Metal Reviews

I am not going to quote and respond to everything there, just going to do it in order here, 1 denoting the beginning and whatever number the end is denoting the end.

1. The funny thing is that the clubbing of seals is probably the most responsible form of hunting there currently is. It's practiced sustainably and always has been; there has been no overall decline in the seal population as a result of it. Hell, since the 60's the population has skyrocketed.
2. So you're defending propaganda and violence incited by PETA workers as a perfectly reasonable way to spread their message? What?
3. Wrapping them in big black trash bags and throwing them in dumpsters is illegally disposing of them. Also, just do a google for 'PETA shelters euthanizing' and you get dozens of, frankly, horrifying results. Here's a start-off: http://www.courttv.com/news/2007/0118/PETA_ctv.html
4. Okay, as long as you're not deluded here.
5. This is inaccurate. I've had pigs that have been tortured and pigs that haven't; pigs that haven't taste much better in all aspects despite some of them not having as much usable intestinal fat, so I generally buy extra at Dean & Deluca when they have it in.
6. Yeah, I just kinda assumed they'd gone the Mariana Islands route, but I was wrong, go figure. Sorry.
7. Um, I assume then you're not really aware of PETA's positions. They want it all to stop, right now, right this instant. A direct quote: "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDs, we'd be against it." Their long-term position is to make it so we don't use any animals for anything at all, not make conditions better for the animals we do use.

1. Because I'm sure every swing at a seal is a definite KO. How many seals are bludgeoned, left paralyzed and left to bleed out or dragged alive to its destination?
3. They euthanized animals mercifully and simply are retarded when it came to disposing of the bodies. Argh damn you PETA members.
2. Violence and propaganda are viable outlets for direct action. The American government do it all the time.
5. I won't feign knowledge of the taste of pork relative to the torture the animal sustains. The quality of the meat doesn't matter to corporations as long as people buy it so until the torture overcomes people's taste torture will still go on.
7. Long term position of course but short term you have to better the treatment of animals now. I'm more knowledgable about Peter Singer rather than PETA and they share much of the same ideals.

1. Oh, right, that's it. Continue to appeal to emotions. Tell me, do you know what effects not having killed the... say... 13,556,000 seals that have been killed since 1970 would have on the ecology? They'd be swarming the place in their millions and there would be starvation and overcrowding. Like it or not, seal clubbing is just about the most responsible form of hunting there is currently.
2. Please, continue to parrot talking points instead of actually reading the article and finding out about the leaky gas chambers and the lying to peoples' faces about getting their animals good, loving homes. Oh, and that figure of over 90% of the animals they take in getting euthanized, which is a disgustingly high figure compared to every other national shelter program.
3. Did I say the American government was perfect? No, my point is that if you have to mislead your audience to make your argument, then you are doing it wrong. Such practices are foul and should not be encouraged on any count, by anyone.
5. Okay, you do that.

You show a distinct willingness to repeat idiocies and not educate yourself. That's fine with me, just don't present yourself as anything but an ideological loudspeaker with a PETA sticker on the side.

A lot of seals not getting clubbed does not mean those seals would all be taking over the planet, ffs. It means that killer whales and polar bears would be able to eat better, helping the ecology, no?

Euthanisation of animals is better than them living in cruel conditions, says PETA. Hard to disagree.

This disposal of bodies issue is a widespread deal, or a few cases that have been blown out of proportion? Hmmm. A group managing to hire a few idiots does not make that group evil now, does it?

And torturing animals means that they taste different?

1. No, overpopulation of any one animal without sufficient predation can cause serious damage to the ecosystem. Given that due to man-made activities, levels of killer whale and polar bear population have been decreasing steadily for years, a rise in the seal population would have disastrous effects on the krill population in northern seas, which would have a ripple effect on dozens of other predators.

2. PETA shelters are cruel conditions? Gee, I thought they were supposed to be the good folks.

3. Couldn't the same be said for every PETA video claiming to expose abuse within the animal-processing industry?

4. Adrenaline released into the meat shortly before death affects its taste.

1. It'd balance out. What, human activity reducing polar bear numbers is ok?
2. I didn't mean the PETA shelters were cruel conditions, but I meant that the conditions the animals were being held in are cruel. According to them, of course, holding animals in any condition is cruel, but that's another issue.
3. Meh. Dead animals in a bin seems less serious than some of the pretty darn fucked-up things they do to living animals in labs.
4. So that's why kosher meat tastes so bad.

