PETA Endorses Killing Animals

According to Newsweek online, since 1998 PETA has killed more than 17,000 animals, nearly 85 percent of all those it has rescued. First, I'm not sure that counts as "rescue" and secondly, PETA says that this is A-OK.

Pause for spit take...

So to recap, if YOU kill an animal and eat it, you're a bad, bad person.

But when PETA kills an animal it "rescued" its OK. What else can you do with a homeless animal right? Gotta kill them, duh. I understand, facilities and food aren't free, and PETA's annual budget is a meager $30,000,000. Besides, surely it's impossible to find a home for those 17,000 animals among PETA's 1.8 million members?

Besides, its so hard to run a no-kill shelter. Says Daphna Nachminovitch,

No one hates it more than we do, but we would rather offer these animals a painless death than have them tortured, starved or sold for research.

"Painless" by the way is hotly debatable. Human prisoners and executed using largely the same method, and there is a lot of evidence that its not so "painless." But anyway, I really feel for her and her hatred of killing 17,000 animals. But I understand, there's just no solution to be found with $30million and 1.8 million members. None. We know its true because she said she hated it.

Plus, we're all looking at the this the wrong way. The real problem isn't PETA killing defenseless animals, its that there are defenseless animals in the first place. Employing the "look over there" defense, Nachminovitch says,

Focusing on the animals that come into shelters is like emptying a river with a teaspoon. By investing in spay and neuter programs, which are where a lot of our resources go, we can stop unwanted births and prevent four times as much suffering.

Exactly, its all about dollar and cents. It doesn't make sense for an organization specializing in protecting animal rights to spend money to keep animals alive. Not when its so much more cost effective to just make sure they don't exist in the first place. All these living animals are the problem. PETA wants to focus on the non-living animals, and what better way to do this than to make sure that the animals it rescues become non-living. Its all very rational when you think about it.

I did find this From PETA's page on Animal Exploitation,

Every animal deserves a chance to thrive in a responsible and permanent home.

Or PETA kills them.

PETA's stance on euthanasing animals is one of the most hypocritical issues I've come across in a long time. It's just beyond reprehensible.

In defense of Hillary!

I'm going to buck the crowd. Get ready for this...I support Hillary Clinton in her fight for the Democratic Nomination, not with my vote, but in spirit. And no, its not because it hurts the Dems. I support her because I think she's right.

This is the biggest prize in the whole world. Period. And it matters who wins. You shouldn't quit on it. I mean, isn't that what we want, "not quitters" as President. I mean as a nation we get mad when teams don't go for the Hail Mary before the half of a close game, and we all want her to just quit.

Not only that, but the rules of the game give her hope. If Obama continues to fade, and she continues to build, the rules of the Democratic Party give Superdelegates the ability to alter prior outcomes. Yes, it lacks elegance, but its like Hack-a-Shaq. If it puts you in position to win, do it. If Shaq can't hit his freethrows, that's his problem. If Obama can't put away Hillary, that's his problem. The reality is that Hillary's not the problem, Obama is. He's the one fading, he's the one ducking debates, he's the one allowing this to happen, NOT Hillary. She's just doing what she's supposed to do, try to win. All this stuff that's come up would and will come up in the general election. His "pretty words-no substance" and "don't make a mistake" approach is costing him. Yes, I'm going to another sports analogy, but he's put in the prevent defense, and everyone knows the only the prevent does is prevent you from sealing the deal. If Obama cannot put Hillary away, and this causes the Superdelegates to wonder about him in the General Election, the rules clearly give them the option to give the nod to Hillary. And Hillary's right to try to create that scenario.

Will it destroy the Democratic Party? Who knows. Would it hurt in any worse than losing again (which is a real possibility of an Obama nomination-the guys fading badly and lots of unhelpful things about his past keep coming up)? Again, who knows? I do believe that fear of the unknown should never rule the known. Besides, she has a strong point in thinking that she would have won FL and MI. Those are two states filled with her voters, and two states the Dems must have.

Hillary's found a path to victory, slim yes, but its a fair path well within the rules. She's not my candidate, but I fully endorse what she's doing.

I AM THE LAW!

That's Judge Dredd for you non-comic book geeks.

Quick blurb from CNN about a "Citizens Citation" against a Portland Police Officer over, get this, a parking violation. First of all, I had no idea that you could even do this. I've heard of "Citizens Arrest" but "Citizens Meter Maid" is a new one. You have to be one serious Parking Afficiando to take the time to go down to the courthouse and file whatever you need to file against a cop. I think someone has a GI JOE collection. But all jokes aside, good for Eric Bryant. He has a right to file the citation and he did it. Probably best if more folks did the same.

But on to 5-oh's take. Assistant Police Chief Bryan Martinek says he tells his officers that it's OK to break the law, and since he says its OK the officer did "nothing wrong." My favorite part comes late in the interview when Officer Martinek says that it would be wrong for officers to wait for a "legal" parking space and then uses the mocking finger signal for "" and goofy shrug when he says "legal." So he acknowledges that the officer in question broke the law. I guess according to officer Martinek the police are there to enforce the law on others, but are above it themselves. I'm not sure that's the best message. I don't want to tell the Portland Police Chief how to run his department, but if it were me, I would make sure Assistant Chief Martinek never came near a camera again.

For the record, I agree that police officers should stay near their cars. But according to Mr Bryant, Portland's law says that the police can only park in loading zones under certain clearly defined situations, and take-out isn't one of them. The police are here to enforce the law, not ignore it.

