presidency and everything. And I'm still going to be friends with anybody black that wants to be my friend and everything. But I really feel there's going to be a time of adjustment. I really feel it. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong."

Leah Moreland will have just as many black friends, which is zero, after the election as she does now. Fact.

THIS IS WHAT VEGAN STRAIGHTEDGE LOOKS LIKE

in a tux.



My sister got married.

McCain volunteer not robbed, not mutilated: just turns out she's racist and crazy

True story. A twenty-year-old white woman, not incidentally a volunteer for John McCain's presidential campaign, made up a story in which she was robbed, beaten and mutilated by a black man, whose support for Obama motivated his excessive, and completely fictitious violence. As it turns out, she was not robbed, she was not beaten and "believes" she cut the backwards "B" into her own cheek. There was no confrontation with a 6'4" black man. Just a bunch of hatred in her head.

Police: McCain volunteer made up robbery story

By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press Writer Joe Mandak, Associated Press Writer 59 mins ago

PITTSBURGH – A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter "B" scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false and was being charged with making a false report to police, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division. Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.

Todd, who is white, told police she was attacked by a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night. She now can't explain why she invented the story, Bryant said.

Todd also told police she believes she cut the backward "B" onto her own cheek, but she didn't explain how or why, Bryant said.

Todd initially told investigators she was attempting to use a bank branch ATM when the man approached her from behind, put a knife with a 4- to 5-inch blade to her throat and demanded money. She told police she handed the assailant $60 and walked away.

Todd told investigators that she suspected the man then noticed a John McCain sticker on her car, became angry and punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground and telling her "you are going to be a Barack supporter," police said.

She said he continued to punch and kick her while threatening "to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter," police said. She said he then sat on her chest, pinned her hands down with his knees and scratched a backward letter "B" into her face with a dull knife.

Todd told police she didn't seek medical attention, but instead went to a friend's apartment nearby and called police about 45 minutes later.

The Associated Press could not immediately locate Todd's family.

Bryant said somebody charged with making a false report would typically be cited and sent a summons. But because police have concerns about Todd's mental health, they are consulting with the Allegheny County District Attorney.

Todd remained in custody, and police were preparing to charge her with making a false report to police.

"We had some serious cases going on, and this wasted so much time," Bryant said. "Our detectives have been working through the night just to verify the information we suspected was false from the beginning."

Todd worked in New York for the College Republican National Committee before moving two weeks ago to Pennsylvania, where her duties included recruiting college students, the committee's executive director, Ethan Eilon, has said.

Eilon declined to comment on the investigation Friday or to help The Associated Press contact Todd.

Earlier Friday, police said they had found inconsistencies in Todd's story. They gave her a lie-detector test, but wouldn't release the polygraph results. Investigators also said bank surveillance photos did not back up the woman's initial story of being attacked at an ATM.

Police interviewed Todd after she contacted police Wednesday night and again on Thursday, Bryant said. They asked her to come back Friday, ostensibly to help police put together a sketch of the man. Instead, detectives began interviewing her.

"They just started talking to her and she just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth," Bryant said.

Bryant said it doesn't appear that anyone else put the woman up to the false report.

Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the "B" was backward, Bryant said.

"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."

"A mammoth garbage pit in the Pacific"

There are actually two. That's just the one closer to America. Here is a story from the San Francisco Chronicle, published last year.

Some highlights:

• "The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area."
• "Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marina Research Foundation in Long Beach who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris — which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas — is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean."
• "'The Garbage Patch is not a solid island, as some people believe,' Moore said. Instead, it resembles a soupy mass, interspersed with large pieces of junk such as derelict fishing nets and waterlogged tires — 'an alphabet soup,' he called it."
• "The plastic moves just beneath the surface, from one inch to depths of 300 feet, according to samples he collected on the most recent trip, he said."
• "By Moore's estimation, the 'floating landfill' is also simply too far from land to conduct any meaningful cleanup operation. It's about 1,000 miles west of California and 1,000 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands — a week's journey by boat from the nearest port. It swirls in a convergence zone located about 30 to 40 degrees north latitude and 135 to 145 west longitude."

Like I said, that's just the one closest to America. If you examine the two together and the updated research in this article, it's much more horrifying. For example:

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

Yeah, sweet.

Here's what the whole thing looks like:

Humans have got no right. I don't think discussions of ethics and philosophy will sway our species though. The title of that graphic just above is pretty right on, huh? That's the human motto, really.

Raising animals for human consumption is the largest generator of greenhouse gases

Not so green. In case you missed hearing about this when it came out, here is a report from the United Nations detailing just how destructive, above any other cause, raising animals so that humans may consume them is. Oh, and they forgot a remedy - cease/severely curtail your consumption of animals.

Livestock a major threat to environment

Remedies urgently needed

29 November 2006, Rome - Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Long shadow

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow –Environmental Issues and Options. “The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,” it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Land and water

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

Remedies

The report, which was produced with the support of the multi-institutional Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, proposes explicitly to consider these environmental costs and suggests a number of ways of remedying the situation, including:

Land degradation – controlling access and removing obstacles to mobility on common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods and silvopastoralism, together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; payment schemes for environmental services in livestock-based land use to help reduce and reverse land degradation.

Atmosphere and climate – increasing the efficiency of livestock production and feed crop agriculture. Improving animals’ diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure.

Water – improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.

These and related questions are the focus of discussions between FAO and its partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock production at global consultations in Bangkok this week. These discussions also include the substantial public health risks related to the rapid livestock sector growth as, increasingly, animal diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector growth can also lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets.