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what's grey and white and red all over?

[wherein i play devil's advocate]

I'm sure by now you've heard about the dolphin "massacre" that the Sea Shepherd conservation group "filmed" live. [I feel like I work for Reuters with these scare quotes]

I've had the link mailed to me about twenty times today. I've seen it on several news sites. And now, I'm here to debunk it for you. Well, at least make you think that these photos just might be some skillful manipulation of the masses by wild-eyed activists.

Let's look at the first picture, which I found over at Ananova.Now, keep in mind that these dolphins were supposedly hacked to death. By the fishermen that you see in the photo. Do you see blood anywhere but in the water? Look at those pristine white helmets. The white gloves. The Clorox Clean white shoes. The inside of the boat doesn't have a drop of blood on it except for what's on the dolphins. The scuba diver's gloves are clean.

73990.jpg

Here's the second photo. The water is supposed to be polluted with the blood of the dolphins. Doesn't the side of that boat look awfully clean for something that was in the center of a hack-o-rama? And how much do dolphins bleed? I wonder how many dolphins would have to be slaughtered to make the water look like Freddy and Jason had dropped by a frat party.

73992.jpg

Of course, the above are just my opinions, based on nothing but my skepticism. If anyone would like to prove me wrong, I'd be more than happy to retract my theories.

Comments

Those are so Photoshopped. And ineptly too; any halfway decent dabbler with any photo-editing program (even Windows Paint) could make a more convincing image.

Faked.

I don't remember a whole of lot of blood from the tunas we caught deep-sea fishing, but then again we didn't "hack" them to death. Certainly if there was enough blood around to color the water, there would have been blood everywhere else, too.

Not only that, the weight of a dead dolphin is still too heavy for a man to be holding it with just one hand.

Even fishermen who fish for just ONE swordfish use bigger boats than that. That boat should have sunk with all that weight.

No one's going to be convincingly disputing your opinion on this one Michele. As Andrea says- definitely photoshopped. Look at the edge of the water on that little rocky outcrop in the second picture- it overlaps the top of the rock. The lighting on the boat doesn't match the lighting on the surroundings, and the whole locale of the second picture looks more like a shallow freshwater river rather than saltwater that's deep enough for that diver to be as comfortably submerged as he is (I could be wrong, but I don't think dolphins tend to frequent freshwater).

Oh god! what a horrible site! Dolphins being hacked to peices, kool-aid spraying everywhere!

A blind cat could photoshop better than this!

I really need to get my hands on some pics to modify and use to make the liberals look like the idiots they are...
If it's this easy to fool people, I wont even have to save the images in stages...

Those dolphins look like they're around the size of humans. For the sake of argument, let's say each dolphin contains ten times as much blood as a human.

The total amount of human blood in the entire world is around 1/200th of a cubic mile.

How many dolphins were slaughtered in that area? 100,000, I'm sure, is a huge overestimate. (Say it takes ten minutes to catch and slaughter one - then one person can catch and slaughter 60 dolphins per day, and thousands of hunters working full-time would be needed to slaughter 100,000 dolphins.

Okay, so a huge overestimate would be 100,000 dolphins, containing in total as much blood as 1,000,000 people - one six thousandth of the world's population. That's 1/200*6000 = 1/1,200,000 of a cubic mile - a cube a little over one one hundredth of a mile on a side - 18 or 20 yards on a side - worth of blood - and that's a very large estimate.

No way the river'd be running THAT red.

Not for nothing, but it seems that the best way to confirm this one way or another would be to look at the actual videotape.

Keep in mind that these images are supposed to be stills taken off of video, and video is decidedly more difficult to fake than an image (though not nearly impossible).

If the tape shows red, I'd be inclined to believe the images, though I'd probably still take that group's interpretation of the events with a grain of salt.

Michele, if I am ever murdered, I want you to lead the investigation.

I'm pretty sure the photos are not from the video. There is a less-cropped version of the second photo here. The resolution on the cropped photo is pretty good.