Pandering

Bush knows that the science isn't with the global warming Chicken Littles. Climatology is an extremely young science and the adults of the scientific community have just started checking up on these kids. What they've found is a room littered with unsupportable theories and broken methodologies so full of holes study after study has to be thrown out. With the huge number of variables that go into any predictive climate algorithm it is silly that anyone would believe that human carbon emissions is the main driver of change. Why weren't these people stamping out butterflies when chaos theory argued our colorful little pals can be the cause of hurricanes? That would have made as much sense as pinning all climate variation (in the positive direction anyway) on fossil fuels. Buy anyway, back to pandering...

Bush seems to know this and he was right to ignore the silly Kyoto agreement which has proven to be even a bigger farce than the critics predicted it would be. So why this pretend, "we need to do something about global warming so how about..." speech? Pandering. Give the people what they want even if what they want is foolish. Its a shame when the mob must be appeased even though the mob is wrong. Of course that's the definition of populist. But if Bush ain't anything its a populist so why waste all our time? He probably is just trying to define a compromise position since the conversation has been dominated by the hysterical since its inception. But I still say that's wrong. If your friend is wrong about something, what good is achieved by becoming a little wrong yourself just so you can meet him halfway?

Please Pay Attention

What part of the Ranting Kooks Won't Help Your Political Campaign lesson did Hillary miss? Will someone please have Jeremiah Wright call her and walk her through it again?

Greenspan Sleeps Well

So I came across an article about former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's thought's on the Fed's complicity in the current economic slowdown/recession (you pick).

Lots of blah, blah, blah on an issue that no one can ever really know the answer, but I did have to take a moment to appreciate these quotes.

I have no regrets on any of the Federal Reserve policies that we initiated back then because I think they were very professionally done

And...

Clearly, certain of our anticipations of what would happen as a consequence of those policies were off but there's no way of avoiding that.

Ok, lets play with the first one.

See, he doesn't have regrets that his policies were wrong, and may have destroyed trillions of dollars in value, and killed off whole companies, wrecked the economy and destroyed households, because these policies were "professionally" done. It's kind of like a mob hitman saying he has no regrets for killing innocent people because he did so in a "professional" manner. This is going to be my new mantra when I make a mistake. "Yeah, sure I made a terrible error, but I was a pro about it." I absolutely love that one.

And lest you think that living in the Beltway distances you from the people, go back and read the second quote. Why the empathy just oozes out of it. "Hey, we made made some bad assumptions, what can you do, right? It happens. Why is everyone so bent out of shape? You can't avoid making mistakes, that's why pencils have erasers."

Every decade has its legacy. The oughts' legacy will be the catastrophic implementation being shrugged off with a "hey, it happens, what can you do" attitude and a total disregard for consequence by both the perpetrator and the stakeholders.

Georgia Weighing On My Mind

So Georgia's Senate, a famously "Red" state passed a law mandating that elementary schools weigh their students twice a year, or, as I like to call it, the "Ensuring the Prosperity of Therapists Bill." I also like the "Georgia Wants to Make Sure its Girls Have No Excuse for Not Being Screwed Up Bill-AKA The Body Image Destruction Bill."

So anyway, Georgia wants to join Arkansas (another Red state) and "several" other states in this massive invasion of the privacy our our children. And what do they want to do with this info? According to the sponsor and chief Socialist, Joseph Carter (R-Tifton), the goal is to make the overall data public so it can be distributed "much like test scores, with schools reporting their data so parents could check out how they measure up to other area schools." Wait, I need to reread that, does it say, "R" Tifton? Why yes, yes it does. So a Republican in one of the nation's strongest Republican states, wants the government to weigh your child.

Can we finally just all agree that there is no discernible difference between Democrats and Republicans? Please, just so I can stop getting all worked up when I hear about how the Republican's stand for small government and fight against government intrusion into our lives. They don't. Both parties loooooooove to intrude on your life, they just argue about the reasons. When you cast your vote on election day, here's what you're really doing. You're heading to the booth to support the party that massively intrudes on your life in a way either you approve of, or are least bothered by. Nobody really wants to be left alone. Americans want the government to use its power to promote in all what the collective individuals of each party want.

So Republican State Senator Carter is upset about childhood obesity. What does he do? Does he give to a charity to promote healthier lifestyles? Nope. Does he start his own movement to change the pattern? Nope. Letters to the editor? Nope. What does a representative of the small government party in a solidly small government state do? He passes a bill. He strips elementary school children of their basic right to privacy. And why? Because he's concerned about childhood obesity. He feels its his duty to be concerned with the weight of your children, not the parents. So in a state that never scores well in education rankings is now going to spend time and recourses weighing students to judge their BMI (a flawed measurement, but who cares about that?), to tell parents how their schools are doing in regards to something the school cannot control (what kids eat and how they exercise), and that parents have no way to change anyway (due to the public school monopoly).

In the end, this Bill is not only a political joke, its also creepy.

If the Germans Loved Their Children Too

When you value something, you take care of and protect it. When you don't, well, you don't. A German mother kills eight of her children. The German people must be outraged and the judicial system barely able to contain its punative urges, right? It must be so because we universally value children. Well, apparently the universe isn't as big as we suspected. All Germany can muster in the way of punishment for this two-legged force of evil is 15 years in prison. Less than two years for each murdered child. My first thought was that this must be a story about the failure of the German justice system. Not so, the journalist doesn't even allude to this being a controversial ruling. Which is not to say that many Germans weren't outraged, but how many? Not even enough to register on the cultural radar? Or just the radar of one monstrosly calloused reporter? I don't know the answer, but what I read made me sick. I hope decent people still outnumber the other sort in Germany, but if what this story implies is correct...I have to stop and wonder.