PETA offers Hamburg, NY $15,000 to change its name

also, excyber, that link you posted is a satire. none of the information in there is accurate, because it's not supposed to be.

Here's the problem: none of the information is accurate, but it's really not far from the mark in terms of actually trying to find information, which is kind of the point of the piece. Satire exists for more than laughs.

edit: while I'm in the thread, are there any decent veg*an organizations that actually concentrate on promoting veg*anism instead of spending most of their time demonizing omnivorism?
 
aaron, you may be a horrible seller, but you're a great humanitarian. however humans were designed to eat meat (not anywhere near the amount the average american consumes) they were also designed to hunt that meat though. my favorite food and one of the few things i find myself capable of eating nowadays is steak. with every delicious bite though i think of the totally unnatural and downright unholly means that said morsel was brought to my mouth under. from the thousans of years of eugenics which have turned something resembling a gazelle into well cattle to the relatively recent trend in industrialized ranching practices which has turned that cattle into a walking piece of meat. i feel disgusted with myself, but then again i smoke and that's pretty horrible too. at least when i spark up the only thing i'm hurting is myslef. regardless of this constant nagging guilt i have no desire to give up eating meat. i guess it all comes down to the simple fact that i'm human. for want of a better phrase (as i'm totally areligious) god has givin me providence to do so. while i endulge in this providence i try not to abuse it. i don't think man has anything over the other beasts of the field except thumbs. being surrounded by the ignorant masses though i must say "when in rome". back to my earlier point of man being designed to eat meat. nothing tastes better or feels better to eat than fresh venison. we are by nature hunters. the lack of a conection between killing and meat removes not the appreciation, but the respect from the process. with a worlwide population of 6+ billion the concept of self-suffiency hunting and farming looses it's validiaty at least in the "developed" world. the simile i end up drawing is with the television programs in farenhiet 451, at some point the population becomes so vast that anything you air is going to offend so many people that you'd be better off not airing it at all, what you end up with is hours of programming full of sound and fury signifying nothing. to draw he corealtion on this jello of semi-cohherent ramblings, while i've always agreed with peta's aim's i've seldom agreed with their tactics
 
what i said about a plant screaming is true it screams an electro magnetic scream(just cuz you can't hear it doesn't mean its not there like a dog whistle) and this is the same plant treated differently by two ppl at the same time. this was on discovery channel and in a magazine.
 
excyber, try vegan outreach. http://www.veganoutreach.com they're a little less preachy and a little more fact-based. which i really appreciate.

i guess that was my point, sizone, in that you're at least thinking about it. whether you choose to do something about it or not is your own decision, but i disagree with your statement that humans were meant to eat meat. to be brief, our digestive system merely adapts to eat meat. i've been vegan for a year now, vegetarian for longer than that, and just recently (at easter) my family thought it would be funny to tell me that the green beans were vegan and showed me the can and everything, yet they neglected to tell me that they had put them in beef broth. long story short, i got really, really sick within a few hours, point being that my body hasn't had beef for so long and wasn't able to digest it or the bacteria therein. this is not the case when you go for a long time without eating ANY vegetables (which you couldn't healthily do anyway, but that's just a given). and also, with our flat teeth, it'd be kind of hard to rip uncooked, newly-killed flesh from the bone, even with our twoso-called "fangs" that pale in comparison to any other animal forced to kill its own food. and yes, we have the ability to hunt and we are smart enough to do it, but i'm more vegan because of my protest of the way slaughterhouses operate (and their negative effects on the economy and the environment) than for any other reason.

but i agree with you about peta's tactics. sometimes i think they do more to hurt the cause than to help it. (like the ridiculous stunt that this thread was originally about)

gamefoo21: if you find me a source, then i'll put my foot in my mouth and say you were right. but it still won't change the fact that plants are not sentient beings and do not feel pain.
 
