JCC 2016 Celebrity Deadpool (Congratulations Ramza!)

No wonder animals are so easy to kill and eat, then. What a crap protector to appoint. Animals, you're so dumb.

 

And we should be glad they're dumb! I assume you're familiar with Planet of the Apes?

 

I didn't know that Thomas Ford who was Tommy on "Martin" died on October 12.

He was only 52.

 

Sorry to hear Andrew Sachs has died... I loved Manuel when I was a kid!

 

Alice Drummond: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/12/02/alice-drummond-dead-veteran-character-actress-dies-88

2016: Stop taking the wrong people. There's several others you should go for instead.

 

Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell.

 

Van Williams, who played the Green Hornet alongside Bruce Lee as Kato.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/‘g...dies-at-82/ar-AAlaO4H?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=DELLDHP

 

I'm also glad they're dumb because I'm familiar with how delicious steak is.

 

"His name was Aemon Targaryen. He came to us from King's Landing. A Maester of the Citadel, chained and sworn, and sworn Brother of the Night's Watch, ever faithful. No man was wiser, or gentler or kinder. At the Wall, a dozen Lord Commanders came and went during his years of service, but he was always there to counsel them. He was the blood of the Dragon... but now his fire has gone out. And now his Watch has ended."

 

You're not smart enough to know how smart animals are though.

 

I know a lot about how smart different animals are. I know Pigs are as smart as dogs, who are themselves in some ways smarter than chimpanzees. I'm also an animal lover and conservationist.

I just don't think that has anything to do with whether you ought to eat domestic animals. I'm smarter than a bear, but if a bear can figure out a way to eat me, it's welcome to. Likewise as fellow omnivores, if we can kill and eat pigs, that's just the way of nature. If you personally don't want to eat animals, that's your prerogative. But vegetarians and vegans who try to make other people feel bad about acting on their evolutionary instincts is as annoying as door to door evangelists, and just as inappropriate (not to mention futile).





On the actual subject, kind of can't believe Peter Vaughan made it as long as he did. That's more evidence that keeping active, even if it's mostly mental activity, is super important to a long and fulfilling life. I'm sure he was happy to have a good role all the way almost to the end.

 

i don't judge people who eat meat on moral grounds. that's part of my own reasoning for not eating meat, but my main impetus for being a vegetarian is that i can't tacitly condone an industry that is responsible probably more than any other for the ongoing destruction of the planet. for a long time i would occasionally eat meat if i was someone's guest or if i knew the animals were raised well and fed the right food. but eventually i had to stop even that. the industry on the whole is just so unfathomably awful, putting meat in my body makes me feel terrible.

the reason i feel i'm in no place to judge though is that i know the dairy industry is almost as bad and i haven't figured out how to live without cheese.

 

There's a good argument to be made for everyone eating less meat for environmental reasons, yes. That's fair. Personally I don't eat beef too much for that reason. Reducing that would be good. However, I have zero moral objection to any of it, and don't understand that argument whatsoever. It seems more an aesthetic thing than a moral thing, as far as just the "grossness" factor goes.

But I have to work in an industry where people literally talk constantly about how their diets make them superior humans, in a way that would get you fired if you were talking about your religion instead. And that is insufferable. Environmental arguments are valid. Trying to make people feel guilty for the animals is just pushing a purely personal belief that doesn't really align with science or evolutionary biology.

My roommate is a vegetarian because she personally is grossed out by eating meat. But she doesn't care if anyone else eats it, and I don't care if she doesn't. That's as it ought to be, IMHO.

 

So defensive. You're the one who made the dumb remark though.

 

for me it's not people eating animals, it's the way the industry treats the animals that i find objectionable.

 

Yeah, forgive me, but I will never get that. No one's ever going to convince me to see it that way. I am extremely empathetic towards people, to the point where I'm the kind of person who regularly cries during short news piece about people who are going through hard times or just when I see people around me in pain... But my brain just doesn't respond that way to the plight of domesticated food animals. I guess my mind simply only registers morality as a human thing.

The way I react to it, keeping chickens in cages may not look good. But they're also just chickens. If it bothers others, I don't resent them for avoiding eating meat. But I have a bit of a problem with portraying it as an absolute moral question, or getting mad at people for making jokes about eating animals when it is actually healthier for most humans to eat at least some meat.

Animals in the wild suffer in all kinds of ways anyway. If you're eating them, what does it matter how their lives are before that? It doesn't to me, sorry. I just can't make myself see it the way you do. There's nothing I can do about that. And furthermore, the whole notion of free range meat is usually just a BS marketing claim so the same big food companies can charge you more for the same thing ("free range" includes chickens kept in cramped giant pens under roofing. So basically no more room than in cages. But costs more money).


Debo, come on. Diggy and I were joking about animals as food. No one was taking a swipe at vegetarians. You inserted yourself into the joking conversation because it evidently offends you. Sorry that you don't find jokes about eating cows to be funny, but trying to push that on others is the reason people get annoyed with vegetarians, man.

 

do you find dog fighting morally objectionable?

 

I find it distasteful and wouldn't participate in it. But it's a good question as to whether that's the same thing as immoral. I think actual animal abuse like that should be outlawed partly because it's often a gateway and warning sign that someone may become (or is becoming) more aggressive and violent towards humans. It has a negative societal effect overall, and serves no positive purpose.