From the AP report, apparently the video exists and is fairly graphic. It's hard to tell how 'enhanced' it is. It's been fairly easy to enhance (and add) colors to photos and video since the 1980s... just ask Ted Turner. And the ship does look almost immaculate. But on the other hand I don't think it takes toooo much blood to color water kool-aid red, especially if you have shallow clear water and bright sunshine.

Those are so PhotoChopped it isn't even funny. A blind third-grader with one arm in a sling and only three fingers on the other hand could have done better. I mean if you aren't bright enough to put some blood on/in the boat and on the people ... Hell, I'd like a couple dolphin steaks, and I'm not talking dolphin fish (aka mahi-mahi) here.

::runs off and plays some Jackyl on Winamp for no reason at all::

Michael

I don’t know much about photo-shopping but I know enough about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to be cautious about any information they put out.

The SSCS is led by Paul Watson, who left Greenpeace in 1977 because it wasn’t radical enough. Watson and his associates (a group that once included convicted arsonist and ALF supporter, Robert Coronado) will allow few things to stand in the way of getting their message across.

Watson is regarded as a dangerous maverick even by the standards of the environmental movement. This page has some background on Watson and the activities of SSCS.

Photo-shopping would be the least of their crimes.

Did anyone else take one look at these pics and think "Hmmm... Cranberry" ?

Did anyone else take one look at these pics and think "Hmmm... Cranberry" ?

Andrew: some species of dolphin can go from salt water to fresh -- the Amazon dolphins are one. But I don't think that the dolphins around Japan are like that. (I am not sure what the salt-to-fresh water component of Japan's Inland Sea is; I know that the Baltic Sea has more fresh water than surrounding seas; but I don't recall if dolphins live in the Baltic Sea area.)

nope, didn't think Cranberry at all...but I did seriously think "Land of the Lost" just think about Chaka and look at the second one again....really

Actually, I didn't think of "cranberry" exactly...but I did think "cran-tastic!"

Whether the images are photoshopped or not is not the issue and never will be. The issue is that thousands of bright, playful, intellegent creatures are being slaughtered by the hand of man to fill his belly. There are many environmentally friendly food sources that you carnivours can be eating that you in your arrogance have disdained because your ancestors the cave-men did not eat them. How often have I grieved over the deaths of these helpful, friendly co-inhabitants of Mother Earth. The murder must stop!

1. The cavemen were YOUR ancestors, too, asswipe.

2. It has nothing to do with arrogance. Humans are carnivores, just like many other animals. Here look- I have the special teeth to prove it. If you choose not to eat meat, you're certainly free to do so, but it makes YOU the oddball, not us.

3. Do you grieve over all the animals slaughtered and eaten by other animals too, or just the ones slaughtered and eaten by humans? I mean, murder is murder, right? You need to organize a campaign against the big cats in Africa, Yawn, cuz those fuckers are brutal when they kill the wildebeast. Seriously. Get em to eat salads instead.

"It doesn't matter if we're lying! Blah blah blah"

I'm noticing a trend...

By the way, DOLPHINS ARE CARNIVORES. So you see, by killing these vicious murderers, we're saving the lives of lots of bright, playful, intellegent creatures. After all, there are lots of environmentally friendly food sources for the dolphins, if they'd just stop being so damned arrogant.

I would rather see Japan stop whaling and dolphins kept free from hunting. But this kind of idiotic crap doesn't help. If nothing else, it is counterproductive. I'd much rather see reasonable arguments against whaling than arguments based on lies.

Of course Japan has historically been a bit paranoid about food seeing as how it's a little island with a big population. I can understand why they might not be too sympathetic to beeing told not to utilize a food source they can harvest on their own without relying on any other country.

Bolie IV

That tree-branch at the foreground makes for such a lovely touch, really. Such a wonderful photo composition.