Originally posted by aaron@Apr 28, 2003 @ 11:46 AM

gamefoo21: if you find me a source, then i'll put my foot in my mouth and say you were right. but it still won't change the fact that plants are not sentient beings and do not feel pain.

http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/news/index....nstanceid=57595

laugh.gif
 
Originally posted by aaron@Apr 28, 2003 @ 10:46 AM

gamefoo21: if you find me a source, then i'll put my foot in my mouth and say you were right. but it still won't change the fact that plants are not sentient beings and do not feel pain.

Just because something cannot react or quickly express pain doesn't mean it doesn't feel it. Plants just take alot longer to reach to environmental changes than animals. And just how exactly can you say plant's aren't sentient beings...philosophers have been trying to figure this our for thousands of years and have yet to actually come up with a good solid definition of it. Plants are just slow animals in the end who can happen to make their own food. That's about as far as the diffrences between the two go. I mean heck how do you define algee, it can make it's own food but is single celled like other protozoa which we call animal..more or less. And hey there are plants that eat animals too. The whole animal/plant thing is really not as simple as people say or think it is.

And hey when I peel an apple I am basically skinning a (used to be) alive creature...how is that diffrent from what happens in a slaughter house when they skin a pig or cow? And please explain to me how you are supposed to kill an animal for food purposes and not see the things you had in those pictures.

And as for the whole teeth thing that is mostly a question of evolution. Over the many thousands of years humans have been around, our ability to use tools to cut and carve meat has made our "fangs" less necesary for survival than in the past. If you look at skulls of ancient humans you will find larger "fangs" on them. Also our closest cousins apes and such have much larger "fangs" than we do..mostly due to their lack of tool use.
 
Originally posted by gameboy900+Apr 28, 2003 @ 09:43 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gameboy900 @ Apr 28, 2003 @ 09:43 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-aaron@Apr 28, 2003 @ 10:46 AM

gamefoo21: if you find me a source, then i'll put my foot in my mouth and say you were right. but it still won't change the fact that plants are not sentient beings and do not feel pain.

Just because something cannot react or quickly express pain doesn't mean it doesn't feel it. Plants just take alot longer to reach to environmental changes than animals. And just how exactly can you say plant's aren't sentient beings...philosophers have been trying to figure this our for thousands of years and have yet to actually come up with a good solid definition of it. Plants are just slow animals in the end who can happen to make their own food. That's about as far as the diffrences between the two go. I mean heck how do you define algee, it can make it's own food but is single celled like other protozoa which we call animal..more or less. And hey there are plants that eat animals too. The whole animal/plant thing is really not as simple as people say or think it is.

And hey when I peel an apple I am basically skinning a (used to be) alive creature...how is that diffrent from what happens in a slaughter house when they skin a pig or cow? And please explain to me how you are supposed to kill an animal for food purposes and not see the things you had in those pictures.

And as for the whole teeth thing that is mostly a question of evolution. Over the many thousands of years humans have been around, our ability to use tools to cut and carve meat has made our "fangs" less necesary for survival than in the past. If you look at skulls of ancient humans you will find larger "fangs" on them. Also our closest cousins apes and such have much larger "fangs" than we do..mostly due to their lack of tool use. [/b][/quote]

okay, okay.. this is getting ugly now. sorry.

just for clarification's sake, an apple is the fruit of a living tree. so it was never alive. regardless of whether you think plants are sentient or not, take a look at these. they can probably explain a lot better than i can.

The Facts About Eating Animal Products...

by John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America" and founder of Earthsave International.

The Hunger Argument:

Number of People worldwide who will die of starvation this year: 60 million

Number of people who could be adequately fed with the grain saved if Americans reduced meat intake by 10%: 60 million

Human beings in America: 243 million

Number of people who could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by US livestock: 1.3 billion

Percentage of corn grown in US eaten by people: 20%

Percentage of corn grown in US eaten by livestock: 80%

Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90%

Percentage of oats grown in US eaten by livestock: 95%

How frequently a child starves to death: every 2 seconds

Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on an acre: 20,000 lbs

Pounds of beef produced on an acre: 165 lbs

Percentage of US farmland devoted to beef production: 56%

Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce 1 pound of feedlot beef: 16 lbs.

