“Dirty little rat”
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=678081552&v=feed&story_fbid=65360194851#/photo.php?pid=30011737&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=2241554598&aid=-1&id=1299810163&oid=2241554598
This is a photo of what many think to be cutest puppy in existence.
The inexorably long string of “awwwwwww”s and “omg so cute”s was ended, too comically, with a dismissive, unpunctuated one-liner — from a Muslim, I presume:
“Dirty little rat”
It made my day.
Deep-fried kittens and other stories
Well-put from the Economist on an article about PETA’s campaign against fish-eating, targeted (for their purposes, cleverly I would say) at children: “Humans are animals too. We should no more insist that a tiger be fed tofu then we should tell a child not to eat fish.”
What is the critical factor fueling the deadly resolve of vegetarians never to ingest meat? Is it sympathy, empathy or, more sensibly but less probably, environmental concern?
What really drives vegans? The Vegan society says,
[T]he word “veganism” denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
id est, animals have rights and they do not deserve to be trampled on, at least not in the way that fish carelessly swallow shrimp or wolves ravage rabbits, cute, cuddly, furry, innocent rabbits.
Wouldn’t it be nice, if we could all live as one big family and finally usher in a new era of reigning peace throughout the entire animal kingdom. I’d suggest we democratise them in the long run as well; that is the best way for any citizen to ensure that his interests are duly represented — take up the intelligent man’s burden. The first issue on the agenda of the World Assembly would probably be, hmm, should we include the Aedes mosquitoes? How about the scale insects, the parasites. These are examples of irresponsible citizens and we need to get tough with them. The oldest and maybe wisest animals around are probably the corals, we’ll see what they have to say about this.
Plants have been shown to respond to music, light and other stimuli. Surely they are sentient? How could you bear to eat them? The worst possible deaths imaginable are inflected not on humans, not on animals, but on plants. Chopping down great old trees at the trunk; crushing their fruit and leaves and feasting on their ‘blood’; skinning their bark and draining the painful sap that flows from beneath; simply chomping on entire (innocent babies) shoots with our omnivore’s teeth. This is what we do.
This terrible world makes me sad. I hope lunch cheers me up.
tongue in cheek and brain
Ming pointed out to me an especially entertaining Calvin and Hobbes comic strip on the Angry Bear blog today; enjoy.
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/01/calvin-and-hobbes-15-years-ago.html
a petty quibble
I’ve been engaging in a silly little quibble on Facebook, and on the comments board for the status change of a friend too. Yup, presumptuous, but hey, ‘young’ and ‘foolish’ are gladly associated with each other.
I have taken the liberty of publishing the proceedings of this exciting chain of correspondence, identities except mine extensively concealed - why let it go to waste? The issue under discussion is ‘currency manipulation’.
P.S. I look back poorly upon the definition of ‘externality’ I offered. I think it was sufficiently correct for its purposes, but it could have been more rigorous: an effect of one economic agent on another that is not taken into account by normal market behaviour.