A few resposes to the heavy-handed comments from Dave supra.
1. I am not metaphorically a descendant of the cave-men.
2. We do not have the teeth of carnivores, we have the teeth of omnivores. Thus, we have a choice.
3. "Big cats" do not read blogs, thus they have reason to be ignorant of their crimes.
4. Dolphins, if you will remember from your Jr High School Biology class eat Kelp. If they eat small fish at such hell holes as Sea World it is because they are driven to out of the desparation caused by hunger.

Humans are OMNIVORES. Not carnivores, not herbivores, except by personal choice.

Secondly, dolphins are primarily carnivorous as far as I can tell. Several educational sites I checked out (universities, marine institutes) said that dolphins eat fish and squid primarily. I tried googling for "dolphins eat kelp" and got nothing.

Yawn: Get off your high horse. We aren't all metaphorical descendants of cavemen either. Some of us omnivores still make an effort to make sure that our food is humanely dispatched.

And there is a difference between mistrusting the propaganda thrown at us which was meant to appeal to our societal mores, and wholesale approving the slaughter of animals. We simply want more verification than pictures we could have made ourselves in PhotoShop. As one reader posted, seeing the video itself might provide a context for the pictures, which do look incredibly fake. Secondly, if there is any chance that the pictures are faked, these tactics only hurt those people who are trying to help the animals. Bolie makes some good points in his post along those lines.

Dolphins do not eat kelp, they eat fish and squid. They eat around 20-50 lbs per day. This only takes about 5 seconds to find out on Google.

They're kidding, right? That's some horribly crappy Photoshop. I see better work in the Fark.com contests.

I just wonder why they felt the need to PS a picture when there's somuch real footage out there...

Regarding the teeth deal mentioned by Yawn, we do indeed have both tearing and grinding teeth. How this translates into a mandate of vegetarianism, I don't know. (BTW, my boyfriend is a vegetarian. He has the sense enough not to force his beliefs on me, and in return I respect his.)

Mmmmmm...tuna-safe dolphin!

I will throw you people a crumb and grant you that Dolphins might possibly be currently eating fish and squid. Whether this is due to the unfortunate degredation of kelp stocks caused by the carelessness of Corporate Industry will have to be determined by real Scientists and not by people who think Google is the last word on everything. Anyway, no fish or squid has ever greeted a cruise ship with such exuberance and glee as to make one's eyes water. No fish or squid ever saved the life of a diver by thumping a shark. No fish of squid has ever guided a sailing vessel through the hazards of a reef. I could go on. If the Japanese want to eat seafood perhaps they should stick to unappealing, unfriendly animals such as squid, eels, fish, octopi, and lampreys and leave our fellow mammals alone. If I have managed to change only one heart then my efforts here will be justified.

I am not metaphorically a descendant of the cave-men.
Oh, I get it. All of us who don't choose to adopt your ideology and lifestyle choices are metaphorically descended from cavepeople, and you're superior to us. Here, let me get you a cool refreshing glass of go fuck yourself.

We do not have the teeth of carnivores, we have the teeth of omnivores. Thus, we have a choice.
Fine. I CHOOSE to eat meat. If Gawd didn't want me to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat and given me teeth for eating meat.

Dolphins, if you will remember from your Jr High School Biology class eat Kelp. If they eat small fish at such hell holes as Sea World it is because they are driven to out of the desparation caused by hunger.

Apparently, YOU don't remember YOUR Jr High School Biology class, you pompous asshelmet. Or perhaps you went to a public school in Louisiana. Dolphins are CARNIVORES. They do NOT eat kelp. They KILL other animals and EAT them.

Big cats" do not read blogs, thus they have reason to be ignorant of their crimes.

Oh I see...now it's a CRIME for animals, both cats and humans, to do what they are NATURALLY PREDISPOSED TO DO...kill and eat other animals. Tell me, where is the law that makes this a crime written, other than in your twisted little moonbat brain? Last I checked, the laws of nature were pretty clear on the fact that animals eat other animals.

