With merely a modicum of inspiration after a day of caulking, wrestling with a Honda starter, and changing the oil in two cars, I'm looking for an easy target at which to rant.
The Taliban? Already been done and done very well I must say. "Taliban" and "Hostess fruit pies" would not have been on my free-association list, but it does have a sort of cosmic symmetry to it.
Republicans? I wouldn't want to spoil the party now that Charlton Heston is back in monkey business. Besides, they've got their hands full having to jump start Cheney and dealing with the most inspirational leader since Calvin "Silent Cal" Coolidge.
Democrats? Merely the other side of the same coin.
Insanely retrograde isolationist U.S. foreign and environmental policy? Too much research and too darned important. I just don't have the brain power to spare right now.
How about PETA? I don't think I can pass this one up, especially considering their recent "Eat the Whales" campaign. http://www.eatthewhales.com/
Their dubious suggestion is that as long as people are going to continue to eat meat, they should be eating whales:
That's right: Eat the Whales. If you don't have the self-discipline to stop eating meat but want to cause as little suffering to animals as possible, may we suggest you leave the other animals alone and ... eat the whales?
Whether or not PETA's campaign is a hoax, it showcases some of the wackiest and most twisted "thought" processes that these folks use to support similar agendas. PETA's argument is a strange mishmash of logic and emotion, a real winner of a combination.
A single blue whale equals about 1200 pigs worth of animal product. According to PETA's argument, it is preferable to trade one life of a huge beast for the lives of many smaller beasts. Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
However, if you want to apply logic. It takes a lot less time to grow 1200 pigs. That's one of the many reasons why humans farm pigs, excepting Muslim and Jewish folks. Logically, pigs are a more efficient source of meat. Furthermore, one blue whale equals a significant percentage of the blue whale population. One farmed pig does not. 1200 farmed pigs do not. Harvesting an individual blue from the wild represents a more significant loss to the viability of the blue whale species than the slaughter of 1200 pigs. This assumes that you are interested in conserving blue whales. PETA is not. After all, they are the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. But is it ethical to promote the extinction of a species? Apparently it is to PETA who believe that every creature they can even vaguely anthropomorphize has an equal right to exist. These folks would rather an animal die or not exist rather than experience discomfort.
One fallacy that allows these folks to sleep at night is the belief that a natural existence is akin to nirvana. PETA contends that the life of a whale (or any animal in the wild) is "bliss" until a human comes along to kill it. Hogwash. As if a whale has nothing to do but float around all day and look majestic. I don't doubt that a whale's life is preferable to that of a foie gras duck, but don't try to lay that bliss crap on me. I'm sure that being hunted down and ripped to shreds by a pod of orcas is a negatively blissful experience for a whale.
In all, I think Jonathan Swift would be proud.
I have a modest proposal of my own. Seeing as how humans are a plague on the planet, inflicting suffering and death upon tens of billions of animals every year, stripping the earth of resources like locusts, I say that every human on earth commit suicide in order to stop this holocaust of animal life. Let's have those sensitive, high-minded PETA folks lead by example.
Pakeha