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#1: karl (keicher) on Mar 10, 2013

hate crap like this. and spam on top of it, ugh.

Smile logic to finish this.

Which is ironic as 269 Life seems to be a rather hardline animal rights group - the type that takes their views religiously and values animal life over human life.

I won't bother to link to their website, but it showcases a video with three of the group's members, confined in a small barbed-wired corral, before each are wrangled out by "farmers", dressed in black with black hoods. The "human cattle" are then each branded with "269" by a man wearing a butcher's apron that's heavily splattered with fake blood. All is done in complete silence - very dramatic.

While I commend them for their convictions (not to mention their high pain thresholds), I don't respect their tunnel vision, non-pragmatic and "shock and awe" approach to advancing their cause. I agree with Joe - The mindset of valuing animals MORE than humans has no logical basis in the laws of God, nature or man.

If you take the biblical view that God gave us dominion over all other creatures, then managing animals as a food source is reasonable. In the Old Testament God even required man to sacrifice sheep and other animals as offerings. I'm pretty sure any remaining "unsacrificed" sheep weren't simply raised in flocks so they could die of old age.

If you subscribe to a purely naturalist view of the world, I would think concepts like "The Food Chain" and "Survival of the Fittest" might seem reasonable.

I am an animal lover (you have no idea how often I've resisted the temptation to do puzzle of our cat, Frank), and I don't ever wish to see animals or people sufer but both do - at the hands of man and at the hands of nature. I'm certain nearly all farmers manage their livestock as humanely as possible but I'm also sure there are some exceptions (corporate farms maybe). Deal with those attrocities on a case-by-case basis.

If 269 Life's goal is to wipe out all suffering in the world, then they have to overcome forces much bigger than themselves (God, Mother Nature, Karma, whatever). If their demand is that man not be permitted to use animals for food because doing so creates suffering, then why stop at animals? We're told that plants can feel and respond to stimuli. Couldn't harvesting corn or picking beans then be considered a form of torture? Once we've eliminated all plants and animals as available food sources there's not much left.

I have cousins who ranch in Montana and each spring they round-up the calves to be branded, de-horned and castrated. If those guys from 269 want me to respect their level of commitment they need to do more than just get branded.

Excellent, Dave. Extremely well put. I wonder if they realize that without meat many of their early ancestors wouldn't have survived.

That's a good point, Norma. It seems groups like this won't allow their perspectives to be tainted by differing viewpoints or facts.

How true. It's the curious phenominum of the cult mindset.

I'm a proud carnivore!

Me too. It's not like cattle, pigs, or chicken are endangered species. And remember the story of the fatted calf from the return of the prodigal son?

Dave, we don't mind if you do a puzzle of your cat :)

He won't sit still long enough for me to WebPBN him and I refuse to do my work from photos.

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You're an animal, Martin!

Found to be solvable with moderate lookahead by blurglecruncheon.

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