Yawn doesn't know much about biology, obviously. Dolphins (the FISH) might eat kelp, but our aquatic cousins eat fish. They wouldn't stick around to eat kelp either as they'd follow the schools of fish. Remember your own argument Yawn, Dolphins are smart, thus, why would they stick around to eat a low-grade food like kelp when the sea is full of high-grade food such as fish?

Think before you speak, or before you post sir, lest you end up looking like an idoit.

And no, we shouldn't be eating Dolphins. But I'm not going to tell a high-density population island to not use what resources it has to feed its people. Please. I need those DVD players and the all the luscious Anime.

Nice switch in semantics, yawn. You're arguing like a petulant teenager, which, I might add that I suspect you are.

If the Japanese want to eat seafood perhaps they should stick to unappealing, unfriendly animals such as squid, eels, fish, octopi, and lampreys and leave our fellow mammals alone.

Too bad you're now going to be thrown to the sharks because of it.

Lemme see if I can boil down your arguments from beginning to end: dolphins are being massacred for no good reason as they don't hurt anyone; then it's that they're friendly mammals who shouldn't be eaten because they're cute. And before you tell me that you never wrote that, let me point out that your meaning is easily inferred by the unappealing, unfriendly description of eels and the like.

The alleged cuteness of dolphins has nothing to do with it. Sure they are cute. Who's going to deny that? Sure they're friendly, and god only knows they're good little underwater mine sniffers. But they're also carnivores. They're also just a big marine mammal, and just like humans, are subject to the Darwinian nastiness of the food chain.

Decry the killing of dolphins all you want, but at least give me a better reason than that "they're cute." Then and only then will I buy what you're selling. And let me tell you, you're not doing a very good sell job here: martyring yourself---If I have managed to change only one heart then my efforts here will be justified--- isn't going to impress Michele's readers.

Before you start blindly debating your point, it would behoove you to get your facts straight and then learn how to debate: you might actually convert someone then.

Anyone else suspect YAWN is putting everyone on? I mean c'mon, lines like "How often have I grieved over the deaths of these helpful, friendly co-inhabitants of Mother Earth. The murder must stop!" Saying we should only eat ugly animals. Sounds to me like a too-realistic caricature of a stereotypical PETA loon.

As a parody, it's actually not bad.

Please stop killing the dolphins! They're even cuter than all those chickens KFC is murdering!

Since we should only eat ugly animals might i suggest we round up the people at the latest Pro Saddam, oops, Anti War rally and eat them. I mean you can't get much uglier then a Stalinist dictator supporter can you>?

Oh Yawn - post a pix so we can determine if you are cute enough to be allowed to live.

Maybe YAWN is just Rall screwing with Michele?

Plants are living things that harm no one.
All animals are murderers, either of plants or other animals.
I submit that it is less immoral to kill the murderers than to kill harmless, inoffensive plants. Further, it is more moral to kill herbivores than carnivores, since carnivores are only killing the murderers.

BTW, for the benefit of city folks who may not be familiar with farms, an acre of grazing land supports more wildlife than an acre of broccoli. Kind of makes you wonder just who are the real environmentalists.

Save the plants! Eat an herbivore!

And yes, I realize it was somewhat off topic.

Google is a way of finding information. In this case it found web pages containing the information that dolphins eat fish and squid. These web pages include the Australian Dolphin Research Foundation and the National Marine Mammal Laboratory. Google isn't the last word on everything, but it's better than pulling stuff out of your ass.

Both Dolphins (the mammals) and Dolphins (the fish, aka Mahi-Mahi) are carnivores.

Neither eats kelp, now, or ever in its history. They're not omnivores, they're carnivores. Predators. (Every refernce I could find to dolphins indicated that every species of dolphin is a predator, but data on the bluenose was the most common... and they're the "brightest" and "most sympatheic" dolphins, too).

Yawn is either deeply, willfully ignorant or trolling. Doesn't really matter which.

Save a Squid. Kill a Dolphin.

Might have bumpersticker potential.

I do think Yawn's comments are getting a wee over the top.