1. I'm basing this off utilitarian principles that you shouldn't cause unnecessary harm to living beings so yeah it is an appeal to emotions insofar as I don't want seals to suffer as I don't want cows to suffer before they get made into hamburger. Why can't we simply not harm the orca and bear population? Why do you not think that their environment wouldn't quell overpopulation? There is a technical term for that but I can't remember it.

2. I have too much school work to do anything but skim. Some animal shelters refuse to take in certain dogs of really bad condition so if PETA takes in anything and is able to help some but not all it may lead to their higher rates.

3. When you are butting against ideology ingrained into our culture then you sometimes have to result to propaganda and violence.

I'm such a repressed PETA fanboy. I simply defended them against some dumb comments being said against them.

zad:

1. ...No? Way to misrepresent something I said and then attack the misrepresentation, dude. It's merely a reality. And no, it wouldn't just 'balance out,' nature is not some all-powerful magical thing that balances everything out. I'm willing to bet that if we hadn't hunted any seals for that length of time, we'd have quite a few of the animals that depend on similar diets with much lower numbers than they are at currently.
2. Okay, so what's your point? If we're going by the assumption that it's better to euthanize animals than keep them in cruel conditions, then how does one define 'cruel conditions?' I assert that believing all conditions in captivity are 'cruel conditions' is absolutely ridiculous, and anyone who believes as such is deluded. What are you referring to when you say 'cruel conditions?'
3. The difference is that one is in support of a ridiculous ideology and the other is for the supreme benefit of humankind: if all animal experimentation had been outlawed from the start, there would be no cure for dozens of diseases.
4. Kosher meat is excellent and the methodology of killing, when practiced correctly, results in the near-immediate death of the animal, the incessant, uninformed bleating of various European nations aside.

trapt:

1. The population has been harmed already, that is my point, and the seal population is FAR more capable of rapid recovery then the orca and polar bear population. If practiced properly the method of killing seals that is currently used (striking them in the head once with a specialized kind of pick) is almost entirely painless and is definitely a decent way to do it. The fact that people do it wrong is no way to smear the whole of them (if we're going on the assumption that isolated people do not represent all of the associated people.
2. No, the fact that they euthanize basically everything is due to their higher rates. I don't think you should argue this until you look at the reports and statistics, and if you have time to post here then you have time to take two minutes to google. You just don't think it's worth the time.
3. I see. Now, I'm not going to say that PETA are the same as other groups that have similar mindsets... but if you think about that statement for like five minutes you can probably come up with dozens of other groups that have used that mindset, and since you are clearly not stupid you will know what they represented and did.

PETA does not deserve defense of any kind.

We're top of the food chain, and animal lives are in no way worth as much as a human life, hence my Holocaust-comparison reaction. However, animal cruelty is awful, but that's about the only healthy thought that PETA leader has in her twisted head, if everything I hear is true.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 989027.stm

1. Why would we? The polar bears would eat the seals, polar bear numbers would rise. Again, it'd balance out - before humans came along the world wasn't a wriggling mass of animal overpopulation, was it? Man's removal of a central link in the food chain - seals - to such a OTT extent is anything but natural.
2. Of course, there are a wide range of methods of captivity, but watching some moth-eaten leopard dementedly pace around a zoo cage, how can anyone believe that isn't cruel? Animals kept in too small cages, mistreated, in the case of labs often to horrifying ends.
3. Such as...?
4. When practised correctly, I see you noted.

1. No, the problem polar bears have nowadays is loss of habitat which makes it harder to hunt, having more seals around wouldn't solve the loss of habitat issue, and, as stated beforehand, the seal population has continued to grow at a decent rate since statistics first began being kept.
2. So if we're defining cruel conditions as conditions that anyone would think of as cruel, what does this have to do with PETA's overt use of euthanasia? Besides, no modern zoos use cages anyway.
3. Just off the top of my head, everything that makes AIDs livable-withable has been tested extensively on monkeys. If you want more, I can find more easily.
4. Well, yeah. If we're going to deride a practice that is harmful when practiced incorrectly but fine when practiced correctly, then we might as well start deriding neurosurgeons.

1. Still due to human activity, but fair enough; it still doesn't make seal-clubbing any less horrific.
2. Well, death is better than such conditions, they say. And no modern zoo uses cages? Think you're wrong there.
3. I'd be interested. Of course, animal experimentation is far from black and white, and I'm sure there have been advances, but at what cost? Some guy had an equation that should be used to determine whether the damage to the animal was absolutely necessary, forgot his name...
4. We should if they don't do the job right! I'm sure PETA would complain less if the likes of Huntingdon Life Sciences were professional in their usage of animals.