The Environmental Argument:

Cause of global warming: greenhouse effect

Primary cause of greenhouse effect: Carbon Dioxide from fossil fuels

Fossil fuels needed to produce a meat-centered diet vs. a meat-free diet: 50 times more

Percentage of US topsoil lost to date: 75%

Percentage of US topsoil loss directly related to livestock raising: 85%

Number of acres of US forest cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diet: 260 million acres

Amount of meat US imports annually from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: 200,000,000 pounds

Average per capita meat consumption in Costa Rica, El Salveador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: Less than eaten by average US house cat

Area of tropical rainforest consumed in every quarter-pounder hamburger: 55 sq. ft.

Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses: 1,000 species extinct per year

The Cancer Argument:

Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat four times a week vs. less than once a week: 4 times

Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat eggs daily vs less than once a week: 3 times

Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat cheese and butter 3 or more times a week vs less than once a week: 3 times

Increased risk of ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs less than once a week: 3 times

Increased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily vs sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times

The Natural Resources Argument:

User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the US: Livestock production

Amount of water to produce a pound of wheat: 25 gallons

Amount of water to produce a pound of meat: 2,500 gallons

Cost of common hamburger if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by US taxpayer: $35/pound

Current cost of pound of protein from beefsteak, if water was no longer subsidized: $89

Years the world's known oil reserves will last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13 years

Years the world's known oil reserves will last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260 years

Barrels of oil imported into US daily: 6.8 million

Percentage of fossil fuel energy returned as food energy by most efficient factory farming of meat: 34.5 percent

Percentage returned as food energy from least efficient plant food: 328%

Percentage of raw materials consumed by US to produce present meat-centered diet: 33%

The Cholesterol Argument:

Number of US Medical Schools: 125

Number requiring a course in nutrition: 30

Nutrition training received by average US physician during four years in medical school: 2.5 hours

Most common cause of death in the US: Heart attack

How frequently a heart attack kills in the US: Every 45 seconds

Average US man's risk of death from heart attack: 50%

Risk for average US man who avoids the meat-centered diet: 15%

Risk for average US vegan man: 4%

Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of animal products by 10 percent: 9%

Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of animal products by 50 percent: 45%

Amount you reduce risk by changing to a vegan diet: 90 percent

Meat, dairy, and egg industries claim you should not be concerned about your blood cholesterol if it is: "normal"

Your risk of dying of a disease caused by clogged arteries if your blood cholesterol is "normal": >50%

The Antibiotic Argument:

Percentage of US antibiotics fed to livestock: 55%

Percentage of staph infections resistant to penicillin in 1960: 13%

Percentage of staph infections resistant to penicillin in 1988: 91%

Response of European Economic Community to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: Ban

Respons of US meat and pharmaceutical industries to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: Full and complete support

The Pesticide Argument:

Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by grains: 1%

Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by fruits: 4%

Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by vegetables: 6%

Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by dairy products: 23%

Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by meat: 55%

Pesticide contamination of breast milk from meat eating mothers vs non-meat eating: 35 times higher

What USDA tells us: Meat is inspected

Percentage of slaughtered animals inspected for residues of toxic chemicals such as dioxin and DDT: <0.00004%

The Ethical Argument:

Number of animals killed for meat per hour in US: 500,000

Occupation with highest turnover rate in US: Slaughterhouse Worker

Occupation with the highest rate of on-the-job injury in US: Slaughterhouse Worker

Cost to render animal unconscious with "captive bolt pistol": 1 cent

Reason given by meat industry fo not using "captive bolt pistol": Too expensive

so like i said, make your choice, and live your life, but make sure you're at the very least informed.
 
$15,000! That's all!

That's not enough money to change all of the stationary and such that have "Hamburg" printed on them. Imagine post offices, buildings and schools. Why don't they spend that money on actually saving animals, instead of changing words.