Also, the ugly/cute argument holds no water--particularly since it's such a subjective thing. I personally think squid are very cute. (I also had a friend who made the mistake of naming his squid at a sushi restaurant and couldn't bring himself to eat them.)

For your edification, I'm posting the lyrics to the Arrogant Worm's song, Carrot Juice Is Murder:

Listen up brothers and sisters come hear my desperate tale
I speak of our friends of nature trapped in the dirt like a jail
Vegetables live in oppression, served on our tables each night
This killing of veggies is madness, I say we take up the fight
Salads are only for murderers, coleslaw's a fascist regime
Don't think that they don't have feelings, just cause a radish can't scream

Chorus:
I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)
Watching their skins being peeled (having their insides revealed)
Grated and steamed with no mercy (burning off calories)
How do you think that feels (bet it hurts really bad)
Carrot juice constitutes murder (and that's a real crime)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves (let my vegetables go)
It's time to stop all this gardening (it's dirty as hell)
Let's call a spade a spade (is a spade is a spade is a spade)

I saw a man eating celery, so I beat him black and blue
If he ever touches a sprout again, I'll bite him clean in two
I'm a political prisoner, trapped in a windowless cage
Cause I stopped the slaughter of turnips by killing five men in a rage
I told the judge when he sentenced me, "This is my finest hour,
I'd kill those farmers again just to save one more cauliflower"

Chorus

How low as people do we dare to stoop,
Making young broccolis bleed in the soup?
Untie your beans, uncage your tomatoes
Let potted plants free, don't mash that potato!

I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)
Watching their skins being peeled (fates in the stir-fry are sealed)
Grated and steamed with no mercy (you fat gourmet slob)
How do you think that feels? (leave them out in the field)
Carrot juice constitutes murder (V8's genocide)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves (yes, your composts are graves)
It's time to stop all this gardening (take up macrame)
Let's call a spade a spade
(is a spade, is a spade, is a spade, is a spade......)

Some of you people could stand to chill just a bit. OK what if instead of Japanese killing Dolphins it was Koreans killing dogs. Suppose the picture was a cart with the corpses of German Shepards, Dachshunds, Beagles, Poodles and the like. Would you be so cavalier then? dolphins can be just as loyal, companionable and entertaining as our pups. And they are certainly more intellegent. If you can honestly say that it would not disturb you any more than the picture of the dead dolphins then I will not dismiss your opinion. Otherwise, you are either a hypocrite or a cultural chauvinist.
You people weary me.

If by some sad chance (rotfl) Yawn was killed and eaten (say, by an attractive animal -- say, a puma) could we say that the creature who had thus dined was having a vegetarian meal?

Yawn, do you have a dog? Because although I've never eaten dog before, I have to say that after reading everything you've written here today, I would derive immense satisfaction from killing, cooking, and eating your dog. Right in front of you. Any way we could set that up?

Oh, so now it's the Koreans who are evil.
I love dogs and cats. I've had them for pets ever since I was a kid. But I do NOT deny the right of another culture to use them as a menu item. So long as they don't come and steal mine when they could farm them.
Americans eat snake, rabbit (damn good grilled with garlic on the BBQ), squirrel, aligator, and a number of other animals off the beaten path.
Shut up and go back to your bean sprouts.

oh. and another thing. I myself do not agree with the slaughter of the dolphins and whales, but ONLY because some of them are being hunted to extinction. We humans have the ability to create methods of controlling population so that people get fed, but animals don't dissapear. Money is one of the bigger barriers, but the biggest barrier to building and using things like Dolphin farms is idiots like you that think we should eat nothing but plants (which, as was pointed out, are living things as well).

I wonder how big of a dog I could get in my Family Sized George Foreman Grill?