1. Did you read what I wrote to trapt up above? When used properly, seal clubbing kills the animal instantly and is essentially painless.
2. A better way to say it is that no modern regulated zoo uses the sort of cages you're alluding to, and when they do use cages, it's for smaller animals that can live just fine in cages.
3. At what cost? Without anti-retrovirals we'd have millions more dead of AIDs by now. A couple thousand monkeys is a small price to pay for a few million lives to my mind. As for other cures and treatments, there's no way we'd have as much insulin for diabetics as we do without animal testing: diabetics without money would be forced to live in agony for a few months and then die. We wouldn't have a cure for polio without animal testing. We wouldn't be able to find out how much of a given toxic compound (pesticides, food additives, etc) is lethal to humans without animal testing. All new medications are tested with animals if necessary, to find out the precise amount that will kill them. Do I have to go on?
4. Note that the employees involved in that controversy were fired and prosecuted. Torture isn't the main aim of the animal-testing fellows.

1. Perhaps it is just down to liberals not liking to see a bloodbath, but I'm sure the clubbers in question aren't that bothered if they do it wrong.
2. Again, I'm not sure you're right there.
3. Ah, but this is the sticking point: are human lives worth more than those of animals? Human testing is seen as horrific and immoral, but animal testing not? I'm not saying I agree with this, just pointing out the thought process. At its basic, most philosophical level, the idea of humans enslaving animals and killing them for their own convenience is hardly moral. And did I see you say that animal testing has resulted in a cure for polio, because I most sincerely hope that it was a typo. 4. Would they have been found out were it not for the animal-rights lot?

1. The most professional clubbers doubtlessly want the animals to die instantly so they don't put up a struggle while being dragged back to base for their pelts; this is pretty much obvious upon thinking about it. If the method is sound, then the implementation of the method is at fault, and that is not the problem of the method itself, but rather that of those who implement it. Once again, are we to hate all neurosurgeons because a few of them are inept?
2. Okay, well, if you can find some concrete examples of modern-day first-world zoos using cages/inappropriate habitats for their animals, then let me know as opposed to just voicing opposition and not basing it on anything.
3. Yes, animal testing is more moral than human testing. This is an extension of basic logic; your own life should be more valuable to you than anyone elses. If your own life is not more valuable to you than anyone elses, then you should kill yourself right now because your existence is contributing to overpopulation, and as such it would make the most logical sense for you to be dead so you aren't consuming resources that other people could be using.
Following on from that, if we are to posit that your own life is important enough to you that you shouldn't kill yourself immediately, then the most logical extrapolation is that human lives are more important to you than animal lives, seeing as your existence and the existence of your fellow humans, is, once again, putting undue strain on the planet and contributing to the current massive extinction event.

EDIT- Oh, and yes, animal testing resulted in a cure for polio. Not a typo. Look it up.

4. Probably. If research is to be useful, then there must be as few outside factors as possible putting undue stress on the animals being tested. If the animals being tested produce odd results due to their being abused, then the difference will be noticed when compared to similar studies. Inquiries will doubtlessly be made because it is not in the interest of scientific foundations to waste money on research that is being ruined by imbeciles. When found out, the imbeciles in question would either be reprimanded or fired, seeing as they cost the scientific foundations shitloads of money.

Christ, where to begin?

1. Comparing seal-clubbing to brain surgery is ridiculous. There is nothing about the clubbing of seals that will save people's lives, as opposed to brain surgery. And come on, people hired to kill animals all day are hardly going to care if one takes another blow or three to finish off. It's not like they're all lined up in a row.
2. I've been to zoos and seen animals in cages. But I will look and try and find some concrete evidence, as opposed to taking my word for it.
3. My own life may be more valuable to me than other peoples (up to a point... I'd happily die for the person I love most in the world) but my wellbeing isn't. If my, say, working salary would be halved unless a tribe in the Amazon were slaughtered, I'd be happy to take the reduction. This kind of thing happens in the modern world, less starkly, but still happens. And humans contribute more to the destruction of the planet than animals, so by that logic should be killed first.

There. Is. No. Cure. For. Polio. There's a vaccine (a very different thing) which apparently may not have been helped by animal testing:
http://www.ohsukillsprimates.com/Agains ... esting.htm
4. You're assuming a lot there. People who wire electrodes into monkeys' brains aren't going to notice 'odd' results, are they? As for Huntingdon's, animal rights people have been after it since the 80s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntingdon_Life_Sciences
and it was only when they campaigned against what was happening there that the company lost money.

