Sarah Palin versus Aaron Sorkin

Don't know if you guys have been following this story, but here's the Sarah Palin clip of her taking six shots at a caribou that has sparked a lot of discussion/debate/criticism this week.



Aaron Sorkin let loose with this expletive-laden diatribe against Palin: "In Her Defense, I'm Sure the Moose had it Coming."

Now, the most fun yet: Rutgers law professor Gary Francione--he of the ultimate pro-animal rights position--writes to Sorkin saying "I Hate to Say It, but Sarah Palin is Right: A Response to Aaron Sorkin."

I haven't had this much fun since I was reading for my A-exam.

PETA and...

The next step for Quality Deer Management?

cross-posted from the Fair Chase hunting blog:

This op-ed piece just appeared in today's New York Times. Perhaps the uber-breeding of big-racked, pain-free deer is just what the doctor ordered to keep anti-hunters at bay in the never-ending fight to protect hunting's future. What do you all think??

February 19, 2010

Op-Ed Contributor

Not Grass-Fed, but at Least Pain-Free

By ADAM SHRIVER

St. Louis

IN the 35 years since Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation” was published, jump-starting the animal rights movement in the United States, the number of animals used in cosmetics testing and scientific research has dropped significantly, and the number of dogs and cats killed in shelters has fallen by more than half. Nevertheless, because the amount of red meat that Americans eat per capita has held steady at more than 100 pounds a year as the population has increased, more animals than ever suffer from injuries and stress on factory farms.

Veal calves and gestating sows are so confined as to suffer painful bone and joint problems. The unnatural high-grain diets provided in feedlots cause severe gastric distress in many animals. And faulty or improperly used stun guns cause the painful deaths of thousands of cows and pigs a year.

We are most likely stuck with factory farms, given that they produce most of the beef and pork Americans consume. But it is still possible to reduce the animals’ discomfort — through neuroscience. Recent advances suggest it may soon be possible to genetically engineer livestock so that they suffer much less.

This prospect stems from a new understanding of how mammals sense pain. The brain, it turns out, has two separate pathways for perceiving pain: a sensory pathway that registers its location, quality (sharp, dull or burning, for example) and intensity, and a so-called affective pathway that senses the pain’s unpleasantness. This second pathway appears to be associated with activation of the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, because people who have suffered damage to this part of the brain still feel pain but no longer find it unpleasant. (The same is true of people who are given morphine, because there are more receptors for opiates in the affective pain pathway than in the sensory pain pathway.)

Neuroscientists have found that by damaging a laboratory rat’s anterior cingulate cortex, or by injecting the rat with morphine, they can likewise block its affective perception of pain. The rat reacts to a heated cage floor by withdrawing its paws, but it doesn’t bother avoiding the places in its cage where it has learned the floor is likely to be heated up.

Recently, scientists have learned to genetically engineer animals so that they lack certain proteins that are important to the operation of the anterior cingulate cortex. Prof. Min Zhuo and his colleagues at the University of Toronto, for example, have bred mice lacking enzymes that operate in affective pain pathways. When these mice encounter a painful stimulus, they withdraw their paws normally, but they do not become hypersensitive to a subsequent painful stimulus, as ordinary mice do.

Prof. Zhou-Feng Chen and his colleagues here at Washington University have engineered mice so that they lack the gene for a peptide associated with the anterior cingulate gyrus. Like the animals given brain lesions, these mice are normally sensitive to heat and mechanical pain, but they do not avoid situations where they experience such pain.

Given the similarity among all mammals’ neural systems, it is likely that scientists could genetically engineer pigs and cows in the same way. Because the sensory dimension of the animals’ pain would be preserved, they would still be able to recognize and avoid, when possible, situations where they might be bruised or otherwise injured.

The people who consumed meat from such genetically engineered livestock would also be safe. Knockout animals have specific proteins removed, rather than new ones inserted, so there’s no reason to think that their meat would pose more health risks for humans than ordinary meat does.

If we cannot avoid factory farms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. It would be far better than doing nothing at all.

Adam Shriver is a doctoral student in the philosophy-neuroscience-psychology program at Washington University.

Celebrity!

Hey gang,
Some of you may find this mildly amusing. I found this on the internet last night: a 2003 lecture I gave in a class at Cornell that among other things covers animal rights and the philosophy of sport hunting.