Even if dog fighting could be considered cruel or even immoral, I don't buy any argument that tries to equate that with conditions of food animals before they die. That serves a societal purpose: to feed people. It may seem rough, but it's still for a purpose. Question for you... would you eat meat if all the animals lived out long natural lives in pastures first (although it's not often that great to eat a animals that die of natural causes)? It seems like you say you feel guilty eating even animals raised more "humanely".

Anyway, back to the point... Farming animals serves a purpose. It's not senseless. By comparison, dog fighting or something of that sort is senseless violence. And I don't think senseless violence of any kind serves a societal benefit. Humans who abuse animals for no reason often later turn to other humans in violence. So I think you can argue that dog fighting is immoral under a blanket label of "senseless violence".

But again, I don't see how that could possibly apply to the production of meat products. Maybe you could say certain extreme treatments of food animals could be considered senseless if they don't serve a valid purpose, maybe. I would listen to such an argument. But a blanket statement of "all rough treatment and killing of animals is wrong" is something I don't get emotionally, and also that I don't buy as a legal basis for banning meat production, for instance, which some vegetarians would actually like to see.

And, as I pointed out, meat is an important part of nutrition, especially for children. In some cases, judges have ordered vegan parents to feed their kids some meat because depriving them of any can be so bad for their health when growing as to be considered a form of abuse or neglect. Would you want to put the welfare of food animals over the welfare of people? That's the thing I don't get. Personally not liking it is one thing. Wanting to abandon it as a whole industry, though, would be pretty damaging to mankind. Like it or not, our bodies are designed to be omnivorous. Should we deny the health of our species for the sake of other species? Or is there a version of the meat industry you would be okay with?

 

As someone who used to be completely vegan / raw, I know my body needs some animal protein and I do not deny my body that when those pangs hit. Shrimp burrow into their hiding places when they hear my name.

I eat raw veg several times a week, but when I crave protein, I heed my body because it is telling me it cannot fully be sustained on vegetation. For me, if I eat something processed or bad, I no longer punish myself. I just right the wagon and go back on my merry way. Everyone's physicality is different and people have a variety reasons for eating or not eating certain foods. I have to eat the way I do for health reasons.

For me, no one is right or wrong when it comes to what you eat. As for the rest of the debates that come with select diets, I'll leave that to the professionals to discuss.

and back onto the subject: sorry to hear about Van Williams, although it was pretty cool to hear he became a policeman and a firefighter AFTER playing a fake crime fighter on tv.

 

sj, i don't have time for a lengthy reply but i will just say that i am against cruelty to animals in all situations and i try my best not to support it. i put spiders outside. i wouldn't say that i value animals over humans or whatever, but i've rarely met an animal i didn't like and unfortunately i can't say the same for humans.

 

I'm the same way. The industrial farms of animals for mass consumption is inhumane.The way the animals are treated and harvested is terrible. I find indigenous people or hunters hunting the same family grounds as they have for generations, and practicing sustainable hunting, far less objectionable.

 

Solojones, you're just characteristically tying yourself in knots. All that stuff you drag into it, any vegetarian can dream it. You made a dumb joke, I responded, c'est tout. Just do whatever you think is right.

 

The one thing I think is actually "wrong" when it comes to food choices is denying children the nutrition they need, which definitely includes animal products and usually includes meat as well. This is neglect. Otherwise, adults can eat what they like.

Also, for those who would be okay with people eating animals if it's all produced in a free-range and organic manner... please keep in mind that the earth would not be able to provide enough food for everyone if all farming was done this way. The earth's population was only able to get to this size through mass farming and GMOs (which are perfectly fine for you in terms of health according to all real science, and a net good for the world).

I think one of the things that bothers me most about people arguing for this type of farming and meat production (or that no one should eat meat because this is all cruel) is that they are almost exclusively middle class (and often upper-middle class) white people. (Outside of, say, Hindus who have a religious objection. Although one can argue that's still harmful to children's nutrition to a degree). Their approach seems to be, "well we humans can afford to pay a little more money for meat raised in a way that's more comfortable for the animals." But for a lot of poor people (many of whom are minorities), this simply isn't true. Some people can barely afford some chicken for their kids a couple times a week as it is. And that's just in the US. We export food animals to all over the world, where those items being cheap is even more important for basic nutrition. And yes, packing chickens into small cages is part of what makes it possible to sell them so cheaply.

I just think the whole food animal rights thing is somewhat of a western rich white person luxury. And I don't like putting chicken ahead of people.

And sorry, Tom. You will never convince me that squishing a spider (particularly a dangerous one, like the brown recluses we constantly find in my parents' basement) is wrong. I just don't get that. That's a to each their own thing. The only thing I care about on a non-personal scale, as stated above, is that we shouldn't let people's personal feelings and objections to eating animals prevent other people from being able to live. You may not like people as much as animals, and maybe that's fair... but prioritizing them above people is no way to run a society.

Okay, maybe we ought to have a senate thread about this, though. Definitely didn't mean to take the thread off-track... was really just making a one-off joke post.

 

I feel terrible. When we first met for lunch tom I took you out for burgers.

 

it's okay vin. i was still eating more burgers then. it's an issue i've struggled with for a long time, which is part of why i don't feel comfortable being too preachy about it. everyone is on their own path. the fact is though, regardless of how you feel about the animal rights aspect, meat production is destroying the planet and is projected to double in the next ten years. respecting animals more than people might not be the best way to run a society, i don't know about that, but i do know that the current model isn't sustainable either, and personally i would rather not contribute to it.