Well fiddle-dee-dee and flapjacks, too. I try to express my affinity for dolphins and have a civil discourse about it and I am greeted with hostility and vituperation. Quite frankly, some of you easily provoked people should go into a dark room sit down and repeat the mantra :"serenity now...serenity now..." until you are becalmed. I'm not used to being treated with such abuse and it is causing me stomach distress even now. If my dinner of scrambled eggs, ding-dongs and tootsie rolls comes up on my new faux leather computer chair you will have yourselves to blame.
Every one of your arguments is rebuttable but unfortunately I am carrying six classes this semester and need to get back to the books. If I at least had my weekends free I would be in a better position to debate, but because hunting season is about to ripen my buds and I are going to be spending our weekends in the woods setting off firecrackers to warn the "game".
So, toodles.

Eggs??? Doesn't it bother you to eat those cute little chicken embryos? And do you have any idea how many animals were killed to make the oil used to bake those ding-dongs?

I hope you realize that setting off firecrackers in the woods can result in, well....California ring a bell?

I'll be in the hunting woods this weekend, too. But not with firecrackers. And I fully expect to be dining on some fine venison backstrap soon.

BTW Yawnie, make sure you only try that firecracker trick on public land. Private land would land your butt in jail.

Make sure not to wear orange!

I think the pictures look fake. I don't like rabid environmentalist terror groups.
I hate it when the truth isn't sufficient to
state your case. Both sides hyperbolate
ALL the time, not just the side I don't agree with. That said, I'm kinda feeling some sympathy for Yawni. I really love dolphins too
and it's makes me squeamish to see an animal that is so appealing to humans be hunted for food. But then the Asians eat lots of stuff that
would gag me. Even so, I feel a little sorry for the lobsters I see in the supermarket tanks
waiting to be popped into a pot of boiling water
ALIVE, ugh. And I LOVE lobster. Well, getting off topic a little.

Mostly I'm commenting about how bad you all ganged up on Yawni. I thought only the leftie
blogs did that (although what I've read there in
response to dissenters tops this post by a long way) Most likely you all caught his errors but even so, his one argument that stands up is that
dolphins are regarded as the most unique
animal on land or sea to demonstrate a pretty high degree of intelligence, communication and
friendliness to humans. Sorry, but it's the same things I like about dogs...sooo maybe the
environmentalists could find some other readily available food source to offer to the Japanese instead of the nice, friendly dolphins. Just a thought.

Perhaps we wouldn't have all "ganged up on Yawni" if Yawni hadn't started out by being such a prick. In Yawn's first post, he (I'm only assuming?) called us arrogant and likened us to cave people because we don't share his lifestyle choice. In Yawn's next post, there was this attempt to make me look intellectually inferior:

Dolphins, if you will remember from your Jr High School Biology class eat Kelp. If they eat small fish at such hell holes as Sea World it is because they are driven to out of the desparation caused by hunger.

As it turns out, Yawn is the moron here, because Dolphins are, in fact, carnivores whose diet consists of the fish and squid they murder. They do NOT eat kelp. Idiot. Note that Yawn never bothered to address this again or apologize when it was called out.

Note that Yawn's initial premise was roughly "it doesn't matter if us lefties LIE and DECEIVE to make our point, as long as it gets made". That's nothing new from the left, but it still isn't going to go unnoticed around here.

Finally, Yawn consitstently includes remarks like "you people weary me" in his posts.

If you're going to be an asshelmet, don't get your dirty little panties in a bunch when people respond in kind.

Oh please, Jane. Yawni makes a statement that
There are many environmentally friendly food sources that you carnivours can be eating that you in your arrogance have disdained because your ancestors the cave-men did not eat them
and you expect that no one should challenge it? Give me a break.

And no, I actually don't like that people eat dolphins. Or dogs (cats are okay*). But I am not arrogant enough to decide that I have the right to choose their diets, especially if my only argument is that they are cute.

Also:
Whether the images are photoshopped or not is not the issue and never will be
Yawni seems to think that it's okay to lie and fake evidence to convince people. But that seems to be fairly common among "environmentalists", and many don't seem to realize that faked evidence implies that you don't have real evidence (see Joseph's comment).

*Note to cat lovers: I'm kidding. Mostly.

If Yawn isn't joking, it's just about possible that he may have got Kelp (a type of seaweed) confused with Krill - microscopic shrimp-like creatures that are the main food source for some whales.