1. So preserving human life is desirable, then? That definitely contradicts what you're getting at in a later point, where you all but say that we should swap out human lives for ape lives in testing potentially lethal compounds and dangerous experimental drugs. People who need brain surgery = desirable to save? Who is not desirable to save that we should test dangerous drugs on them?

As for your main point, the simple fact that when implemented correctly the method has been determined to be humane by unbiased third parties is to me enough. The fact that some humans will be cruel is hardly relevant.

2. Cages in and of themselves are not cruel; cages that are too small or not diverting enough or that don't resemble the animals' original habitat are cruel.

3. What, are you actually using that site as a source to argue against animal testing having resulted in a vaccine (sorry, I mistyped, you were right in that case) for polio? At least use impartial sources if you're going to make outrageous claims based on your ideologies. That source is from a bloody coalition founded by people who want to ban animal testing, do you really think that it's going to present both sides of the issue? I might as well quote a site from people who think fluoride makes you a homo to make my case that fluoride shouldn't be put in the water.

And that logic is nihilism, pure and simple.

4. I thought we'd previously established that a few bad apples don't spoil the basket? If a few bad apples do spoil the basket, then get ready for a shitload of bad apples: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/mar/03/animalwelfare.world.

EDIT - maybe we should argue about this on MSN, it's clogging up the thread.

It's ok, not like this place is generally a political hotbed.

Of course human lives are worth saving. The sticking point here, in this point of discussion, is ultimately the brained seals, so individual cruelty is indeed relevant. Again, these seals are not being killed for medical purposes.

As for who gets tested, there are plenty of people being paid to use them in medical experiments. In the link I mentioned (which is from people against animal testing, whoa, stone the crows) it's an undeniable fact that whilst the polio vaccine was initially from monkey spine, that was just a step on the way to creating a vaccine which was tested on the researchers themselves as well as control groups of children. The use of monkeys brought in complications with the simian form of HIV, apart from anything. Animals are different to people - thalidomide tests on animals proved it was harmless to them, which was a major fuck-up since it results in limbless babies. Fine, back in the day Galen may have learnt much from dissecting animals, but how much more did Da Vinci learn from dissecting humans? Even Darwen hated vivisection.

Nihilism? It's undeniable fact that man has created the environmental problems of today. How is it nihilism?

As for environmental activists threatening people, well. I've said already I'm against that sort of thing, but phoned threats aren't that bad, if you compare it to the sort of thing that other groups do to achieve their aims.

Whatever floats your boat. Onward.

1. Medical experiments in which humans are paid to be tested on are generally not fatal. Taking a room full of humans and giving them all a certain amount of toxins to determine the L.D. 50 is ridiculously fatal and far more cruel than doing so to any animals. Besides, who the fuck are you going to get to participate in a drug trial that would almost certainly involve the death of the participants? How is that more sensible than using genetically modified mice to minimize complications and outside factors?

2. Well sure the seal-killings aren't saving human lives. However, would you blame all slaughterhouses if a few of the employees get their kicks from grabbing pigs and throwing them into baths of acid? It's not like you can argue that a majority of seal hunters are psychopaths who get off on the sounds seals make when they get clubbed in a non-lethal fashion. For that matter, a study conducted by the canadian government showed that 98% of all seals were killed instantly upon being harvested.

3. I don't see a problem with vivisection if, as is mandated by the government, a general anasthetic is used on the animal prior to cutting it open. It's not going to feel anything.

As for what you're saying concerning polio, it's disingenuous to state it like you are stating it. All early advancements into the polio vaccine were as a result of animal testing. Even if you're going to dismiss that out of hand, that doesn't stop me from pointing to any one of the dozens, if not hundreds of other vaccines and treatments that have been made possible as a result of animal testing. Rabies, for one. A vaccine for rabies was developed by Pasteur as a direct result of his work on dogs. The development of kidney dialysis was as a result of animal testing. Same with antihistamines, organ transplants, and suppressing the immune systems' response to abovementioned organ transplants.

It should also be noted that the Thalomide fiasco was as a result of the researches not using any pregnant animals to test the drug on. Later on it was concluded that thalomide would have had similar results on ape babies, and the chemical would have been kept from the market as a result of such. That's just the fault of shortsightedness on the part of the scientists, not the fault of animal testing as a whole.

EDIT - Forgot that. What's nihilistic is equating human life with animal life to such an extent that you're saying we should be 'punished' for destroying the environment by being killed over other animals. It's bloody lunacy, it is.