I havn't bothered to read the whole thread. I was overwelmed by the previous post, but bothered by all of the statistics. As much as I hate statistics, I have a few for you. Don't quote me, but Idaho produces over like 10% of the World's corn!

Your quote from the book says:

"Percentage of corn grown in US eaten by people: 20%

Percentage of corn grown in US eaten by livestock: 80% "

You can quote me on this when I say "that particular statistic is complete :bs "

Idaho is not just known for it's potatoes, it's the World's largest producer of corn! The US is the world's leading producer and exporter of corn, producing 36 percent of the world's supply. One of every five rows of corn grown in the US is exported overseas.

The United States produces about 50 percent of the world's soybeans. Leading soybean pro-ducing states include Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Missouri.

Today the United States is the world's largest producer of wheat, but it wasn't always so. Wheat did not become a major crop in America until after the French Revolution in the late 1700s.

This is a fun one
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Your book reads:

"Area of tropical rainforest consumed in every quarter-pounder hamburger: 55 sq. ft."

Well, if you

Multiplied by

McDonalds over 1 billion served

you get

=55,000,000,000 sq. feet already consumed rainforest.

If my poor math serves me true. All of the contininal US is only 6,218,852,131.44 Sq. feet.

blink.gif


If that statistic is true, we should of ate up the rainforest a few value meals ago. These few blemishes make me discredit your whole post.

One book written by one author can usually have a biased opinion. It's usually best to quote several sources.
 
Originally posted by aaron@Apr 29, 2003 @ 11:43 AM

just for clarification's sake, an apple is the fruit of a living tree. so it was never alive. regardless of whether you think plants are sentient or not, take a look at these. they can probably explain a lot better than i can.

The Facts About Eating Animal Products...

by John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America" and founder of Earthsave International.

Umm...by your definition there a human egg that has been fertilized by a sperm is also not alive. It is generally agreed upon that when the sperm and egg join that is the begining of the new life. Same thing with an apple. An apple (as are all fruits) is like an egg. A fruit doesn't become a fruit until the flower is fertilized. The apple is itself a seperate life only attached to the tree temporarily until it can gather enough resourses from the tree to fall off and grow on it's own (kinda like what humans do). The apple contains seeds which grow into a tree and the outer part of it (the part we eat) is the food it uses until it can gather it's own. This is essentially the same as how bird eggs work.

As for your "statistics" if there is one thing I learned in my 5 long years of university it's that statistics can be easily modified to make any argument work. Also I would find it hard to believe that the author you mentioned (especially with what he writes and the organization he is associated with) would be even remotely objective on the subject. It wouldn't really surprise me if alot of other statistics that would be relevant were "omited" because they didn't support his arguments.

But you know what...let's stop feeding all the cattle, pigs and such and watch them starve...so humane isn't it. The fact is if humans stopped eating domestic farm animals those animals would essentially go extinct in a very short time. They have no defenses against predators (that's our job) and wouldn't survive very long on their own.
 
Originally posted by gameboy900@Apr 28, 2003 @ 11:26 PM

Umm...by your definition there a human egg that has been fertilized by a sperm is also not alive. It is generally agreed upon that when the sperm and egg join that is the begining of the new life.

But you know what...let's stop feeding all the cattle, pigs and such and watch them starve...so humane isn't it. The fact is if humans stopped eating domestic farm animals those animals would essentially go extinct in a very short time. They have no defenses against predators (that's our job) and wouldn't survive very long on their own.

First part - no, it's not. That's still an issue of major contention. Life, as defined by Websters, is "The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism." A fertilized egg is the beginning stages leading towards life, but isn't alive within the definition of 'life' - it's completely dependent on it's surroundings, and does not produce energy on it's own, etc.

Second part - we mass produce these animals for consumption. If you destroy their habitat then of course they'll go extinct. If you keep the habitat in which they're native, they'll grow within their boundaries (food source, climate, etc all limit population). After all, they did get on fine before we started using animals as a source of food.
 