Personally, I am wholeheartedly in favour of PETA.

People Eating Tasty Animals, that is - I think Bambi tastes delicious!

Ken

Okay okay, I'm new to the blog world and this is the first time I've seen such a personal attack on a right blog...quite common on the left. I was just surprised mostly by one person's comments so liberally peppered with euphemisms.
Haven't seen that language used much on the blogs I read daily and they include plenty of adversarial debate and rebuttal. But, please, I'm not on Yawn's side in this debate.

I am not informed on what dolphins eat but in the context of the subject under discussion, how is their diet relevant? I know...the food chain and all. Who eats what is determined by inborn instinct right down to the Venus Fly Trap. Vegetarians go against nature and those who stay with it all their lives look undernourished in my opinion...pale and thin.

That said, there really isn't much to argue about except that some of us are sad to see a human friendly wild animal be used as food. That's merely an emotional response (highly exploited by the radical environmentalists) and is not relevant in the larger context of the morality of eating other animals. It's perfectly moral to do so but in some cultures they eat worms, ants and locusts which is esthetically abhorent only in the sense of an icky factor which in each culture is taught from early childhood.

I would not support a movement to alter the diet of the nation of Japan unless it included animals on the verge of extinction such as some species of whales were a few decades back. Although it is something to consider in the overall process of evolution. The strong survive and over time new species evolve. Humans dominate the earth now and may destroy other species but that's nothing new. Species die out all the time for a variety of reasons based on fossils evidence. I think pollution is more of a danger to well-being of the planet than eating cute animals like lamb and dolphins
but I have little expertise on that subject either.

That's it. My last word on the subject of this post.

You know, I expect crap like this to show up on wackjob lefty websites like Sea Sheppard, but the Associated Press is running that ridiclous doctored photo in its stories today. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

I saw the picture of the Red Sea, so whats the point. Fish are good, Kelp is bad.
I can undertand the Tree-huggers relating to the fish. They have about the same brain power.

This is rediciuluos!!!!!!!!!!!!!
geet a real web page that helps us kids PLEASE!!!!

This is rediciuluos!!!!!!!!!!!!!
geet a real web page that helps us kids PLEASE!!!!

No cause is so right that one cannot find a fool following it.

To those who claim to care about the suffering of plants: I think you make your own argument for being vegan. If plants feel that much pain, imagine how much a lamb feels.

On animals eating animals: for all practical purposes, they don't have a choice, we do.

On carnivorous teeth. Look at a cat. Now those teeth are canines. Cats also have a short digestive tract, higher stomach acidity, ability to synthesize their own vitamin C, etc. Not saying we can't wat meat, obviously we can. But let's not get too carried away.

On God: He wants you to be compassionate. To animals, to each other.

On doctored photos: seen 'em on both sides. Self-serving analyses, too.

On rude language: usually the sign of defensiveness. What triggers it? Often the right answer is not the first or most satisfying one. My challenge: you know that eating meat causes sufering but it's easier to attack than to acknowledge. Meat-eating is a tough habit to break. I know. Friendly suggestion: Gardenburger Riblets - they taste like spare ribs, but no pig is confined in a tiny crate, deprived of exercise and sunlight, and slaughtered to produce them.

Peace,
Gary

On "merely" emotional responses: emotional respomnses are legitimate. Sympathy is what compels us to help someone who has fallen, even though "in the larger context" that person's fate is insignificant. Compassion motivates us to help an injured bird or boycott circuses in which the elephants are beaten with metal rods until they cry in pain. Don't devalue emotions.

On what's natural: it's a highly malleable term and we can certainly argue the point ad infinitum, but I'll submit that factory farms, the source of the vast majority of our meat and dairy, are not at all natural. The animals are so top-heavy as to be deformed, and they're deprived of exercise, the outdoors, play, social interaction - all strong natural desires.

I just want people to think - calmly, honestly - aabout the foods they eat.

Peace,
Gary