If you've got a spare twenty or so minutes and want something to run on your machine as "background noise," go to http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/7697 , let the mpeg fully load, and then skip ahead to just past the halfway point of the lecture to listen to "Tantillo on the Philosophy of Sport Hunting."

Of course if you're not pressed for time, or have no life, you could always listen to the entire 50-minute lecture, which also covers no-kill animal shelters and feral cats.

Also, as an added bonus I read from a book titled, 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, which by itself is worth the price of admission.

Enjoy.

Maine: Anti-Trapping Lawsuit

			Courtroom Turns into Battleground for Animal Rights- (10/23) Maine Animal activists are suing the state to derail trapping in Maine. The suit is the latest in a spate of court cases that could lead to the end of trapping, hunting and fishing wherever endangered species exist. On Oct. 12, the Animal Protection Institute (API) filed a federal lawsuit against the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IFW). The case, which is nearly identical to an existing suit in Minnesota, centers around Canada lynx, bald eagles and gray wolves. The API claims that because these federally protected species could be caught in a trap, trapping should be prohibited. There is no data proving that there is a problem. “The anti’s are not filing these lawsuits to protect the integrity of threatened and endangered species, but rather to advance their own political agenda,” said Rob Sexton, U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance Foundation (USSAF) vice president for government affairs. “They want to establish a legal precedent that can be used to stop all hunting and even fishing anywhere endangered animals exist.” The USSAF and its U.S. Sportsmen’s Legal Defense Fund (U.S. SLDF) asked the court for permission to join the suit on sportsmen’s behalf. The U.S. SLDF is the nation’s only litigation force that exclusively represents sportsmen’s interests in court. The U.S. SLDF received permission in September to join in a third anti-trapping lawsuit, which was also brought in Minnesota. The Humane Society of the United States and a smaller animal rights group are suing the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to stop trapping because Canada lynx could be caught in a trap. The U.S. SLDF has asked Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond Erickson to combine the suit with the one brought by API in that state. “Each of these cases could set precedents that would affect how the ESA can be applied throughout the nation,” said Sexton. “If anti’s can stop trapping in a place where they assert there is a risk of catching lynx, they can just as easily try to stop fishing in bodies of water where they claim there is a risk of catching endangered sturgeon.” Animal rights groups previously used the Endangered Species Act to force the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to suspend trapping with snares. The state’s coyote snaring program is still in limbo as state wildlife officials attempt to obtain incidental take permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the state if any listed species are inadvertently injured or killed in a snare.
			Information on this website can be reprinted with a citation to the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance and www.ussportsmen.org For more information about how you can protect your rights as a sportsman, contact The U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, 801 Kingsmill Parkway, Columbus, OH 43229. Phone (614) 888-4868. E-Mail us at info@USSPORTSMEN.org

Grave Robbing Anti's Will Do Hard Time

Not to detract from the sheer joie de vivre of Cabin Boy's turkey hunting exploits, but this just came across the wire services. I thought it interesting enough to reprint here. enjoy.

Grave Robbing Anti's Will Do Time for Their Crime- (05/18)
Other

Three animal rights zealots who spent years terrorizing a family that bred animals for research have been sentenced to jail. They will each spend twelve years behind bars for a vicious campaign that culminated in the theft of an 82-year-old woman’s body from its grave.

Jon Ablewhite, John Smith and Kerry Whitburn were sentenced on May 11 for their admitted involvement in six years worth of attacks and intimidation against the owners of Darley Oaks Farm in Staffordshire, England. The farm raised guinea pigs for medical research until the terrorism took its toll. It stopped breeding the animals in January 2006.

As part of the terror campaign, the activists stole the body of Gladys Hammond from its grave in Yoxall. Hammond’s son-in-law, Chris Hall, was part owner of Darley Oaks.

“You kept the family on tenterhooks as to when you would return her and you used as a weapon the threat that you would do the same again,” said Judge Michael Pert. “I am firmly of the view that each of you does represent a danger to society.”

Smith, who is considered the most hardened of the four activists, disclosed the location of the woman’s body in what proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to reduce his sentence.

A fourth activist, Josephine Mayo, has been sentenced to four years in jail for her delinquency.

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Information on this website can be reprinted with a citation to the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance and www.ussportsmen.org

PETA membership drive

Would Bob and Walter have given up beaver trapping for this? Click on the thumbnail to see the, um, larger image.