I think we're all forgetting something here. If a cow could eat you, it would. Same thing goes for a carrot. Survival of the fittest, baby. Eat it before it eats you.
 
As for your "statistics" if there is one thing I learned in my 5 long years of university it's that statistics can be easily modified to make any argument work.

:agree

Some of those statistics are extremely suspect, and as a rule of thumb statistics should be given no credibility unless they're a citation of the original source and the original source reflects a dedication to correctness. The way a lot of the statistics are phrased appears to be intentionally misleading. For example:

Average per capita meat consumption in Costa Rica, El Salveador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: Less than eaten by average US house cat

"The average US house cat" probably eats a meat-heavy diet, so this isn't really a worthwhile comparison. And "less than" can mean anything from 0.1oz less to no meat at all. Also, why not compare humans with a similar animal, such as other humans (it couldn't possibly be to distort the issue, of course...)?

Human beings in America: 243 million

I'm not sure what the point of this is, but it's pretty outdated. Last I heard, the number was quickly approaching 300M (it's probably well over that counting illegal immigrants and nonresidents).

Meat, dairy, and egg industries claim you should not be concerned about your blood cholesterol if it is: "normal"

Your risk of dying of a disease caused by clogged arteries if your blood cholesterol is "normal": >50%

And what is it if your blood cholesterol is substantially lower than "normal"? The sad truth appears to be that circulatory disease is largely due to inherent flaws in the structure and chemistry of the human body - which makes sense, since from an evolutionary standpoint the body is pretty useless once reproductive systems stop functioning effectively. All indications that I have seen are that if nothing else kills you, you WILL die of circulatory disease (aka "heart disease", no doubt also aka "natual causes" in many cases) at some point without substantial techonological intervention - the primary processes involved are ongoing, irreversible by simple dietary changes, and cause cumulative damage. This isn't a popular idea; of course people would rather believe that they can be saved by doing everything the Right Way and magically flushing the evil toxins of modern society out of their bodies (whether those toxins are from meat, pesticides, preservatives, cooked foods, rock music, sex, capitalism, dihydrogen monoxide, etc. depends on who you ask, of course).

so like i said, make your choice, and live your life, but make sure you're at the very least informed.

I try. FWIW, the link to Vegan Outreach was helpful, but the flood of pseudo-statistics was not.

[moderator mode on]

As a general rule, SegaXtreme should not be used as a soapbox for non-gaming political/religious (hey, I wouldn't be surprised if someone started a Church of Great Intention
biggrin.gif
) and similar evangelism. The main reasons I haven't closed this thread (its closure has been requested, by the way) are that I am generally an opponent of censorship, and believe that the open exchange of ideas is generally beneficial to the participants. Still, I think there's a line of conduct that can be crossed (the pictures came close, but I'm willing to leave them alone due to their relative mildness), and a point at which it's better for those in an essentially philosophical/religious debate to take it to private channels. This isn't meant to be a "warning" as such, but as a moderator taking part in the discussion I think I should make it clear where I stand on using that authority with regard to this thread.
 
Originally posted by MTXBlau@Apr 29, 2003 @ 03:33 PM

Second part - we mass produce these animals for consumption. If you destroy their habitat then of course they'll go extinct. If you keep the habitat in which they're native, they'll grow within their boundaries (food source, climate, etc all limit population). After all, they did get on fine before we started using animals as a source of food.

bingo.

apologies for posting outdated and biased statistics. and the pictures. i did get you all thinking about it, which was my goal, but i wonder at what cost. hopefully you all understand that i'm not trying to shove politics down your throat (even though i guess it does seem that way), i just would like for you all to expand your horizons a bit i guess (which is pretty arrogant of me to say so, but a more appropriate explanation escapes me for the moment).

but, yeah. this is a gaming forum. and even though this is a general forum this is kind of blown out of proportion and i'm mainly to blame. so i'll try and not be so preachy in the future. and with that, i leave you with...

END OF THREAD

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